Pros and cons

We were already discussing the possibility of fleeing the disaster known as this country before our trip to Amsterdam. Nearly all subsequent events have encouraged the possibilty.

First off, Amsterdam is just the coolest, greatest city on earth. Completely laid-back and completely functional. And clean. And as far as I know their terror record is pretty low. Although a bomb could've gone off in the street outside our hotel and we probably wouldn't have noticed. I guess when it comes down to it I'm still slightly partial to NYC but that's only because I'm at home here. From an objective standpoint, A'dam has it ALL OVA New York.

Right. So the next related event was the half-hour search through all my luggage and belongings at Philly airport. I don't know if my headcold-and-flight induced bloodshot eyes might have raised some sort of alarm with those guys, but I was heading to the green lane when this guy came out of nowhere and asked me to follow him so that "we can getcha through fast." He spent the next half hour in a slpw but sure progression from false folksiness ("So what do you do in New York? Whadja do in Amsterdam?") to near-total accusation (with his face IN my purse: "Your bag REEKS of marijuana" me: "YEAH i was in AMSTERDAM"; also him: "Are you sure there's not anything in here you want to tell me about? I'm surprised the dogs didn't go after you. How much marijuana were you carrying in here?") I'm no expert on customs searches, and I hope to God I never have to go through one again, but I know some of those questions were outside the procedure because, for instance, it is in fact legal to carry pot around in Amsterdam. He also ran my bags through the scanner repeatedly, opened my retainer case and took a stack of ATM receipts out of my wallet, went to the computer, started typing stuff in, and when i walked the few feet to where he was, asked "are these all from here?" like, no sir, the 12th one down will say "1 pound pot, purchased in amsterdam for transport into the US." At least in the end I got off with a warning ("You know, the minimum fine for bringing in even the smallest amount is $500 and it ranges up to $5000, and you'll never go through customs again without a complete search")..... except, wait, I did nothing wrong! So it's STILL bullshit that he gave me that warning. I told him I had thought about the consequences and that was why, in fact, I was not carrying any weed. There was also some ugliness surrounding the customs form and him being mad that I hadn't declared my new zara jacket, but I'm sorry, I just don't give a shit and I doubt anyone in the government does either. I think I sorta let the guy down overall though. He was hoping for a bust.

So then today I was reading on dailykos (still learning how to do links...) something that I sort of knew all along but hadn't really thought of explicitely, although it's more true now than ever, and truer by the moment: the US's status as a superpower is basically all based on its military might, which is of course the strongest in the world since we know the only way to secure the peace is through total nuclear annihilation. But as far as jobs, health care, quality of life, living standards, and, probably most significantly, economic power, the simultaneous US disaster and EU success have pushed Europe way ahead of our sorry asses. Do you think GWB likes it that way? Does he like taking money, jobs, resources, from people here so that the evil-wealthy few may prosper? He's a sick bastard.

The next thing to find out is what the immigration rules in the Netherlands are like. I bet the US would be happy to see a heathen pot-smoker like myself hit the bricks (even though they'd probably rather see all of us in uniform in Iraq).