SBP2009

I thought that was one of the best lines ever from the cranky doc. It's darn close to being sig-worthy.

It appears the legal leftist putsch in Canada is one step closer to reality.

Another rational man is always welcome out west, Martin.

Well, Zip, as you are likely aware there has long been a western separatist movement in Canada. But it has historically been small, scattered and fractious, and has not been taken seriously by Canadians at large. Doug Christie's Western Canada Concept is the most well-known embodiment of the western separatists. What has been missing, until now, has been a major assault on the West by Ottawa. The National Energy Program was the last such assault. I think that the leftist putsch could be viewed in a similar light to the National Energy Program. So I think that a western separatist movement would gain momentum following a coup. Perhaps it would pick up enough momentum for secession to be discussed openly by people outside of the lunatic fringe. Whether that would translate into a groundswell of public desire for secession, I am not sure. Westerners tend to see themselves as Canadian, and there is an emotional attachment to Canada despite the consistent western alienation that has been studied extensively. Alienation is not enough, but a dictatorship could be. If the Dion/Layton/Duceppe junta forces a carbon tax down our throats, killing Alberta and Saskatchewan's robust economies, we might have the right conditions for a push for secession.

Harper's game of political chicken is exposing Dion, Layton and Duceppe for what they are: wannabe dictators. The lunatic leftist parties lost the election, elected fewer MPs than in 2006 and now that Harper is threatening to cut off their looted funds, they want to pull off a putsch and seize power. Harper's gambit has stripped off the polite Canadian veneer of democracy and has revealed the ugly truth of collectivist mob rule that threatens to immolate this country. Harper was the lesser of five evils in the election. He was not inspiring but was less repugnant than the other moonbats. If Dion, Layton and Duceppe pull off this putsch then all pretense of Canada being a free country will be finished.

BTTT Thanks for your tireless efforts, Paul! I will definitely give the show a listen.

4000 American lives were squandered by sending them into battle with one hand tied behind their backs. And they were one country over from the one that should have been crushed. Iran should have been that target, as has been stated here already. But I am sure I am preaching to the choir here, to borrow an enemy metaphor. As far as I am concerned, the Iraq war was an unnecessarily long and messy clean-up job for a task that should have been completed in Gulf War I. Bush Sr. didn't finish the job and look at the cost. Saddam Hussein's regime should have been wiped out in 1991.

I achieved 84.85%, with 28 correct out of 33. Not bad for a Canuck who grew up under Chairman Trudeau's rule!

Has anyone seen the GM doomsday video, predicting an economic catastrophe if they don't get a bailout? The wretched parasites that would resort to such repugnant scare tactics and emotional blackmail deserve to fail. This revolting display reveals the culture of complacency, entitlement and parasitism that plagues the Big Three. At the risk of echoing a line from the upcoming movie The Watchmen, GM is crying out for our help, and we should answer "No." The Big Three have sown the wind. Let them reap the whirlwind.

Good one!

I am speaking of the short term, in the inevitable post-mortem that the GOP will conduct. Waiting for Obama's socialism to fail is a longer-term view. The Republicans will conclude that their last remaining vestiges of support for capitalism are what doomed them in this election. To act in any other way would require that they check their premises and stop looking at ideas through the filthy lens of pragmatism. Pragmatism always takes the lead in welfare-state politics. The "correct" policies and ideas are the ones that lead to electoral victory and therefore power. The GOP will look at this election and see that a socialist candidate swept to victory and built up a massive cult of personality as well. Watch for Republicans that try to out-Democrat the Democrats. Because that is how they think they will win next time. For the Republicans to embrace capitalism and to become the party of individual rights, limited government and free markets would take a complete intellectual revolution within the party. The religious right is unlikely to sit still and let that happen. They will fight it tooth and nail. Hmmmm....worldwide socialism anyone?

I forgot to add my most important point. The Republicans received the punishment they so badly deserved. But I don't think that we can expect the GOP to "discover" capitalism, either. They will conclude that it was their last vestiges of capitalist philosophy that led to their defeat.

As I was watching the election coverage, CBS kept cutting to Times Square and the jubilant crowds. I was reminded of Padme's line in Star Wars Episode III: "So this is how freedom dies. To thunderous applause." Now it has been a while since I saw that movie, so I may not have the quote entirely right. I'm listening to McCain's concession speech, filled with the expected platitudes about compromise and "bridging our differences." Obama won tonight, but the entire free world has lost. I must say that I always expected Canada would spiral into dictatorship before the US. I am not so sure now.

I liked Faith of the Fallen the best, but I would have to pick Stone of Tears as a close second. FOTF is the best because it was philosophically the most well developed of the series. It was climactic in every way. Richard engaged in what can only be described as intellectual activism with a vengeance. I liked Stone of Tears almost as much as FOTF for its role in the plot development of the entire series. Wizard's First Rule could have been a standalone novel in most respects. But SOT put all the characters and plot into play for the later novels. Kahlan's uncompromising, ruthless prosecution of the war with the Imperial Order expeditionary force is in itself a treatise on how war should be fought.

Nicely done windyfellow! I could see the creative child's light bulb look go out as the second child took the last block. This short little story speaks volumes. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Make that my "Of course!" summer afternoon.

