LiberTodd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NravO09oVls It's a very happy, uplifting piece which is very fun to play. Let me know what you think

Please tell me that your bar is called "Atlas Chugged."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR2ipu20WBQ Enjoy

When you diss skyscrapers, you diss all of us.

A mostly harmless program or an ominous preface of things to come...I'll let you decide for yourself.

"One protester dressed as the Easter bunny managed to hop through the police cordon but was stopped before he could reach the Bank of England. Another black-clad demonstrator waved a fake light saber at officers." I lol'd at this because it really highlights how detached these people are from reality. It's like unintentional self-parody.

It looks like he's about to torch the American Flag. So yeah, pretty accurate either way.

Slap a big skyscraper where the field-looking thing is .

Anyone else heard of this show? My girlfriend and I were flipping through channels and came across this on the Sci-Fi Channel. It stuck out to me because there's a character named "Julius Galt" and the official unit of currency in the show is the "rand." After watching a few episodes (there's a marathon on right now) I am pretty sure it's about this ex-detective from an alternative universe who gets thrown into another universe quite like ours, who is trying to get back so he can confront his anarcho-fascist government. It's got some really beautiful shots of huge, inspiring cityscapes and wealthy businessmen, heroic characters, seedy, neo-con esque villians, great action sequences, and pretty well-thought out plot. It's also refreshing to see a show with virtually no religious or environmentalist agenda. Check it out, it may become a favorite around here, haha.

One of the basic elements of Capitalism is risk-taking. If one Objectivist was making decent money on the mainland but knew that nobody else had ever explored the "uncharted" area before, and that there was possibly a multitude of wealth to be had out there, someone would eventually come along and decide to take that risk for their own personal gain (or loss, if it turns out there is nothing). It's like, horses work fine but eventually somebody decided to spend their time and resources making the buggies run on a different kind of fuel, and since he was right about it he became a very rich and important man. If Capitalism can create the Automobile I'm sure it could discover America too.

Well, I think everything has at least a little to do with philosophy. After all, someone's general philosophy on life would shape their answer to that question just as much as any personal experiences or lack thereof could. The reason I ask is, I feel these things are important aspects of my life and that Objectivist philosophy basically treats the idea of extra-terrestrial beings within our midst the same way it treats angels, gods, or santa claus. As rubbish. Now, I don't consider myself an "expert" but I do believe very strongly that it is not irrational to believe that such things may be going on given the overwhelming evidence. Usually when you hear about someone seeing Jesus or talking to God it's always some whackjob with nothing to lose, but when it comes to close-encounters with UFO's/ET's there have been respectable police officers, politicians, etc who put their jobs, credibilities, and families on the line simply because they have witnessed something so incredible and disturbing that they could not go without telling anyone. Ronald Reagan claimed to have not only seen one but also ordered his plane to follow it, subsequently making himself look like a giant nut to like half the country and embarrassing his administration. Why would he do that, and be so eager to go public with it, if it was all a lie? Ever since I was a kid I have been researching these things, I've been obsessed with the idea since I got my first library card. Something about it, just envelopes me with awe and wonder. I used to want to be an investigator into these kinds of things, until I grew up a bit and realized that 90% of "paranormal" stuff was bullshit, it's easy as ever to fake photos and videos, and about 3 of my own 6 personal sightings have much more rational, realistic explanations than I had originally thought. But still there are a lot of seemingly-legitimate reports that keep me awake long into the night and I just find it really difficult to throw it all in the same category with religious crap and bogeymen. All rambling aside, I guess what I meant to ask was: I know the Objectivist stance to anything previously unknown is to approach with reason and rationality, but how does one apply reason to something that is quite unreasonable, even when it appears right before your eyes? And the eyes of so many others? It's more frightening to me now than attractive since the beings, if they exist and are operating under the motives I believe they are, are any Objectivist's nightmare? I know there are probably more important things to worry about, and this thread is probably useless, but it really bothers me a lot since I love this philosophy and these episodes of my past really work against it.

Is there any official word on how an Objectivist would approach the paranormal, or research into it? I ask because I live in a lesser-known UFO hotspot and I've seen about a half-dozen of them in my lifetime.

At least he was only gunning for a malaria vaccine. Think about possibilities for other third-world country problems... "People in Africa don't have adequate homes, so I hired a bunch of guys to wreck the shit out of your houses while you're here" "People in Africa can't afford cars, so I'm gonna drive this monster truck over all your cars right now." "People in Africa are starving, so I bought all the food in the tri-county area and buried it." "People in Africa are experiencing genocide, so I'm gonna start shooting at you all with my AK" "People in Africa have AIDS, so guess what I put in the punch you're drinking?" The list can go on forever.

WOW! I'm gonna think twice now before I refer to a guitar, car, or gun as "sexy!"

Man that's some bullshit! Are you serious? England is really that bad that you can't publicly question things?

I've just heard that the Christians responded with their own bus message - "There Definitely is a God." So, as it was mentioned earlier, the Atheists really ought not to have put that "probably" in there .

Why use a tank when you can use tear gas, rubber bullets, etc to avoid killing those in the crowd who are relatively innocent? I mean, I bet a lot of Muslims there were mainly there because of fear and intimidation from their "brothers," and did not plan on throwing anything at anyone. The goal of an initiation of force as defense is to stop the aggressor from using force against you, not to stop him from breathing. "Rolling over them with a tank" would be, although darkly comical in it's absurdity, a barbaric act because it is a massive over-estimation on how much muscle is needed to stop the protest, and it would only serve to further empower the Islamofascist element.

Or in the words of my old guitar teacher, "Anyone who can play the blues will never have to work a real job" .

Meh, he was never really interesting to me. If I wanted shock value I'd just listen to Gorgoroth or something, they at least have some somewhat pro-life (or at least anti-anti-life ) lyrics.

He got so popular by promising people that they wouldn't have to think very much in order to survive.

F*ck that, I'll stick to regular kittens thank you very much.

Wow that's a lot of words and charts just to explain that there are lots of white people in Oregon.

Even though it seems to make them very happy that they do something hurtful to you without absolutely needing to? If someone is a hard worker at his job but completely disrespects his co-workers and boss, he's probably going to get fired even if he pulls in the most sales. They are rescinding all the company of yours they've "earned" by treating you like garbage and making you miserable.

How much do you guys think a bus campaign costs? Would the ARI ever put something like that out? Maybe an "A is A" bus? Bus is Bus?