OS - ObjectivelySpeaking

I’m bogged completely down in work. I hope (desperately) to be back soon. I miss the therapy of posting here. But, you got to have your priorities… eating comes first.

To all passers by, I’m sorry there’s nothing new.

Your patronage isn’t quite as important as my posting… but it’s damned important.

I thank you for your visit and sorry to disappoint.

-Dan 

The A’s (with the ~) appearing everywhere on this blog is a problem with a server migration. Hopefully it will be addressed in the not-to-distant future.

The only explanation for the trouble comes from two comments to a post in the The PRODOS blog:

1. Mikko Ellilä Says:
   

   January 6th, 2007 at 1:41 am

   After the migration, Scandinavian characters (ÅÄÖåäö) stopped working in my blog and apparently in other thinkertothinker.com blogs as well. Please fix this.

   (I can’t fix it myself by changing the encoding settings of my browser, as the problem is with the thinkertothinker.com server.)

PRODOS Says:

January 6th, 2007 at 1:55 am

Thanks. I’ve noticed that there’s a problem across all the blogs with the display of characters - and the introduction of odd characters here and there.

We’ll be looking into this tomorrow (Melbourne time, Saturday).

Best Wishes,

PRODOS

Sorry for the annoyance of these Scandinavian Scalawags at the moment. Hopefully they’ll be gone soon. I’ll try and remove them manually if necessary.

-Dan

The John Lewis article, “No Substitute for Victory”
The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism, from the Winter 2006-2007 issue of The Objective Standard is accessible to all. 

Those wishing to know what the rationally best, and only possible, proper coarse of action is regarding the defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism should read this.

Anything else is going to turn this into a mess which may make the Cold War look like a Spring day picnic… and we may loose in the end.

I’m all for excercising our rational self-interest.

-Dan 

To any that may pass by; to all those out there in Blogland… especially to all those on the front lines of defending our freedom and to those on the front lines of fighting for a more rational world… I wish you one and all a HAPPY NEW YEAR! It will surely be interesting.

Let’s roll!

-Dan 

In PGO’s post, Saddam to Die Tonight 10 PM, @ Atlas Shrugged, she updates to the BBC News article, Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq. But it’s the lead picture of Pamela’s post that’s most riveting.

She updates a second time with this, “BTW, Gateway has the whole nasty business on Saddam here, you must see it.  A horrible dictator and that’s the least of it”.

Gateway’s chronicle of the last few hours of the ordeal begins:

A fitting end…
The Butcher of Baghdad dies in his own torture chamber.

A video grab taken from al-Iraqiya television shows ousted Iraq president Saddam Hussein moments before being hanged in Baghdad. Saddam was hanged inside one of his former torture centres in the final act of a brutal 30-year tragedy that left the stage strewn with tens of thousands of corpses.(AFP/Al Iraqyia TV)
Video of the hanging of Saddam Hussein **HERE**.

Big Hat tip To PGO @ Atlas and Gateway Pundit

-Dan

Updated 12/31/06: punctuation housekeeping
 

Pamela Geller Oshry’s post, Hitchens on Fallaci
the Intellectual’s Artist  at Atlas Shrugs will take you to a Christopher Hitchins eulogy article in Vanity Fair, Oriana Fallaci and the Art of the Interview.

PGO writes in part,

Christopher Hitchens dismisses out of hand the powder puff powerpussies of the lamestream media while eulogizing and paying tribute (not enough, I’m afraid) to the finest, toughest,  smartest, bravest journalist of my time — Oriana Fallaci, an original thinker.

and she concludes with,

And while Hitchens doesn’t agree with her rage against Islamism, I do.

 Amen Pamela. I enjoyed both. Fallaci was a bulldog (only better looking). You don’t see what she had today in interviewers. Hitchens does a good job of describing the difference.

-Dan

… and a most HAPPY HOLIDAY to you, in whatever you celebrate, and in whatever way, this holiday season (except Jihadists and other evil-doers).

To poke a little fun at Santa… one of my best remembered Santa jokes, an old one,  is, “I don’t care who you are fat man, get those reindeer off my roof!”

For me, this time of year, Christmas through New Years, is a time to relax, reflect, recharge, reinvigorate, rededicate and reward.

What comes to mind first is that I live in a part of the world where one can do these things without fear - at least immediate fear.

I remind myself of core values - my life, my freedom, my happiness and safety.

I remind myself of the ethics central to achieving these values - rationality, independence, individualism, honesty, justice, productivity, and pride.

I remind myself of those that defend these values through their significant, and sometimes magnificent, use of their reasoning faculty and it’s tool, logic; and I remind myself of those whose energies, time, and even physical safety, go into the defense of rational values… some paying for these values with their lives. All these people I hold in the highest regard. They have my sincere admiration and gratitude. They (past, present and future) make it possible for me to sit here and make this statement of Merry and Happy. 

