tommyedison

Political freedom is greater in America too. Just look at countries like Russia. Do you know that in many countries in Europe (like Austria), you can be arrested for denying the Holocaust? Or that hate crime legislation is used to reduce freedom of speech (e.g. Italy)? And that similar legislation is being enacted in UK?

A couple of recommendations: Internal Combustion Engine Fundamentals by John B. Heywood - mainly about reciprocating engines Mechanical Engineering Design by Shigley and Mitchell Engineering Thermodynamics, Work and Heat Transfer by Rogers and Mayhew Be warned though. You need a basic high school physics and vector calculus background for these books though the latter is not that essential in concept design unless you are designing bearings, performing stress analysis or something. PS How is compression generated in your design?. If you need help, you might also want to check out physicsforums.com. Quite a few good engineers and scientists post over there.

I understand the "piston" while coming on to the wall, will meet it at different angles? How will you seal the thing?

I believe it has been tried before and got overturned by the state courts themselves. Hell, I read somewhere that even the mayor (who supports the ban) was sure it would be overturned by the courts. Thank God for the 2nd Amendment.

Microsoft is giving free copies of Visual Studio Express 2005 which will expire on Nov 6, 2006 and SQL Server Express which will never expire for free at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/download/ Get them while you can.

I used "trust me" just as a figure of speech. You don't have to if you don't want to. If the govt. had defined the goals of the Iraq war clearly and stuck by them (i.e. a war for our national self-interest), if it had not conceded moral ground to the Islamists at every step, if it had imposed a US style constitution in Iraq, if it had butchered the terrorists without mercy, i.e. shown them the stick, sure Europe would have grumbled about it a bit, but the level of overt anti-americanism would have been much lower. Because you see, then we would have had the moral higher ground. That's why.

Trust me, the European nations are like sheep. If you show them the stick, they will obey.

But surely they'll have to bring out the army to surrender!

Given that the movie will be based on AS, which means they will not be following AS's sequence of events to the letter, I am assuming this has just been thrown in to make the movie more "current". ps, will Leonard Peikoff have any control over the film script?

I use SuSe 10. Easy installation and use + compatibility are the reasons.

Even though I haven't seen the movie, I have read a few reviews and its romantic part of the plot is a big turn off for me. Zorro's wife starts dating a Frenchman because her husband is too busy being Zorro? Too trite.

Beethoven 9th Symphony 4th Movement Beethoven 5th Symphony 1rst Movement Beethoven 9th Symphony 2nd Movement

Because your actions are a reflection of your values.

The assumption is pretty valid IMO, and not pushed only by the malevolent universe crowd. Producing oil requires vast swathes of energy if it is to be produced faster than we are consuming it. It requires large amounts of carbon and hydrogen. 1 chance in a million that the world oil supply is actually increasing. Oil will most likely last this century though the prices might double or even triple. Shale oil in US alone contains 1200 billion barrels of exploitable oil. Even in the oil wells there is a lot of oil left as present methods can extract only around 50% of oil efficiently. Someone might discover a way to extract say 90% of oil. When oil ends, it won't be a doomsday scenario. The laws of free market will drive the price up and we will have long switched to alternative sources of energy like hydrogen fuel cells before it ends.

Most likely part of the periodic cycle of 30 years. Though this year it has been particularly intense even by historical standards - 12 hurricanes with 3 Cat 5s, the most ever in recorded history of hurricane measurement. And in the number and intensity of hurricanes this year too.

Academically and scientifically, yes. Practically, I doubt it will have a big impact. Fission power plants still have the capability to last hundreds if not thousands of years and they will likely be cheaper than nuclear fusion.

GW was the most important figure in this country's founding. However atleast in practice, when he held office, Jefferson favored more restraint on the government in comparision to Washington.

I have gone with Thomas Jefferson. George Washington would be a very good president in war but at the same time he would not be as big a believer in small government as Thomas Jefferson. In times like these we need a president who is eloquent and can effectively answer critics. Jefferson has that quality. Washington doesn't. Jefferson would get rid of the Islamic threat very effectively if not as effectively as Washington. If Washington was as ardent an advocate of small govt. as Jefferson, I would have undoubtedly gone for him. But as it turns out, he wasn't.

If these candidates had been nominated by different parties and were competing for presidency, which one would you have preferred as president in the world of today? Assume that your choice would have enough political support to implement his reforms. Try posting your reasons if you can.

One of the main strengths IMO of this forum is the amount of discussion that takes place regarding the real world application of philosophy, something lacking in other forums. That gives an opportunity to debate hotly as well as learn. I had stopped visiting this site a few months back due to a massive degradation of the quality of discussions. Thankfully the problem was solved due to intensive moderation. On the other hand, due to the lack of a large group of experienced and integrated Objectivists, the atmosphere is not very conducive to discussions pertaining to say abstract philosophy.

[bold mine] Our you implying that those who don't think it is rational to quit right now are not Objectivists? Are you referring to the problem or to the act of quitting? No one is content. However as long as we can change it through reason, it is rational to do so. No one is saying you shouldn't fight for a free world. That does not mean you should give up, not so long as you have a chance. There are quite a few of us here who don't like to make compromises and likely don't make compromises. And the goal shouldn't be to compromise as little as possible but to live a fulfilled and happy life which means no compromise at all. Living in modern day US is not a compromise.

Thanks for relating this. I am very surprised to find a successful CEO of a big corporate who is at the very least a devoted student of Objectivism.

If their faulty ethics were an error of knowledge, then it wouldn't have been so bad. But do you think what they do is just because of an error of knowledge? If faced with the right, rational ideas, they reject them, it amounts to an evasion, a moral failure, not merely an error of knowledge. But no matter what their ethics are, no person with integrity and who believes in individual rights would cooperate so willingly with a murderous regime like China in suppressing individual rights. They remind of what IBM was doing in the 30s. I think they are far from Dagny. Dagny knew the right and the wrong ideas, had the integrity to accept the right ideas and the courage to live by them. They know the right and the wrong ideas, do not accept the right ideas and actively cooperate in the suppression of individual rights. The source of the problems are the intellectuals who accept and propagate the bad ideas. People like Gates help them a lot.

On the contrary, if a Rearden or Galt type Objectivist did go into business, IMO he would be very successful. A company reflects its leader's that is its CEO's character and philosophy, generally. Objectivism being the best philosophy, an Objectivist's company would also be the best or atleast one of the best. But it must be one true Objectivist. As for unwillingness to compromise, its only a problem when you have a run-in with the govt. And that mostly happens to well established big companies. But even then, if one takes a strong and moral stand, I don't think that will be an everlasting problem. For instance what has Bill Gates got out of compromise? Microsoft has had to pay billions of dollars in settlements. Now if he had taken an uncompromising stance in the beginning, I don't think this would have happened. Well, there are always a few exceptions.

Let's take the case of Bill Gates. If he had as much integrity as Hank Rearden, he would never have given his explicit moral sanction to those who want to destroy capitalism, at home or abroad. He would never have kowtowed to a regime like China. If you think this is just because he hasn't read about Objectivism, think again. In a 1999 speech http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeche...24bizschool.asp, he mentioned he had read Atlas Shrugged. And if that can't convince him, nothing can. And I have no reason to believe that other CEOs of major companies are very much different. Infact, more likely than not, they are just the same. For instance, AMD suing Intel, RealPlayer suing Microsoft, etc. A person with integrity would not rely on the govt. to succeed nor would he give his moral sanction to wrong ideas or the wrong people.