The Impeachable Offenses of Barack Hussein Obama
by Terence James Mason
In 7 parts.
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Letters to the Editor
from L. Neil Smith and Alan F. Miller
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Down Like Dogs
by L. Neil Smith
Humankind and caninekind became best friends somewhere between
eleven and sixteen thousand years ago, according to Wikipedia. As a student of history
and archaeology, I've always believed that it was longer ago than that, but for the
time being, let's accept that number.
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Are We in the "End Days"
by Jeff Colonnesi
Are we in the "End Days"? No, I don't mean in the biblical sense.
The end days of the republic. There have always been those who wailed and gnashed their
teeth when the opposing party came into power. They claimed that their political opponents
would destroy everything good in the country. Usually, it's a bunch of statist hot air. But now....
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The Future of Islam and the West
by Sean Gabb
Note: This is the introductory speech that I gave on the 27th February
2015. Since no one tried to chop my head off for saying what I thought, I became bolder in
my answers to the questions from the audience and in my disagreements with other members
of the panel. I spoke far more bluntly about the supposed limits to freedom of speech. I
even pointed out, by way of a lecture on Byzantine history and the Crusades, that, unless
seriously weakened by some other force, or divided against itself, Christendom had always
won its wars with Islam; and that anyone who spoke glibly back at me "about irreconcilable
differences of paradigm" should be careful that he was not moving towards a conflict that
had so far hardly begun and that his side would assuredly lose.
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On the Death of Leonard Nimoy
by Dave Beers
I have been considering the passing of Leonard Nimoy today. What his
portrayal of Spock meant, how it affected the lives he touched, the legacy that portrayal
gave us. Star Trek:TOS came on the air in the fall of 1966, to a country that was beginning
to weary of the seemingly interminable war in Vietnam; to a culture beginning to change
from the innocence of the 50's, and to an audience that had been told (by and large) to be
embarrassed by any interest in rockets, space aliens and ray guns! After all, those were
childish, Saturday morning, pulp fare that no reasonable adult should find any interest in!
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Cowardice
by Sean Gangol
Not too long ago a few Islamic extremists took it upon themselves to
murder ten staff members of the controversial French newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, for showing
an unflattering cartoon of their beloved Muhammad. This wasn't the first time that the paper
found itself clashing with radical Muslims for petty insults against their prophet. This
time the clash resulted in a blood bath.
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Leonard Nimoy and Me
by J. Neil Schulman
Let's start this with a practical joke that I collaborated on with
Leonard Nimoy as the target. In May, 1974 I was a young writer living in Manhattan,
and I'd just started working on my first novel, a few years later published as
Alongside Night. One of my friends was Michael Moslow, another writer who
circled around the NYU Science Fiction Society and its two founders, Samuel Edward
Konkin III (at that time an NYU post-graduate student in Theoretical Chemistry)
and another NYU post-graduate student, Richard Friedman.
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Leonard Nimoy
by L. Neil Smith
This week we lost one of our most familiar and welcome figures of
popular culture, Leonard Nimoy, who, for just short of fifty years had been bringing
a unique character, the Vulcan half-alien Mr. Spock, to us. At 83, he died of COPD,
although he stopped smoking thirty years ago.
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Neale's Doubled-Up Gun Rant for 2-22-2015 & 3-1-2015
by Neale Osborn
I'd like to start out with an apology/explanation. Ok, it's not
an apology. I never apologize for putting family in front of you fine folks. AS my
regular readers already know, we're going through some bad times with my father.
There are days when the COPD reduces his O2 saturation to the point a regular person
would be passed out and the ambulance called. Because he LIVES with O2 levels that
kill lesser mortals, when his levels DROP, he gets bad. And last week, they fell
through the basement. You and I live at 95-100% sats. We'd be woozy at 80%, and
passed out before we hit 60%. Pop lives at 50-55%. Last Friday, when I wasn't
working on this rant, he was at 38%. Which means he could not form coherent
sentences, his thoughts wandered, and he got alternately sad, confused, and nasty.
I was there. We thought we would lose him by morning. He refused to go to the
hospital, and we would never force him—he's pretty damned forceful that he does
not want machinery to keep him alive. Soooo, I got up every hour to check on him
all night. And in the morning, he was back to normal. Well, normal for him. 53%.
By Saturday night, he was a touch confused again, down to 42%, but again, back to
54% by morning. We're gonna lose him, sooner or later. He's had 76 hard years, and
when he goes, I hope you'll read my tribute to him. He's not perfect. In fact, he's
kind of a prick. But he's my Pop, and I love him. Go to the link, and listen to the
song. Don't blame ME if it makes you cry. [Link].
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Atlantea The Beautiful No. 317
by L. Neil Smith and Rex May
Number 317 of a weekly cartoon series.
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