Kimmler

News of this significance bypassed the media. Even Fox news. Strange. Is it a conspiracy by the scientoligist/mystic/collectivst/masonic/Nazis/socialists who run the media?

Brant has noted his own omission. I'll claim early dementia if you will. How much does it pay monthly down there? Not as much as it does in the Union of soviet socialist republic of Canada. When are we going to see the gulag and the gas chambers there? I'd ask about the paddy fields too but I don't think you can grow rice in Canada. Have the moose been nationalised yet?

My favourite Rush song* Pretentious or profound? You decide. It's easy to see what sort of tree I am and which one you are! The Trees There is unrest in the forest, There is trouble with the trees, For the maples want more sunlight And the oaks ignore their please. The trouble with the maples, (And they're quite convinced they're right) They say the oaks are just too lofty And they grab up all the light. But the oaks can't help their feelings If they like the way they're made. And they wonder why the maples Can't be happy in their shade. There is trouble in the forest, And the creatures all have fled, As the maples scream "Oppression!" And the oaks just shake their heads So the maples formed a union And demanded equal rights. "The oaks are just too greedy; We will make them give us light." Now there's no more oak oppression, For they passed a noble law, And the trees are all kept equal By hatchet, axe, and saw. *Not really.

I rented the film Above the rim at the weekend...how was I supposed to know it was about basketball? The only sport duller than cricket. And that is saying something.

You are far too modest...I love being here among you prime movers, you are like ordinary people but better.

...and on that bombshell...

Nope. He has made references to his children and wife...but then again... Listen you...I'll defeat you through love.

Oh you are awful...but I like you. Just because I love the moustache of Campbell does not make me gay. Though under socialism we will all probably have to bite the pillow at some stage. Reminds me of my days at public school when I 'fagged' for the head boy of my house.

It the moustache that does it for me...it rivals Tom Selleck’s.

What is it with Arizona and it's lunatic gun laws that allows any member of the public to wonder around tooled up like soldiers and shoot at anybody they happen to disagree with? Surely this is insane and my heart goes out to those caught in the crossfire too. Yet Fox news have been guilty of encouraging this situation and making it all but impossible for sensible politicians who want to address these issues. Also Fox have been encouaging Sarah Palin and her merry band of whackos; the Tea party brigade. Palin and the Tea Party are at war...or at least want Americans to believe that American politics is a war, where each side must be armed. The result? The Arizona Massacre. Yet neither Palin, her ilk or Fox News get it. They still defend to the hilt Palin and accuse liberals of using the shootings to make political capital. What rankles is that it is Fox that has routinely used teen pregnancies, racial gang violence and even terrorist attacks to bash the liberals in America. The shrill hate-rhetoric encouraged by Fox News and the example in Arizona of it's potential consequences must give pause for thought for those who support Murdoch in loosening media regulations in the UK. Sky News in the UK is bad enough but we don't need or want a UK equivelant of Fox News. As for Palin? Well she still has her sights on the White House in 2012 but which ones? Eye or gun?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Postlethwaite#Political_views I didn't share his politics but fair play to him.

Here was me thinking that private messages are just that...we still on for that date today darling? Should I PM you the details...there is no pressure but don't bring the Miles Davis CD's...puts me off my stroke. Know what I mean?

There is still mileage in the old: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril#American_use Fu Manchu for President!

Remind me of covers of prog rock albums. Not a good thing. A bit geeky.

Do you have a cite for this? From a Ford Hall Forum appearance, apparently -- as cited in Ayn Rand Answers: Q: Could you write a revised edition of Intorduction to Objectivist Epistemology for people with an IQ of 110, or will it remain available only to people with an IQ of 150? A: I'd prefer that people raise their IQ from 110 to 150. It can be done. You see...daunce didnt get Rand and Hubbard mixed up...though Hubbard did write better sci-fi. Is there any evidence given by Rand that people can raise their IQ from 110 to 150?

Kimmler, How can you say that when you yourself missed the difference? Talk about irony! In your world, a person is either for some kind of party or against it. No one exists outside your poorly constructed oversimplification. In other words, a glass is either half full and and the empty part is evil, or the glass is half empty and the full part is evil. The struggle is to make it all full or all empty for everyone. In my world, a half-full glass is both half full and half-empty. At the same time. You have to use your brain to figure out which is which. It's hard to bash that, isn't it? That's why if you are a basher at root (like you), you have to pretend that the "use your own brain" message doesn't exist and point and yell when it gets too obvious to others. But that's a smokescreen, not an argument. This time around, there's too much noise in your yelling and not enough signal. To be blunt, you sound silly. Anyway, do carry on. Back to your class struggle storyline... Michael Who says objectivists are long-winded! Anyway I've had my five a day and I'm not talking about fruit and veg portions. http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/5aday/pages/5adayhome.aspx/ So on that bombshell...

