Hey, fellas and fellaettes!

Listen, it just ain't working.The whole system is shuddering and lurching to a complete stop, donchathink? The half--way measures in use since 9/11 have failed. Here are a few of my thoughts, more or less in order of importance.

TERRORISM: We (Americans) have got to stop financing it. Most of their funding is from oil, secondairily from dope and illegal sex trade. We use about half the oil produced. If we halved our consumption, world demand would go down by a quarter. How do we do that when $3 per gallon gas has caused only a blip of a dip? Tax it. Like mad. (we ought to be pretty mad by now, doncha think?) A 25% sales tax enacted by Oct 1st to be effective Jan 1st would suppress demand by Spring. In addition, knowing that another 25% tax would be added every Jan 1st, manufacturers would alter their product mix to more economy models and fewer big SUVs, because that's where demand will be going. Investment in alternative fuel technology and infrastructure would boom, for the same reason. These trends that are now a trickle would become a river.

DOPE: Legalize it, tax it, control it, just like alcohol. The little fish that commit the most crime would have less to fight over, and thug life would be a little less glamorous. That's a GOOD thing, ain't it? Of course, the big fish (through their leased Congresspersons and media), along with the Zealots of the Religious Right, would howl like crazy, but so what? Do we really want an American Taliban and their morality Police? With gas and dope taxes rolling in, we could eliminate (in stages) the Income Tax entirely. Think that and real energy  independence and crime reduction and starving out the Islamofacistterrorist support system is worth some  "adjustment of the Economy" pain?  I  hope so, because what we been doing   sure ain't working