Neil Parille

Maybe I'll read some of Cline's fiction. I enjoy his articles but his style leaves something to be desired.

An intelligent critique could have been written of the Branden books, but James Valliant wasn't the person to write it.

Joan Blumenthal published a book on art three years ago: http://www.amazon.com/Ways-Means-Painting-Mitchell-Blumenthal/dp/1492320641/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461324755&sr=1-1

For anyone who is interested, here is Yaron Book explaining why he thinks Europe is likely to become fascist in 30 years with concentration camps for Muslims: http://www.peikoff.com/2016/03/14/to-yb-what-is-the-probability-that-europe-will-become-islam/ It doesn't seem to occur to him that people could be motivated by the fear of, among other things, women and girls being attacked. Curiously, Brook said recently that Islam is not a misogynistic religion and that the attacks in Cologne and other cities may have been coordinated terrorism! -Neil

I've read conflicting things as to whether there are "no go zones" or "sharia zones" in Europe. One thing that seems clear is that in places such as Molenbeck the percentage of people who are Jihadis or Jihadi sympathizers is so high that Jihadis can plan their attacks without fear of being ratted out. The San Bernadino couple had a bomb factory in their garage and none of their Muslim friends seemed to care.

Mark, I've never been impressed by Binswanger. Sure, he knows a lot about Objectivist epistemology (it only took him 20 years to write a book on it) but on any other subject I'm not sure what he brings to the table. -Neil P.

Mark: Wouldn't it be better to say that the claims of astrology have been studied and have shown to be wrong? I don't know of any Objectivists who like Trump. They all call him a "populist" or "demagogue" as if trying to show that The Ominous Parallels is being vindicated before our eyes. (In a similar vein, Yaron Brook said recently that he is more concerned about Europe become fascist than Islamic)

Robert, For once I agree with Cathcart. While I'm not an expert on the ins and outs of epistemology, traditional logic (or common sense argumentation) gives us the tools we need without recourse to the "arbitrary assertion." I haven't looked into Salmieri's examples about Trump, but if what he's saying is true, then you could say Trump is a liar or doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. If Trump said Trump Steaks are sold nationwide and there are sold in a few stores in New York and California then the guy shouldn't be trusted. It's not arbitrary, it's wrong and he shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt going forward. But I'd really like to know if Salmieri agrees with Peikoff that everything Barabara said in her book was arbitrary. I mean, Rand was born in Russia, wrote Atlas Shrugged, etc? If anything is arbitrary, it's Peikoff denouncing a book which he swore he would never read.

Burns does not discuss the transcripts of the ITOE seminars in her book. Does Salmieri make any mention of the editing of the transcripts? I couldn't find anything but I have an annoying e-book edition. -Neil

The Present King of France (Louis XX) is not bald:

For those who didn't click on the link to my review, here is the out-of-context quote by Milgram: Milgram, unfortunately quotes Burns out of context when she reports Burns as saying that Branden’s biography is “marred by serious inaccuracies.” (page 87 in the Wylie edition). Burns, however, goes on to say “too often Branden takes Rand’s stories about herself at face value, reporting as fact information contradicted by the historical record." It's this kind of scholarship that causes people to paint ARI scholars with a broad brush.

Robert, Peikoff announced 20 or 30 years ago that there would be an authorized biography of Ayn Rand. Don't you think this would all be straightened out buy now? Neil

Hi Robert, This is from OCON 2016: " Dr. Milgram, associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, teaches detective fiction, comparative literature, and film. She has published on figures from Nabokov to Nevil Shute, from Steinbeck to Stephen Sondheim; she is completing the final text of her book-length study of Ayn Rand’s life (to 1957)." Well, the "intellectual biography" (the former description) has been removed. Not sure if it will be the first part of a 2 part biography or if the focus still is on the intellectual side of things. Neil

I posted a review here: http://www.amazon.com/Companion-Rand-Blackwell-Companions-Philosophy/product-reviews/1405186844/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=recent#R11LLMOWBYXZ48 As I think Robert indicated, Salmieri/Gotthelf seemed to require all the contributors to cite at least one non-orthodox source. I'm sure that had to hurt Harry Binswanger. -NP

