jeffrey smith

I got my Census form, and am wondering what is the legal minimum amount of information I can give? I'd like to answer the race question "human" but I want to avoid any possible followups from census workers asking for more detail. And, by the way, Mr. Censusman, since you're talking about money gotten by taxation, it's not possible for me or my community to get its "fair share". It's just my share of the loot taken from someone less adept than I am at lessening his income tax liabilities. Jeffrey S.

This suggests that the deem and pass business is being dropped. Perhaps it was a diversionary tactic all along--get everyone excited about something that wouldn't happen while the pork barrel politics goes on under the smokescreen. Jeffrey S.

Putting on my lawyer hat here: 1) As Robert Campbell noted, there has already been a court case involving the deem and pass rule; the result was in favor of the rule being constitutional. 2) The type of cases that the Supreme Court can hear as the original court of jurisidiction--that is, without needing to be heard in a lower court first--are very limited, being mainly cases in which one state is directly litigating with another (the typical case being a boundary dispute or water rights case). I can't think of any way in which a case involving the deem and pass rule would not need to be heard in a lower court first. 3) Assuming the case is filed and heard in the lower courts, and appealed to SCOTUS, there are two major escape hatches SCOTUS could use. First, it could declare the case a political matter for which the proper arena is Congress, as the political branch, and not appropriate for the judiciary to decide. Technically, this is the approach SCOTUS should have used in the 2000 election cases, especially since the Constitution specifically states that the final decision regarding the credentials of presidential electors rests with Congress. Second, it could declare the case not ripe for decision--essentially, that the law would need to start working, and actual individuals start filing cases claiming harm under the new law, which cases could then be evaluated in the normal judicial matter. So don't get enthusiastic about SCOTUS riding in to save the day. Jeffrey S.

I am now on my third successive Corolla; the relatively low price and mechanical reliability is what keeps me going back to Toyota. And will probably keep me going back for the fourth one. Based on my experience, the floor mat problem is valid: the hook to keep it in place under the driver's feet isn't long enough or curved enough to keep it in place, and therefore it can get entangled with the gas or brake pedal. The solution is of course very simple: the driver checks regularly to make sure the mat is properly hooked in and if it isn't, hook it properly. Of course, there probably are enough drivers without common sense that Toyota probably should have idiot proofed the mats. And there is the fact that the driver won't know he needs to check the floor mat until the entangling happens for the first time. For me, it was one morning when I was getting ready to start the car for my morning commute. For others, the timing may not be so fortunate--perhaps in the middle of their morning commute, or worse. Jeffrey S.

In the book he requests Glenn Gould, but doesn’t specify which recording (the 55 and 81 are markedly different). The movie uses another recording, I don’t remember whose, though it’s no one distinguished. In Hannibal they use Gould in the opening credits. In the book Hannibal one of his hobbies is tinkering with a harpsichord, he finds that certain human body parts work well as plectrums (plectra?), and his favorite piece to play is the Goldberg Variations. So it’s a mixed answer. Christophe Rousset’s harpsichord recording is great. For Gould, I prefer the 55, though the live Salzburg version is even better, ignoring a couple fluffed notes. The very end of this clip shows the air conducting, albeit with the wrong soundtrack. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaw9_dCRscc IMDB lists the pianist as someone named Jerry Zimmerman, but Amazon doesn't list any recording under that name that I could find. Perhaps they used an inhouse musician in preference to paying royalties or fees for a commercial recording. I recently read that one of the ways Hopkins tries to keep his mind tuned up is by playing Bach and Chopin on the piano every morning, although (according to Hopkins) not necessarily with any results that any other human being would actually wish to listen to. Rousset, you say? Will keep an eye out for that one. My only harpsichord version is Egarr's, which is rather dull all around. Of the six piano version I have, I prefer Feltsman, but my favorite version is the Sitkovetsky arrangement for string trio; I have the recording with Matt Haimovitz: the arrangement allows all the musical lines to be differentiated more fully than they can be on one instrument, although perhaps it gives a little too much prominence to the violin (which, after all, was Sitkovetsky's own instrument). Jeffrey S.

