•Friends and co-scholars to the end 
David Ronquillo, Brighton Standard Blade (CO) [Tahlia] De Maio said she first became interested in science and astrophysics through the Discovery Channel and Discover magazine, as well as from her favorite author, Ayn Rand, who writes both fiction and nonfiction.     Share on Facebook

•Lost Liberty hotel developer announces anti-eminent domain song 
Bob Ellis, Dakota Voice (SD) The Lost Liberty Hotel will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."     Share on Facebook

•An interview with Tim Schmidt 
Richard Stevens, Free-Market News Network Interview with the founder of the United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA).About five years ago I happened to read a few books that really opened my eyes to self-defense, firearms and the second amendment. (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Unintended Consequences by John Ross.)     Share on Facebook

• •Platonic competition 
George Reisman, Mises.org Daily Article The concept of "pure and perfect competition," [...] proceeds from an ideology that obliterates the existence of individuals, of private property, and of exchange. It is the product of an approach to economics based on what Ayn Rand has characterized as the "tribal premise."     Share on Facebook

•A studio built on good deeds and good luck 
J. Kelly Nestruck, National Post (Toronto) On former eBay president Jeff Skoll's Participant Productions.He spent the long, sunny days with his nose in a book, transported away by dystopian fiction like Brave New World and the works of Ayn Rand, James Michener and James Clavell. "A lot of the stuff I was reading was scary," recalls Skoll over the phone from Los Angeles.     Share on Facebook

•Give a book this Christmas 
John Andrews, The Remedy (Claremont Institute) Book gift-giving recommendations.Also stocked on my gift shelf are copies of Restoring the American Dream by Robert Ringer. His rigorous argument for personal responsibility in a libertarian, free-market order has the bracing clarity of a sunrise at timberline – if a bit closer to Ayn Rand’s “virtue of selfishness” doctrine than my Judeo-Christian ethic cares to go.     Share on Facebook

•Ayn Rand vs Korean rice farmers in Hong Kong 
William Pesek Jr., Bloomberg On protests at the World Trade Organization summit.There also were protests of the opposite kind in Hong Kong, by pro-trade activists conjuring the spirit of author Ayn Rand, a champion of laissez-faire capitalism. One group, borrowing an image from Pink Floyd's album ``The Wall,'' had participants smash through a wall of cardboard boxes to symbolize the breaking of trade barriers.     Share on Facebook

• • •Reconciling Austrian economics and Objectivism 
Edward W. Younkins, Le Québécois Libre By combining and synthesizing elements found in Austrian Economics, Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, and the closely related philosophy of human flourishing that originated with Aristotle, we have the potential to reframe the argument for a free society into a consistent reality-based whole whose integrated sum of knowledge and explanatory power is greater than that of its parts.     Share on Facebook

• •Custom bike builder gets lost in books 
Sun-Sentinel (FL) Interview with custom motorcycle builder Michael Beland.My favorite author is Ayn Rand. My favorite book is The Fountainhead. I identify with the main character. It was weird reading it because it was too close [to home]. Change the names and professions and it would match perfectly.     Share on Facebook

• •‘Intelligent Design’ is about religion versus reason 
Keith Lockitch, Capitalism Magazine Response to Orange County Register column by Robert Camp.A particularly telling omission was Camp's failure to mention that my lecture was sponsored by The Ayn Rand Institute (my employer). This is relevant because Ayn Rand's ethic of rational egoism provides precisely the alternative moral system that Camp ignores in his critique.     Share on Facebook

•Wikipedia founder ‘shot by friend of Siegenthaler’ 
Andrew Orlowski, The Register Satirical article on Jimmy Wales, founder of the online encyclopedia.A long time devotee of Ayn Rand, Wales recently criticized the decision to grant federal funds to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, according to reports on a web discussion board.     Share on Facebook

•Wikiworld: The experiment 
A. J. Jacobs, Esquire Profile of Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, before and after editing by the online encyclopedia's contributors. Wales is an admirer of Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism, which influenced his adopting a neutral-point-of-view policy. It forces editors to replace opinions with facts or their changes will be wiped out.     Share on Facebook

• •What a capitalist idea 
Caroline Overington, The Australian I'm in lock-step with American writer Leonard Peikoff (founder of the Ayn Rand Institute), who made the case in 1995 that Christmas should be a time to celebrate the success of capitalism.     Share on Facebook

• • •A crusader for individual liberty 
V Sundaram, News Today (Chennai, India) Brief biography of Ayn Rand.Ayn Rand came out of nowhere to challenge a corrupt, perverted and collectivist world. She single-mindedly seized the high ground, affirming the moral imperative for liberty and showing that all things are possible for those who have moral courage and intellectual integrity.     Share on Facebook

•It’s only right that brains trusts fight for supremacy 
Stephen Matchett, The Australian Humor. "Last week the Association of Outraged Australians announced its commentators of the year. Today the opposing organisation, the Society of Right Thinkers, replies with its choice of the 10 top names in the public intellectual industry." Catherine Culloden: A business strategist who is developing an accounting system based on Ayn Rand's theory of the omnipotent artist. Her monograph arguing that tax is an attack on the creativity of high-income earners is published by Newt Gingrich Press.     Share on Facebook

•Paperbacks and 45s 
John Brizzolara, San Diego Reader I recall a Harry Belafonte calypso record (yes, the one with the banana song) of Mom's, which was on quite a bit, and I associate it with the failed attempt to read Atlas Shrugged (Mom's book). Ayn Rand's concerns were far from my own.     Share on Facebook

•A year after Poe 
Jojo Robles, Manila Standard Today Would the King merely have given his usual manly, Ayn Rand-ish shrug of acceptance and move on, or would he — as many foes of the Arroyo administration hoped he would, had he been alive today — rally the masses to arms in a bid to overthrow the government?     Share on Facebook

•Clearwater leaders’ reaction to concert deplorable 
Ron Townson, St. Petersburg Times (FL) Letter to the editor.Take this from Ayn Rand: "In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit."     Share on Facebook

• •My economics book is censored in the Philippines 
Mark Skousen, Human Events Online I just received word from a “friend in the Philippines,” who wished to remain anonymous, that my book, The Making of Modern Economics, has been pulled from the shelves -- along with Ayn Rand’s novels -- from the libraries at the University of the Philippines, a hotbed of Marxism.     Share on Facebook

•Triple threat 
Richard Robbins, Tribune-Review (Pittsburgh) Profile of young performer Jerad Bortz.[Jackie] Cavanaugh prior to her retirement taught English at Greater Latrobe High School for 30 years. [....] One day, in school, Bortz asked Cavanaugh to drop by the band room. Cavanaugh's English class had been studying the Ayn Rand novel "Anthem," a story of rediscovered individuality in a world of mass conformity. The saga fired Bortz's imagination, so much so that he wrote a song based on the novel, complete with orchestration.     Share on Facebook