Grant
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Posts posted by Grant
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Two of the greatest superheroes of all time.
Which do you favor and why?
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My opinion is that it is an absolutely ridiculous 'disorder'.
During school I was surrounded by people who claimed to have ADD and were placed on medication as a result.
The obvious symptoms were that they had difficulty concentrating in class etc.
Well, I've always suffered from concentration/restlessness problems. I struggle to read books as my brain drifts very often and I get restless very quickly. It took me a VERY long time to finish The Fountainhead. Atlas Shrugged is next on the agenda and I'm trying to prepare myself for that one.
Even lengthy conversations are a challenge for me. I have a very tough time staying focussed on what the other person is saying, as well as on what I'm saying and I lose my train of thought.
Regardless, I never saw the need to take drugs for this. Instead I recognised that others had a slight advantage over me, so I worked twice as long and hard as them and it paid off.
Nevertheless, I feel that my concentration has improved since school.
I think big reason that kids have problems concentrating in class and are diagnosed with ADHD, is because the classes just don't interest them!
There's an obsession nowadays to take drugs for absolutely everything. Mind-altering medication should always be an absolute last resort. ESPECIALLY for a child. Their brains are still developing.
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As much as I'm not a fan of all of his work, I've always been very intrigued by some of Daniel Libeskind's work.
The sharp angles. The strong and proud accents.
![RoyalOntarioMuseumExtension,Toronto1].jpg](http://asukalc.com/upload/RoyalOntarioMuseumExtension,Toronto1%5D.jpg)
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I live in South Africa. We have socialised electricity. i.e. a government-owned organization called Eskom who supply electricity to the whole country.
We are currently experiencing a bit of an electricity crisis whereby there isn't sufficient electricity for the country, so we experience scheduled load-shedding.
This means that 2 hours a week during the day, we have no electricity. Eskom are quite obviously terrible and the government could have remedied this situation well before it started by opening up the sector to competition (but you all already knew that
). There are planned price increases of 60% and to top it off, they're rewarding those in management positions with massive bonuses for their hard work during this time. So basically, make a massive screw up, and you'll get rewarded for working your ass off to fix it. Sounds logical no? 
Anyway, Eskom have suggested that if everyone conserves 10% of their electricity, there will be enough power for everyone and things will return to normal.
So while some countries are celebrating Earth Day by turning off their lights, we experience an involuntary double Earth Day once a week, and trust me, NO ONE is celebrating!
There's nothing fun about not having electricity. It's stifling the economy.
I personally haven't changed my lifestyle at all during this phase where possible. I don't believe I have any responsibility to make things easier for them. To me, there is an obvious solution to this problem (which should have been implemented years ago) and it shouldn't have to involve restricting industry which is what they're doing by cutting off electricity.
So, my question is, what would you do in this situation? Conserve your share of electricity in the hope that it makes a real difference? Or would you take the F YOU ESKOM! approach?
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Here's a picture taken from my London apartment on the morning of this April 6th:
Nice day for mid-Spring
I think you need to buy a 4x4 and start turning on some more appliances. That goes for the rest of you as well!
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I don't know if anyone's seen his movie "Sicko," but at the end it shows him giving a $10,000 check to one of his enemies whose wife lacked health insurance and needed money for an operation or something. (This enemy is the founder of the largest anti-Moore sites on the web.) Of course, you could tell he wanted everyone to react by thinking, "Oh, what a great guy!" But clearly this was an example of passive-aggressive altruism at it's worst. Moore didn't give a damn about this woman, he gave her the money only to prove a point (in promotion of universal health care). Now that's a real sicko!
Hahaha yeh. That scene was RIDICULOUS. My friends couldn't believe it either, though they enjoyed the rest of the movie as a whole (and agreed with him :-/).
His films are the worst kind of propaganda I've ever seen and his arguments hold no water for the well-informed.
Such as:
"There are longer lines in Canada and Britain because more people are in line."
Yes Michael, but there would be more people in line and far shorter lines in a free market.
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The way Michael treated him in Bowling for Columbine, showed he had nothing but disdain and disgust for the guy. He made out as if they were more than 'political enemies'.
Either way, I don't think much of the either of them, so not worth making an issue of it. Was merely trying to clarify why Moore would do such a strange thing.
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Most of those who today call themselves Palistinians were refugees from Jordan. They became refugees because of the Six Day War. They remained refugees because the Muslims used them as a political propaganda weapon against Israel.
The Six Day War was an Israeli war. Hence the Zionist movement had already entered the state.
I'm talking about pre-zionism. The people who inhabited the land at that time.
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I'm trying to pinpoint exactly why I find this so distasteful.
Maybe it's because it sounds like: "I criticized and humiliated the guy, treated him like my enemy, but I'll pay my respects on his passing and show everyone I'm the bigger person (in more ways than one)"
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Ok, I'm sure we can all agree that Michael Moore, as a film-maker and a human, isn't even worth a mention, but this little nugget flabbergasted me.
