RadCap

Actually this is not true. Blatant means "without any attempt at concealment; completely obvious; "blatant disregard of the law"; "a blatant appeal to vanity"; "a blazing indiscretion." " In other words, at least in my dictionary, self-evidence is not a synonym of blatant. Thus my statement "blatantly false" means it is obviously false. To be self-evidently false, the falsehood would have to be evident in the statement itself. And it is not. The evidence is on The Forum. As prior posters stated, no such claims were made against Ms. Hsieh and she had supporters on The Forum. None of this could be known, of course, without visiting the forum however. You provide no support that her accusation is unsupported. Instead you claim it is obvious. Does that mean your statement is therefore arbitrary? I say this simply to point out that lack of support alone does not make a statement arbitrary (as AR herself pointed out). Context is everything. In this case, the context is that this is a discussion forum. And in a discussion, one can make statements without providing the logical support for them. If, however, one is questioned about that support, one must indeed provide it. If one cannot, then one can say the statement is arbitrary. Until then, it is simply unsupported. There is a BIG difference between the two. No. I am identifying exactly what you asked. The values to be gained are knowledge and ethical behavior. Disruption? On what basis do you claim the values of knowledge and ethical behavior are a disruption? Actually, I hope "we" have learned the difference between an arbitrary claim and an unsupported claim. You have a problem here. You have shifted the burden of proof. It is up to Ms. Hsieh to provide the proof of her accusations - that the posters of The Forum unanimously consider her to be all the things she listed. And evidence against such a claim was provided by others before I even posted. However, the statement is easy enough to refute. I am a poster at The Forum, and I have not ever made any of those claims against Ms. Hsieh. Nor do I hold to them. So much for her claim. It is just this type of offensiveness which drove myself and others from this site and to The Forum in the first place. I am sorry to see things have not changed. -- Edit: [i had not seen DO's change of the focus of the thread (nor his subsequent deletion of my refutation of his 12:24pm post) until after I made this post. I will thus no longer post in the thread as he requests. However, I have not removed my response since the questions and accusations it addresses have not been removed.]

Given your emphasis on my use of the term "blatantly" I am a bit unclear as to the nature of your question. Are you asking me to identify why Ms. Hsieh's statement is false? Or are you asking me to identify why a statement - any statement - can be "blatantly false" as opposed to merely "false"? Since you allowed Ms. Hsieh's accusation against other persons to stand here, the "rational value" to be gained is the identification of whether such accusations are true or not. And this can only be done through the identification of the facts which lead to the conclusion Ms. Hseih continues to promulgate on this site. Some in this thread have attempted to do this. In other words, the rational values to be gained here are the identification of reality [knowledge] and, consequently, the ability to act justly towards those who post to this site [ethical behavior].

Are you suggesting Betsy not be allowed to express any idea outside her own forum? Are you suggesting that she should not be allowed to address accusations which are made against her here? Are you suggesting such attacks are appropriate but a defense against them is inappropriate? And why no similar 'outrage' at Ms. Hsieh expressing her ideas here when she too has her own site on which to post and which she too can control as she sees fit? Why are you so eager to silence Betsy Speicher?

This is a blatantly false statement. What prompts Ms. Hsieh to make such fantastical accusations?

Hi, I am offering a pristine CD set of Dr. Peikoff's course entitled: Eight Great Plays as Literature and as Philosophy. This series is a great analysis of eight of history's greatest plays, and Dr. Peikoff does an amazing job of not only bringing them to life but of dissecting them with a brilliant philosophic and artistic eye. Definitely a series to treasure. And offered at a great discount to boot! Check it out here: EBAY OFFERING Here is a brief description of the series, taken from Dr. Peikoff's site: Eight Great Plays — As Literature and As Philosophy This course is designed to give you the ability to understand, judge and savor the values offered by great drama. Antigone by Sophocles - Introduction to the principles of analyzing drama. Esthetic enjoyment as the primary. Plot-theme as the essence of the action and the key to a play. Antigone as a great heroine — the only Greek protagonist with free will. Othello by William Shakespeare - Iago as the blackest villain in literature. The brilliance of the climax and resolution. Le Cid by Pierre Corneille - The "Corneilian hero." Understanding the ambiguous ending by grasping Corneille's unique concept of honor. Don Carlos by Friedrich Schiller - The difficulty in naming the plot-theme and the protagonist. The Grand Inquisitor scene as the most dramatic and philosophic in all of theater. An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen - The play's hero as a rare character in literature: a this-worldly idealist. Why the happy ending is logical. How Ibsen's theme is undercut by his view of truth as non-absolute. Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw - The essential conflict between Joan and the nobility and Church. The ingenuity of the plot. The genius against society. Monna Vanna by Maurice Maeterlinck - The artistry of the plot-theme. How Guido's metaphysical view of man keeps him from seeing the truth about Vanna. Conclusions This session integrates the previous seven classes and answers such questions as: Which play has the most ingenious plot-theme? The most admirable hero? Which play is objectively the best? Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand - Rostand's brilliant portrayal of Cyrano's courage, intellect, poetic soul — and proper attitude toward his nose. Why the line "A man can have too much happiness" is the key to the play's deeper meaning

