algernonsidney

What is also forgotten is that sometimes danger is the appeal. That's why people bungee jump and skydive, too.

double post

This is pretty old. Still, it's an enlightening report on how one person can start a campaign against the liberties of the country. Of course, we should grieve for any parent who loses a child. At the same time, this should not be the basis for law. http://video.google....91825400840210#

I hope he stuck with it for a while. This technique eventually will work.

And we are much poorer now that the transcript is not available. That is Nathaniel Branden's fault, nobody else's. What is Nathaniel Branden hiding?

Trust me on this one. Jimmy Wales is definitely not an anarchist. He's also not particularly friendly to libertarians either. He is a believer in limited government generally, although I can't be totally sure about specifics. He definitely favors free markets. Wales was once very active among these types of circles. In 1991, he founded the Moderated Discussion of Objectivist Philosophy on a listserv when he was in grad school at Indiana U. That group was up until at least 1997. Chris Matthew Sciabarra even gives the MDOP an acknowledgment in Russian Radical. A lot of the people who attended the IOS seminars back then were also on the MDOP. It peaked around 600 or 700 members. I also know that he attended IOS seminars from 1994 to 1996 and probably more than that. He has taken one very principled stand. He has absolutely, positively refused to censor Wikipedia. He basically told China to got to hell, although he did it in a much more diplomatic way. I will certainly acknowledge that Wikipedia is not perfect. Still, I love the spirit and the attitude behind it.

Those are good observations, Michael. And it is interesting that Japan has not produced many innovators. However, they are very good copying the ideas of others and improving on them. They didn't invent the automobile, for example, But they build better ones than Americans do now. It's hard to find a culture that worships conformity more than Japan does. I don't think you need to have that kind of society to achieve this though.

You should also consider that the web site promises a full refund if you decide to cancel, up until the end of June. That means you have little to lose by signing up early. I also did some research on Super Shuttle options. You can take the Super Shuttle to and from LAX and LGB if you are going to this thing. So, you don't have to fly in and out John Wayne Airport (SNA). For me, at least, LAX offers many more flying options, including some direct flights. The Super Shuttle is a blue van that picks up people going to the airport and drops off people arriving. It's a decent service that can often be had for less than $20 each way. You have to share the ride, but it's still a lot cheaper than a cab. http://www.supershuttle.com/

Why does the web site have so little information? Based on working at sci-fi conventions in the past, I know this is a lot of work. Still, there are some noticeable changes from last year and the year before. Last year, they actually had a real web site with a domain name. It looks like this year, they are using some free hosting service. Mainly I would like to have more exact start and end times. That would make it easier to decide how I might plan the trip.

Well, who shorted all those stocks, particularly stock in American Airlines and United Airlines? It is impossible to prove what is or what is not in someone's head at a particular time. Did you read my original comment? I referred to the fact that they were not intercepted. I said nothing about not shooting them down. I imagine they didn't want to shoot them down because they knew there were innocent people on board. This is another response to fantasy comments--comments that I did not make, but you have fantasized that I made them. Actually, I do believe that Flight 93 was shot down. There is at least one case of a person on a cell phone on the plane claiming that he heard an explosion. Do you worship US government officials? Do you see them as some type of gods who are incapable of doing anything wrong? Do you believe that they are angels who are always good and righteous? Who said anything about "ignoring those who clearly did organize and commit this atrocity"? There is an excellent precedent for this. It's called Pearl Harbor. The feds had already broken the Japanese codes. Roosevelt knew that it was going to happen as well. In fact, this has become a mainstream opinion. Now, I can and do accept the fact that Japanese fighter planes attacked Pearl Harbor. I can also believe that FDR knew that it was going to happen. Saying that FDR knew that it was going to happen has nothing to do with who did it. It also does not imply that they were working together. What it does mean is that FDR wanted to do things and that he needed a crisis to make those things possible. It's like something that a little troll named Rahm Emanuel said: "Never let a good crisis go to waste."

