Reidy

In that case you might well be right (at least about the people who put the pirated version up). Can you provide a time in the video? I'm not about to sit through twenty-five minutes of Monbiot to find out.

You can't libel the dead. Standard legal precept. End of story. (What in these videos or in the book do you think would have risen, during Rand's lifetime, to the high standard that applies in these cases?)

The answer, methinks, is that publishers know that Rand's name sells. Did you ever see one of those ads or posters that say SEX! Now that we have your attention... ?

I predict smoochy-faced pre-release publicity from the LA Times, a sympathetic but honest review from same, commercial failure and quick oblivion.

Since this board is devoted to philosophy, I have two somewhat philosophical questions: 1. Can you give us a genus-and-species definition of "market failure"? You may have the materials for this in #8, but it would be cognitively easier to use in standard form. 2. What is the principle you're invoking with the example of plastic bottles? A statement of principle would help us to connect it to wider principles we already hold and to apply said principle to other cases. #8, so far, does neither.

If pollution injures people or destroys their property, government ought to intervene to protect them. This has been standard tort law for centuries. Much of what government could do, rightly, is to recognize and codify property rights - e.g. to air and to water. Much of the pollution we see comes from treating these as free goods that nobody owns and nobody is responsible for. Once again, there's a lot of literature out there. The Cato and Reason websites might be good places to start your research.

This asks far too many questions for a single answer, and those answers come largely from economics rather than philosophy. If you could break it down into narrower questions, some here (not I) could probably answer those questions or refer you to some readings.

Religion is a way - not the only one and not the best - of keeping people honest and peaceful. This was a widespread belief during the Enlightenment: some people are of sufficient ethical and intellectual development to do the right thing for the right reasons, but the lower orders need the threat of damnation to stay in line. George Washington is one who believed this. It doesn't speak well of religion. In order to discover rights, people first had to discover the inherent worth and merit of the individual, regardless of status or or membership in some collective. Christianity is how they did it (again, not the only way or the best, but, as a matter of historical fact, the means they used). Religions have also given us some wonderful art and architecture. It's like bloodletting. We know better today, but once it was the best people could to.

I think you're right about the house in Anthem; the Wynand country house has even more of Fallingwater in it. The Stoddard Temple in several important respects resembles Unity Temple, and the Enright House, the St. Mark's project. Your best sources on the Wright-Rand nexus are her Letters and Journals as well as the published biographies. You could also take a look at an article on the topic. Franklin Toker, in Fallingwater Rising, makes a convincing circumstantial case that she became aware of the house through the 1938 special exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. He also makes several dubious and undocumented speculations about Wright's influence on Rand. Donald Leslie Johnson's The Fountainheads is not worth your time. It's one of the worst books ever written about either figure.