Michelle

I've listened to the guy. It probably didn't help that in one of the clips I listened to he was snootily talking about his admiration for Karl Marx. Look, I'm not denying the guy is witty. His attitude, however, irritates me, and everything I've heard him say and everything I've read about him (usually not criticizing him either, mind'), with the exception of him voluntarily undergoing waterboarding (which I have praised him for before), has either left me flat or made me actively dislike him more.

What's to account for? This post sounds creepily like someone trying to sneak creationism in through the back window. Suppose this poster is a believer in transcendence (subcategory creationist, but I'm not at all sure if that is the case), this should make for a compelling debate here on a forum mainly composed of agnostics and atheists. I would like to ask Flagg first what exactly he/she means by "New Atheists" and the "uniformity of nature". Flagg btw made an interesting post on free will when introducing himself/herself at OL, offering illustrative examples to discuss. The ensuing controversial discussion was very interesting too: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...amp;#entry60113 I would assume he means the principle of the uniformity of nature. As to "New Atheists," that's what the religious mystics are calling loud idiots like Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens who have all become vehement anti-religion activists in the last several years. I suppose this fellow means people who adopt these same arguments as the "New Atheists." I can't tell what is "new" about them beyond the seemingly shared premise that the world would be all sunshine and bubbles if religion didn't exist, though. Michelle, it's not fair to class Hitchens with Dawkins, even if the Christians do. Hitchens calls the self-appellation brights "cringe-making" (i.e., embarrassing) and he doesn't think atheism alone is any virtue. Did you read his god is not great? Did you watch the three hour interview with him on Book TV's In Depth? You will not be bored, rather fascinated. People like Hitchens and Palin need to be judged on their own merits, not on what slanders have been made about them. Nevertheless, the Christians consider him a "New Atheist." I've watched short interviews here and there, and was never impressed with what I saw. He left a bad taste in my mouth. Name one truly insightful point he makes about religion, and I'll purchase and read his book. I have no desire to read another tome whining about the evils of religion.

Congratulations! Will this be the end of your formal education?

What's to account for? This post sounds creepily like someone trying to sneak creationism in through the back window. Suppose this poster is a believer in transcendence (subcategory creationist, but I'm not at all sure if that is the case), this should make for a compelling debate here on a forum mainly composed of agnostics and atheists. I would like to ask Flagg first what exactly he/she means by "New Atheists" and the "uniformity of nature". Flagg btw made an interesting post on free will when introducing himself/herself at OL, offering illustrative examples to discuss. The ensuing controversial discussion was very interesting too: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...amp;#entry60113 I would assume he means the principle of the uniformity of nature. As to "New Atheists," that's what the religious mystics are calling loud idiots like Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens who have all become vehement anti-religion activists in the last several years. I suppose this fellow means people who adopt these same arguments as the "New Atheists." I can't tell what is "new" about them beyond the seemingly shared premise that the world would be all sunshine and bubbles if religion didn't exist, though.

The Revolution: A Manifesto written by Ron Paul and a New York Times Best Seller with a bibliography which includes Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand It is an ideological r3VOLution and entails that those who join read a whole bunch of books on Austrian economics by von Mises, Rothbard etc and if I have anything to say about it, also the essays and non fiction of Ayn Rand as well. www.campaignforliberty.com 7 July 10PM 171,200 Sorry if I spoiled your amusement. You are losing your freedoms whether you noticed it or not. I have yet to have anyone of those who scoff at me tell me just what they are counting on to change the course of this country. In addition to going to work everyday I also engage in recruiting if I encounter someone who seems to be a worthwhile addition. Sort of similar to what the fictional character does in getting select individuals to join his strike. But this is the real world and the only thing which will save it is if and when enough individuals share certain ideas, values and perspective and are willing to pass the torch until there are enough of us to make a difference. gulch Ah, the Ron Paul loon wagon again. I should have known. Are you all going to move to New Hampshire in order to further your activism? And what is a "r3VOLution?"

