Pyotr

The productive giant Burt Rutan was given a lifetime achievement award at Washington DC's National Air and Space Museum. This occurred Wednesday night (March 21) at the annual NASM Trophy awards ceremony. Upon receiving his well-derserved award, Burt proceeded to criticize people for never listing his money making activities among his achievements. He considers making a lot of money to be one of the greatest things he's done. Burt went on to tell the audience that wealth is created and that if we want a prosperous America we need cheap energy and entrepreneurs who are not stifled with regulations. I think what America desperately needs is for more of our most productive people to recognize that wealth is created, making money is moral, and to say these things in public. This counters the destructive nonsense spouted by people like Bill Gates. Burt Rutan is a real American hero and he is far more American than any of the creatures currently running for President.

Not much needs to be said about the film I Am. It can be summed up effectively in one sentence: Hollywood liberal hits head, moves further left. The film is about director Tom Shadyac who suffered a concussion, renounced his career and started hanging out with people like Howard Zinn. It reminds me of a man in the dark ages who chops off his testicles and joins a monastery to atone for the sin of having participated in life on earth. Tom thinks he has to make up for the bad karma he created when he was acting in accordance with his nature as a human being and working to sustain his own existence. I Am really illustrates how the progressives are increasingly having more in common with dark ages religion.

I watched a few minutes of Obama's speech and couldn't stomach anymore. It was obviously a campaign speech. He was pretending to be pro American and to have supported our efforts in the middle east all along. He even admitted that Al Qaeda was at war with America. He was clearly moving to the center out of desperation over his approval rating. But then Obama started masturbating to Islam and I had to turn off the TV. I am very happy that we got Bin Laden. But it sickens me that a President who has consistently opposed and undermined our weak efforts to protect this country would be taking credit for a victory like this and using it to get himself reelected. It also drives me crazy that he wants us to believe that Islam is not dangerous and getting Osama means we're safe. All of the terrorist attacks that have killed Americans over the last few decades - including Osama's attack - were sanctioned/ordered by Iran. And Iran is still out there and getting more dangerous by the minute.

It might be worth pointing out that many on the left love Truman Capote. He's a writer with a very real connection to murderers. And I'll bet a lot of the people smearing Miss Rand are people who enjoy art that romanticizes bad guys and also advocate our courts being soft on violent criminals. Among them are likely people who thought the 9/11 mastermind should be tried by Judge Judy. If Ayn Rand really had a connection to a serial killer, wouldn't the left like her more?

I've seen this article too. It seems to be the latest thing that old people have to forward to everyone they know. If someone specifically sent it to me because they knew I liked Rand then I would be disgusted with that person. The article itself is the journalistic version of a modern artist who finger paints with his own feces and expects people to take him seriously. The author is extremely cowardly and has revealed his mental impotence and inability to argue against anything Ayn Rand actually said. So he presents a lot of evidence against William Hickman and tries to make people take it as evidence against Rand. And his knowledge of Rand's opinion of Hickman is second hand information from a dishonest smear book.

I loved the new House episode too. I was afraid at first that this episode was going to be preaching national healthcare but I was pleasantly surprised. I love the way Dr. Cuddy handled the bogus malpractice lawsuit. It was great to hear Lisa say it's right for doctors who spend years developing their skills to be well compensated. The entertainment industry doesn't say that very often.

It was this paragraph that bugged me: "That is what we're fighting for. It is what we are fighting about. It is what we believe in and that's what this movement is all about. When people are willing and to meet halfway and stand up for common sense solutions and values, then we want to work with them. And in that spirit, I applaud Independents and Democrats like Bart Stupak who stood up to tough partisan pressure and he wanted to protect the sanctity of life and the rights of the soon to be born. I applaud him for that." Maybe I overreacted but I took that as implying that the pro-life stance should be part of the Tea Party. Also, during the Q & A session Sarah was asked what we should do when conservatives have taken back the government. One of the things she said was, "It would be wise of us to start seeking divine intervention again in this country so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again." She also said she wants our politicians to be openly religious. Sarah said, "The Administration and Congress should do what we did up there in Alaska when the good old boys started making back room deals that were benefiting big oil and not the citizens of the state." I don't hate Sarah, I'm just very disappointed with her and her zealotry scares me. I wanted to like her at first because she does throw some funny zingers at the left.

