Michelle

No, dear, it is called "innocent teasing." Lighten up a bit. I guarantee you that the terrorists are not going to win if some people neglect to edit relatively short quote trains.

Too weird Michael - evil eyes mentioned withing three days of each other. I alluded to his cold throat cutter look with that fly video. This guy has the soul of a street thug. Watch him without the sound. Especially when he gets that far away look in his marxist eyes. He will peer down his condescending nose with those imperious thug eyes. What was that song ... your lips tell me no no, but there is yes yes in your eyes. Sounds like a date rape song to me. Adam ...or maybe the guy just has intense eyes? Indeed, in those pictures, Obama has a very intense and concentrated look, trying to assess the persons he is dealing with. Imo it is absolutely necessary for someone in his position to have the capacity for accurate assessment. I also get the feeling that he is wearing a protective mask with his facial expression conveying a certain distance. Imo this is definitely not the type who will let others get too close. He also looks a bit constrained and wary - as if he does not want to make a mistake. Understandable too - the burden of the office is immense. As for the "mal occhio" - seriously folks, isn't that "evil eye" stuff a relapse into the darkest stages of magical thinking? :shocked: If you snap a person's picture at the wrong moment, you can make anyone look like Satan Incarnate. I looked at some photos some people have of me recently. My natural expression is rather... intense. Now I know why strangers have always been rather weary around me. And again the whole post is quoted, complete with pictures... Yep.

Too weird Michael - evil eyes mentioned withing three days of each other. I alluded to his cold throat cutter look with that fly video. This guy has the soul of a street thug. Watch him without the sound. Especially when he gets that far away look in his marxist eyes. He will peer down his condescending nose with those imperious thug eyes. What was that song ... your lips tell me no no, but there is yes yes in your eyes. Sounds like a date rape song to me. Adam ...or maybe the guy just has intense eyes? Indeed, in those pictures, Obama has a very intense and concentrated look, trying to assess the persons he is dealing with. Imo it is absolutely necessary for someone in his position to have the capacity for accurate assessment. I also get the feeling that he is wearing a protective mask with his facial expression conveying a certain distance. Imo this is definitely not the type who will let others get too close. He also looks a bit constrained and wary - as if he does not want to make a mistake. Understandable too - the burden of the office is immense. As for the "mal occhio" - seriously folks, isn't that "evil eye" stuff a relapse into the darkest stages of magical thinking? :shocked: If you snap a person's picture at the wrong moment, you can make anyone look like Satan Incarnate. I looked at some photos some people have of me recently. My natural expression is rather... intense. Now I know why strangers have always been rather weary around me.

More precisely, it is nasty and incorrect for peacetime. But when has there been peace of late? I do not plan to hold my breath until men beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Were I to do so, I would turn blue and faint. While Islam exists in the world, there will be no peace. Only Submission. Ba'al Chatzaf It's nasty and incorrect either way. The difference is that it is useful during a war, and not useful in peacetime (a somewhat incorrect term: has there ever been a point in history where there has been no civil or international conflict somewhere in the world?) It's fine. I'd rather our boys do their jobs without having an existential crisis every time they have to kill someone.

Absolutely. One must regard the enemy and his kin as rubbish to be disposed of. Do not let his human looking appearance fool you. Ba'al Chatzaf It's a nasty and incorrect attitude, but for the purposes of the battlefield, it is probably useful. The difference between efficient and inefficient soldiers is that the inefficient soldier is going to kill people on his own side as well. When killing is your business, empathy is nothing but a burden. Of the men who make careers in the military, there are probably only two variety: men who go in without a lick of empathy, and men who have it killed--or have to kill it--while gaining actual field experience.

Judith: I think you probably have to dehumanize the 'enemy' to a certain extent if you want to be really efficient out on the battlefield.

People will many times intuit something that they are unable to immediately recognize conceptually. In that case, Roark knew the signals of an unprincipled an disingenuous man on a subconscious level, but he had no rational, conceptual reason to refuse the commission.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how a person can take almost any philosophy and use it to rationalize the significance of the lives of others out of existence.

I can't help but feel suspicious of anyone who would celebrate death. If you killed a tyrant, and felt pride, would not the feeling of pride come from having liberated a people from tyranny, and not from killing the creature?

It might do well to note that I am not at all fully confident in my views in this regard. I have not thought through this issue as much as I have thought through other things. Discussing it will do well for me. Either I'll learn the errors in my own approach or the errors in the approaches of others. Either way, I win. And I don't mind admitting this. Knowledge is not gained automatically, I'm still relatively young, and I am confident that if I bounce this issue around enough the truth of the matter will emerge.

Fine. But let's not pretend that it is noble to kill innocents in the process. War is a messy business, and these things happen, but no innocent deserves to be killed for living in the wrong country.

Uh-huh... I'm curious how you can simultaneously consider something JUST... AND *Wrong* But hey, don't let me get in the way of your contradictory premises. People sometimes seek the truth, but most prefer like-minded views http://www.physorg.com/news165643839.html "Perhaps more surprisingly, people who have little confidence in their own beliefs are less likely to expose themselves to contrary views than people who are very confident in their own ideas" In fact, if you read my posts in this thread, you will find our opinions differ very little, the major difference is that you find something RIGHT and JUST (intentionally killing an evil person) as someone wrong, never good, never noble. I can only suspect this is some remnant pacifistic tendency, since you still advocating defending values rationally, but for some reason don't think it's morally praiseworthy if it results in the justified killing of an evil person. By what standard would you say that killing another human being is morally justified? What does a person need to do to deserve death in your eyes? (And I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm honestly asking.)

