McGroarty

I see the same dozen or so names buying and selling most of the Objectivist tapes on ebay. No sooner do I pay one person for a tape set than I find him bidding against me on the next set. As such, I've created a mailing list for people interested in buying and selling Objectivist tape sets. I also hope to encourage leasing and trading, two things that can't be accomplished with ebay. Join at http://www.windwhip.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ott if this is of interest to you, even if you only want another place to advertise an auction. The list charter reads: Welcome to the Objectivist Tape Trading list. This list is for the buying, selling, trading and leasing of tapes and CDs related to Objectivism. You are welcome to periodically list what you own and what you are looking to lease or purchase. Feel free to arrange exchanges in the forum in order to build trust and visibility of the process. Links of interest to listeners and collecters - such as reviews, new releases, and auction sightings - are appreciated and encouraged. Copyrights are respected here without exception. All posts are moderated so that I can keep the list free of spam and abuse.

I wouldn't mind seeing a photoshoppery of a sour Arafat with some equally sour grapes. There's some debate about whether the Koran actually promises virgins. The word "houri" is currently translated as "virgin," and as such many Jihadists believe they are dashing their life away in exchange for a heavenly orgy. Many scholars believe the actual translation is either "grape" or "wine," however. This is similar to the confusion over "kamilos" and "kamelos" -- generally translated as "camel" in the Christian bible, where the true word is "rope." "Again I say to you, it is easier for a camelrope to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Every translation of an old language is full of these. The same word is used for "virgin" and "young girl" in the Hebrew of the new testament. I'm sure you can see some of the trouble you could stir there.

There's an Information Society album where the last track is a recording of a 300 baud modem relaying an encoded text story. When I was flipping through online music sites, I checked with a couple, and this was actually one of the more popular tracks purchased. Either there are some dedicated geeks out there, or some folks are in for a rude surprise when that pops up on the iPod. I wish I could recall one or two of the albums which had an all-silence track to "hide" the last song. It would be amusing to see how many people accidentally purchased a blank mp3.

I don't know the best answer to the first question as much of this is still new to me, but The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism From A to Z is surely your answer to the second. Edit: Beaten by two minutes.

You will need two different tools. Every forum program I've seen used standard GIF files for smilies. Most any paint program will work here. Use your favorite search engine to find "animated gif editor windows free" if you want animated smilies. You should be able to import these picture files in any bitmap-based font editor, but note that fonts can not be animated. Search for "bitmap font editor windows free" for appropriate tools. Note that you want a bitmap font editor, not a vector font editor. Vector-based fonts are more difficult to work with, and it is unlikely that you will be able to import your pixel-based bitmap. Were I putting smilies into MS Word, I would spend an evening looking at the macro features instead of creating a font. It should be simple to create a macro that inserts a given smily picture file, and then you can create a button bar with a button for each smily insertion macro.

It's a very short book, but I recently enjoyed Calumet K. Ayn Rand wrote the introduction in the version I purchased. Calumet K is the story of building a grain storage facility despite many types of interference from Wall Street and a union boss. Charles Bannon, the main character, dances past obstructions with convincing wit and his workers really take to him as a man who gets things done. As with Dagny Taggart, Bannon isn't running the construction company, but the company surely wouldn't run without him. Unlike Dagny, Bannon is recognized for his skill and work ethic, and some of his other turnabout successes are covered in brief asides. Ayn Rand named this as her favorite novel, and I can understand why. Apart from mostly keeping with her values, the blow-counterblow turnabout against would-be obstructionists is *fun*. The authors are Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster. I don't know if this is typical of their other writing.

Nominated for Post of the Day.

I'll second (third) the suggestion on exercise. Even in Michigan and Minneapolis winters, I made a point of trudging through the snow for half an hour every morning. It's a bit of work, but it gets my mind going. Something about physical exhaustion early in the day works for me: When my body's tired but my mind is still fresh, I find I can really concentrate on a task. If some of your faculties really are seasonal however, it would be a good idea to take an inventory of what you are and aren't doing as well. If you find a few specific areas, you might be able to find ways to work around these areas. If you spend much of the year writing notes and roughing out ideas, perhaps you can make a habit of spending the winter months reviewing the year's work and putting it into book or presentation format. A seasonal schedule that enforces time spent on some of the less creative work that supports your passion wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. You might also spend some time examining the shortcomings you identify in the winter months. Reevaluate them or run them past others to be sure it's not just your perception of your accomplishments that changes in these months.

My experience differs substantially from yours. Except in jest, I've never heard a voting age conservative attach that kind of emphasis. It sounds more like a kid trying on an extreme label for fun or identity experimentation. Then again, I live in Illinois. 180 degrees opposite experience here as well. Every Ayn Rand reader I've met away from the internet has been a conservative. Did you know that Rush Limbaugh has suggested her books from time to time? And which party appointed a contributor to Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal as chairman of the federal reserve?

By previously giving direct financial advantage only to the nonreligious charities, were they using the power of the state to squash religion? In the end, the only valid position is that the government shouldn't be funding charities at all. If the taxpayers wanted to support these programs, they would be funding them without a government intermediary skimming off the top.