Come to think of it, that pretty much lays out what’s at stake… and sets my proper course for 2007.

Now, on to the turkey!

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

-Dan

I have deleted my link to The Intellectual Activist (TIA), which took one to the site for both the TIA Daily (email) and TIA Monthly (print) publications - editor and publisher, Robert Tracinski. This particular link was put here solely because I wished to introduce others to the best rational, most objective, thinking available. I do not now believe this to be the case with TIA.

The deletion is being made, not so much because Mr. Tracinski is not sure of his agreement with Ayn Rand philosophically; nor because he is not a consistent intellectual defender of her philosophy of Objectivism; nor because he is no longer associated with The Ayn Rand Institute (here - bottom) (I link to others here in the sidebar who I’m sure are not confirmed Objectivists and I don’t expect it), but I expect more from TIA and it’s editor and chief.

I have enjoyed TIA’s monthly publication since the early 1980’s - years before Mr. Tracinski’s tenure as editor and publisher. I still have time left on my present subscriptions to both TIA Daily (the email publication), and TIA Monthly (the print publication). I will continue with these publications, at least until my current subscriptions expire (TIA Monthly is currently one year behind in publication) - I don’t currently plan to renew either.

I will continue to read my current subscriptions to see where Mr. Tracinski’s thinking takes him (as expressed primarily in TIA Daily)- that is, if my intellectual curiosity remains greater than my intellectual disappointment.

I am very disappointed that the publication of TIA Monthly has fallen so far behind - a situation that Mr. Tracinski addresses on the inside front cover of the latest issue in a “Letter from the Editor”. This latest issue is labeled on the front cover as the October 2006 issue, which is actually the October 2005 issue - this change was also explained(?) in this”Letter from the Editor”.  

I’ve always looked forward to the arrival of TIA Monthly in my mailbox. I won’t have the same enthusiasm for it that I had in the past. It’s as though a light is going out for me in the world… a much needed and valued light - for both me and the world.

I intend to write more on this, but not until Mr. Tracinski finishes expressing his thoughts through his six part series What Went Right in TIA Daily (the first four parts, with some changes from the original, are here).

I can say little more, at this point, than I expect such publications as TIA’s (that I am paying for) to provide me with intellectual ammunition, philosophical guidance, and the opportunity to experience the world as it ought to be.

It’s heroes I’m seeking… with TIA,  I’m now getting concrete-bound rationalism, excuses, and attempts to finance an all too uncertain future for both a publication and an individual.  

-Dan

 

 

 

Here’s to Billy Fiske, and all like him.

Give me heroes, give me The Few.

-Dan 

The Ayn Rand Institute recently published this Press Release:

Restrictions on Internet Gambling Are an Infringement on Our Rights
Thursday, October 19, 2006

 

Irvine, CA–On Oct. 13 President Bush signed into law the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, a measure restricting Internet gambling.”This measure, which requires financial institutions to block credit card and other payments to Internet wagering businesses, is an infringement on our rights,” said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.     

“Gambling, when practiced responsibly, can be a totally legitimate form of entertainment. The government has no right to prohibit adults from doing it–on the Internet or anywhere else–and no right to prohibit businesses from offering gambling opportunities to potential customers.

“Why do supporters of the law deny individuals the freedom to spend their hard-earned money on gambling? Because, they say, people will bet and lose more than they can afford. In other words, individuals are inherently incapable of making rational decisions, and thus it is the government’s job to protect us from ourselves. This vicious, paternalistic idea has no place in a free society.”

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Op-eds, press releases and letters to the editor produced by the Ayn Rand Institute are submitted to hundreds of newspapers, radio stations and Web sites across the United States and abroad, and are made possible thanks to voluntary contributions.

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Though not fundamental to the argument against government infringement of our rights, the hypocrisy of state lotteries comes to mind here. Surely they represent legalized gambling. They have gone so far in my home state of South Carolina as to run TV commercials exhorting the populace against the dangers of playing the state run “education” lottery for any reason other than amusement - play not for gain, but just for fun. They’re not at all concerned with the contradictions in that.

It also comes to mind that there is a federal government “concern” that those gambling via the Internet will have less funds to nourish the government. They wouldn’t want anyone to not be able to pay their taxes, would they? On the state level, to play the state lottery (just for fun of course) is perfectly OK, but if we gamble our money away online, that’s less we’ll have to play the lotteries (and fund the government).

This is all infringement of individual rights (including taxation at the point of a gun), hypocrisy, and a sham.

Government’s concern, both federal and state, is not for the individual’s welfare, but for the welfare of government itself.

Government’s concern is not that we will gamble away our hard-earned money, but concern that we may gamble it away with someone other that the government… and what a gamble that has come to be. 

Even if government’s supposed motives were as pure as the driven snow, they’re still misplaced in Altruism… they still are infringements on individual rights.. without which, there are no other rights to be concerned about.

 -Dan