No, but I've met more than my share of ghouls who get a really big kick out of it.

Also, note how these self-alleged "defenders of women" will hassle, ridicule, and denounce women who are either overly feminine or desire to be housewives.

Gender feminists hate the idea that there are biological and neurological differences in-between the sexes. This is one reason why they tend to hate transsexuals. The existence of the transsexual tends to negate their 'gender as social construction' rubbish.

If all of these people were as consistent in applying their philosophy as is Miss Newkirk, we would need only wait and let reality work itself out over a few generations.

Talk about stolen concept fallacy. I suspect this particular interpretation is merely a remnant off shoot of the eastern pacifistic buddhist abdication of values and rejection of emotions. Murdering an *evil* person is GOOD, RIGHT, and NOBLE. If I could have killed Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot, I would relish every moment of it, and would forever cite it as one of my proudest achievements. Your reaction is of the common post modern western variety, who, stumbling upon people fighting, insist that they stop because to you PEACE is the highst virtue, NOT JUSTICE. You don't stop to ask why they are fighting, you don't care that one is trying to kill the other and rape his wife. All you care about is that thier fighting, and they ought not to be. If something is *justified* then it necessarily must be GOOD, RIGHT, and JUST. If you feel disgusting for doing something that is JUSTIFIED, then you harbor contradictory premisses. Either your action was not justified, or what you base positive and negative emotional reactions on is disconnected from justice. War, by it's nature, is neither worthy of praise nor reprehensible, any more than hitting someone is or doing something productive is praise-worthy or reprehensible without considering it's context and purpose. You could be hitting someone because you are a mugger, or producing bombs that look like childrens toys - these are reprehensible. You could be hitting someone who is tyring to make bombs that look like childrens toys or producing a malaria vaccine, these are praiseworthy. You could be fighting a war in order to plunder resources and enslave a population, or be doing so defending or furthering that which you VALUE. In the latter case the war is praiseworthy, and properly just wars are an extension of defending or furthering values. Wars fought in defense of that which you value or to further that which you value are NEVER reprehensible - unless carried out in a reprehensible manner, like those ARI often advocates. Killing an evil man, and finding it prideful is as proper an emotion as profound Joy is when achieving something great. Uh-huh. I'm not wasting any energy on this. Just stay away from me and my own.

Too weird Michael - evil eyes mentioned withing three days of each other. I alluded to his cold throat cutter look with that fly video. This guy has the soul of a street thug. Watch him without the sound. Especially when he gets that far away look in his marxist eyes. He will peer down his condescending nose with those imperious thug eyes. What was that song ... your lips tell me no no, but there is yes yes in your eyes. Sounds like a date rape song to me. Adam ...or maybe the guy just has intense eyes?

ATLAS SHRUGGED is set during some indefinite future date, and presumably the United States has deteriorated for quite a while before the story begins. In this context, the centrality of the railroad to the story shouldn't be seen as odd. There are three major issues I see for this film: 1) Much of the story alternates between long trains of internal dialogue, extended flashbacks, and length philosophical dialogues. Translating this to film in an acceptable and satisfying manner is going to be difficult. 2) John Galt is such an impossibly perfect physical specimen in the novel that I do not know how people are going to find a satisfactory actor to portray him. They're going to have to just find some handsome and sturdy fellow because I doubt they'll find one who has never known pain, fear, or guilt. 3) The radio broadcast. They'll need to make it long enough to be satisfying, but short enough to not bore and eventually empty the theater of viewers.

Pop is not the child's real name but is the name used in Svenska Dagbladet's interview with the child's parents from March 6th. AH. OK. That's at least a little bit more reassuring. I should read all of a post before responding from now on. I suppose it is futile to point out that one can raise a boy as a boy or a girl as a girl without stamping their heads with blue or pink.

Supposedly, Jolie came in with the book in her hand also. Adam Great. So: - They want to cast Angelina Jolie as Dagny Taggart because she came in with a book in her hand and - They want the public to choose who would play John Galt This is brilliant. Nice to see they're not taking this seriously.

They named it "Pop" and are going to raise it as a genderless creature? That poor kid is going to get hell in school.

Imo Farrah Fawcett (although she was blond and not brunette like Dagny) would have been a better choice to play Dagny than Angelina Jolie. Fawcett is (was) more "sophisticated" looking than Jolie whose image is too sensual for the role. jmpo I don't know what idiot thought Miss Jolie would be a good choice to cast as Dagny. Putting aside her physicality, Miss Balloon Lips just doesn't project the right impression for the role.

Oh, I'm not really upset. I just don't like it when people speak as if every other country on Earth is populated by automatons. I'm not a nationalist, and I don't think the "savages" of the Middle East hold any less claim to the title of "human being" than Americans do. That being said, I'm not a pacifist, either. If this country wishes to maintain its freedoms, it'll have to do some killing. But let's be as rational as we can about the killing, and let us not delude ourselves into thinking that the enemy is a part of the evil hordes of Mordor. If some women and children have to die in the process, so be it, but don't say that we are not responsible for the deaths we deliver them to, or that it is good and noble to mow down foreigners without regard to what role they are playing. A person does not deserve to die because they live in the wrong country.

As to the Iranians: The UN Partition Plan started this whole mess in the first place. This is just another result of international meddling leading to the creation of problems in the world now. Sadly, the ultimate solution is going to be wiping out Iran. There's just no other way, bar Israel getting destroyed, that I can possibly see this being resolved.