william.scherk

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  1. william.scherk
    I will tweak and then post this to the list.
    There is plenty of time to grow familiar with the electoral landscape in Egypt. You no doubt are aware of the constitutional changes pending referendum, and no doubt are aware that a raft of electoral law will need to be rescinded once new assemblies form.
    That's why I thought it was a good idea to see the first Islamist party out of the gates. Al Wasat has been trying to register a party since their split from the MuslimBoogeyhood. Their platform is different from the MB's presumed platform on three essential points.
    By invoking a general sense, we can avoid getting a feeling for events on the ground. Here it is vaguely stated that the registration of Al-Wasat can only be dangerous. In a general sense. Well, a general sense of danger doesn't let us assess Al-Wasat's particular danger. Details matter in such an assessment, I think all agree.
    Of course, considering that the video cited is reproduced widely on Rapture and Anti-Islamic kook sites, my first question was, 'so what?'
    Many knowledgeable commenters (Arabic speaking) noted that the chant was a common phrase shouted during the 18 days of revolution http://translate.google.com/#en|ar|to%20Jerusalem%20we%20go%20.%0A%0Amartyrs%2C%20millions
    But let's give the wiiged-out folks the benefit of the doubt and note the chant. Is this the ultimate sign from Friday the 18th?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbHwekWRqAY
    Others have filled in more background here -- the Friday sermonette at noon prayers by the returned Qaradawi, banned for decades from speaking, that Qaradawi expressed hope that he could lead prayers at Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. He's now gone back to his home in Doha, and the details and implications of his sermonette can be assessed.
    What, effectively, led some secular Google People (such as Wael Ghonim) to praise Qaradawi's lecture? Do you know, Richard?
    By the way, what do you think of the most popular Muslim preacher in Egypt, Amr Khaled (who has also returned to Egypt after an eight-year ban from speaking and a two year exile, and who is to deliver an important Friday address in Upper Egypt)?
  2. william.scherk
    On the 'Boy did this one backfire!' thread, discussion has roamed over a few acres of various disputes, all tied to the Menace of Islam. At one point I wondered how Richard Wiig could be so confident about 'Sharia law in Canada.' That led to a schmozzle with Adam Selene, who forked up the first (incorrect) reference he could find . . . but eventually Wiig admitted he was wrong in his claim. But he didn't just say "I was wrong. Bite me." He added more material which led to more shmozzle in two back to back posts.
    So, there we split off the main trunk road of the story, which was the Islamic TV exec who went to jail for beheading his wife. The trunk had already sprouted 'honour killing' and other shoots, but here several buds erupt: Did Qaradawi raise two million voices in a chant to go die in Jerusalem? Will Canada face more credible demains for special religious arbitration? What does the registration of the Al-Wasat party signify? Wiig has stirred these all together into an unappetizing glop.
    But before I examine those offshoots, what really captured my eye was the reference to Qaradawi and The Google People -- a report by Michael expanding on Wiig's point about Menacing Signs.
    Michael references a Beck program, the awful Qaradawi sermonette in Tahrir Square, and then tells us that The Google People have been used . . .
    I have asked Michael if this Beck program was the one from February 21st, but have muffed my queries.
    I think this is the video, which has been chopped (I will upload a better sound version):
    Look for anyone other than Wael Ghonim to be mentioned as 'Google People.' One other Google person might be Amr Khaleed.
    And so much for trying to fight a dictator with do-gooder public manipulation, no matter how touchy-feely it is, while ignoring the toxic ideology waiting in the wings

    Mr Khaleed is an Islamic Preacher and TV personality. His Facebook page is the most popular in Egypt, according to the Washington Post.
    And from an overview of the Muslim Internet in Egypt via Islamonline:

    _______________________
    -- a few links and embeds that I will put in the body of the entry.
    Wael Ghonim at Twitter.
  3. william.scherk

    The Ick Factor (1)