Jonathan, I remember you mentioning the dipshit post when Cathy and Valliant appeared on SOLO in 2013. When I pointed out Valliant's error he then descended (as usual) into incoherence: ____ As anyone can read below, Gregster suggested that Mr. Parille had once "insinuated" that O'Connor was gay, but then recalled that this insinuation was from a review (of a Rand biography) that Parille had used. Mr. Parille was thus being challenged about his use of that book review because it had suggested something dubious. Parille then posted the following as his answer to Gregster: "I'm certain the reason I called it to Linz's attention was the following: ..." This was Parille zeroing in on the part of the review that he seemingly endorsed. If there was something else that he found dubious that was the moment he should've said so. Indeed it was his responsibility, at that point, to say so. It is Mr. Parille's "way" to drop all context, pretend that he had not said what, in fact, he actually just did. ____ Huh?

A couple months or so ago Yaron Brook discussed immigration with Onkar Ghate (who is also open immigration). On FB someone asked Brook if he would debate an immigration restrictionist and he said no because "it's my radio show." Not sure what that has to do with a debate. So it seems clear that he will "debate" with the much older and not well-informed Leonard Peikoff, but not with someone who is informed. Ed Powell seems to be the most informed Objectivist who is not open immigration. I'd like to hear a debate between the two. I follow Brook on twitter and not a word (from what I saw) concerning Cologne.

SOLO used to be a much higher traffic site. Remember all the people who used to post there - Robert Campbell, Jim Valliant, Dr. Diana, Ph.D., Casey Fahy, Fred Weiss, Amy Peikoff, etc.? For me the highlight was Jim Valliant. I love this: Placing a word or phrase within quotation marks does not indicate that the word or phrase is even a quotation, verbatim or otherwise. Even if it is a partial quotation, it is not uncommon to reorder the used words within a phrase, so long as the meaning remains intact. The result is not a "misquoatation." In these cases, the alleged "misquotations" did not change the meaning of either -- and we've been given no reason to think that they did, just the assertion that they did. * * * In any event, such re-ordered wording is standard practice -- so long as the meaning is undistorted -- and these instances accurately conveyed the meaning of both. (Indeed, I got high grades from professors when I did just this with their own words, both as an undergraduate and as graduate student.) Jim also had the inability to follow a simple argument. You'd "quoat" something from another person and he would inexplicably attribute it to you, for example. As far as Jews and communism goes, it's interesting, In addition to the names Mark mentioned, there was Kurt Eisner and Bela Kun (born Bela Kohn). Lenin was 1/4 Jewish. On the other hand, the libertarian and Objectivist movement has had plenty of Jews such a Rand, Rothbard, von Mises, etc. I think you find Jews "over-represented" in most movements. Interesting Yaron Brook and even Harry Binswanger - both of whom support open immigration even if it turns Europe Islamic - are opposed to open immigration for Israel.

I don't get Yaron. If he doesn't think there should be Islamic immigration and that Israel has the right to restrict immigration to maintain its ethnic (Jewish) character then obviously he doesn't believe in "open immigration." And a Zionist has no right to accuse other people (immigration restictionists) of being "racist" and "xenophobic." Neil

Salmieri's and Gotthelf's A Companion to Ayn Rand will be out soon. You can read Salmieri's introductory piece. Interesting for what it says, and what it doesn't. http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405186844.html

Apparently the end for Dr. Diana: http://www.philosophyinaction.com/blog/?p=16210 Looks like the poor girl is going through a mid-life crisis. ndp

Don't know.

I've read off and on about the holocuast story over the years. I think there were probably gas chambers but the 6 million figure is probably exaggerated.

Peter, The Derb gives a little perspective on the picture of the drowned child: http://www.vdare.com/articles/oprahfication-ethnomasochism-and-the-preventable-death-of-aylan-kurdi -NP

Ed Powell said over at Amy Peikoff's blog (which has been having an extensive discussion of immigration) that Harry Binswanger exempts Israel from his open immigration views. NP

Harry Binswanger had a post on his blog recently (I mentioned it before) saying that Objectivists support open immigration almost to a man. It's pretty clear that this is not the case. I was surprised that Amy allowed posts that were flat out critical of Binswanger and his rationalism. (Well, I don't know Amy, let's just say this doesn't happen on a website run by someone who is associated with the ARI.) The guy who debated Ed Powell was Stuart Hayashi. I've seen his name pop up on blog sites, but don't know anything about him. He did a good job, but it would have been nice to see Powell debate Brook, Binswanger or Biddle. -NP