I've read and enjoyed it. It's mostly a rehash of old columns, but it's devilishly fun and effective as a teardown of liberalism, and many of the points she makes early in the book about not giving an inch or trying to play nice when speaking with a liberal are valid regardless of your view. Where Coulter is supporting conservatism, she's assuming you already agree with her. It gets thick on dogma and weak on construction, and you may find yourself detachedly watching her patting herself on the back for a time. At one point she writes about trying to become a libertarian candidate to defeat a politician she doesn't like, but instead decides to tear apart the local libertarian party once she learns what it's all about. The party seems more interested in pot for everyone than in removing the systems that will have the taxpayers supporting them once they've all addled themselves with drugs. Her column rips them apart for this and other inconsistencies. This column alone made the book for me -- I hadn't laughed so hard in some time.

At the end, E.piphany cofounder McCaskey jokingly suggests that Rand readers should develop a secret handshake. There's a fun question for you, then -- Short of finding Atlas Shrugged openly displayed in an office, what are some sure tipoffs that you've met an objectivist in the wild?

To the english-speaking world, Arafat presented himself as exactly that. He kept enough distance between himself and the violence to sustain plausible deniability, and he phrased everything in terms of defending Palestinian rights. His whole schtick was saying whatever it took to win Western support, which he knew he needed in order to succeed. He was only the violent radical when speaking to his followers, away from the cameras. His legacy isn't over either. The PLO are funding his widow to the tune of something like $20 million a year just to make herself seen. She's received as a queen of sorts in Europe. People were too blind to see Arafat for his actions rather than his words, and now just wait to discover how little they see through the gauzy vision surrounding the romance of royalty.

I'm not talking about geography. Game development is more a lifestyle than a job. If you're a senior programmer or a lead for one of the other disciplines, you're going to be living in that office. You never have a leisurely 50 hour workweek, and for at least half of the year, 75-100 hour work weeks are the norm. It's a great feeling when the work's done and you see your product all over the magazines and store shelves, but it takes a huge toll on the rest of your life.

Having spent a dozen years as a game programmer -- you pick a company based on where you want to live, not where you want to work.

Incorrect. No organization gets tax dollars through this program in order to preach or hand out bibles. What the faith based initiative program provides is that an otherwise supportable organization isn't excluded from government funding because of church affiliation. A soup kitchen or a welfare-to-work program would no longer be prevented from receiving tax dollars because it's affiliated with a church group. I can't speak for all such programs, but the two I've volunteered for didn't preach or make any effort to convert people who came to us for support. Both existed solely to provide a charitable service, and relied on the church affiliation for financial support and a source of volunteers.

Thanks, I'll have a look. I agree intuitively, but I'm hoping to discover objectivist logic that solidly backs up the position. Objectivism is new to me, and so I want to test it against positions I hold as givens. That a bomb's presence is a threat of force to all in the blast radius, that a threat of force is comparable to actual force, and that the bomb owner's intent doesn't factor in have all been helpful in answering the original question for me. Yes, I should be able to own an atom bomb, but only in an isolated area, such as where I might use it for mining. And no, project X shouldn't have existed outside of the isolated test area, because its construction threatened force against everyone in the area.

Related to a comment made in another thread -- From an Objectivist point of view, am I able to own a personal atom bomb, provided I don't intend to set it off? Project X was built through forcible appropriation and used as a threat against innocents. If neither of these were true, would Objectivism have any complaint with it?

The Catalogue for Philanthropy compiles an index of which states are the most generous. The ranking method is a bit unorthodox. It sorts the states by income ranking, sorts the states by charitable contribution ranking, then subtracts the relative positions in each ranking order to create a charity ranking. I would rather have seen the ratio of income to charitable contribution used. Curiously, the top 25 most generous states in the Catalogue for Philanthropy's 2002 ranking were all Republican states. The remainder are mostly Kerry. Michelle Malkin did the analysis and has created a color-coded table in her blog.

I expect the government should provide whatever it was obligated to provide, were there a guarantee in its contract with the people. Keeping in mind that the government shouldn't compete with insurance companies, what should be in that contract?

The story would have been ten times better were this a Roman zoo.

I just returned from the polling place. It was pretty empty. I didn't have to wait to vote, and there were even open parking spaces right by the door. Where I live in Chicago, there are Kerry/Edwards and Obama signs up and down my street. However, when I looked at my street list at the polling place, there were only two registered voters among us. Despite all that signage, one or two people are going to make a decision for all these others. In the end, action always wins out over words. Get out there.

Why? What aspect of the child inside and outside of the womb changes the mother's responsibilities? Location doesn't change the nature of the child if it's developed enough that, given the opportunity, it's able to breath air on its own. Cutting the umbilical cord doesn't change the nature of the child if it's capable of circulating blood and taking milk on its own. I've seen location and the umbilical connection used as criteria for whether rights are present, but I don't understand the logic behind them, save being necessary to support a predetermined conclusion.

I'm surprised nobody is renting them here. I would gladly pay something like a quarter of the purchase price to rent some of the larger series for a month apiece.

I will make the analogy and ask an honest question. Given a baby in a crib, who a mother decides she no longer wishes to feed or keep, any demand that the mother attend to the child's well being is a violation of the mother's rights. How are demands on her freedom and money resolved here?