    By william.scherk,

    When I first started posting at Online O-world forums, I used 'the ick factor' to signify an unquantifiable je ne sais quoi in certain Objectivish utterances, such as the initial ARI response to the Boxing Day Tsunami.
    Here's a sample of what gets chatted about from Ugh, Solopassion.com, with Lindsay at the helm. An openline show with your kookiepants grandpa. Rather revolting. This is the man with the red button. Blech. Ick ick ick.
    04:46:57 Lindsay Perigo You're reading me?
    04:47:34 Lindsay Perigo Heller—Babs's bitch.
    04:48:15 Lindsay Perigo The rarest quality of all.
    04:49:18 Lindsay Perigo REvenge dear.
    04:49:49 Lindsay Perigo Even though Babs wasn't fucking Nathan, she hated that Ayn was.
    04:50:35 Lindsay Perigo She got away with all those years of painting Ayn as a pathological ogre who drove her husband to alcoholism. Now shown to be lies.
    04:50:53 Lindsay Perigo Yes dear.
    04:51:13 Lindsay Perigo Beswick tried to bonk Colin????????!!!!!!!!!!!! Oooooooo, too funny!!!!!!!!!!
    04:51:23 Lindsay Perigo Wot happened to that creature?
    04:54:47 Lindsay Perigo Yes. Is there something to report?
    04:55:48 Lindsay Perigo If so, use the private message facility.
    04:56:45 Lindsay Perigo Ciao!
    08:51:36 Lindsay Perigo Hello!
  4. william.scherk
    I am testing a notation scheme in my text-aloud program. Please excuse the clutter. I will delete this later. For an aural treat, listen to the forthcoming mp3 test. I will award a gold disc version to the person who can tell me about Mitsou`s big hit and the city it dominated.
    [Q.1]What are you talking about?
    [ . . . ]
    [s.1-2] often I disagree with Daniel. I have perceived that he does not like to be proven wrong and when he is proven wrong, he gets really uncomfortable.
    [ . . . ]
    [s.3-4] He mentioned that I was contradicting the definition of a word (as if there were only one meaning), then gave a link to an online dictionary. When I went there, I encountered 27 definitions and my understanding was included in several.
    [ . . . ]
    [s.5] Sometimes during an attempt to understand (or clarify), I perceive that he gets into a sort of semantic maze where he [barnes] criticizes a topic or a person (with Rand usually being the final target), then the terms or arguments he uses morph into other meanings during a discussion.
    Look:
    [E.1]QUOTE(Daniel Barnes @ Jun 19 2007, 05:06 AM) *
    Mike:
    [sug.1,S.6]>Let's talk about an actual idea. That other stuff is boring.
    [P.1,S.7,S.8,P.2,S.8-9,A.1,Pol.1]]If you were really interested in the actual ideas behind mathematical epistemology, Mike, I think you would have read or genuinely tried to learn at least something about the subject at some stage in your life. But it's quite clear you haven't, so I can only assume that at bottom you aren't all that interested. This lack of both knowledge and interest, however, does not seem to stop you holding some strong and even highly dismissive opinions on the subject. Who knows why you do, but you do. So given all that, I'll sit this one out, thanks anyway.
    [s.10-12]Not only was I told what I think and how much I know (which are bad habits with anyone, and I even admitted several times that I needed to learn more about the traditional stuff before I could answer any more than I did), I was dismissed for both.
    [ . . . ]
    [s.13] With Daniel's preceding arguments, I learned nothing except that he doesn't seem to like Rand very much.
    [ . . . ]
    [O.1] Read his posts during that exchange starting with his question to me—look at the content
    [ . . . ]
    [O.2] See if you can find any idea he presented other than a negative opinion of Rand (or her followers by insinuation).
    [ . . . ]
    [Char.1,S.14] "a gratuitous belittlement of Rand come out of the blue for the gazillionth time"
    [ . . . ]
    [Char.2,S.15,16]"and engaging in one more bout of verbal spar[r]ing that doesn't seem to go anywhere except to play verbal morph games"
    [ . . . ]
    [Char.3,Psy.1,S.14]"to try—in the end—to show what a fool Rand was, that gets boring."
    [ . . . ]
    [Epith.1,S.15]"Yada yada yada full of sound and fury signifying nothing"
    [ . . ]
    [E.1]QUOTE(Daniel Barnes @ Jun 19 2007, 1:03 AM)
    Do you seriously think the various problems of epistemology were just there when Ayn Rand woke up in the morning?
    [Q.2]What do you think it means?
    [ . . . ]
    [s.17-19 (PsyM.1), ~S.14bis] I find that stuff sooooooooooo tedious. I want a real discussion. Daniel has a good mind and he is better than that.
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    I will post some responses to these plainly stated questions later tonight. In the meantime, I will see if I can practice what I preach, oh mealy-mouthed William:
    I note that in your continuing discussion with Daniel, a problem of linguistic charity rears its head again. In an earlier exchange you suggested, with humour, that your and Daniel's mutual goal was 'Free Entertainment," whereas Daniel answered, "We are both trying to correct some underlying historical mistakes." Would you please leave off the smileys and give us a sincere answer?
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    [(PsyM.2),S.20, Q.3-4,S.21,R1] I know you like Daniel (and so do I), but how do you miss this kind of stuff and misinterpret my call to get on topic as "shitting on someone"?
    [ . . . ]
    [s.22-24] I don't know what you mean about the other discussion with Daniel (as in "the last two"), but I have spent far too much time on this one. I only did it because I like you (a lot).
    [ . . . ]
    [Q.5] But honestly, did you gain anything with this?
    [ . . . ]
    [Q.6-7,S.25] do you want to discuss some of Daniel's good qualities? Or your own? I'm more than game.
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    As usual, Michael is one-up on me. I am merely game.
  5. william.scherk

    Blog Challenges

    By william.scherk,

    Off the top of my head
    -- make posts regularly, at least once a day
    -- make posts interesting
    -- make posts comment-worthy
    -- comment on what interests YOU
    -- comment on popular OL topics and threads
    -- link to interesting older OL topics and posts
    -- do an interview once a month with an OLer
    -- regular 'Friday Nite at the Corral" type chats?
  6. william.scherk