I will continue to give it a chance, in hope that the flaws get worked out. New shows sometimes need to hit their stride and I am sure this is no different. The ham-fisted treatment the show gave to Richard's learning to use the Sword of Truth is especially worrisome. Didn't he only absorb the knowledge of all the previous Seekers in

Some liberties were taken with the plot, as compared to the books. This is not unexpected in translating a novel to the big screen, and is unavoidable in translating a novel to the small screen. There was bit of heavy-handed dialogue, a bit too much explaining done by characters in a contrived way. Especially when Kahlan I hope Terry Goodkind didn't let Raimi turn his work into a kind of sword-and-sorcery version of The Lone Ranger .

I first read Ayn Rand two years ago, I was 35. I had begun to frequent several right-wing political discussion groups with an emphasis on Canadian politics. I had always known that leftist political ideologies were repellent to me, and found that I was most comfortable on conservative discussion boards. I agreed with some conservatives on issues such as free markets, individual rights, limited government. I refused to call myself a conservative, though, because I eschewed religion (I was very religiously agnostic, on the cusp of considering myself an atheist) and definitely did not share conservative views on abortion, gay marriage, and worship of tradition. I was trying to articulate, to define, to understand my philosophy and my moral code. I followed a link that someone posted to the Political Compass site, and it pronounced me a "libertarian." I noted some of the famous names that were clustered on the chart near me, and Ayn Rand was one of them. I had no idea who she was. Another poster on one of the boards said that my strong sense of justice and my previously stated admiration of reason indicated that I didn't really sound like a libertarian, and that I sounded like I might be a capitalist. He suggested that he thought I might enjoy the works of Ayn Rand. So I did a bit of research and concluded that Ayn Rand was a fascinating woman with even more fascinating ideas. I set out to read her works, and decided to jump in with both feet. I began with Atlas Shrugged. I think of my reading John Galt's speech as my "Of course!" moment.

You hit that one out of the park, SkyTrooper! Nicely done. Funny how the statists use that sort of argument and all the collectivist robots nod and clap in mindless agreement. Funny, that is, if it weren't for the destruction of our freedom that was taking place. Many excellent points have been posted here. The original poster of this thread asks if the free market has failed, yet uses the extremely non-free market as evidence. The current recession, like the Great Depression, is a glaring example of how the non-free market has failed. Of course, the statists/central planners/socialists refuse to admit that the regulations are to blame. Faced with the failure of their own policies, they call for more power and control by the government. Trying to "fix" the current economic crisis with more government involvement is like trying to repair a broken-down car by pouring a truckful of concrete on it.

Robert, this is an enjoyable bit of verse. I can relate to it, and I say with considerable confidence that most Objectivists would also relate to it. In fact, it reminds me of every single day in my workplace. It reminds me of every single family gathering. It reminds me of the moldering collectivist platitudes that are taken for truth in our society. It is the choked-back battle cry, spoken quietly through gritted teeth, of the individual against the collective. It is the voice of the rational individual who feels a just anger at the irrational state of the world around him. I like it a great deal. Thanks for sharing it with us.

I also disagreed with Dr. Peikoff's assertion that religion is a greater long term threat than is socialism. I have since been convinced that he is right, at least in the USA. Here in Canada things are philosophically different. We do not have the American sense of life that preserves vestiges of the Founding Fathers' original vision. Most Canadians do not understand the importance of individual rights, they think of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as "American." They in fact are reflexively hostile to such values. This fundamental difference has made (most) Canadians a docile nation of subjects who not only accept statism but enthusiastically support it. Thus it is that Canadians buy into multiculturalism, moral relativism, and every form of collectivism. Leftism is a far greater danger in Canada than is religion. When socialized health care is central to a manufactured "Canadian identity," it is clear that welfare statism is the dominant ideology here.

The leftists are gloating over Greenspan's condemnation of the "free" market. Greenspan is a traitor and an appeaser of the looters for making this statement. I suppose twenty years of being Economic Dictator washed his mind of any last vestiges of rational thought. Atlas may be shrugging, but Greenspan just kneecapped him.

Over-rated (at least by some of my co-workers): The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford It was two hours and forty minutes of my life I will never get back. Virtually every character in this movie was a complete scumbag. Brad Pitt's acting in the title role was so wooden and half-hearted you could have sworn he phoned it in. Casey Affleck, playing Robert Ford, was a bizarre, creepy "gay stalker" type who idolized Jesse James in a contemptibly obsessive and totally second-handed way. None of the characters showed any sort of redeeming quality, which is a bit of a relief because they were a murderous gang of bandits. Ten minutes into the movie I thought to myself "This movie is full of scumbags all of whom deserve to die violently." The only problem is that there was no one in the movie who was heroic enough to be worthy of pulling the trigger on said scumbags. They mostly killed each other in an escalating series of betrayals and ambushes, usually in bedrooms and living rooms with women and children cowering in terror nearby. To make matters worse, the plotting and pacing was slow and naturalistic. The whole film has a pinkish color cast, with green skies. So in effect, you are looking at completely contemptible scumbags through rose-colored glasses for two hours and forty minutes. If you want to spend over two hours looking into a sewer of nihilism, watch this movie.

I thought it was a fun and entertaining flick. Not high Romantic Realism by any stretch of the imagination, of course. But then the Indiana Jones movies never were. They were always Heroism Lite. Maybe it has been too long since I saw the earlier movies in the series, but I thought there was the expected amount of swashbuckling adventure. Although I seem to remember Indy drawing (and firing) his pistol much more often in Raiders of the Lost Ark than he did in Crystal Skull.