# Remember when a "brick" was just a kilo of weed?(Iraq corruption.)\[Ed title\]
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [January 25, 2006, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533 "2006-01-25T08:37:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/1 "2006-01-25T08:37:21Z")
Agents from the inspector general’s office found that the living and working quarters of American occupation officials were awash in shrink-wrapped stacks of $100 bills, colloquially known as bricks…One contractor received more than $100,000 to completely refurbish an Olympic pool but only polished the pumps; even so, local American officials certified the work as completed.
> **[Audit Describes Misuse of Funds in Iraq Projects (Published 2006)](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/world/middleeast/audit-describes-misuse-of-funds-in-iraq-projects.html)**
>
> A new audit of American financial practices in Iraq has uncovered irregularities including millions of reconstruction dollars stuffed casually into footlockers and filing cabinets, an American soldier in the Philippines who gambled away cash...
Now, really.
You Republicans–this operation was run straight out of the American Enterprise Institute, with interns from AEI on a pipeline to the CPA.–are you blushing yet?
Where is the vaunted businesslike, pragmatic, delegate authority, demand accounability, ethos that Republicans curry as their stock in trade–a hard headed, (if lamentably hard-hearted) green eyeshade book keeping kind of ethos?
Shrink wrapped bricks of hundreds?
Will you not admit that the Bush administration has proved itself monumentally incompetent to handle large sums of money, let alone great worldwide responsibility?
Do you acknowledge the need for ANY cleaning of this Augean Stable? Or is the description in the cite business as usual in the new political economy?
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### Author:  [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/2 "2006-01-25T09:10:16Z")
I remember when a “brick” was a molded rectangular block of clay.
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### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/3 "2006-01-25T09:38:14Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#):
>
> I remember when a “brick” was a molded rectangular block of clay.
that musta’ been before my time…
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/4 "2006-01-25T12:26:07Z")
I thought brick is when you bike a while and then run as a work-out during triathlon training … (do we have a tri-geek smiley?)
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### Author:  [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/5 "2006-01-25T13:33:10Z")
Well, you’re not going to get any argument out of me. I agree with all the definitions of ‘brick’ put forward so far.
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### Author:  [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/6 "2006-01-25T13:54:12Z")
It’s great to see how people grasp the essence of the debate and aren’t afraid to answer the hard questions.
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### Author:  [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/7 "2006-01-25T14:49:10Z")
Just wait 'til **Bricker** gets here.
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### Author:  [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/8 "2006-01-25T14:51:33Z")
In my old neighborhhod a brick was what you threw through the windows of people that started stupid debates with odd questions.
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### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/9 "2006-01-25T14:53:17Z")
> [@Patty O'Furniture](#):
>
> Just wait 'til **Bricker** gets here.
groaaan
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### Author:  [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/10 "2006-01-25T14:59:54Z")
I note that even contemplating a profusion of stacks of Bens wrapped like cheddar cheese does make us quite giddy.
I imagine the actual prseence of the real thing may well erode one’s normal sense of care in the handling of cash.
I would love to be able to scatter bundles of hnndreds the way I dp my laundry
(oh no, I’ve said too much)
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### Author:  [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/11 "2006-01-25T15:03:20Z")
I thought a brick was what Jethro Tull was as thick as. Something like two short planks.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/12 "2006-01-25T15:29:54Z")
[Moderator Mode]
**alaricthegoth** , I have added the parenthetical phrase to the title explaining what the thread was apparently intended to discuss.
Please note that we have an explicit thread stickied to the top of the Forum requesting [PLEASE USE DESCRIPTIVE TITLES WHEN STARTING THREADS](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=106060).
In recent weeks, you have begun posting attacks on the administration that are increasingly more arcane with titles that are increasingly less relevant to the topic. Please stop it.
Beyond that, you have begun to flood this Forum with what are, basically, simple rants against the current administration couched in expressions ranging from the byzantine to hip-hop in structure, but which all amount to the single premise “ **Look! I found another incident in which I think the administration has screwed up; when are you supporters going to admit that the president and his staff and party are wrong/dishonest/stupid/corrupt/whatever.** ”
That is not what this Forum is for. You already have several threads ranting about related topics. I would strongly suggest that when you find new evidence of incompetence or perfidy, you simply add it to whichever single thread seems to have the best (most logical, most factually supported) debate ongoing and stop flooding the Forum with new threads that simply use new evidence to support the same old complaint.
This is not an order to limit yourself to one thread at a time, but it is a clear indication that your behavior is sufficiently irritating to the TM and staff that we may impose such a limitation if it continues. Between your repetitive topics and your inability to post a coherent Opening Post, you are not actually doing your mission to unseat President Bush any good at all.
As for this thread, itself, it is little more than a rant, so I am going to move it over to the Forum where such rants feel more comfortable.
[/Moderator Mode]
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/13 "2006-01-25T16:14:59Z")
Yes, but we can outsource the corruption for cheeper than the government run corruption.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/14 "2006-01-25T17:51:56Z")
C’mon, **Tom**. **Alaric** is just filling the void left by the dear departed **Reeder**. What would The Pit be without mindless, repetitive rants? 😃
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### Author:  [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/15 "2006-01-25T17:55:21Z")
> [@Zebra](#):
>
> Yes, but we can outsource the corruption for cheeper than the government run corruption.
Heh, I laughed out loud at that one.
At any rate, I feel that this rant is pretty substantiative, although this board hasn’t done much of substance with it.
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### Author:  [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/16 "2006-01-25T18:16:28Z")
Naw. A “brick” has always been, and always will be, a box of 500 .22LR cartridges. Also known as a “couple good hours a shootin’”.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/17 "2006-01-25T18:23:04Z")
The original quote references another fun way to spend time, but “How do you make it last a few hours?” 😃
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### Author:  [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/18 "2006-01-25T18:27:45Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> The original quote references another fun way to spend time, but “How do you make it last a few hours?” 😃
Good eye! I had to go back and read it again, but there it was. With practice and care and maybe some tantric technics, a couple of hours might be attainable.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/19 "2006-01-25T19:02:12Z")
Hey, alaric, check [this site](http://zapatopi.net/afdb/) out. They beat you to it.
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2006, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remember-when-a-brick-was-just-a-kilo-of-weed-iraq-corruption-ed-title/341533/20 "2006-01-25T19:03:46Z")
> [@Clothahump](#):
>
> Hey, alaric, check [this site](http://zapatopi.net/afdb/) out. They beat you to it.
Pffft. [Lies! Malicious lies.](http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/)
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