With all this talk about "razors," I might add that we should be using Hanlon's Razor as well. The gist of Hanlon's Razor is: "Never attribute to malice that which can be easily explained by stupidity." There are many questions which American should be asking regarding the fateful events of 11 September 2001. For me, the most important is: where are flight recorders? There were four of them, and the feds claim that none have been found. And it is extremely rare that flight recorders are not found when a plane crashes over land. Here is a list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unrecovered_flight_recorders It seems to me that a serious investigation was never tried. That often indicates that someone is trying to cover up something. Personally, I do not believe that it is possible to prove or disprove whether or not the buildings were brought down by explosives. Engineers themselves seem to have conflicting theories on this, too. The Pentagon being hit by a missile claim is totally absurd. That's simply based on the fact there were so many people there. I do sometimes wonder if these people are trying purposely to discredit legitimate conspiracy theorists. My theory is that the attack was ALLOWED TO HAPPEN ON PURPOSE, much like Pearl Harbor. The fact that the planes were not intercepted is clearly evidence. In fact, it seems that no attempt was made to stop them even though it was clear that they had been hijacked. One of the arguments I constantly from apologists for the warfare state is: "If there was a conspiracy, how come nobody has come forward?" Actually people have come forward to say that the federal government was at least negligent with regard to preventing the attacks. And there are also plenty of conspiracies which have stayed secrets. How is it that Colonel Sanders's recipe of "eleven herbs and spices" has stayed a secret all these years? Ultimately, the burden of proof is always on the believer.And disproving one person's theory does not prove yours. It's more important to ask how and why people would try to benefit from this terrible tragedy. I sincerely do believe that people like Cheney and Rumsfield wanted something like this to happen, even though I do not know them personally. To paraphrase Randolph Bourne: "The date of 11 September 2001 was the health of the state." It was a colossal failure of the state at doing its alleged job--protecting the people. It was used to justify massive expansion of military and police state. And after it happened, the overwhelming majority of Americans put more trust in government than they ever had in my lifetime. Not to mention, I have seen people that I used to respect go absolutely insane.

Dolphins are animals that we definitely should study more. They are very sophisticated creatures. And they have absolutely no ill will toward humans at all.<br><br>And we also need to get people to stop killing them.

I suppose someone might ask: "Chris, if you hate the toilet so much, how come you don't move now?" I have been at the current place for over six years now. Other than my parents' house, it is the longest I've lived in any place. On the whole, my deal is still pretty good. In fact, in all this time, the rent has not went up. Other expenses have risen though. The main reason is that I am the closest to my workplace that I have ever been. If I change jobs, it is very likely that I will move to another place. The most important thing is that when I have a problem, I have very little hassle getting it fixed. My landlord really is a pretty good one. If I had been in his position, I might very well have decided to get the new toilet as well. Plus, it seems like every move is worse than the last one. Unfortunately, you don't have to use a lot of toilet paper to clog these toilets. In fact, you don't have to use any. I know this from experience.

And Andrew Bernstein will forever have to live down his contribution to JARS.<br><br>http://www.aynrandstudies.com/jars/archives/jars3-2/jars3_2abernstein.pdf<br>

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/marion_alachua/022511-former-president-of-madd-arrested-for-dui Yes, a woman who was once president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving has been arrested for.... That's right. She has been arrested for DUI. Two breathalyzer tests gave readings of .234 and .239. This is the group that worked to lower the limit for DUI. They also were a big factor in getting drinking ages raised to 21 from 18. It's a MADD world out there. And there are dangerous MADD people out there on the road. Watch out!

It seems that the tax feeders are official unified under "one big union." The police have been ordered to remove protestors from the Wisconsin capital building. The police have refused. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-na-wisconsin-unions-20110228,0,181821.story This is getting very interesting. I can't wait to hear what the police worshipers have to say about this one. I'm mainly talking about people like Glenn Beck or, closer to home, Bob Bidinotto. The tax feeders are acting like, well, tax feeders. And the tax feeders are now unified against the tax victims. What do you expect?

Government employees often have some of the most generous pensions around. I know that Ohio teachers do not even have to pay into Anti-Social Insecurity. They keep more money and still have a good one when they retire. Some states also offer generous pensions in order to get rid of "bad" "old" teachers.

My landlord put in one of these god-damned, fucking toilets in my bathroom. I hate the thing with a passion. It is always clogged. I have to plunge it a lot. I have reached a point now where I do whatever I can to avoid shitting in my own bathroom. I try to shit at work as much as possible now, and I used to loathe using public bathrooms. I often make sure to go somewhere on the weekend just so I can shit somewhere else. Sometimes it's a restaurant or a store. Needless to say, when I move into a new place, the toilet will be a dealbreaker. If it has one of the godforsaken toilets, then I will not move into the place. I will only move into a place that actually has a working toilet. Not surprisingly, the City of Austin promoted all this. They gave these godawful things away. My landlord took it. And a perfectly good toilet has also gone to waste. I'm glad to see the failure of this and to see it fail so badly. San Francisco deserves it. I realize that the mods may not like my use of language here. At the same time, I want to make my hatred for these toilets perfectly clear. I think the inventor of these toilets should be forced to use one for the rest of his life.