Mr. Moore who humiliated and criticized Charlton Heston throughout his movie Bowling for Columbine, has chosen today to dedicate his homepage to the passing of Charlton Heston:
Does anyone else see anything strange about this?
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I'm rather baffled that any Objectivist might regard a person who died in the course of risking his own life in order to save a stranger attempting suicide as moral. If that's not the risk of all values for the sake of some much lesser value, then I'm not sure what is.
Firstly, I think it's worth noting that he probably didn't know at the time that her intentions were suicide. When one sees someone drowning, you don't automatically assume the worst.
Secondly, I'm sure his brain immediately calculated that there was a good chance of him saving her and surviving. So both of them surviving (which he figured was possible) was of greater value to him than leaving her for dead.
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I find it hard to believe that these guys are Objectivists. They have a song titled St. Paul on their album Heights of the Heavens.
They also seem to play at Churches, if that means anything.
Perhaps their name is inspired by Ayn's book, but it looks unlikely that they're real advocates of Objectivism.
Oh, and did I mention that they sound like your average Christian rock band ?
On the flipside, it says the following on their Myspace: They will further back that sentiment when they introduce Philo, the idea that everyone needs to have an individual philosophy, coming Spring ’08. In addition to playing their literarily and philosophically inspired music, We The Living is going to start sharing what makes them individuals via blogs and vlogs, and encourages others to do the same.
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Out of interest, how does all this relate to Israel?
Before the Zionist movement, Israel was inhabited by a primative, nomadic civilization who today call themselves Palestinians.
Did these people have no right to their land? Did Zionists have the right to come into Israel and remove them from their land?
I'm passionately in favour of the existance of Israel, but this is one question that I struggle to answer.
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Thanks guys
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Does anyone know where I'd be able to find interviews with Ayn?
There are several on youtube that I've already watched (including one with Donahue and another with Mike Wallace), but there are others I've seen partially that I would like to locate.
Anyone? Thanks.
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Lost
Dexter
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Global warming? Stick this one in your pipe, and smoke it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7329799.stm
Everyone, turn on more lights! We need to defeat the cooling!
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How ironic.
ManOfSteel, I don't know how old you are but my simplest advice is... Get out of the house Reardon!
What's ironic?
And yeh, I've made plans to get out. Applied to continue my studies in the USA in Fall, so if all goes to plan (and I get accepted), hopefully that'll happen.
Excuse my apparent ignorance, but what is Reardon?
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What do you guys think of the song Imagine?
Lennon said it was "virtually the Communist Manifesto", even though he never claimed to be a communist per say.
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
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Well, I still worship God, but I like some of Oldfield's old stuff such as _Hergest Ridge_.
You made an interesting and compelling point though. Many of the giants of electronic music can veer towards darkness. (Maybe somebody should get Steve Roach an energy drink sometime soon? ;-D )
It's good that I'm not the only Objectivist here who loves REAL progressive rock!
I'm busy listening to it. Amazingly beautiful and uplifting.
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Awesome, thanks Inspector!
<quote>If I were you, I would start charging 4 dollars and hour to the members of your family for every time they use your service. If they refuse to pay, then don't fix it. That should put things into perspective for them.
</quote>I've actually considered that. Might just do that.
Cheers
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I take it you didn't read the NY Times article that described how last year Americans donated close to $500 billion dollars to charity. Imagine how much larger that figure would be if we weren't over-taxed. Imagine how much further that money would go if it weren't devalued due to the socialist monstrosity we have created. Americans are some of the most generous people in the world precisely because we are wealthy. We may be a lot of things, but we are still human beings. We are incredibly generous, and to deny that because of your factually bereft opinions is pure stupidity.
Exactly right.
I have lived in an African country rife with poverty my entire life. I have travelled to first-world countries like the US and Australia.
We see so much despair here on a daily basis that the level of benevelonce you sense is no where near to what I felt in those two countries.
You almost get used to it, to the point where you lose a great deal of compassion. Seeing a poor woman begging on the side of the road with her small sad-eyed child will draw little attention from most locals.
If a country is largely wealthy and you witness far less poverty, you're far more likely to be benevolent and to give to those in need.
To compound the problem, our over-extended government promises to take care of the sickly and poor. They obviously do a shoddy job at it, but their promises to accomplish the unaccomplishable largely leaves the wealthier population to be less charitable as "it is the government's responsibility".
Work out which system can produce the greatest wealth within a society. Once you've found that system (and I'm certain through proper understanding you'll come to the conclusion that the answer is Capitalism), that is where your sights should be set.
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I see this ridiculously ignorant cartoon is garnering a large amount of support on Digg:
http://digg.com/political_opinion/You_Capi...re_So_Smart_pic
Superman or Batman?
in Aesthetics
Posted · Edited by Grant
My apologies. I'm still relatively new to this forum and I wasn't sure where to post it.
I'd appreciate it if a Mod wouldn't mind moving it to a more appropriate section.