I've never seen that film--movies of that ilk are not my thing. So Hannibal Lechter air conducts (or more likely air plays)? I know that comparisons are invidious* but I am instantly reminded of a certain person. BTW, was the performance on harpsichord or piano, and was any particular performer credited? Hopefully it would be someone whose performance I don't like. Jeffrey S. Samuel Johnson, when considering that oatmeal was the favorite grain of Scotland. "Comparisons are invidious, but horses eat oatmeal".

What about thinking of sacrifice as something done because of an exteriorly imposed duty, as opposed to a freely chosen desire. "I'm going to med school instead of becoming a professional ice skater because my parents tell me I need to do it" is a sacrifice. "I'm going to med school instead of becoming a professional ice skater because I think my parents have given me good advice on my career" is not a sacrifice. Christopher at 6:24 PM 3/16/10: At best, the sacrifice I am targeting addresses merely the well-being of others for no obvious return benefit; the only return benefit (if anything) is the effect of contributing to the happiness of another person. Which might be tangled up in cases where a person acts for the benefit of another or others with not obvious return benefit because the person doing the action finds value in benefiting other people--fulfillment of his/her values requires that particular action (or even, more generally, benefiting others without any obvious return benefit is a value-principle for that particular person). Jeffrey S.

A second question: Who gets to be the Beta Bete Noire? [say that three times fast] I'm not volunteering. Jeffrey S. Now ye shall know that the chosen priest & apostle of infinite space is the prince-priest the Beast; and in his woman called the Scarlet Woman is all power given. [uncle Al again]

Prediction: Stupak and company will come round to supporting the bill based on the statements of the Catholic hospital organization, which has come out in favor of the bill and claims that the Senate bill sufficiently protects against abortion funding. In conjuction with this, they will put out a single item bill that will make the ban explicit, and it will pass because no Republican will let himself/herself be in the position of voting against limits on abortion funding. The deem and pass won't work because it will the stand in for the main bill, and whoever doesn't want to be seen voting for the main bill won't vote for the deem and pass bill. Of course, my political predictions have a way of coming out wrong. So be warned. ") Jeffrey S.

Right! Sure. A better American like Jihad Jane. Or Azzam the American. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Yahiye_Gadahn for details. Caution! Before any of you believe this man look up taqiyya (Arabic for deceit). The doctrine of deceit is part and parcel of Islam. Then decide if what our buddy here is saying is truthful. Keep in mind that we Americans are part of the dar al harb which it is the mission of Islam to destroy or subjugate. When your enemy smiles at you, don't be so quick to be taken in. Think about it carefully. Have a look at this site for more details: http://www.meforum.org/2095/islams-doctrines-of-deception Islam is Submission to the will of Allah. There is no liberty there. It is pure slavery of both the body and the soul. Ba'al Chatzaf That is the utmost in bigotry. You take a limited practice, distort its meaning and declare it is universal, and pretend to know what Adonis' state of mind is by ascribing to him what you have falsely universalized. The blindest of all are those that sew their own eyes shut. Jeffrey S.

I suggest that you drop that particular item out of the litany. Even here in the US, the concept of spousal rape is a very modern idea, one that began to take hold only within the last twenty five years or so. A jurisdiction that does not recognize spousal rape is not very far behind the times. (There may even be still some states here in the US were the concept is not accepted law, although hopefully I'm wrong on that point.) Jeffrey S.

I've corresponded with Bertonneau and believe this "sacrificial narrative" view of Atlas Shrugged comes by way of Girard. From my reading of Girard and Girardians, of which it seems Bertonneau is one, it looks like he and they see just about everything as a "sacrificial narrative" or evincing envy and resentment (or even ressentiment). Agreed. And therein was the reason for me comparing his to Chambers' review on another topic here: they both ultimately equate Rand's views with those of the Nazis. This is funnier or sadder, in my mind, with Bertonneau because he seems to praise Plato -- all the while ignoring any influence his [Plato's] philosophy might have had on the course of history, especially Plato's extolling the kind of social control Nazis would surely admire and imitate. The point of contact between Rand and the Nazis is not total control of society; nor does it have anything to do with Plato. Rather, it's a line of thought that goes back almost to Plato's time, but not quite; and its greatest monument in Western literature if The Unveiling [alternately, Revealing] Made to John of Patmos--usually called in modern America Revelations, the last book of the New Testament (although there are earlier examples found in the Hebrew Scriptures and some of the Apocrypha). The inventor of the idea seems to be Zoroaster and the Persian Magi. Evil gets completely out of hand, so Good and Evil have a battle, and since God is on the side of Good, Good wins; Evil is completely defeated, and for good measure gets to suffer a good deal of pain and torment not only during the battle itself, but for the rest of eternity. Rand's version differs mainly (and for obvious reasons) in not having a God to make sure that Good wins, and not letting the pain and torment continue throughout eternity. Millions, whether innocent or not, will die during this global conflict, and only the purest will survive to live in a utopian society. I think it's this aspect of Atlas Shrugged, the great purging of society in which the unworthy will perish--and will deserve to perish--that Chambers was hitting on in his phrase "to the ovens, go!"; it's a trait found not only in Nazis and Communists but in jihadis, Christian fundamentalists, etc. Side note--In the Republic, Plato did not plot out a truly statist society; it was only the elite whose lives were completely regimented, and who in compensation for this were allowed to rule everyone else. He did partially abandon some of the ideas proposed in the Republic is his late dialogues, and in some of those did propose a more truly totalitarian, or at least heavily authoritarian, polity, especially in the Laws and the Statesman. Jeffrey S.