What's to account for? This post sounds creepily like someone trying to sneak creationism in through the back window.

How'd I manage to miss this? The President can piss off. I can take care of my own life, thank you very much. What would one expect of politicians anyway, whatever camp they belong to? They are performers on stage playing their chosen roles. Imo it is human beings' biological heritage as "pack animals" which makes so many people yearn for strong leader figures offering guidance. Therefore, depending on their personal preferences, they may project their desire for leadership and guidance into a Sarah Palin or into a Barack Obama, or into some other guru figure (religious or non-religious) - the principle at work remains the same. Ever read The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor?

Brant, It takes all kinds. I am sure that there will even be a role for the likes of you in the coming revolution. Don't you realize I just find things to post to give me a chance to update the C4L membership for you all to see? gulch "coming revolution?"

Good Night, and Good Luck. Easily Clooney's best film. The color-corrected black-and-white cinematography is gorgeous. David Strathairn is perfect as Murrow. Dramatic without being melodramatic. Paced perfectly. One of the best films I've ever seen.

Alien is a great movie. Another example of how to scare the audience using skillful techniques in stead of bald violence. The scene near the end where Ripley believes she has killed the alien and partially undresses in preparation for entering stasis, and then discovers the alien is on-board the shuttle, is easily my favorite in the entire film. The tension is incredible. The set design is great throughout the entire movie, but it is most dramatic and effective in this scene. Ripley's partial nudity underscores the sensitivity of her human form in contrast to the horrific visage of the alien.

You sound like a Baptist minister condemning John Holmes and Linda Lovelace. How do you know these names? I believe Them! is available at Hulu.com, Mycroft. Ah calls dem as ah sees dem.

I did enjoy V enough to watch it three times. It could have been a much, much better movie. The alliteration was overdone. Subtler is bettler. You should read more g. k. chesterton. As for horror movies, I liked the Alien movies and the stylistic vampire movie The Hunger with Deneuve, Sarandon and Bowie. But in general I find horror movies disgusting. I agree totally with your opinion of things like the Saw movies. Perhaps they would serve a purpose if in each of the showings one third of a cumulatively lethal dose of some fat-binding poison were administered in the popcorn and soft drinks. It was supposed to be overdone and theatrical. That kind of thing either amuses you or doesn't. It was a nice spot of humor in an otherwise somber movie, though. I wonder if Alan Moore's work will see a popular resurrection in America now that his projects are being brought to the theater (he would likely resent this notion, however - he threw a pretty big fit about this movie being made, and completely disowned The Watchmen movie)? The problem with modern horror filmmakers is that they are determined to shock their audiences. Not creep them out. Not scare them. Shock them. Throw as much depravity at the audience as the R-rating will allow (not saying much: the MPAA has no problem with the filthy torture porn in Saw, but wouldn't allow Darren Aronofsky to keep a pivotal and relatively non-graphic sex scene at the end of Requiem for a Dream and still maintain the R-rating. Apparently some sex is worthy of the NC-17 rating, but torture isn't). The result is that over time mainstream audiences become more and more jaded and mainstream horror becomes more and more extreme. A rather nasty cycle. It's pointless anyway. Mainstream horror will never reach the depths of depravity that exploitation films have wallowed in for decades now. You want to see a manifestation of spiritual emptiness on film? Watch Cannibal Holocaust, August Underground, or Flower of Flesh and Blood (on second thought, don't). These movies are made by people who hate existence, damn life on Earth, and relish death.