I am curious as to when Muslims have ever said that they are against capitalism. I suppose there are a few Muslims against capitalism, just as there are anti-capitalists everywhere. Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad of the Minaret of Freedom Institute does not seem to think that Muslims are against capitalism, except to the point that they associate capitalism with imperialism. Perhaps people who claim to support capitalism should stop supporting imperialism. Imperialism is crony capitalism. I don't know why I didn't figure this out sooner, but this goes to the heart of what is really wrong with conservatism. Conservative claim that they want a free market when they talk about deregulation. At the same time, they don't want to take away privilege. Since the days of Reagan, banks and financial institutions have been greatly deregulated. However, privileges (such as bailouts and the FDIC) are still alive and well. It actually creates a system that is worse than full-blown socialism. And this is what conservative claim to want when they talk about making people "free." What they really mean is freedom from the consequences of bad decisions and irrational behavior. I don't know what Glenn Back stands for. I wonder if anyone does.

His name was Raymond William Bradford. I interned there for six months. He was private about a lot of things, and this was one of them. To most people, he was just "Bill."<br><br>I figured its days were numbered when RWB passed on back in December 2005. He gave 20-30 hours per week to it and got nothing back for it. And for about the first ten years, he gave up part of his house for the magazine.<br><br>I also wonder what happened to the excellent Bradford Library. It was a goldmine for anything related to the movement as long as RWB had been involved. He had just about anything that was related to Rand, too. This included first edition copies of all her novels and obscure things like Sid Greenberg's excellent work <i>Ayn Rand and Alienation</i>. I know I would have happily bought some of that stuff at more than its face value. My hope is that it all ended up at some other great organization like FEE.<br><br>I don't think the magazine ever recovered from the departure of Tim Virkkala in 1999 or 2000. He's the smartest guy I've known and was able to speak intelligently on almost any subject which would come up in any conversation about any article that crossed his desk. Tim had been there since Day One. Just as David Kelley had Don Heath, RWB had Tim. I don't know how many hours Tim spent there, but it was more than 40 per week.<br><br>I will add that Bill's wife Kathy also contributed a great deal to the magazine free of charge. Her contributions were largely in accounting and in administrative functions. She would make a daily trip to the post office. She did all the overhead-type work and actually had only a little input on the publishing side of the magazine. Her only editorial contribution would be serving as a proofreader for the finished product--a task which everyone did.<br><br>No doubt in my mind, the decision to go monthly was also a mistake. I don't know how RWB expected the magazine to do that with the same staff and the same pool of volunteers. Unfortunately, RWB just wanted to do something for his own reasons and didn't think much about how it might effect others. I saw two ugly departures there--Jesse Walker and Mina Greb.<br><br>RWB did care very much about journalistic integrity and would research things thoroughly if necessary. For that reason, I am very confident that the magazine's accusations against Harry Browne were true. And knowing about some of his relationships, I imagine it was quite a heartbreak for him.<br><br>Now that the printed zine is no more, I really don't have any qualms about talking about the good and the bad that went on there. There is no longer a magazine that needs to be protected. And, for all the trials and tribulations, it was the best six months of my life.<br><br>Tim's memoir is probably the best thing out there:<br><br><a href="http://www.insteadofablog.com/2005.12.16.shtml" class="bbc_url" title="" rel="nofollow">http://www.insteadof...005.12.16.shtml</a>

I know one of Gotthelf's long-time friends. He might be able to convince Gotthelf to leave ARI. Of course, this guy hasn't been involved with anybody in Objectivism for many years.

Maybe the author had a bad experience or two. That would be my guess. Men are often taken completely by surprise when something bad happens. I have a cousin whose wife decided to mess around after 30 years. Their three adult daughters all took his side and didn't speak to her for a long time.

Straight men are the generally the only men who have to face this kind of stuff. Above all, many straight men will likely get some of false accusation thrown at them--"sexual harassment," "aggression," or paternity fraud. And only straight men get married, so only straight men will ever get taken to the cleaners in divorce courts. Paternity fraud is not even illegal in most places. And many men do not even have the right to demand a test. This is obscene to say the least. A court will just order him to pay child support, and he will be stuck with it. The article does point out that a misandrist society and/or culture can not sustain itself, and this is the "bubble." There is no doubt at all that women treat gay men very differently. In fact, I once came to the conclusion that a man was gay based solely on how women treated him. Generally, women treat a gay man like he is "just one of the girls." It doesn't go as far as letting them come into the girls' bathroom a la Ricky Vasquez on My So-Called Life, but it gets pretty darn close.

Thank you, Merlin. It sounds like they are still working some things out. Can someone out there explain the reasons for starting in the middle of the week and finishing in the middle of the week? TAS almost always operated on a Saturday-to-Saturday schedule.

Is there any word on this year?