I think it's an interesting read, until the last page when it falls off a cliff and loses any distinct meaning in its own version of cosmic anxiety. I think much of the criticism is invalid. One big invalid criticism: That Rand was indulging herself in a fantasy of killing Sherwood Anderson as part of the tunnel disaster is highly speculative at best. one small invalid criticism : the adverb in "maliciously unkempt" is not needed, whereas it actually conveys a precise point about the philosophical attitude of the young woman in question. And his usual refusal to give Dagny's name started tor rankle with me. And of course it has its share of Ayn the monster anecdotes. His real plaint seems to be that much of the time the people in AS are merely mouthing the philosophical points predetermined for them by Rand--which I happen to agree with. But the overall assumptions which underlie his article are somewhat suspect: he tries to condemn Rand both as omniscient author and ignorant poseur. Jeffrey S.

Here’s the Binswanger piece, though I think it’s a little longer in the book. http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3251 On balance the book is certainly worthwhile, and if you haven’t read Who is Ayn Rand? you’ll find it very enlightening indeed. In my review I focused on what would draw in the old timer. Tore Boeckmann added a new review, it looks like his (hers?) went in right before mine. I praised one of Boeckmann’s contributions, so that looks funny. “This is how these contemporary Objectivists practice the primacy of consciousness.” I've read that Binswanger essay before. Rereading it again made me wonder--is this another book he felt able to condemn without needing to actually read it? I read it and had no problem "intuiting" its meaning. I suppose Dr. Binswanger would accuse me of being a member of the coterie of Joycean scholars. Well, I did take a course from his biographer, Richard Ellmann--but it wasn't on Joyce, it was on Yeats. So maybe I'm a half scholar. If he had read it, he should have noticed it's a retelling of that well known piece of Platonic misanthropy, the Odyssey, with Bloom being Ulysses and Stephen Daedalus being Telemachus, and Molly Bloom being Penelope: and that it ends with one of the greatest affirmations of life in English literature. Jeffrey S.

Brant, you excelled yourself there. (italics mine) Jeffrey S.

Jeff, I am going to invert a couple of your ideas, because inverted they make sense to me. 1. Perigo's "... intentions have always been... to announce himself as the true apostle and intellectual heir of Ayn Rand, promoting himself as a pure channel of Rand's ideas... with all others being false prophets and teachers." 2. He uses a half-assed... "defense of Objectivism and reason" to attain that end. A far as Valliant is concerned, your argument about him keeping a door open on SLOP makes sense only if he felt that PARC had a chance in hell of recovering. Valliant is many things bad, but he is not that stupid. Life moves on and PARC has died dead. Now he needs Peikoff, ARI & Co. for his future projects. Hanging around a Peikoff-basher with nothing futher to gain is not good for that. Also, as I understand it, his wife comes from the ortho crowd. He's gotta live with her, too, and I don't imagine she is too keen on anything Perigo says other than his defense of PARC and hatred of Barbara Branden (and by extension those who honor her). Michael I would make a slight correction in point 2. Half-assed is too weak a term for the complete and thorough asininity of Perigo's pompous prosings. My theory of Valliant's motivation is probably colored by my own approach to such things. I will never slam a door when I can close it quietly, and never close a door completely if I can help it: you never know when you might need a friend (or at least, not want an enemy). Even when I flounced from SOLO, I sent an irenic private message to Perigo, to make it clear that my disgust was with others at SOLO and not actually with him. A fool and a buffoon he is, but I think he's an honest one, at least: he really does think he is advancing the cause of Objectivism, Galt help us all. Jeffrey S.

