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Charles T.

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Everything posted by Charles T.

  1. I find that the best source for keeping up on the war in general and for hearing war-related news that you won't hear from the "mainstream media" is the John Batchelor radio show, which airs on WMAL radio in New York from 10pm to 1am each weeknight. He regularly interviews folks like McInerney, and talks with John Loftus every night. Loftus is the fellow who brought those Saddam transcripts to light in the first place. Batchelor himself is a typically inconsistent man, a religious conservative, but he is very pro-U.S. and "gung-ho" where the war is concerned, and understands clearly who our enemies are. He constantly draws attention to stories around the world involving the violation of individual rights and liberties. Here's a URL for WMAL where you can listen to the show (but be warned, it's AM radio, and the commercial breaks often seem interminable): http://www.wmal.com/
  2. It's the cars! They hate the cars! Stay away from the cars! (Adapted from "The Jerk", an old Steve Martin film.)
  3. Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto (The Emporer Concerto) Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major Shostakovich's "Festive Overture" Copland's "Appalachian Spring" Bizet's First Symphony For those who are unaware, you can sign up on "Listen Rhapsody" and stream 25 free tracks per month, no obligations of any kind. A good way to sample music.
  4. Uh . . . ten dollars? Plus shipping.
  5. "Hombre", starring Paul Newman. Not a perfect film, but as close to seeing an O'ist hero on the screen as I've seen, other than "The Fountainhead".
  6. I would nominate as a "great photo" the one of the lone man standing in front of, and bringing to a standstill, an entire column of Chinese tanks in Tienenmen Square back in 1989. Here's a link to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Squ...rotests_of_1989 CT
  7. There's a thread along these lines here: Enjoyable Movies
  8. SciFi channel is currently re-running the series, and according to IMDB, "Serenity" is the first of three films.
  9. I would suggest John Batchelor of ABC News Radio, though his show is a news program, not what I think of as "talk-radio", meaning: he does not take calls from listeners (which is one reason I like it). Ideologically, he doesn't add up to much, just a fairly typical religious Republican, full of lots of inconsistencies, but he supports the war, presses the fact that Iran and Saudi Arabia are the sources of much of the world's heartache (but doesn't forget about China, France, and Russia), and presents the news with seriousness. His is a great program for staying "up on things". He's on the air for four hours, the last of which is mostly repeated segments from earlier in the show. He talks to authors, experts, analysts, etc. Some of his frequent guests include Victor Davis Hanson, George Friedman, John Loftus, Yosef Bodansky, Michael Ledeen, Bill Whalen. Usually he has a segment each night dealing with recent astronomical happenings, and occasionally he has one about movies. He also throws in segments where he interviews authors about their books, which might be about anything at all. His site is here. You can listen live here, 9pm to 1am EST every weeknight.
  10. Until the flying cars are ready, I'll take one of these: Airscooter
  11. Uh, you know, Howard "Reardon" Roark. Yeah, that's it.
  12. All of the examples you cite are textbook illustrations of taking something out of context. Read the books, keep the whole context in mind, and you will, hopefully, come to understand that none of your examples are accurate descriptions of what is depicted in the books. No, everyone on welfare deserves to NOT be on welfare, since no one deserves to be robbed in order to fund welfare. What happens to ex-welfare recipients after having that source of unjust funding removed is their responsibility. You omit almost the entire set of circumstances, including what he was guarding and why. He might not even have known what he was guarding, actually, and it wouldn't make any difference. That's exactly why Dagny gives him, quite benevolently, the benefit of the doubt, and offers him a chance to walk away unharmed. He chose poorly, and Dagny had the right to shoot him. Reardon made that private property possible, and did so on certain terms. Those terms were violated, so he revoked his permission. The motivations of the individual characters involved makes it clear why the sex scenes go the way they do. The scenes in the books were mainly tense, charged, first encounters. Were you to extrapolate the lives of the characters beyond what is shown in the books, I doubt that after having been married for five years Rearden would still be throwing Dominique around as he did the first time, or that she throws things at him and resists him so energetically each time. In other words, it's not reasonable to conclude or imply that for Rand, sex is supposed to be generally an "almost rape-like" experience. Context, context, context.
  13. Charles T.