    Chatter

    By william.scherk,

    This is a placeholder for an ongoing experiment to open up discussion on OL.
    I am itnigued to see if anyone can answer a call to chat if we schedule an Open Mike Night or something.
    Some of us may be too crabby and suspicious to be right live conversation via keyboard.
    <a name="chatnow">OL Chatter Experiment</a>
    <IFRAME WIDTH="100%" HEIGHT="430PX" SRC="http://www.vdoc.ca/chat/chatIndex.php" TITLE="Chat Test WSS">
    <!-- Alternate content for non-supporting browsers -->
    <H2>Your browser may not support this function</H2>
    <H3>If you do not see a chat window appear, please go to this link:</H3>
    <a href="http://www.vdoc.ca/chatchatIndex.php">http://www.vdoc.ca/chat/chatIndex.php</a></IFRAME>
  8. william.scherk
    Coming up on five years since I posted this horribly gushy [redacted] item below. Quel embarras!
    <div><img style="float:right" width="241px" src="http://members.shaw.ca/wsscherk/imgz/the_blog_345.jpg">Sunny Days ahead . . .

    I find the . . . site to be very impressive, with so many tools for communication. Props to the team.
    I am coming to the faith that a truly free site . . . may be like a map of the world.
    Looking out through the . . . window on my monitor, I do believe that the varied strands of Rand-influenced thinkers and actors and scholars can build whatever communications they wish, here, through the window.
    A rather clownish person like me can retire to a blog -- a small, blue-ish pink, flickering window -- post occasional image-laden observations, experiment with different tones and tonics, accept essay commissions from my best critics, spend more time listening to music and working in the real world.
    Another person can inhabit the chatbox, or pepper popular threads with machine-gun one-liners. Yet another person can diligently apply her labour to expanding analysis in one of the less-read threads . . . and so on.
    It is a bit like a map, an index, a window on the world, this box on my table, this . . . box: yes, there are great continents, one dark, one light . . . but there are also smaller homelands, high mountain passes, navigable seas of long sweeping sands and intricate fjords and more; island redoubts, outposts and entrepots; vast archipelagos of opinion spattered like light across the surface of the globe . .</div>
  9. william.scherk
    I tried an experiment with an inline IFrame that inserts a live chat widget inside a post. Click link for the result. Kind of cool. Now I would like to see if I can raise some interest for a reasoned discussion/debate of Global Warming issues . . .
  10. william.scherk
    A cunning lead in to what is actually quite old, my first online clang! on Objectivish subjects, in which I compare Atlas Shrugged to Battlefield Earth [from freedomofmind, at yahoogroups, post number 23918, posted Wed Jun 8, 2005 -- I think I may have killed the thread. Note that Monica Pignotti is known as an apostate of two totalistic systems, The Callahan Technique and Scientology, and is a recent convert to a healthy, normal skepticism, though still touchy it seems on the subject of Rand]
    Snippet:
    Is Objectivism a cult? In my opinion, no, not really. Is it attractive
    to those who are vulnerable to the 'cult embrace'? Worth a thought, I
    would say.
    I close with a few selections from Branden, a couple of sharp quotes
    from a 1999 Lingua Franca essay, two abstracts on current science from
    'official' Objectivism, and a tag from a radio interview with
    Objectivist educators Tara Smith and Betsy Speicher.
    Thanks to those who developed this thread -- and to Monica for
    opening the door to my comments! Freedom-of-mind is an excellent list
    that helps sharpen my mind.