If you like sci-fi as such, Dark City is a good, but not great movie. I have watched it several times. It is yet another reworking of the primacy of consciousness premise, although at least in this case there is a machine that makes one's thoughts into realities. It is, I concur, much better than the Matrix, except for the Matrix's great wire-guided fight scenes. (They should neve have made the Matrix sequels.) Kiefer Sutherland is a far cry from Jack Bauer in this movie. But Gattaca is a great movie that happens to be science fiction. The theme, the role of human choice in defying genetic destiny, is excellently illustrated in the suspenseful muder-mystery plot. The characters are well developed and vary from the poignantly tragic to the quintessentially heroic. The movie's visual style, 1940's film noir in rich dark color set 50 years in the future is a unique integrating characteristic that compares favorably to the more washed-out visual style of O Brother, Where Art Thou. The leads, Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, would have a whirlwind affair and marry. This film is universally beloved by Objectivists. It should have won Oscar for best picture. It wasn't nominated. The director would be a great candidate for Atlas Shrugged. This movie is unconditionally recommended. I wouldn't call Dark City "sci-fi." There's just no emphasis on science in the movie. It's pure fantasy. As to the film's premises, I think you'll enjoy it less if you analyze it. It strikes me as a style over substance movie. But the style is great. The only thing I did not like about it is the ending. It turns ridiculous when the guy gets powers and starts floating around and battling it out with the head honcho of the aliens. I felt like it spoiled the rest of the film's haunting and deliberate atmosphere. I thought the first Matrix film was a decent action movie with an interesting premise, and enjoyed it for what it is worth (not much). The first film internalized the ridiculousness of its own mythology and made for a fun film. The sequels, however, are awful. The Wachowski Bros. apparently thought their silly movie premise was worth expanding upon. I did not care for the overly stylized fight scenes, either. It tends to get ridiculous near the end. V For Vendetta is in every way a better film than any of The Matrix movies. Gattaca took me by surprise. It deserves to be more well-known and popular than it is. I love this quote function, don't you? The Wachowski Bros. didn't think the Matrix story was worth expanding upon. They thought the lucrative franchise was worth expanding upon. The Matrix was my second worst movie-viewing experience ever. (The worst was when I threw up in the theater watching Pay it Forward - how poeticly just!) Toward the end of watching the Matrix on its release day in a packed theater with seats fit for hobbits my boyfriend fell asleep and started snoring loudly. I insisted we leave, and come back the next night to see the finale toward which the movie was apparently building. So, we sat through the same tediously pretentious plot the next night, without benefit of the novelty of the fight scenes, which were all that made the movie enjoyable. Red pill versus blue pill? I'll take the feather instead. So, after two hours we got to the climax during which we had walked out of the movie the night before. Then the movie just ended. The credits rolled. We had seen all but the last 60 seconds the night before. There was no resolution. We had sat through the movie twice, for nothing. Finally, as for Vendetta, yes, it is a great movie under the same circumstances as Dark City. If you take it as a fantasy, refuse to analyse it (who were those lesbians?), can tolerate the brain-damaged hero's alliterative neuropathology, and are able to entirely blank out its offensive pretentious envy-Leftist anti-Americanism (Hurrah, the Yanks have the plague! Serves them right for saving the Brits' bacon in World Wars One, Two and Three!) then, yes, it is quite good. Shame it was written by a whiny undergraduate gay studies major with no knowledge of history and an anti-daddy chip on his shoulder. Heh. No doubt they knew they had a cash cow after the success of the first film, but they clearly had an idea of where they were going with the series and wanted to tell the rest of the story. They put a lot of work into those sequels. Those aren't purely profit-oriented products, like, say, Babe 2, Ice Age 3, and Saw 5 are. I have to wonder at the health of a culture when a movie series that is about nothing but people being graphically tortured is so successful that they can make four sequels to the original film and still roll in the dough. Modern "horror" films are awful. They're nothing but depraved gorefests that never evolve beyond the level of trying to gross out the audience. What rubbish. The best horror films scare an audience without resorting to pure visual depravity. Consider the original 1963 film version of The Haunting. It is one of the creepiest films ever made, and yet you never actually see the ghost and you'll find stronger violence in an animated Disney movie. I wouldn't say V For Vendetta is anti-American. The film didn't celebrate America going down the gutter. It does, however, have an irritating leftist streak to it. Despite being based on British source material, the film is quite clearly a frustrated liberal's commentary on the Bush Administration. The heart of the film, however, is fully celebratory of liberty, and so the film's leftism never really bothers me. I thought the alliteration was neat. V is a very colorful character. Still a lunatic, but not as villainous as he was in the comic.

