MissMal

Excerpt from the Orlando tea party: "We don't need the government to bail us out, we need to pray to god to bail us out just like the founders of our nation did." *Crowd goes wild*

It started working properly for me yesterday actually, what a strange problem.

I went there for my first semester as an undergrad and I am pretty familiar with UF being from central FL. The education there is perfectly good, as far as public universities go, but I left because I didn't like the atmosphere in Gainesville and I could get an equitable education somewhere more appealing. There is nothing in Gainsville except UF, that is one of the reasons they are so into sports and partying because there is little else to do. You should definitely visit and make sure living in a small town obessessed with the UF is something you'd be happy doing. Many of my friends find it a perfectly enjoyable place to live.

I am still having the error.

This movie clearly demonstrates the evil of pragmatism. There is ample evidence in the film that Ozymandias is a villain and will not succeed and here is some evidence not in the film, at least not in entirety:

I don't know if this is copy right infringement but it's currently on youtube:

John, I agree with you about No Country For Old Men, and I've expressed similar opinions about Burn After Reading, but I think you make a mistake to lump Watchmen into that category. The article you linked is correct about all the "heroes" in the Watchmen except for one. The one labeled as "psychotic" represents an unwavering dedication to justice. His contrast with the others makes the comic, and hopefully the movie, worthwhile. Mallory

I think the problem here is that banknotes are not a substitute for money, in the way that realestate or other things of value can be, but a direct representative of money. Though a banknote is not physically 1 oz of gold, it is in essence. Fiat money is money because it is legally declared so, gold backed money is money because it represents real value. This is different than a deed which would be a direct representative of a specific piece of property, making it a subsititute for money and not included in the money supply. So... if there is only 100 oz of gold in existence, and 200 1oz notes are issued, the market value of the notes is decreased yes. But also, the value of gold is inflated because if you choose not to use notes but actual gold, you must still use it in the market where there appears to be 200 oz of gold (even though there is not), and the value of your actual gold is decreased.

I agree with what everyone has said about it not being fraud, however, I don't think anyone has really addressed whether or not FRB causes inflation. If FRB causes inflation, thereby diminishing the real value of currency, then it is theft. I am not sure I understand the concept well enough though to judge whether or not it does have the effect of inflation on the economy, can someone clarify this?

Myself, I agree with Jennifer, this is not the awful anti-man tripe you make it out to be. As a graduate student in Psychology (not clinical though), this is generally good advice. Several of her points recommend doing things for physiological well-being, like eating well and exercising. These are known to improve mood, and it makes sense in an objectivist framework. You must take care or your more basic needs before you can expect your higher level cognitive functions (such as happiness) to be attainable. As far as her attitude advice (like not nagging, not venting, and acting positively even if you don't feel it), this isn't so much about pretending in order to be happy, its about the fact that dwelling on negative emotions is often not productive and just leads to a cycle of more negative emotions. This again is not at odds with objectivism, we know that happiness comes from taking action, not self-pitying. Her points one and seven also have to do with viewing the world realistically, setting out to achieve a goal you aren't prepared for or always searching for something better at the expense of what is present is self-defeating. These tips should only be viewed as a very basic small start that people can make. Clearly, after these minor things have been addressed it puts one in a better position to pursue more important aspects of happiness such as self-purpose and productivity.

Voting on these types of amendments was my main reason for heading to the polls yesterday. I am ashamed to live in Florida. Based on the results it is clear that Floridians did not vote in favor of individual rights. The signs promoting the marriage amendment were especially onerous, bearing the slogan "protect the children" as if homosexuals are somehow innately dangerous. People are applauding America for overcoming racism, yet clearly tribalism is still in practice. Also, amendent 1 failed which would have repealed the state's current ability to seize all property held by illegal aliens.

Electing Obama will not lead to a marxian/communist dream, nor will electing McCain set up a born again theocracy. Checks and balances still exist, and obviously radical changes won't be stomached by the public. THIS IS THE BAD NEWS. The problem is either candidate will continue to errode our no longer inalienable rights in sugar-coated doses easy for the public to swallow. This slower degredation of liberty is what we must fear. Arguing over who would be less effective at this syphoning of rights, and advocating voting for them is flawed. It is correct that, as someone in this thread said, voting no won't stop one of these men from taking office, however, since when do we give consent to evil just because we can't stop it? They may be able to rob me of my rights no matter what I do, but I will NEVER give them my consent to do so.

Eria, The conclusions you draw from Windy's story are unwarranted. Your critique of the educational system is unrelated to the theme of his piece- this story is an allegory, simply and elegantly exposing how the common concept of "fairness" is applied only in terms of "need" with no regard to what greatness must be destroyed in order to satisfy it. Theoretically I could argue that the blocks belong to the mother and it's perfectly correct for her to decide how to use them, but this would miss the essential point as much as concerning ourselves over where this particular child's ability comes from.