    Re: new member posting re Rand
    Like Monica Pignotti I disagree with aspects of Michael Shermer's
    "The Unlikeliest Cult in History"
    (www.skeptic.com/02.2.shermer-unlikely-cult.html), yet I would advise
    those interested in the Rand/Cult donnybrook to read and consider his
    complete essay. I wager that Shermer has a devotee's ability to be
    utterly enthralled by succeeding enthusiasms: fundamentalist
    christianity, objectivist philosophy, skepticism -- I note the wisdom
    of his central observation that the most "rational" of enterprises,
    science, may also be the object of cult-ish veneration.
    Objectivism a cult? No, probably not, in my opinion. But maybe another
    way of looking at the Cult/Rand meme: could we find cult-ish
    tendencies within the present body of Objectivists? Maybe yes. Maybe
    Shermer simply found a ready-made fit for his devotional tendencies
    after he gave up god . . .
    Maybe the observation of total immersion in and acceptance of Randian
    tenets by its more extreme adherents means less that Objectivism is a
    cult, more that Objectivism may tend to attract people who themselves
    behave, at times, like cult followers -- followers who venerate an
    ideal being holding final truth, who shows the only true and correct
    way to live life.
    Those who do interpret Rand this way frighten and appall me. I hope
    that not too many of them live in my town, although I do understand
    the appeal: a total system of thought and value can be very attractive
    to those who welcome the enveloping embrace of something that explains
    *everything*.
    (of note also is the cultish take-up and elaboration of Objectivist
    jargon: Altruism. Evaders. Evil. Sanction. Check your premises. Etc.)
    With regard to Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, in which she laid
    out concrete examples of her philosophy in action: Oi. Fantasy. Rant.
    Haranguing dialogue. Characters with the depth and realism of
    Skeletor, Lex Luthor, Bizarro Superman, She-Ra and Wonder Woman.
    So far I have only read the first 650,000 of its 800,000 pages. At the
    moment, as I struggle through the chapter "The Utopia of Greed," it
    reminds me most of L Ron Hubbard's "Battlefield Earth," with Rand's
    monsters slightly more horrid and evil than Hubbard's nightmarish
    slavedrivers, the titanic struggle between good and evil only slightly
    more titanic . . . mind you, Hubbard's book is also slightly longer,
    at 1,000,000 pages of turgid, pulpy, entertaining hooey.
    WRT Tara Smith, you can buy her book and audio CDs at the Ayn Rand
    bookstore: http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/store/products.asp?dept=45
    (you can also listen to a radio interview with her here:
    http://www.prodos.com/archive032artscienceselfishness.html -- of note
    is the same stubborn neologism pointed out by Robert Bass in his The
    Misuse of Language: "Selfishness" and "Altruism," cited below -- why
    torture the word selfish, with its negative load of undue attention to
    self, when a more precise term like 'self-interest' exists?). . . but
    see also Smith's 'Why a Teleological Defense of Rights Needn't Yield
    Welfare Rights' in The Journal of Social Philosophy, and 'Rights,
    Friends, and Egoism' in The Journal of Philosophy.
    Considering that the utmost aim of the 'official' Ayn Rand Institute
    is to seed higher education with Rand . . . I might be forgiven for
    likening the success of Rand thought on campus to the success of
    Phillip Johnson's 'Wedge,' and the Discovery Institute: "Wow,
    scientists are taking Intelligent Design seriously!!! It's being
    discussed in books and journals and in lecture theatres . . . " Right.
    Is Smith an unprincipled huckster? No. Is she an independent scholar
    discovering the lost wisdom of Rand? Perhaps. But in the age of
    Madonna Studies and the opaque goo of Judith Butler. . . give me
    Patricia Churchland (Philosophy in the Age of Neuroscience) or Susan
    Haack (Defending Science - Within Reason) rather than Smith's party
    line.
    I tend to disagree with the practical implications of Monica's notes
    about science vis a vis Objectivism. For example -- Rand was not a fan
    of Darwin. She was not able to make natural selection jibe with her
    ironclad views about human nature, so she mostly ignored its
    implications for her philosophy. Same with psychology, physics,
    history, economics. For someone who styled herself reason incarnate,
    she was eqivocal about the fruits of empirical inquiry.
    Moreover, my recent reading of Randian disciples and subgroups
    indicates very little overlap with fresh scientific findings at all.
    Instead there is disengagement, disconnect, and heated harangues
    against 'environmentalists.' Check any website associated with
    'official' Objectivism, and there is almost nothing about real
    scientific discourse, little to reflect the burgeoning literature of
    psychology.
    For example, altruism research -- on the too-numerous-to-mention
    Rand-influenced lists, there is no discussion whatsoever about what
    cognitive neuroscience suggests about altruism. Nothing of
    evolutionary psychology. Altruism is evil, so any attempt to find its
    roots in nature, human nature are flawed -- this seems to be the
    general reaction.
    In any case, to illustrate, consider what Rand herself proclaims about
    altruism. I am left wondering where on earth she dug up these
    definitions (from Robert Bass, cited below):
    On altruism (All quotes from the entry on "altruism" in The Ayn Rand
    Lexicon):
    "The basic principle of altruism is that man has no
    right to exist for his own sake, that service to others
    is the only justification of his existence, and that
    self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and
    value." (Lexicon, p. 4)
    "The irreducible primary of altruism ... is self-
    sacrifice – ... which means: the self as a standard of
    evil, the selfless as a standard of the good." (Lexicon,
    p. 5)
    "Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit
    of others is good, and any action taken for one's own
    benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is
    the only criterion of moral value – and so long as that
    beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything
    goes." (Lexicon, p. 5, emphasis on "any," "only" and
    "anything" added)
    "Altruism holds death as its ultimate goal and standard
    of value." (Lexicon, p. 7) http://personal.bgsu.ed
    u/~roberth/misuse.html
    Oi.
    Consider also Randian thought's complete disdain and disengagment from
    'emotion.' You simply don't find discussion of current research, let
    alone classics from Damasio, Plutchik, Ekman. Zip. Nada (for a full
    evocation of Rand's equivocation, read Nathanial Branden's notes on
    'Hazards of Objectivism,' cited below).
    Search up 'Steven Pinker' 'Human Nature' & 'Ayn Rand' -- find things
    like this, from 'THE FORUM for Ayn Rand Fans,' topic 'Hardwired
    "trust?"'
    "Don't bother to examine a folly: ask only what it accomplishes.
    I have to wonder if these "scientists" understand on some level
    that altruism is irrational, yet seek to "I couldn't help it"
    their way past that bothersome fact by "proving" that it is
    "hardwired" into us. "
    - and -
    Havent you ever been tempted to ask these quacks if theres a gene for
    scientific fraud?