If you like sci-fi as such, Dark City is a good, but not great movie. I have watched it several times. It is yet another reworking of the primacy of consciousness premise, although at least in this case there is a machine that makes one's thoughts into realities. It is, I concur, much better than the Matrix, except for the Matrix's great wire-guided fight scenes. (They should neve have made the Matrix sequels.) Kiefer Sutherland is a far cry from Jack Bauer in this movie. But Gattaca is a great movie that happens to be science fiction. The theme, the role of human choice in defying genetic destiny, is excellently illustrated in the suspenseful muder-mystery plot. The characters are well developed and vary from the poignantly tragic to the quintessentially heroic. The movie's visual style, 1940's film noir in rich dark color set 50 years in the future is a unique integrating characteristic that compares favorably to the more washed-out visual style of O Brother, Where Art Thou. The leads, Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, would have a whirlwind affair and marry. This film is universally beloved by Objectivists. It should have won Oscar for best picture. It wasn't nominated. The director would be a great candidate for Atlas Shrugged. This movie is unconditionally recommended. I wouldn't call Dark City "sci-fi." There's just no emphasis on science in the movie. It's pure fantasy. As to the film's premises, I think you'll enjoy it less if you analyze it. It strikes me as a style over substance movie. But the style is great. The only thing I did not like about it is the ending. It turns ridiculous when the guy gets powers and starts floating around and battling it out with the head honcho of the aliens. I felt like it spoiled the rest of the film's haunting and deliberate atmosphere. I thought the first Matrix film was a decent action movie with an interesting premise, and enjoyed it for what it is worth (not much). The first film internalized the ridiculousness of its own mythology and made for a fun film. The sequels, however, are awful. The Wachowski Bros. apparently thought their silly movie premise was worth expanding upon. I did not care for the overly stylized fight scenes, either. It tends to get ridiculous near the end. V For Vendetta is in every way a better film than any of The Matrix movies. Gattaca took me by surprise. It deserves to be more well-known and popular than it is.

How'd I manage to miss this? The President can piss off. I can take care of my own life, thank you very much.

The first episode of that show was decent. I'll have to save up for the boxed set. Oh, and as to good movies: Gattaca. Awesome dystopic science-fiction about how one man bucks the system when he is told that he looses by default (being 'genetically inferior'). The pacing is great, the plot involving (both on a narrative and a philosophical level), and the characters vivid. Serenity. While it wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be, this is still a great adventure story and a superb ending for Joss Whedon's short-lived Firefly. Dark City. Stylish fantasy noir with a great twist at the end. Far superior to The Matrix, which it is commonly compared to.

As to Miss Palin, I find it hard to take her talk of freedom seriously when she wants America to be subjugated to Christian moral standards. One does not call Pinochet a lover of freedom because he allowed Capitalism to flourish in Chile while he was busy torturing political enemies, and one should not call Miss Palin a lover of freedom, or a proponent of freedom, because she likes capitalism. What, exactly are you talking about, Michelle? Can we have some specifics, rather than a vague description? To celebrate Obama (which of course I am sure was in jest) because one would not have Palin in office is absurd. And the library story was a smear, as Michael already stated above. Indeed, it is the constant smears and attacks which should result in libel charges (you can thank liberals for destroying libel and the possibility of maintaing a good name) which disgust her and the remainder of the decent people in this country who refuse to run for office. I bet you can't find one single substantial and specific charge against her worse than the fact that she is a pro-life Christian. Oh, and I am no real fan of hers, but I'd take her over any single democrat and most of the republicans I know. Is there even one good reason why I should support her? And you know damn well I'm not "celebrating Obama." In a perfect world, no. This is a far from perfect world, and she shines in comparison. I can't think of a more electable person with better character, although I wish I could. I do regret I was only 16 when Reagan ran for reelection. In comparison to who? Obama? Other Republicans?

