Although this is amusing, I'm not at all sure it belongs in Humor. It's much too close to reality.

Barbara
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WASHINGTON, DC - Congress is considering sweeping legislation, which provides new benefits for many Americans. President Elect Obama will have the opportunity to sign the The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) which is being hailed as a major legislation by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.

‘Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society,’ said California Senator Barbara Boxer.

We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they do a better job, or have some idea of what they are doing.

Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest U.S employer of Persons of Inability....

Under The Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million ‘middle man’ positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.

Continued at: http://www.earthfrisk.com/blog/?p=130

Pelosi wants more money for members of Congress? Makes sense.

--Brant

Barbara, you're depressing me. Isn't there something positive going on somewhere?

Which reminds me that I never liked the "Horror File".

Yes! The Metropolitan Opera is beaming live performances to several hundred movie theaters around the world -- so that one sees an opera as it is being performed in New York. What a treat! It wipes Obama out of existence for me.

And Amazon has created the Kindle, a wireless reading device that holds 200 books and is about the size of a paperback. You order a book and it's on your Kindle screen in one minute. And you can read the first chapter of any book without charge. (If anyone intends buying me an expensive present, you know what to get.)

And the weather in Los Angeles (forget the fires) is glorious, as it is almost always.

And my sweet little cat is purring happily on my lap, although she prefers sitting on my key pad.

And just today I received a batch of emails saying lovely things about The Passion of Ayn Rand.

And I have all sorts of new ideas for my book on thinking!

Barbara

All right! That's what I like to hear!

(Especially the last one - although I think new insights perhaps should be saved for a second book? else the original transcripts may not get out there fast given the slowness of publishing and dissemination cycle under best of circumstances??)

Phil, I don't expect to be distributing transcripts of my original lectures. Instead, I'm turning them into a book -- with many additions, subtractions, refinements, and clarifications, and much new material -- such as on creative thinking, which is quite distinct from normal problem-solving. It will not be geared exclusively to an Objectivist audience, as the original material was -- one had to take Basic Principles of Objectivism before enrolling in my course -- but to the general public.

Barbara

Barbara,

That thing is hilarious in a Joe the Plumber sort of way. The "Americans With No Abilities Act" even sounds right. I'm still chuckling...

btw - I haven't had time to go into the Kindle market yet, but I have studied it. If you know how to research that reality, you can publish many, many things for the Kindle audience and make good money, including public domain works—which cost you nothing but a little time and effort to produce to make them special. Despite prices and commissions being relatively low, this is known as an evergreen market (or recurring income). As the Kindle market is growing and will continue to grow, so will the returns on the inventory of publishers. It is a well that will not dry up.

Anyone can be a publisher for Kindle. All you have to do is register for it at Amazon and read the materials over there.

Michael

Kindle now has my attention!!

How cool would that be to just have a library of Kindles, each containing their own authors, genres, or philosophies?! What shall I choose today?

Only bad thing is that in the future, showcasing hundreds of books in your personal library may not be as awe-inspiring.

~ Shane

Barbara; Thanks for this post. Living in the center of Obamamania and hearing many bad reports this post cheered me up. I can't wait for your book on thinking. Again Thanks!

**lots of room for new material**

> [new material] such as on creative thinking, which is quite distinct from normal problem-solving. [Barbara]

I agree that what I often hear from Oists about how to think tends to be narrow and one needs to add material. I have lots of files on all kinds of thinking issues (often arising from my teaching). There is room for -many- books on thinking skills, approaches, contexts.

I strongly suspect that when I write up my own stuff on thinking, it will be different from yours and supplementary. I've also got lots of notes on cognition as such, which I suspect will be very different from Harry Binswanger's forthcoming book on Consciousness. And I know it's different from Peikoff's lectures about 20 years ago on thinking, which I audited.

I have a shelf of books on thinking, logic, some De Bono and others on creative thinking. (I have not yet read the Hutchinson on c.t.) There is also room for 'chewing' - extended working thru of case studies. Which is what I assign my students in school.

There is room for a whole book on -writing- as thinking. How to use this tool throughout life....

Conclusion: If one sets the assignment to say everything -- even everything essential -- on thinking, one will keep getting new ideas and never finish a book - I hope you're not doing that?!@#$^&??

> It will not be geared exclusively to an Objectivist audience...but to the general public.

Thank God. You mean no digressions into Transcendental Psycho Epistemology?

What about Metaphysico Sense of Life Internally Contradictory Signposting?

All gone????

Phil, what I want to discuss about creative thinking is rather different than what is generally subsumed under that concept. I believe that the creative process, at its best, involves an altered state of consciousness, and I want to talk about what that state is and how one achieves it.

I promise I won't be saying the last word on thinking -- I don't know what the last word is -- but I hope I'll say everything essential to my perspective. And no, definitely no Transcendental Psycho-epistemology, only a bit of The Intra-Logical Processes of the Form of the Good. That should intrigue a general audience.

Barbara

You know, when I saw the title of this post, I assumed it was about Americans with no acting abilities going out there and acting....

Judith

Judith, I'll never be able to read the title the same way again. That it concerns actors with no ability is now seared into my brain.

Barbara

It's always refreshing to hear new interpretations. That's a good one!

~ Shane