Jose, I read this piece as well as Marshall's Face Book Crime. I liked this because I identified with the situation, I have seen beautiful faces in passing and felt compelled to say something, though I personally refrained. I think the feeling you attempt to portray is very interesting, but I am left with not enough details to feel the whole scope of it. I realize that you are presenting the bare essentials, however, I think more elaboration on scenery, character descriptions, and descriptions of eternal states would assist the audience in feeling immersed in the story. Even if you are to use short simple sentence structures, there are ways to impart a feeling of depth and elegance, I suggest looking at Hemingway (if you haven't already that is). I think it is a lack of these things that makes some of your sentences appear rather one dimensional and not quite capable of portraying the depth your subject matter requires.

*** Mod's note: Merged with an eralier topic. Also see this related topic. -sN *** I was looking through the list of presidential candidates on the ballot in Florida, and I discovered Dr. Tom Stevens of the Objectivist Party!?! Looking over their website (http://www.objectivistparty.us/301.html) he sounds like my kind of candidate except for one glaring contradiction. The website contains a quote from Ayn Rand discussing why Libertarianism in incompatible with Objectivism, yet the site also boasts of Dr. Stevens' positions in Libertarian organizations and work on Ron Paul's campaign. What do you guys think? Is this guy a legitimate representative of Objectivist ideals?

So are long lawnmowers now banned as a weapon of genocide in Switzerland?

I highly recommend Saxon math as well. I used it when I was home-schooled (5th-8th grade) and had no problems self-teaching.

Well, I don't have any 70s yet so I guess I'm thinking more of a social thing. But if we build enough interest it would be fun to raid too, or do some premade battle grounds (I love to pvp!). It seems we are all on different servers so I guess we could pick one and start some new characters. Also, I have no problem being horde, I like playing as undead I'm going to talk to some people who have made successful guilds and learn more about it.

Actually, would you guys be interested in starting an Oist guild?

WoW Krieghifisch, alliance mage, Wildhammer I'm still a noob but I'm getting into it

Plot synopsis courtesy of IMDB: “A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees who attempt to sell it.” I expected from this latest Cohen brothers production a situation comedy with entertaining characters well portrayed by the a-list cast. What I got was quite different. While the actors did make their characters believable, this actually served to make the movie much much worse. This is NOT a comedy. At least I found very little funny about it. The characters and their motivations inspire only pity and derision. These are not the usual jesters, ridiculous but in general imbued with a kind of foolish innocence that makes them likeable. Instead, they each epitomize some of the worst human characteristics. There is the lecherous womanizer (Clooney), worthless drunk (Malkovich), complete moron (Pitt), Lillian-esque vicious wife (Swinton), shallow bubble-head (McDormand) and impotent sap (Jenkins). They possess no redeeming qualities (spoiler->) What’s worse is that the writers seem to make no judgments about the shortcomings of these characters or even show that the outcomes that befall them are caused by their actions. This is best illustrated by the CIA characters, who are monitoring all of the shenanigans, the chief at one point says something to the effect of, “What did we learn? Not to do it again, god knows what we did though...” No one learns the error of their ways, no one is properly punished, and there is nothing resembling a hero. Overall, rather than leaving me amused or entertained, what I normally seek from a comedy, I left the theater feeling a little depressed and slightly nauseated. My recommendation is to save your $8 unless you particularly enjoy watching unbridled idiocy.

Firstly, I am a PhD student in Experimental Psychology. As a psychologist I have studied behaviorism and found it to be a non-factor in relation to objectivism. This is because there are several flaws in the theory of behaviorism which prevent its complete acceptance and therefore it cannot be used as evidence that there is no "mind". As I am currently in a cognitive psychology class I will paraphrase most of my information from the text book I have on hand, Braisby, Nick (2005). Cognitive Psychology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Though this information can be found in most comprehensive psychology texts. One interesting flaw Braisby points out is that behaviorists claim the study of unobservables is irreconcilable to hard science. However, we can see this is false when we look to the traditional hard sciences such as physics. In physics forces which are not directly observable, such as gravity have often been studied and theorized about. The reason we can do this is we can study gravity indirectly by measuring its effects and from there creating theories about how it works. The same can and is done with the study of unobservable mental processes. Any scientific theory must be able to accurately explain and predict the phenomena it addresses. While behaviorism accurately reflects data in some simple situations it does not for complex behavior. A specific example of this is in the case of language generation. Behaviorism holds that uttering a word is a response to a stimulus and that a sentence is a chain of such relationships where each previous words causes the one that follows. A simple argument against this is subject/verb agreement in complex sentences. Though the verb may be several words down the sentence from the noun it addresses (and therefore not causally linked to the noun) we still modify it to reflect singularity or plurality (Lashley, 1951). There is also empirical evidence to show that planning sentences before their utterance takes place by certain speech errors, such as when we accidentally splice synonyms because we don't decide in time which to use (think "gruel" in Mean Girls ). Noam Chomsky (1959) has also shown how behaviorism cannot accurately account for language. Language is just one of many examples of complex behavior where behaviorism falls flat. Behaviorism in psychology is a useful theory in certain specialized instances, but to use it as evidence that we are purely a collection of learned responses with no "mind" is a major fallacy. The problem of just what consciousness is and where it comes from is still considered the "hard problem" in psychology, however, we have substantial evidence through measuring indirect effects that it exists. We just have yet to discover the graviton, to continue the earlier analogy.