    http://forums.4aynrandfans.com/lofiversion...x.php/t916.html
    Oi again.
    Is Objectivism a cult? In my opinion, no, not really. Is it attractive
    to those who are vulnerable to the 'cult embrace'? Worth a thought, I
    would say.
    I close with a few selections from Branden, a couple of sharp quotes
    from a 1999 Lingua Franca essay, two abstracts on current science from
    'official' Objectivism, and a tag from a radio interview with
    Objectivist educators Tara Smith and Betsy Speicher.
    Thanks to those who developed this thread -- and to Monica for
    opening the door to my comments! Freedom-of-mind is an excellent list
    that helps sharpen my mind.
    WSS
    ____
    The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand
    "It's always important to remember that reason or
    rationality, on the one hand, and what people may
    regard as "the reasonable," on the other hand, don't
    mean the same thing.
    The consequence of failing to make this distinction,
    and this is markedly apparent in the case of Ayn Rand,
    is that if someone disagrees with your notion of "the
    reasonable," it can feel very appropriate to accuse
    him or her of being 'irrational' or 'against reason.'"
    "She used to say to me, 'I don't know anything about
    psychology, Nathaniel.' I wish I had taken her more
    seriously. She was right; she knew next to nothing
    about psychology. What neither of us understood,
    however, was how disastrous an omission that is in a
    philosopher in general and a moralist in particular.
    The most devastating single omission in her system and
    the one that causes most of the trouble for her
    followers is the absence of any real appreciation of
    human psychology and, more specifically, of
    developmental psychology, of how human beings evolve
    and become what they are and of how they can change."
    "I remember being astonished to hear her say one day,
    'After all, the theory of evolution is only a
    hypothesis.' I asked her, 'You mean you seriously
    doubt that more complex life forms -- including humans
    -- evolved from less complex life forms?' She shrugged
    and responded, 'I'm really not prepared to say,' or
    words to that effect."
    http://rous.redbarn.org/objectivism/Writin...AndHazards.html
    Lingua franca -- September 1999
    "Rand's feelings about academia did not mellow with age, as Mimi
    Reisel Gladstein of the University of Texas at El Paso learned while
    working on a critical study, The Ayn Rand Companion. Toward the end of
    Rand's life, Gladstein wrote to her, informing Rand of the project.
    Rand warned that, if the study appeared, she would sue. When Douglas
    J. Den Uyl of Bellarmine College and Douglas Rasmussen of St. John's
    University were putting together a collection titled The Philosophic
    Thought of Ayn Rand, they faced similar discouragement from the
    author. (Both volumes finally appeared in 1984, unlitigated.)"
    http://web.archive.org/web/20020124040704
    /http://www.linguafranca.com/9909/rand.html
    Lingua franca -- September 1999
    "Objectivism itself was a piece of property, and her concepts were not
    available for unlicensed use. 'If you agree with some tenets of
    Objectivism, but disagree with others,' she warned readers, 'do not
    call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship for the parts you
    agree with--and then indulge any flights of fancy you wish, on your
    own.' An unauthorized interpretation of an Objectivist concept was,
    ipso facto, a violation of her proprietary interest"
    http://web.archive.org/web/20020124040704/http://w
    ww.linguafranca.com/9909/rand.html
    The Ayn Rand Institute: Science
    "The Scientist Trap
    Monday, June 18, 2001
    By: Robert Tracinski
    Honest scientists who think they are staying out of politics--are
    trapped into giving their stamp of approval to the global-warming
    hysteria."
    The Ayn Rand Institute: Science
    "The National Academy of Dubious Science
    Monday, June 11, 2001
    By: Robert Tracinski
    The NAS panel told the president that the globe might be warming and
    that the results might be bad."
    http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag...a_topic_science
    PRODOS.COM internet radio - THE ART AND SCIENCE OF SELFISHNESS
    Betsy Speicher: "Persuing my self-interest does NOT mean harming other
    people ... Altruism creates victims and oppressors!"
    Tara Smith: Putting others first (altruism) poisons relationships ...
    It makes every person out there a walking I.O.U.
    Topics covered include: Why is the concept of selfishness so
    misunderstood and misrepresented? Isn't everyone selfish? If only!
    Selfishness is not the same as gratifying your every desire. The
    morality of selfLESSness creates irreconilable conflicts within us.
    How the Ancient Greeks were accepting of self-interest. How ALTRUISM
    painted self-interest as harming others. Who gave selfishness a bad
    name and how they did it. Tricks used by advocates of selflessness -
    For instance: The benevolence trap."
    http://www.prodos.com/archive032artscienceselfishness.html
  11. william.scherk
    I noted, rather stupidly it turns out, in a thread called Shyness at Objectivism Online, that "evidence-based" psycholtherapy, such as CBT, DBT etc, was a testament to some of Rand's prescience (i.e., her insistence that the emotive-rational hinge was key to mental strength and moral compass).
    In the back of my mind (on the old grey chesterfield with the aging fellow who does my research, watching Trailer Park Boys and eating Cheetos) was the voice saying, "Who was that guy that kinda agreed with Rand in the early days, but took a poke at her later on? Huh? Oh well. He he he. Bubbles. He He He."
    Albert Ellis, the news tells us today, dead, the guy who grooved with and later pilloried Rand. I'm glad the old guy on the chesterfield didn't remember the name or I would have seemed pompous and ill-informed, instead of merely pompous. I had no idea.
    I had no idea he was so SCATHING in his criticism of Rand's latter excesses, I had no idea he had debated Nathaniel Branden on stage regarding Objectivist psychology, nor that he had published a freely available 248 page clang!er against the 'religion' of Rand -- "Are Capitalism, Objectivism, and Libertarianism Religions? Yes!"**
    How can I have missed the Ellis connection and its deeper ironies? In any case, I seem to have killed the thread over there at our sister site OO, not least because one of the self-identified shies there seemed to be saying that actually being with other human beings was necessitated but once a year, with the phrase, "So the question is rather: should I spend huge amounts of time and trouble so that I can enjoy a situation that confronts me maybe once a year? It's like curing your fear of bugs so that you can enjoy eating live spiders. What the heck for?"
    Now, how can I answer that. Hard enough to post inoffensively at OO anyways.
    Fans of Randiana will download the Ellis book, as I did, after registering at Lulu.com
    Here's two brief snips from his introduction.
    When I first read The Fountainhead in the early
    1940’s I thought there was something compelling
    about the philosophy of Ayn Randor what is now
    called objectivism. Not that I didn’t have
    misgivings; I did. [ . . . ] But her
    individualistic outlook made some real sense to
    me; and it influenced me somewhat as I developed
    my method of rational emotive behavior therapy
    (REBT).

