Referring to JustAGuy's letter: um, it's not just your tax dollars. It's their tax dollars too. They people of NOLA worked, paid taxes, and have every right to expect help in a time of disaster for the money they've paid in.

Flood insurance is a great idea. But when the flood insurance company says, no, the wind did it, and your regular insurance says, no the water did it -- and therefore, neither pays -- well, what then?

Should they live in a "disaster-prone" area? There isn't a zone in the United States that isn't prey to one disaster or another. Hurricanes. Floods. Fires. Earthquakes. Tornados. If there is some section of the US that is free from any threat of natural disaster, is everyone in the US supposed to squeeze into it?

But what's really scary here, is the underlying idea - "my" tax dollars versus "theirs". Is this still the "United" States, or are we headed for something else entirely?

Sorry for the "they" typo - shouldn't post letters before the coffee kicks in...

If you think about it, the one person who has personally gained the most from the war in Iraq is Dick Cheney. He has gained in terms of political power, furtherance of his socio-political agenda, and sheer dollars. His personal wealth has increased massively as a result of his ties to Halliburton and the myriad no-bid cost-plus sweetheart deals handed over to his friends. His lock on power, secrecy, and re-making the fabric of the American system of justice and governance is unprecedented. He is smart and utterly ruthless in pursuit of his goal.

The cost in human life is just the cost of doing business for Cheney, and it's not like any of it affects him personally. The War might be bad news for untold thousands -- or millions -- of Americans, Iraqis, and others around the world, but it's all good news for Dick.

So now a war with Iran? More good news for Dick. If it is successful, he wins. If it is disastrous, he still wins. A completely destabilized Middle East that will violently rage for decades, insecure oil supplies, higher gas prices, massive reconstruction in any post-conflict environment, increased fears of terrorist retaliation on US soil? Cha-ching!

I wonder if his portfolio is increasingly invested in Euros and gold rather than the tanking US dollar that his economic policies have driven downward, but no matter. Dick will take care of Dick and Dick's own, rest assured.

Millions suffer but life is good for the world's biggest Dick.

...that the incidence of drug-spiked drinks is proportionately minimal relative to the numbers of young women and men simply drinking way too much in pursuit of fun, maybe that's a place to start.

No one deserves to be raped. Or robbed. Or assaulted. Or otherwise hurt, when all you did was go out to have some fun. And predators who rape, rob and assault deserve to be arrested, incarcerated, punished.

But is this issue about a culture that implicates victims in their own vulnerability, or is it about a culture that encourages making yourself as vulnerable as possible as often as possible... and that the worst you should ever expect to suffer is a headache the next morning?

If your definition of fun is to go out and drink so much that the next day you think you might have been drugged... and that is a LOT of alcohol consumption... perhaps it's time for a severe re-examination of what constitutes 'fun'?

Is it sad that binge drinking has gone from a relative rarity to the norm to the goal, the reference standard to a fun night out? Actually, it's more than sad, it's dangerous.

It would be a high class problem if all that was at stake was a few cuts and bruises from tripping over your own two blind-drunk-to-the-point-of-insensate feet. But it's not. It's about learning to stand on your own two fully empowered feet and walk away from situations that not only can but do leave you extremely vulnerable...

...the vulnerability not just to rape but also to robbery, violent assault (or just drunken fights between the comparably wasted), DUIs, STDs, unwanted pregnancy, or even just that icky feeling of waking up next to someone and not remembering what happened the night before... to go with that aforementioned skull-splitting headache.

...the vulnerability of waking up one day all by yourself and realizing you have a serious substance abuse problem.

...the vulnerability of waking up one day and realizing that you may have severely damaged if not outright ruined your own (and possibly someone else's) life because you came to see 'fun' as synonymous with extreme intoxication, extreme loss of inhibition, extreme loss of judgment, extreme risk of harm to yourself and others.