This suggests to me that, in addition to what's on the forum, the offiline route has been burning a bit... I wonder what he missed. Maybe "acquiescence to the mindset of" Perigo? Michael I think it's time to bring a bit of outsider's perspective here. Please remember that in this little episode, it is Lindsay Perigo who has reason on his side. (This is not quite the same thing as saying Lindsay Perigo is on the side of reason; the relationship is not necessarily commutative, as the algebraists would say.) I think you are right that SOLO was used by Valliant and the ARIans as a place to promote and defend PARC. But I think your theory that they have purposefully cut Perigo off may be wrong. As I see it, it would be far better for Mr. Valliant to simply drop out of sight from SOLO after he had milked it for all it was currently worth, instead of actively picking a fight with Perigo. That way, he would be able to return as needed to defend his magnum opus, and retain Perigo's good will. Now, not only is he unwelcome on SOLO, and anything he posts there will be received with disdain or suspicion if he ever does post there again, but he runs a serious risk of having Perigo turn against PARC. I don't think Perigo will ever make public repentance and declare goodwill to OL; nor do I expect him to ever give up the brava-ism of bathetic bombastic Branden bashing--he seems to have too much emotional investment in those topics. But, however deficient his actions are as practical matters, and however much he rationalizes them into something far more important than they are, his intentions have always been the defense of Objectivism and reason. I rather expect him to announce himself as the true apostle and intellectual heir of Ayn Rand, promoting himself as a pure channel of Rand's ideas (to which, in fact, he probably has a better claim than ARI does), with all others being false prophets and teachers, and applying the full panoply of Randian bell, book and candle with equal vigor against OL and ARI. As to who will listen to him--well, "easy is the descent to Avernus; but to return back from there-- --That is the labor, that is the work!" Jeffrey S.

Given that what she wrote about Hickman was in her own notebooks, for her own private consumption, I don't see any reason to think she would have felt called upon to say anything to anybody on the matter. If someone had read those passages and asked her later in life, she might have rationalized them away, if she was in a good mood. Or lit into her questioner royally for having the temerity to read her private notebooks, if she was in a bad mood. Jeffrey S.

No, when Jeb!* was governor, Florida politics approached something like a normal state political environment. Fortunately, it seems to be returning to its previous glory. Back in the early 80s, when I was going to school there, there was a special lunacy to Florida politics. I don't think any other state had a state senate in which two of the senators got into a fistfight on the Senate floor. And one of them was the Senate President, the most powerful politician in the state, even including the governor. He was from the Panhandle, of course. And it looks like Walkin' Lawton Chiles was the last cracker governor. Of course Tallahassee is special. When I first arrived there, we drove down the street from FSU to the state capitol and turned a corner. A flash of small office buildings and a couple of nice restaurants, then back to the look of a rural town. I looked around to see where the rest of the downtown was. It took me a minute to realize that one short block was the entire downtown. Considerable contrast to Atlanta, where I had spent the previous four years of school. Jeffrey S. * Not just Jeb, but Jeb! because that is how his campaign signs read, as if the was the best thing since hot tamales.

23 yo people can be incredibly naive on at least some thing. I've read somewhere that adolescence actually continues well into the mid twenties. Nor should the circumstances of her life at that point--freshly arrived in the USA from the turmoil of the Russian Revolution (where she encountered the idea of "the People" in all its ugliness)--be left out. Presumably she would have said some very different things later on in life on the subject of Hickman. However, since all this was in her Journals, quite possibly she didn't feel compelled to announce her change of mind (if she even remembered these entries) just to guard herself from curious people who might read her personal writings after her death. Barbara, I'll take this opportunity to ask you, as someone who actually knew her, if it was possible that Rand herself had Asperger's. There are, as Sherlock Holmes would say, several points of interest that are suggestive of the possibility. For instance, her general lack of friends as a child, and her severe judgment of other children who were not as intellectually inclined as she was. Jeffrey S.