I don't mean that she is actively scrambling to make it illegal, which is what my statement seemed to imply. In fact, I could not find a satisfactory way to reply to Ted's comment. So, I simply changed it. I figure this will stimulate more of a discussion, anyhow.

As to Miss Palin, I find it hard to take her talk of freedom seriously when she wants America to be subjugated to Christian moral standards. One does not call Pinochet a lover of freedom because he allowed Capitalism to flourish in Chile while he was busy torturing political enemies, and one should not call Miss Palin a lover of freedom, or a proponent of freedom, because she likes capitalism. What, exactly are you talking about, Michelle? Can we have some specifics, rather than a vague description? To celebrate Obama (which of course I am sure was in jest) because one would not have Palin in office is absurd. And the library story was a smear, as Michael already stated above. Indeed, it is the constant smears and attacks which should result in libel charges (you can thank liberals for destroying libel and the possibility of maintaing a good name) which disgust her and the remainder of the decent people in this country who refuse to run for office. I bet you can't find one single substantial and specific charge against her worse than the fact that she is a pro-life Christian. Oh, and I am no real fan of hers, but I'd take her over any single democrat and most of the republicans I know. Is there even one good reason why I should support her? And you know damn well I'm not "celebrating Obama."

Dragonfly, I would say your comments are quite harsh but everything you say is true. Actually I think that pigs and hogs are among the most intelligent of vertebrates but I get your point. Bush was also among the more ignorant of our species. What comes to mind is an amendment to the Constitution adding a few criteria perhaps in the realm of science and economics, not to mention the meaning of the oath of office. www.campaignforliberty.com 5July 3PM 165,638 gulch I agree, Ron Paul is unfit for the presidency. There's something really off about him. I can't put my finger on it, though.

I don't like her either (this should be evident from my first post in this thread), but let's not devolve into infantile name-calling. As to Miss Palin, I find it hard to take her talk of freedom seriously when she wants America to be subjugated to Christian moral standards. One does not call Pinochet a lover of freedom because he allowed Capitalism to flourish in Chile while he was busy torturing political enemies, and one should not call Miss Palin a lover of freedom, or a proponent of freedom, because she likes capitalism. And Dragonfly, I think Miss Palin is fooling you. I highly doubt she is the ditz she portrays herself as. After listening to her speak in several contexts, I think that the plain-ol' simple soccer mom act is just that: an act. It's all too phony and calculated.

Rand said Galt's radio speech could be shortened to three or four minutes. Barbara I suppose it would need to be. Since the massive story is going to be severely compressed anyhow, they can turn Galt's laundry list of the society's philosophic failings into a somewhat general statement of fundamental principles. I just hope they are rational about this. They could stuff the movie as full as possible with stuff from the book, and make it into one of those crappy movies that you can only make odds-or-ends of if you already know the book's story from the source material in detail. Or... they could realize that a movie is more like a short story or a novelette than a novel and that it is meant to be digested in one setting, and make something slimmer but far superior by only focusing on the essential aspects of the story. Still, I hope they'll give the movie a good 2.5 - 3 hours of running time. Even slimming down the story that much, there is still quite a bit to depict on the screen. I really hope they release it this time. The film, if well-made and well-marketed, will really make an impact on people who are baffled by the current political situation, and get more people to pick up the novel.

At least Obama winning gave me one thing to smile about: Sarah Palin did not become the Vice-President. Thank God!

Feel free to quote from my posts here on this thread where you think I'm in error, and explain why. TIA. It was an observation, not a criticism. I don't know what your motives are, and I have no real desire to speculate. I figure you have your own reasons. That's good enough for me.

She's only feeding off of the energy you guys are putting into the discussions, you know.