EDITORIAL MATTERS:

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Editor

ARTICLES

Letters to the Editor
from Alan Korwin, L. Neil Smith, E.J. Totty, The Free State Project, and Scott Bieser
• FULL STORY

Court of Last Resort
by L. Neil Smith
I find myself in receipt, thanks to the kindness of a frequent poster calling him- or herself "Spiker", of a brief article from the Huffington Post written by one Jamie Court, of a Santa Monica-based "Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights".
• FULL STORY

Gun Grab Gambit Goes Great in New Orleans
by Walt Dean
Survivors of hurricane and flood in New Orleans are now getting some real surprise treatment from their Uncle Sam. New Orleans residents are discovering they have been stripped of their Constitutional liberties and no longer have Second Amendment rights. Police and government agents are busy confiscating legally owned guns.
• FULL STORY

Like Stonewall Without the Riot:
New Orleans, Katrina and the Government Response
by Herself
"... An almost Biblical feeling of Doom—of the city about to be destroyed, razed, toppled—assaults you. The odor of something stagnant permeates the winter-air of this summercity: not so much an odor that attacks the sense of smell as one that raids the mind...." It's about New Orleans, but it's not a reporter describing current conditions. It's street hustler/author John Rechy, describing the city in 1963.
• FULL STORY

Lessons from the Debacle
by Ron Beatty
It's been two weeks since Katrina and its attendent devastation hit New Orleans, and I think enough time has passed to allow us to consider some of the lessons learned from that debacle.
• FULL STORY

The Power of Government
by Bill Hartwell
I have a livejournal account, and recently have been involved in an exchange with a friend who, as I have discovered through the course of the exchange, is a confirmed socialist because she believes (thanks to what she was taught in government schools and sees on TV) that human beings are, in general, backstabbing selfish scum who would kill one another for the slightest advantage. She has accused me of believing that government is evil because I don't understand human nature. What follows is my response.
• FULL STORY

Thoughts On Health
by Jonathan David Morris
I don't understand commercials for medicine anymore. I mean, I understand what they're trying to say when they advertise a medication and list its possible side effects. I just don't understand why they bother anymore. Nobody takes these advertisements seriously. The other day, I saw a spot for something called Restless Legs Syndrome. I was stunned when it ended without turning into a "Good news; I just saved 15 percent on my car insurance by switching to Geico" commercial. That's how bad it's gotten. It doesn't even matter how legitimate the affliction is. It could be cancer at this point. It could be a pill to stop spontaneous human combustion. Wouldn't matter. I see these commercials and instinctively shrug them off. I suffer from Grain of Salt Disorder. They come on my TV and talk about some crippling disease, and all I see in my head is Victoria Jackson slamming her extra fingers under the door of a photocopier in the old SNL commercial for Toe-Riffic and Handi-Off. ("Pick you up at six?" "Make it five." Ah, polydactyly...) Sadly, I'm not sure who this says more for: Geico or the medical industry.
• FULL STORY

Strange Times and Strange Conversations
by Caleb Paul
I won't go into the ins and outs of that story too much. Needless to say, I think it's pretty bad that this country is now deporting peaceful protesters and not even explaining why they're being deported except under the dubious and nebulus claim of being "directly or indirectly a threat to Australian national security", whatever that means. It seems to me like anyone or anything could be passed off as a direct or indirect threat to national security without further explanation. What I wanted to write about was the absurd conversation I had with my mother on this matter. She commented that, "...he's a trouble maker and we have enough of those here already. We don't need more." When I said that it's a basic, fundamental tenet of our western, liberal tradition that people have freedom of speech, expression and assembly, her response was, "I don't care."
• FULL STORY

The Flood of Sympathy
by Lady Liberty
It's impossible to turn on the television, read a newspaper, or visit an Internet news portal without seeing myriad photos and stories about the disaster that is America's Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans has, in large part, been obliterated. So, too, have smaller and less famous towns in Louisiana and Mississippi. The cost in material goods and property is staggering; the cost in human lives is even more so.
• FULL STORY

Will Science Trump Politics in Resolving Abortion Debate?
by Wendy McElroy
Artificial wombs will be "reality" within 20 years, according to the London Times. Indeed, 20 years seems a conservative estimate given an earlier report in The Guardian, another UK newspaper, which predicted them for 2008.
• FULL STORY

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