Interesting. Perhaps the greater NYC area and the South Florida metroplex attract different subgroups. In my experience, and the experience of most of the people around me, Israelis are usually thought of as being the most obnoxious--or to put it more benignly, the most self-assertive. Their chief competition comes from the Quebecois and, cough cough, New York Jews. Of course, nowadays, a considerable number of Israelis were originally New York Jews or close relatives of the same. The Russians I have known, both Jewish and Gentile, are, all of them, some of the nicest friendliest people I have ever known. Jeffrey S.

The surgeon Dr. Thomas Hendricks is one of the (admittedly minor) heroes in AS. Why not more like him in her fiction? I want her to show how social workers and releif workers and soup kitchen directors can be heroic. But as she allegedly said in the Playboy interview: "Charity is not a major vitue" (or she said something to that effect). I suspect that for Rand the best example of a "social worker" is a businessman offering employment in his community, and the best example of a "relief worker" is the construction worker offering his services for pay in the rebuilding effort. Rather like Maimonides' ranking of the eight degrees of charity. http://judaism.about.com/od/beliefs/a/charity_nine.htm 1. The highest form of charity is to help sustain a person before they become impoverished by offering a substantial gift in a dignified manner, or by extending a suitable loan, or by helping them find employment or establish themselves in business so as to make it unnecessary for them to become dependent on others.

There is a load of promotional merchandise out in connection with the new Alice in Wonderland movie directed by Tim Burton.(IMDB page is http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1014759/ ) Browsing through one of the offerings, a "Visual Guide" that shows stills and gives an outline of the film's story, I found that the movie, despite the bizarreness on offer, is apparently a good deal more individualist and business friendly than some other recent movie fare. It would be a stretch to call it an Objectivist film, but there are points of interest, especially in the frame story. SPOILER ALERT! Read no further if you want to avoid spoilers! SPOILER ALERT! Alice is presented as a girl in her late teens, a member of the British upper class. Her deceased father was a businesman who Had A Big Idea and Wanted To Do Something That No One Else Was Doing. (In this case, he wanted to open up import/export trade with China. Depending on which point of the 19th century the story is set, that may or may not have been Something That No One Else Was Doing.) Unfortunately, he was unable to realize his dream before he died. Alice is being herded into an arranged marriage with a rather unlikeable aristocrat, Lord Ascot. She doesn't really want it, but her strict sense of propriety is making it hard for her to object. She is aware of having vague dreams involving strange animals--what the audience will recognize as fragments of her original visit to Underland (the actual name of the place Alice calls Wonderland). The White Rabbit appears, leads her to the rabbit hole, into which she is literally dragged, and so she enters Underland. The film merges the original Alice stories, so features of Through the Looking Glass are mingled with features of Wonderland. Most important is the merging of the characters of the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), who becomes a tyrant who had exiled her sister, the legitimate queen of Underland, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway). The Red Queen's chief tool of fear (besides her habit of having people beheaded) is a monster called the Jabberwock. Her tyranny began when the Jabberwock massacred the family of the Mad Hatter on her behalf. The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) was the lone survivor, and his insanity is linked to that fact. Alice learns that she is destined to defeat and kill the Jabberwock and thus free Underland (but, apparently, this predestination leaves her free will unimpeded, so she freely chooses to battle the Jabberwock). Eventually she does so, and returns to the everyday world, where she finds in herself the strength to defy the social conventions of the era and not only refuse to marry Lord Ascot, but to make her father's dream come true; the movie ends with her embarking on the ship that will take her to China as an independent businesswoman. Obviously, I'm leaving out a lot of the details (and apparently the movie leaves out many of the characters in the original story such as Humpty Dumpty, the King of Hearts and the White King, and most of the original story line--no trial of the Knave of Hearts, who in the film becomes the Red Queen' love interest (although the love is mostly one way, from her to him), and the chessboard of the original Looking Glass story is reduced to being the White Queen's castle, and Alice does not advance over it to become a Queen herself) But still, it looks better than many other film offerings around.

Is that the Song of Solomon or Aleister Crowley? Uncle Al, of course (although he would insist that Aiwaz get the proper credit). Who else could write such purple prose? And moreover knew a thing or two about starting a cult, and initiating the ladies into them... Jeffrey S.

With friends like these who needs enemies? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574525702581182272.html#articleTabs%3Darticle An op-ed which claims that interest in Ayn Rand is bad for advocacy of the free market.