DavidMcK

I downloaded the MobileReference edition of 'Anthem' (for 0.95) and found a rather complete and compressed biography of Ayn Rand with a good description of her Philosophy. The writer isn't mentioned-anyone know who wrote it?

George Bush's record as Gov. of Texas wasn't bad either: You can never infer what a President will be like from extrapolating what he did as a state governor because a governor has two constraints that aren't available on the state level, namely the power to create money (and thus create huge deficits) and the ability to make war. That's just what Bush did as President and I would like to see some statements that he understands the Libertarian/Objectivist position before I would even think of another Bush in the White House.

Thanks Stephen for your two suggestions (post #13). I just ordered 'The Beginnings of Western Science' from Amazon.

Greeting Kelly, looking forward to your posts.

What I would like is a really first rate history of science..the equivalent of Windleband in philosophy. I was wondering if someone who has read the Harriman book would find it worthwhile from a historical point of view. I'm not interested in Peikoff epistemology or really all that thrilled of rehashing induction. Comments please?

http://blog.mises.org/13326/remembering-longshoreman-philosophy/ This is at the Ludwig von Mises website and has a brief indication of Hoffer's thinking with several quotes and a nice picture.

I agree that Christians are blithely unconcerned about using power and coercion. I don't have an actual quote from the Bible that says not to put someone on a rack and pull their limbs apart; I was just relying on my image of Christ as someone who was empathetic and concerned about suffering and comparing it to the actions of many Christians in history. There is a saying that Marx wasn't a Marxist; Jesus Christ wasn't a Christian either.

Thanks Dennis for your informative posts.

I agree Michael, and as bad as this current (Obama) administration is I'm actually nearly terrified of the conservative Christian right. The teachings of Christ never seemed to stop the Inquisitors or the Crusaders from boiling people in oil or burning them alive.

Just because the founders might not have followed their own principles doesn't invalidate their principles. Jefferson and Washington owned slaves....does that therefore nullify the Declaration of Independence? This is the most succinct and excellent statement of the non-interventionist position I've seen in a while; note that Objectivist principles of Self-Interest and non-self-sacrifice are heavily implied in this statement.

Alex Trebek is from Canada which might have something to do with his pronunciation. He's one of my favorites btw.

He was blessed with a rich sonorous speaking voice also; probably had as much to do with his success on the radio as his ideas.

There was a report on the Ludwig von Mises website that said the atheism vs. theism debate was very strong and interesting but there wasn't much detail. I was hoping to hear more about it here.

Meteor maybe?

That's clearly what the jury should have done with Martha Stewart as well as some other cases with highly questionable law.

I use open office to and love it (and the price!) but you should be forewarned that there are issues with listening to audio with a .ppt. The experts can fix the problem but you have to compile and download this and that and fix this and that (the usual open source stuff).

Excellent Martin, makes the issue crystal clear. People who think of 'them vs. us' don't seem to be able to think in principles.

Welcome Mike, looks like you are ready to hike into the world of objectivism.

We already knew that from your books.

The deepest well I could find that Petrobras has drilled is in 1886 M (6187 feet +/-)of water. Maybe he was including the depth of the well itself? Anyway this is very interesting. My reference is : http://www2.petrobras.com.br/Petrobras/ingles/plataforma/pla_aguas_profundas.htm

By 'environment' the environmentalist mean the context of life collectively rather than for a specific species (garden flowers or tigers in the Kelley example). As pointed out they assume that the human environment is unnatural and set in opposition to the larger environment thus it is GIGO (garbage in garbage out). This article is helpful in questioning the assumptions of the 'environmentalist'. In Objectivism, especially 'The Fountainhead' the human environment and nature can get along beautifully, represented by the architecture of Howard Roark. I always envisage Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water house when I hear talk about environmental issues. I suspect that this view of human activity is outside the range of most environmentalist.

I was curious about how long it takes for crude to evaporate and found the following link that has some more links in it to the science of oil spills: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread572870/pg1 About 40% of the Louisiana Sweet Crude oil (very different from the Exxon Valdez heavy crude) evaporates within a day or two. Microbes eat quite a bit of oil -- it is like sugar to them. The environmentalist and TV people seem to be positively euphoric about this spill..the chance to kick oil companies around and pose as friends of the earth and humanity is just to much to be wasted. Notice that most of the crap coming from the Obama adm. came after movie maker Spike Lee told Obama to get mad...then we had the 'boot to the throat' comments and a special fund of $20B. This seems like a way to gore an ox rather than make sure that everyone has to prove damage. Congress got in to the act of course with new hearings...not so different from the McCarthy trials except Goldman Sachs and BP are the new targets. Anyway someone interested in seeing how this plays out can start with the above links: for my part I bought 150 shares of BP last week in my Roth. We need to get rid of this idiotic chairman with his 'little people' ideas and BP should be able to cover the costs of this and come back.

Welcome back Ross, hope your health issues are improving.

To pursue the Titanic/lifeboat metaphor: What bothers me about Beck and other people who are so far from Objectivism is that ideas and values have consequences. There has to be some explanation why someone like Reagan goes to the White House telling us that 'Government is not the solution, it is the problem' and leaves the White House with massive spending increases and the government larger and more powerful than ever. That explanation is the Christian religion. It just isn't too Christian to cut people off welfare and housing and food stamps. So I pose the question, if someone was offering a lifeboat off of the Titantic that was as bad as the Titantic itself or worse would you get on board?

Some of us here just want the assurance (see my previous post in this thread) that this isn't becoming the Glenn Beck Living website.