    Handedness

    I recently read that that whole "right-handed/left brain, left-handed/right brain" thing is a myth, just one of those stories that got started, and stuck. Has anybody else heard that? I'm pretty sure I read it in Michael Shermer's book, "The Borderlands of Science", but I don't have a copy so I can't confirm that. CT
  14. Hey, Richard Roark, is your avatar a picture of you or of Vin Diesel? CT
  15. Well, it's displaying the scroll bars normally now all of a sudden, though I made no relevant changes (that I am aware of) to my computer or browser. Odd.
  16. I must confess that no, I cannot, because I don't know how. But if you told me how to, I bet I could. If you don't mind taking the time to explain it, of course.
  17. For some reason, the scroll bar along the right side of the screen is "unlimited" when I visit these forums lately. That is to say, the slider you move to scroll the screen up and down is tiny, and moving it just a touch sends you down past all the posts in the thread to blank white screen, as if the screen is bottomless. I can still click on the up and down arrows to move down without shooting past all the posts, but the scroll bar is useless. Is this just something I screwed up on my computer, or is anyone else experiencing this?
  18. As was pointed out, it would be suicidal, but it would also be completely justifiable. It's up to you. We are not in fact free in the U.S., though we are closer to it than any other nation (maybe that's not true anymore, I'm not sure). We are semi-slaves, and it's up to each of us to decide at exactly which point we will no longer put up with violations of our rights. You're justified in fighting in defense of your rights at any point. However, it should be stressed that one purpose of our legal system is supposed to be to allow us to avoid the use of violence to settle things, so a person should at least give that avenue a try before he starts shooting. Always try reasoning with people first, then, if that fails, you have to make the decision of whether or not you're going to bend over and take it, or seek justice.
  19. I agree. I've learned much about the "Fair Tax" from Neal Boortz, who is currently writing a book about it, which he hopes to have out in February (that's what he keeps saying on his radio program). It is tempting to pounce on the idea of abolishing the I.R.S. and removing all of the "hidden taxes" that exist at all levels of production, but it is the issue of the immorality of taxation that must be exposed and popularly accepted. Accepting an entirely new system surrenders that issue in principal, and would be a big mistake. If someone is truly willing to accept a new tax-scheme in the name of decreasing the tax burden and allowing people to keep more of their own money, then what argument is there against simply gradually lowering tax rates and abolishing the various taxes? If anyone were to argue against that, then I would have to suspect that ending taxation and protecting property rights are not their true goals. Taxation has to be defeated morally, in principle. Publicizing the various ways the gov't could be paid for without it (and how the gov't is vastly larger than it has any moral right to be) is more important than suggesting and promoting a new, more efficient way for the gov't to rob people.
  20. I'm curious now, because I've not seen the film: how accurate is that "review"? It is titled an "unseen movie review". Did it end the way he predicted it would? I'd be willing to bet it did.
  21. I was surprised O'Reilly actually let Brook complete some of his thoughts. And they were good ones! "I'd like to see Fallujah turned to dust." Ditto. He perfectly essentialized the flaw of the current war when he pointed out that the moral emphasis in past wars that we won was on preserving the lives of our soldiers, while in this one the emphasis is on preserving the lives of Iraqi civilians. O'Reilly concluded by saying, "I'd like to see us get more aggressive, but you can't kill civilians." Then how exactly do we fight this war when the enemy is hiding among them? Blank-out. All he can come up with to say is, "We have to fight it 'smarter' ". Gee, that's real helpful there, Bill. Did anyone watch Michael Newdow on the Hannity and Colmes program? He ate Hannity's lunch. Whatever Newdow's faults may be, he is an effective and persuasive speaker, at least on this seperation of church and state issue. He knows his stuff. Then I switched stations and saw Christopher Hitchens likewise making mincemeat of Pat Buchanan on Scarborough Country. I like Hitchens more and more the more I see and read of him, though I don't know much about the guy.
  22. I enjoyed the film and recommend it, but I think it is typical in its mixed premises. In terms of the ideas it represents, I don't think it's anything special. As with "Finding Nemo", there was one scene that I found totally offensive: Mr. Incredible physically assaults and almost kills his obnoxious boss in a fit of rage. It was unjust and completely criminal, enough to put Mr. Incredible in jail for the rest of his life, yet it is not only glossed over and made to seem laudible, but Mr. Incredible is utterly unpunished for it (other than losing his job). Apart from that one glaringly awful scene, I thought the film was fun (though not side-splittingly funny), beautiful to watch, and excellently performed. I'd like to see a sequel.
  23. That's the spirit. How about: WalMartmas Major Retailers Day Credit Card Day
  24. He is just that stupid. I detest him extremely. Some things he has said: "I think that wealthy people in this country should be able to keep half their money." (paraphrasing from memory) "If I'm sitting in a bar and Christina Aguilera or Brittany Spears walks in and says, 'Let's go," who's going to pass that up? I'm just being honest!" Basically admitting he would cheat on his wife if the woman were "hot" enough (and the girls he chose for his example tell you something about him, too). He said this in the context of how men are weak, they can't be expected to be loyal or faithful all the time, that's "just the way it is". He's fond of saying that, and chalking peoples' flaws up to "human nature". I haven't written them down, so I can't cite them all, but I have heard him say scores of stupid, rotten things. He's despicable. I heard someone say his ratings are beginning to slide since that recent scandal of his, which he managed to downplay pretty effectively by settling out of court and arranging a non-disclosure agreement. I hope it's true.
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