Kicks cheaper than candy

The junkies in LA got a belated Christmas gift this year from the Afghan poppy farmers. According to the LA times, and various bloggers, grams of highly pure Afghan heroin are now trading at $90 in LA.

“That’s about a dime per pure milligram, compared with $2.50 a pure milligram in New York during the “French Connection” days. For a naive user, 5mg of heroin is a hefty dose, so your first heroin experience is now available for less than the price of a candy bar.”

That comes from Mark Kleiman’s blog.

Apart from the fact that this heroin is more potent than what was previously on the market, it also goes to show that international efforts to eradicate growth and to halt opium trafficking– narco-terrorism as some may say– has been far from successful.
It is a $2.3 billion business for Afghanistan, quite a hefty chunck of their GDP.

The political question is how to go about attempting to stabilize a country overtaken by Taliban, while not eliminating the sole source of income to the people barely scraping by… and this has not yet been answered.

Meaning and nothingness

“I’m alone in this world, and a fucked up world it is too.”
-U2, Wake up Dead Man

Many people have sought the answer to the ultimate question throughout the ages. Some of these people were believers, and some were skeptics.

For believers, it’s fairly uncomplicated. You have a formula, you have mythologies, you have your holy books, your saints and faith. But what, asides from science do the others have?

I want to know what the meaning of life is. Not the “purpose of life,” for that is too bound to a textbook response.

When it comes down to it, is meaning something we have to come to terms with collectively? Is it determined at the societal level, as different cultures view the worth of life and death in a different light.

“Better call with some persistence, that way you feel nothing at all
Better call on evolution, better way to make a revolution”
- Cat Power, Evolution

What do you think?

- Richard Dawkins talking about his new book the God Delusion.

Notable in the Music World

There’s nothing like being awarded posthumously, especially for rock’n'roll legends Jim Morrison and Jerry Garcia. These are just two among many names being called out for this year’s Lifetime achievement award at the Grammys.
We knew you were great, and perhaps even grateful…. now the Oscar’s of the music industry are doing their deed and not letting oldtime moneymakers go gently to this good night.
Cheers fellows!