    Frankly, I enjoy polemics. Pitting my thinking
    against that of other bright people is
    challenging and rewarding. I trust that I do not like this
    kind of thing for socalled egotistical reasons:
    to knock my opponents down and impress others
    with what a “worthwhile” person I am. But I do
    enjoy a good, noholdsbarred discussion. I think
    that people such as Ayn Rand and the Nathaniel
    Branden are worthy, enjoyable opponents. So
    lets zestfully get on to the fray!
    . . . and on that cheery note, who else died of Randian note? Great friend of gays, old whatsername . . .

    WSS
    +++++++++++
    ** his chapter titles are, ahem, revealing:
    Chapter 5: Assorted Evils of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism
    Chapter 6: Why Objectivism is a Fanatical Religion
    Chapter 7: Ayn Rand’s Religious Absolutism and Need for Certainty
    Chapter 8: Definitional and Fanatically Religious Thinking
    Chapter 9: Ayn Rand’s Intolerance of Opposing Philosophies
    Chapter 10: Ayn Rand’s Deification and Hero Worhsip
    Chapter 11: Objectivism’s Unrealism and AntiEmpiricism
    Chapter 12: Ayn Rand’s Condemning and Damning Attitudes
    Chapter 13: Other Fanatically Religious Characteristics of Ayn Rand and
    Objectivism
    Chapter 14: The Religiosity of Ayn Rand and Objectivists
  12. william.scherk
    Has at it here in a post taken from the http://www.peikoff.com/ site, front page, in response to a question about Ayn Rand and smoking. I will search diligently to find out what the heck this snippet means.
    Q: If Ayn Rand were still alive, would she smoke?
    A: No. As a matter of fact, she stopped smoking in 1975. When the Surgeon General in the 50s claimed that smoking was dangerous, he offered nothing to defend this view but statistical correlations. Ayn Rand, of course, dismissed any alleged “science” hawked by Floyd Ferris, nor did she accept statistics as a means of establishing cause and effect. Statistics, she held, may offer a lead to further inquiry but, by themselves, they are an expression of ignorance, not a form of knowledge. For a long period of time, as an example, there was a high statistical correlation between the number of semicolons on the front page of The New York Times and the number of deaths among widows in a certain part of India.

