This is the greatest car ever. Can you imagine to ride all day with the pleasure of Porsche GT3, and to pay about $10 for this. It is just amazing!!!…

[...] Junior year has been a lot of fun - Dodgeball Club, Donut Club, Ice Hockey, trips to mesquite, breakfast in the mornings. Sure it’s still school and all, but even with school, there’s always something positive in it. … [...]…

Now I’m not saying that rap is bad. There are a few rap songs that I enjoy - generally they’re more “motivational” rap songs, such as eminem’s “Lose Yourself” or Fort Minor’s “Remember the Name”. Rap can be very good, when it’s about the right things.

A friend told me last year that “rap is a acquired taste”, perhaps he’s right.

You could just say “Why not have Tesla sell them at a loss, then have the government give them a big sack of money to reimburse them?” Sounds like a good idea, right? Well, what happens when that “big sack of money” runs out? Prices are going to go back up. The reimbursement won’t last long enough for the prices of raw materials go down.

It only makes sense to bail out the “big three” automakers at this point because they’re the ones that are making the cars that everyday people can afford.

If this recession were to happen 5-15 years in the future when companies like Tesla were an active force in the market place, you could be sure they’d be getting a slice of that bailout pie.

As far as it creating millions of new jobs, doubt it. There’s only so much supply/demand.

You’re right, prohibition doesn’t work. It didn’t work back with alcohol, and it’s not working now. The only thing that works is education. Put that $70 billion/year into our education system instead.

I’m not saying that marijuana is bad, but I’m saying to the people that think the economy would turn around just on one product is a bit silly. Could it help? Maybe. Help enough? Definitely not. Keep it illegal? No idea. Legalize it? I’ll leave that decision up to those that have done further research.

They should have just let GM and the others die and supported new companies with smarter solutions (and sexier ones!). I really wanna test drive a Tesla Roadster but they cost $100k.

Just imagine what could have been done, however, if the government gave companies like Tesla a big sack of cash and said “make an eco-friendly car that average people can afford.” We’d actually be getting rid of gas-guzzlers and moving toward the future of eclectic vehicles a lot faster, 0-60 in 4 seconds faster.

It’s much the same with rap. Rap has definitely evolved a lot since it’s early days (think early 90’s when they actually rapped). One of the things that separates rap from other genres of music that I have noticed is that rap is very “current” with what is going on in the world. It is not uncommon for rappers to reference other rappers or quote them in new songs. I don’t think I’ve ever heard bands like Led Zeppelin referencing how they’re on a “Highway to Hell” like those guys AC/DC.

The rap/hip-hop scene is constantly current and changing which is one of the reasons I like to listen to it. Sure, it may not be as “classic” as classic rock, but it hasn’t had the same amount of time to set and stick into American culture. It takes time and willingness to really understand rap and hip-hop because there are no history books or “classic stations” for the genre yet.

I challenge you to listen to rap for a week (or let me give you some songs) so that you can better understand the genre before stating that it “isn’t classic, can’t be classic, and never will be classic.”

So instead of trying to compete, the industries lobbied for marijuana to become illegal and through much propaganda (blaming pot on Mexican murders, Reefer Madness, etc.) eventually forced the government to outlaw hemp. This is a good read: http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/pot/blunderof37.html

TL;DR: Industries felt threatened by the usefulness of the hemp plant so they lied to people and made it illegal.

While legalizing marijuana will not save the economy alone, it certainly would not hurt. We spend about $70 billion/year on the war on drugs. Imagine now reversing this trend and making an entire industry out of the legalization of marijuana (think an industry similar to alcohol and tobacco). If you think about it, there is an insane amount of jobs that would be created (advertising, quality control, growing, selling, etc.). Think about how many jobs involved in alcohol and tobacco there are. If we created this industry and taxed and regulated it, it would actually decrease availability to teens (pretty much any teen right now can buy pot from a dealer if he knows the right people). It is a lot harder, however for that same teen to get a hold of alcohol simply because it is so strictly regulated. Another argument that naive people tend to bring up is that everyone would just grow their own, but if it is not illegal to grow your own food, why hasn’t the agricultural industry gone out of business? Simply put, most people don’t have the time/interest/resources to grow their own food.

Another reason to legalize marijuana is that it would take a lot of power away from the drug cartels. The cartels use marijuana as a major funding resource. If we taxed and regulated the product, it would either force them out of business or force them to become a legitimate business in which millions of new jobs would be created and billions of dollars in taxes would be collected from those businesses.

I see absolutely no reason for prohibition to continue and I think we should look to our past to decide how we should deal with those currently in prison (what did we do to the moonshiners?). The war on drugs is over 30 years old and is a complete failure. There is a saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. After all these years, you’d think we’d wake up and decide to do something different instead of bankrupting ourselves.

Sry bro, just wanted to make sure you get at least some facts in before you call legalizing marijuana “downright silly”. Do some research on the effects of marijuana vs. alcohol or other drugs and I’m sure all the brainwashing that is still going on in school will start to wear off.

It is so nice to get to know you more through your site and your blog. I love them both!

You will be getting your cards soon - I will let you know when I mail them out.

Erin