(click on ads for more details)

Are Harry Potter And The B-52s Coming To Kabul Soon?

by Randy Barker

Due to B-52 bombers finally showing up en masse around Mazar-e-Sharif and Bagram, TV, music and movies are already taking over in Kabul. Radio Kabul was the first to get up and running right after the Taliban got up and ran. Then Kabul TV got their bullet-riddled satellite dish functioning on Sunday morning. And Kabul movie theaters are even back to making popcorn. After five years of harsh Islamic restrictions under the Taliban, once relatively cosmopolitan Kabul is now thankfully open to decadent Western consumerism. Afghans are digging up hidden radios and TVs that have been buried for years. And the opportunity to take advantage of all that is now there for American pop-rock groups with catchy, Afghan-friendly names like The B-52s, plus blockbuster Christian-unfriendly movies like The Sorcerer's Stone, and maybe even reruns of TV series that celebrate pre-Islamic culture, like I Dream Of Genie.

It couldn't come at a better time. America needs all the export income it can
get. This war is costing us an untold fortune. A federalized, unionized
multitude of new Democrats looking through our luggage at airports will cost another fortune. As former Senator Everitt Dirksen once said, "A billion
here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money." Meanwhile,
Senate Majority Leader Daschle is jeopardizing the passing of an economic
stimulus package to get our economy going again by insisting that any package should include tax rebates for people who didn't pay taxes, and subsidies to his South Dakota ranchers raising bison.

So it's really important that we hurry up and liberate Kunduz and Kandahar
and get this war essentially over with, except for some spelunking. We need to create new markets for our products while cutting down on dropping such expensive bombs. After we've expedited the holy warriors off to heaven and their 70-virgin reward, we can start getting down to what's really important-- selling Afghan men electric shavers, and replacing those Afghan ladies' burqas with clothing more like that of our famous American virgin, Britney Spears. Hey, there are 25 million people in Afghanistan, give or take a few deceased Taliban and al-Qaida, some still with the big bucks they made growing opium poppies, and sending it to us as a white powdery substance through the mail. We could use their money.

Excerpt from NotSo SERIOUS MONEY,
a weekly online financial newsletter
written by RandyBarker@aol.com