    In due course, when scientists had studied the question, she and all of us came to grasp the mechanism by which smoking produces its effects—and we stopped. Doesn’t this prove, you might ask, that she was wrong to mistrust the government? My answer: even pathological liars sometimes tell the truth. Should you therefore heed their advice?
  13. william.scherk
    Oh, who am I kidding? I will restrain comment on this fascinating bit of self-promotion by Diana Mertz Hsieh on Objectivism Online:
    By Diana from NoodleFood,cross-posted by MetaBlog
    Source: On Ashland University - Objectivism Online Forum
    Address : <http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.p...ic=9972&hl=>
    http://www.objectivismonline.net/archives/002667.html
  15. william.scherk
    [Will re-post as audio file][removed from 'Objectivist Living Forum > Outer Limits > Rants > Exposed!']Hear hear.
    I'm with two zones, here. In the red zone is where you don't go, you don't cross some fuzzy humanist line into gratuitousness, schadenfreude, invective for invective sake, snuffling in other people't crotches. In the red zone is my hope that Angie and Victor prosper in love, however they met, and however the spectacle (which I basically ignored, all 670 I-luvs-you-too-booboo ick factors). I wish those two the very best, and hope they take a break from this world to go live in that world.The other zone is free fire, the kitchen, the hot hot kitchen. So I agree with both ends of the firecracker here, both Barbara foremost and the quote above.I hope we don't go in the red zone. It does not good to go there with Valliant and it does no good to go there with Victor. It is appalling to read smears of Angie here, and prurient and unpleasant to have their affair smutted about. Barbara's kindness is apparent and telling, and very touching. She has made her point and is ready to forgive? MEIN GOTT (how can she react so gently when she had been quite needlessly attacked by Victor, early on in his SOLO guise, and the rampant unreason and insult never apologized for by the man, while our hostess the Emperor coddled and cooed?)! Yes, get yer noses out of Victor and Angie's crotches, and still the ugly comments. "Dan NEdge, Plagerist," was a classic moment in O-online world history/infotainment/ick. You were there. Be properly observant. Let the scenes of crime people do their work, then the cleanup crews run there hoses, then the reporters run their hairblowers.Kori, Mitchell, stress your connection with the good heart in both Angie and Victor. It's a good thing that you responded with affection to Victors friendliness and kindness to you. Stress the affection, it's a good thing. Stress it enough that everyone knows you disapprove his wrongdoings. Get out of the red zone yourself. Imagine Angie, one day, in love, on the beach, after a gorgeous breakfast of scampi in garlic and champagne and wild vulpine sex . . . Angie curling a lock of her gorgeous hair and brushing sand off V's belly with her beautiful hand and looking at him with a beautiful smile and spell-binding eyes of clarity and objectivity:"Honey-boo boo, did you leave my laptop in the bathroom last night, huh? Who's Dan Edge and what did you write about Michael like that for? Honey, you said you wuzzn't gunna doo that booboo funny face anymore huh baby?Hun? boo boo booboo?"And the pulse beats in his forehead. There I draw the curtain on the zone.
  16. william.scherk
    Kick Ass Guidelines for Kick Ass Posters
    Anyone who signs up to [link] is free to post here, unmoderated.
    (except for a list which we do not publish or comment on, which includes Michael Stuart Kelly, Kat, and whoever the hell else Perigo feels like banning)
    Anyone who is gratuitously rude or abusive, will, however, be moderated in the �play pen� for children, after reasonable warning.
    (except for, well, anybody except those Perigo currently has no problems with, and, well, whatever . . . we haven't read or thought about the 'play pen' idea -- let alone implement it -- since we got drunk and updated the kick ass guidelines way back a few months or whatever)

    When posting, remember the "Three Gs" -- good faith, good will and good humour. If the second two are rendered impossible, the first is still a minimum requirement.

    (and only Lindsay Perigo can sniff it out, dontcha know . . . with regard to good faith, Perigo is a truffle hog)
    As a sign of good faith, please sign on and post under your real name with photograph, which you can upload when you register an account.

    (um, don't worry about the name part, we aren't consistent . . . and we don't make provision for folks who have honestly and forthrightly posted under their real name since SOLOpassion's inception, but who are too vain, ugly or stupid to get a picture together, because, um, maybe we don't know what good faith means in this instance and so are both arbitrary AND inconsistent. Whatever, this rule is just for show, so fuck off. Victor Pross has not fooled us again with his impersonations recently, so we have acheived the bare minimum. Fuck off if you don't like it.)

    In dealing with non- or anti-Objectivists, remember the objective is to persuade rather than intimidate, bully or disgust.
    (unless you feel like it. Like I say, KASS, whoo hoo. In effect, this guideline is kinda like the fences that slugs leave on sidewalks. If you are a prissyholic, you actually try to obey. If you are a lazy mind, you disregard the rules you find personally constricting, but hoot bizarrely at those who do exactly the same thing as you just did. But in any case, if I tell you to fuck off, I expect you to do it. If you tell me to fuck off, I will ban you. Now, fuck off. Unless you are someone like Ed Hudgins whom half the list considers non-O, you can come back if no one talks about 'the incident' ever. It would embarrass everyone and show this rule to be a fucking sham. The corollary is the if we ARE dealing with an avowed O big O OBJECTIVIST then you sorta can kick the shit out of them verbally. It's okay. They are used to it. How do you think they got to the top of the small hill of O? By Kicking Ass and, well, whatever, next rule please. You bore me.)
    Remember you are guests in Linz�s house, enjoying his hospitality for free. Do not presume to tell him how to run this site or SOLO. If you don�t enjoy being in his house � well, there is no one forcing you to stay.
    (Agreed. 100 %. And if you like the metaphor of host/house/hospitality/freedom, remember what would happen in real life if your host occasionally turned into a raging buffoon. You would throw your drink in his face, get your fur, and fuck off until he begged you to return for another shindig. This is the one rule that is honest about its arbitrariness -- and one that I support. Red button those who offend. Never explain, never apologize. Be a legend. If you can't have integrity, fuck it, Be a Legend)
    Respect the privacy of others here -- and your own.
    (except under circumstances of moral depravity, which should be decided in a spirit of fear and loathing for best and most rational decisions. With a smidge of gossip and girltalk and a wee touch of moral hysteria, your own depravity will never become apparent to your own self. About the second part: "[Respect] your own [Privacy]. I don't have a fucking clue what that means. It was the committee. I fired them They flounced off. Fuckbags. Traitors. Ingrates. Colleagues. Whatever. What are you looking at? Are you denying we are at war with, um, um, Oceania? Fuck off.)
    If you�re a self-important grandstander, poseur, attention-seeker or blowhard monologuer who knows it all, contemplate the possibility that this might not be the place for you.