I watched Sarah Palin's speech from the Nashville convention and it left me pretty disgusted. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. There are four main things I found wrong with Sarah's speech. First and foremost: Sarah is trying to tie social conservatism to the Tea Party movement (which would destroy it). Second: While Sarah says she favors market based solutions, she also complains about Obama's government being too friendly towards Wall Street and big companies! She brags about taking on "big oil." This is the same contradiction that lost the election for John McCain. Sarah seems to be unaware of how far from the free market McCain is. Third: Sarah is encouraging people to be anti-intellectual. She believes the answer to Obama's brand of intellectualism is to reject intellectualism completely and replace it with faith and common sense. America needs Jesus to ride in to town in his common sense pickup truck and set us straight. Of course the reality is that Obama is anti-intellectual himself. Tea Party people desperately need an intellectual defense of individual rights. Fourth: Sarah says selflessness is the ideal. This is nowhere near the ideal speech for the Tea Party convention. It is nothing more than the same crap that ruined the Republican party and made it easy for the post-modernists to take over America. But Sarah is blissfully unaware of that. She rightly criticizes the left for not recognizing that their policies are what's alienating people but conservatives like Sarah have a similar problem. They believe their failure in 2008 was from being too light with the social conservative stuff and they think the answer is to double down. I hope the Tea Party movement can survive Sarah.

Doug Henning can make the apathy of slothful children vanish.

For those who enjoy the musician's musicians in rock, I'd like to recommend Dave Colquhoun. Dave is an extraordinary English guitarist. He can totally shred but he can also construct dynamic, complex arrangements that really soar. Dave has put several tracks on his myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/davecolquhoun I appreciate Dave's healthy ego as evidenced in his blog: "Listen all the way through! this is not 30 seconds in hit me with the chorus bullshit music!"

He voted for it before he voted against it.

"And You And I" by Yes "Turn Of The Century" by Yes "Faithfully" by Journey "Oh Sherrie" By Steve Perry "Pas De Deux" from Act II of The Nutcracker "Leave The Blindfold" By Rick Wakeman

It has only been a few weeks and President Blank Screen already qualifies as one of the most destructive and dishonest leaders we've had. I wouldn't be surprised if the next "earmark free" spending spree includes "non earmark" funding to help register horses to vote or "non earmark" funding to analyze the boogers of aardvarks.

John Allison was the speaker at the last official ARC lecture. I don't think Yaron Brook would let Mr. Allison speak on behalf of ARC if Yaron even remotely suspected Mr. Allison had compromised his ethics.

I bet our economic problems will leave people depressed and less interested in playing practical jokes. Then the companies that manufacture rubber poo and fake vomit will need a bailout. The bailout won't work and our government will create a massive campaign to encourage youngsters to take whoopee cushions, stink bombs, and fireworks to school. They will say it's your civic duty to falsely accuse your peers of flatulence.

Under real capitalism the government would be barred from initiating force against it's citizens. Currently the government forces employers to discriminate when making hiring decisions. They are forced to act as if an employee's value lies in his skin color, ethnicity or physical handicap instead of his individual abilities and character. Capitalism would get rid of this atrocity and many others.

Yes. I imagine their children would have webbed feet.

I've decided to abstain from voting for president. I may write in "none of the above."

Bill and Hillary are definitely going to vote for McCain now and possibly purchase a bumper sticker. Palin praised Hillary in her speech. I wonder if McCain would actually help Hillary win in 2012 in order to get members of her coven to vote for him?

Marathon by Rush

My favorite stuff is Tchaikovsky and prog rock. I love Rush, Yes, Dream Theater, and Rick Wakeman. Wakey is my favorite musician.

Whenever the Republicans tamper with the economy and cause a problem it gets blamed on capitalism. If the right nationalized all private property and herded us onto collective farms, the left would still say they're too hands off and pro business. America is probably better off if the person screwing up the economy is not someone people mistakenly associate with the free market. There will be a slightly better chance that the public will start to comprehend that government controls are what's causing our problems. I guess I'll have to begrudgingly vote for Obama even though I think he is an atrocious, putrid, and horrid excuse for a human being. I wonder if all the crazy people who idolize him like a rock star really understand and share his beliefs? I think a lot of them must just be enamored with his big shiny teeth and the word "change" (which Obama uses as a floating abstraction.) It would be funny if the liberals started putting "vote for teeth" bumper stickers on their cars.

We should celebrate Eudaimonia Day.

I don't think Sweden is an example of socialism working. Firstly because Sweden is not a socialist country. It's a welfare state that leans towards socialism. Second, it's my understanding that Sweden used to have a much freer economy than it does at the moment. The statist tendencies of the current government didn't create all the development and prosperity the country has. If the current level of statism had always been there, Sweden would not be as developed a nation as it is. No amount of belief makes socialism work. Nothing supernatural exists. Human minds are not metaphysically connected to each other and it's impossible for one person to think for another person. No amount of belief changes reality.

A modern artist blows his nose on a canvas and hangs it up in an art gallery. A snooty modern art critic walks up to the painting and enthusiastically praises it. "It's a masterpiece! It conveys human truth while perpendiculating the essence of the transmogrified and discombobulated perpetuity that intersects the unknowable in a way that interjects vast pronouncements of an intermittent realm in which analogous things can be known and yet not because substance will substitute or substantiate the infinite as it relates to metaphysical indigestion." An Objectivist walks up to the critic and says, "Check your premises. It's just a booger."