What if you don't respect her as a novelist? One hell of or not, what then? Rand is a novelist only in the same way that Uri Geller is metallurgist. But if Rand hated jazz then I'm in total agreement with her...it's...evil. 8 blokes on stage each playing a different tune. I like music with boundaries, jazz spirals. But as the man said "Kimmler, there are no rules."

If an objectivist is going bald would he/she ever wear a wig or would that be irrational and trying to deny reality? Same goes for dyeing your hair when it is losing it's colour. Would that be irrational and trying to deny reality? I can understand and actor dyeing their hair to land 'younger' roles but why would any objectivist dye their hair or wear a wig?

Thanks buddy. That nearly made me whoops my cookies. Ba'al Chatzaf ...and on that bombshell...

Kimmler, You guess wrong. It is a "rough and ready answer," but it does not reflect Rand's thinking. It only reflects your guess at Rand's thinking. To be fair, it is closer than Rand critics usually get, but it is still too far off base to take seriously. Keep reading. I have faith in you. I staunchly believe that one day you will know enough about Rand's ideas to correctly portray them (instead of misrepresenting them as you constantly do). At such time it will be a pleasure to debate your criticisms and disagreements. For now, though, the task of anyone who engages you is more like janitorial work and not intellectual debate, i.e., cleaning up mess from your misunderstandings. Michael So you don't know either...but do you know a man or a woman who does?

Thank you for sharing these...you take a very good photo. I've not been hiking for years but nothing bets the fresh air and a tot of rum for when you are flagging.

Nope. You've come to the wrong place, Keinrick. BTW, this is being discussed on another thread: http://www.objectivi...ndpost&p=118962 LOL!!!! Very nice ...Keinrick ....I do not think I will ever look at Steven the same way ....excellent! The doctor is in and the satire scalpel has cut deep. Adam ...and on that bombshell...

"In Atlas Shrugged, all this debased inhuman riffraff is lumped as "looters." This is a fairly inspired epithet. It enables the author to skewer on one invective word everything and everybody that she fears and hates. This spares here the plaguy business of performing one service that her fiction might have performed. Namely: that of examining in human depth how so feeble a lot came to exist at all, let alone be powerful enough to be worth hating and fearing. Instead, she bundles them into one undifferentiated damnation." From Big Sister is watching you by Whittaker Chambers. As Whittaker point out earlier in the review of Atlas Shrugged. The mischief here is that the author, dodging into fiction, nevertheless counts on your reading it as political reality. "This," she is saying in effect, "is how things really are. These are the real issues, the real sides. Only your blindness keeps you from seeing it, which, happily, I have come to rescue you from." Cleary Rand thought that real life mirrored the world of Atlas Shrugged. Did she ever answer this question in her non-fiction? From my own reading of Rand my guess would be that her take on this would be, the defenders of philosophy were corrupted my Kant, who convinced them to abandon reason. This would not be a problem as the masses each have a vote and in the majority, the problem is that the masses are sheep and follow the prevailing trend. They will vote how the intellectuals tell them to vote and the looters ended up in power. Now I guess that's a rough and ready answer to the question. But how did the looters get their hands on the keys to the castle?

Kimmler, Rand's main method for arriving at these kinds of conclusions, from what I can ascertain, was introspection. And she held a presumption that what she found true in her introspection was universal to all human beings. I hold she was partly right. You just cited an example of where Rand provides a deep insight that is universal, but she projected the scope too far. Some emotions at some times (especially boredom) actually are "the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise." But this does not apply to all emotions that seem out of whack. The advances in human behavior studies and neuroscience during the last five years are a far richer source of identifying the nature of emotions than Rand's introspection. In fact, I believe they will ultimately validate her insights, within a more limited scope than she proposed, though. In further fact, I can think of some cases where this is already happening (from a more popular view, Daniel Spiegel in Mindsight comes to mind). Michael Spot the difference! Between the text in bold and this: Comrades, none of us wishes to be or can be right against the party. In the last instance the party is always right, because it is the only historic instrument which the working class possesses, for the solution of its fundamental tasks.... One can be right only with the party and through the party because history has not created any other way for realization of one’s rightness. In Isaac Duetscher, The Prophet Unarmed. (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 139. From a speech given by Trotsky at the 1924 Congress of the Soviet Communist Party