There is a woman who used to do animation for South Park who now has a site with her own creation called "Making Fiends" ( http://www.makingfiends.com ) that I find amusing. Its style is very simple and somewhat dark - similar to Edward Gorey. But what i like is the main character of Charlotte. She is an innocent, untouched by any evil that exists - and remains that way through all her encounters with the antagonist, Vendetta as well as her evil fiends. It is Charlotte's indomitable spirit that I enjoy about the simple series. (I have followed the series since its creation a while ago. I think the first 6 or 7 episodes are the best ones.)

I cant tell you if the overall movie is going to be good or not, but I worked a few days on Lemony Snickets and I can tell you this - I have done work on films on the east coast and west for years and in a number of capacities, and this was the first picture I said "Wow - I am on a REAL Hollywood set now". It was back to the good old days of the studio system productions. The production values are amazing. They built a whole lagoon and dock with boat etc - a whole city block in a stage. A whole dead wheat field with a general store and a railroad with train. Even the smaller scenes were extremely well done. What amazed me was the level of intricate detail observed by everyone on the sets - right down to makeup and costumes. If you have seen any of the trailers etc, you will get the feel of the 'timeframe' of the film. It has a distinct victorian style in clothing. And the amazing thing was the quality of that clothing. The background actors had clothing of such high quality that it was higher quality than principle actors would use on other movies. All in all, I am very interested to see the film just because of its production value. The director focused on it so much, the production ran over by at least 3 months. So it should definitely be interesting to see.

http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=260000 This is the scope and vision that should have been at the heart of the WTC rebuild From the BBC: "South Korea's Samsung Corporation has won the contract to build the world's tallest building, the Burj Tower in Dubai. Samsung won the $306m(£160m) deal, after an 11-month bid process. The concrete and steel tower will be part of an $8bn(£4.2bn) 500-acre project in the United Arab Emirates. Workers have already started to clear the ground for the 800-metre high, 160-floor skyscraper and it should be completed by November 2008. Construction work on the Burj tower will begin in January, and when completed it will be taller than the world's current highest building, Taiwan's 509-metre TFC 101 building. The building will have a hotel, a shopping mall, offices and luxury apartments." Oh - and as I suggested, it definitely reminds me of someone else's work: http://www.delmars.com/wright/milehigh.jpg Of course the dubai skyscraper will only be half as tall as this design, but its still a heck of alot taller than the rest of them out there (beats the next tallest by essentially 1000 ft).

Well, the auctions are over. I want to thank everyone who bid and/or won for making it a very successful auction. It certainly will prove to be helpful. Thanks!

Well, all the options to use Buy It Now have either been used or ended by bids, so that means I'll see everyone on the other end of the auctions. As a reminder, that is sometime mid-day SUNDAY (check the specific auction for the time relative to your time zone). Besides enjoying the process of selling here, I am somewhat impressed with the USPS as well. I am using their Media Mail for the first time and it seems to be pretty speedy for the price. For instance, I sent a box from LA on Wed 17th, and it has already arrived (today) at its destination in Chicago. Since the PS indicates the transit time can be at least 2-9 days, I was expecting the package to be closer to the 9 day mark. So it is pleasantly surprising to see the faster delivery time. If this holds true of all the packages I send on these auctions, I will indeed use this service in the future.

This seems like a really smart idea. I do have one question for you concerning a part of the service. I am asking this publically, because I suspect others may wonder about it as well. I know you specifically indicate that copyrights are respected without exception. Concerning the leasing etc of purchased audio series and the like, though, have you actually confirmed with the copyright holders whether the right to lease etc such materials is granted in/by the sale of those items? If it is, I am surprised no one has created such a service already. I would imagine the demand for such a service would be great (relative to the size of the Objectivist market for such things of course). As such, it makes me stop and wonder if there is a legal reason such a service does not already exist. I ask this question because I am ignorant as to the specifics of the law in this instance, not because I believe the law in fact does prevent such usage. I actually hope that there is no such legal impediment. And if not, when I am able, I may indeed utilize this service. Good Luck!

Thanks Jason! I really appreciate it. It's nice to know it 'found a good home.' And good luck with "The Objectivist"! While I hate to have to sell all these items, the PROCESS of selling them is kind of fun. Each morning is like Xmas - with the anticipation and the surprise of what has transpired the night before.

WooHoo - another one gone! Get your bids or Buy It Now, while they are still available!

Wow - sold one already! Get the rest while you still can, before someone else beats you to them with the Buy It Now feature.