    (though it could be argued that Perigo has occasionally played his part in the shames listed above, I more or less agree. If you grandstand (only), if you pose (lie or misrepresent yourself), if you seek attention (solely), if you are a blowhard monologuer (if, by example, you do not credit your opponent with humanity or reason) or if you are a Know it all (if you are arrogant without having earned it), then . . . free inquiry is blocked.
    Since we are not about free inquiry, you should have figured out that the only rule is: if you are on the right side of me, I will not shit on you. And I have a temper, and I might shoot you by mistake. Sorry, but you probably deserved it anyhow. Fuck off if you can't take a joke, but don't cross me or make a joke of me, your host. I don't have to take it.
    If you're a rationally passionate romantic, seeking the stars and looking for other pilgrims in your quest, contemplate the certainty that this is definitely the place for you!
    (or not. If you are a fan of purple prose and creaky cliches, this rule is definitely up your alley. Fill your boots. A stitch in time. Reach for the heights. Gird em up, Girda)
    Enjoy!
    (or fuck off and like it)
    Copyright SOLO 2001-2006. All Rights Reserved, (which is why WSS is free to spoof them in full. We were too sloppy to update our copyright notices. Opinions expressed are those of the contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff, and if the staff do not reflect Lindsay Perigo's opinions, he doesn't fire them, he just slags them until they 'flounce off.' For any enquiries, or to report problems with the site, please email: [name withheld to protect the randteous] but don't expect anything but silence or sneers if you are not of the inner circle.
    Enjoy!
  18. william.scherk
    [2 minor search and replace operations later, the original posting from our sibling site speaks the same meaning]I find the OL site to be very impressive, with so many tools for communication. Props to the team.I am coming to the faith that a truly free site (which OL now mostly is due to the light touch that is Michael and Kat's genius) may be like a map of the world.Looking out through the OL window on my monitor, I do believe that the varied strands of Rand-influenced thinkers and actors and scholars can build whatever communications they wish, here, through the window.A rather clownish person like me can retire to a blog -- a small, blue-ish pink, flickering window -- post occasional image-laden observations, experiment with different tones and tonics, accept essay commissions from my best critics, spend more time listening to music and working in the real world.Another person can inhabit the chatbox**, or pepper popular threads with machine-gun one-liners. Yet another person can diligently apply her labour to expanding analysis in one of the less-read threads . . . and so on.It is a bit like a map, an index, a window on the world, this box on my table, this OL box: yes, there are great continents, one dark, one light . . . but there are also smaller homelands, high mountain passes, navigable seas of long sweeping sands and intricate fjords and more; island redoubts, outposts and entrepots; vast archipelagos of opinion spattered like light across the surface of the globe . . .Thank you all my backstage acquaintances, those who have said, "don't f**k up, Scherk," or "don't f**k up again, Scherk," or "you know what'll happen if you f**k it up again, Scherk?" -- and thank you to my glee club of Guignolards. See y'all at the Jennathon! [obscure reference to Jennifer Iannolo, Jenna Wong, and a Jen yet to be heard from -- a nod to the chatbox at the sister-in-randteousness site.WSS** '-uc-'** there likely is a plug-in for OL's underlying forum software.
  19. william.scherk
    In a forum thread somewhere upstream, Emperor asked me if I wanted to discuss Daniel Barnes's good qualities. I do!

    The comment thread is open. If you are amusing enough, I might enable anonymous comments. If you are a poo poo head, you get deleted.
    . . . in other regions, discussions I would pay good money to have engraved on gold plates. Or not:

  20. william.scherk
    Chocolates and liquor to the first person or entity™ who correctly identifies the politics of the artist.
    Clue: c'est si dur de tomber si bas, quand t'as était si haut.
    A love song in the Abba Love March genre, suitable for O™-ish tweaking. What the O™ world needs is some pop success. A Lilith Fair for the selfish™, rational, capitalist O™-hole in all of us . . .

  21. william.scherk
    Actually, not. I lied in the subject line. This is actually another dumb test -- a video.
    With regard to my lies about ABBA's greatest hits, I regard all of the big sellers as love marches, and have imagined these marches as great propaganda tools for occupying armies. Love love love. March march march.
    Just think "Voulez Vous" as the slow march of stern objectivish love, with lyrics to help the conquered understand that the new regime took over out of benevolence towards the suffering people of, say, Venezuela or the adjoining Lusitanians . . .
    Try to imagine an ABBA quartet uniformed, with peaked caps and braid, striding off of a military transport, bringing joy to all Central America with "Chiquiquita" . . .
    When Abba take London, imagine: "Knowing Me, Knowing You."
    France: "Waterloo."
    European Union: "S.O.S."
    North America Union: "Money, Money, Money."
    To the sad, failed states of the Middle East: "The Name of the Game."
    India, and the asian Tigers, "Take a Chance on Me."
    Etcetera

  22. william.scherk
    Oceania is kinda of a spoof.
    I am experimenting with podcasts and new communication software at work. Leave a comment if you want the test links. Raw at the moment.
    It is sort of a riff on Orwell with reallly cheesy organ. I record a wav on a handheld, then IBM voice-recognition puts it into a .txt, then I paste that into TextAloud and record. Then I mix in sound effects and music for our online training web.
    But I think I should skip the mixing part. Did anyone listen to the first one, I wonder. Comments? Hep me out here folks . . . I though we had a few geeks on board.