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Culture

Drug Choices, Bad Choices:
May 16, 2006:
Alan Caruba comments on the sheer stupidity of consuming drugs like heroin and the deliberate effort it takes to continue taking them; he also points out the social damages that wishing to rehabilitate such people through government action brings about. Many of these addicts are not improved by state-coerced rehabilitation.

Economics

The Declining Dollar Erodes Personal Savings:
May 15, 2006:
Representative Ron Paul, M.D., is alarmed at the steady decline in the U.S. dollar's value in the past years; the dollar's value has declined substantially relative to other currencies and has shrunk by a factor of three relative to gold. This will eventually impoverish Americans, unless the U.S. government stops artificially inflating the currency and incurring enormous deficits.

Government Debt Has No Upside:
May 19, 2006:
Dr. Robert P. Murphy analyzes popular statements about the government's incurring of debt and picks out the grains of truth in those statements from the piles of falsehoods. He warns us not to think of the national debt as innocuous or merely as "a debt to ourselves" because of its inherently redistributory effects.

And Then a Miracle Occurs:
May 20, 2006:
Dr. Gary M. Galles refutes standard arguments in favor of unionization, rent controls, the minimum wage, and government protectionism by showing the logical gaps in these arguments. These arguments invoke "miracles" which cannot be rationally explained, and which their proponents often invoke ad hominem attacks to defend.

Filosofy

Identification: Friend or Foe?:
May 19, 2006:
The religious right needs to stop its friendly fire against other rightists-- including atheists, Objectivists, and libertarians-- writes Michael Miller. It needs to stop aiding the nihilist left through vehement denunciations of egoism and egoists; rather, the religious right needs to recognize that its own morality is also fundamentally egoistic, even if the selfish good religious rightists seek is in part supernatural.

Politics

Immigrants, Reconquistas, and Economic Systems:
May 16, 2006:
Why do so many Mexican immigrants seek to enter America? Because an antiquated, feudalistic system of stringent government controls over the Mexican economy holds them back at home, writes Paul Driessen. Some of their attempts at "reconquista" in the American Southwest would only bring Mexican-style big government there if they succeed; rather, the Mexican government should relent in its efforts to control its population and natural resources. 

Working on the Fringes: How to Create Effective Political, Cultural, and Intellectual Change:
May 17, 2006:
G. Stolyarov II advocates an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary approach to changing the political and cultural status quo; he suggests that friends of liberty and reason try to focus on the fringe issues which few people in the mainstream notice, rather than on contentious core issues where any forward movement will be thwarted by dominant orthodoxies and counter-orthodoxies.

Fanatics, Heretics, and the Truth about Global Warming:
May 18, 2006:
Global warming is not science; it is a new political religion, based on faulty and easily debunked assertions and statistics twisted out of proportion to justify the environmentalists' faith in the evils of modern capitalism, writes Tom DeWeese. This summer, Al Gore's new promised documentary might further advance this heinous cause, and Mr. DeWeese warns us to be skeptical.

Policing Phone Calls and Perverting Principles:
May 19, 2006:
The Bush Administration's efforts to collect data about millions of Americans' conversations should be seen an a major threat to liberty by Americans, writes Dr. Edward Hudgins. The executive branch is violating the essence of limited government by refusing to gain the approval of the courts and Congress in these activities; furthermore, the Bush Administration is setting a negative precedent that subsequent Democratic Presidents might apply to "crimes" far more innocuous than terrorism.

Science

Predicting Hurricanes. Not!:
May 21, 2006:
Despite current technology, the occurrence of hurricanes continues to be virtually unpredictable, writes Alan Caruba. What we do know, however, is that they are not caused by global warming; they are brought about by periodic Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation; currently we are experiencing a cyclical rise in the frequency of hurricanes, but this has occurred before, and does not spell the gloom and doom environmentalists suggest it does.

I am among those who think well of the human character generally.

~ Thomas Jefferson