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Monday, May 12, 2008
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Choose freedom over the status-quo
Marilyn Jost, Daily Record (Parsippany, NJ)
Capitalism
Op-ed piece by a Ron Paul supporter.To quote Ayn Rand, "The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." Every single new law that gets passed costs us money and takes away freedoms! Every single new law entrenches us deeper into big government.
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Random thoughts
Peter Himmel, Wenatchee World (Wenatchee, WA)
Atlas Shrugged
Letter to the editor.What would Ayn Rand think of the city of Wenatchee banning smoking in public parks? I think this gives us a clue: "Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority." Mayor Johnson shrugged.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
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Americans’ favorite books? Ha! Where is the Danielle Steel?
Rachel Sauer, Palm Beach Post (FL)
Atlas Shrugged
A small but huffy army of [book] snobs has somehow established the rule that the only books we'll publicly admit to reading, let alone loving, are the ones with their stamp of approval. But come on! Atlas Shrugged? Does anyone really love that book?
Friday, May 09, 2008
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‘The Life Before Her Eyes’ director shrugs off criticism
Roger Moore, PopMatters
Atlas Shrugged movie
Atlas Shrugged
Interview with writer-director Vadim Perelman.[Q:] You’re taking on an Ayn Rand novel, a movie that’s sure to be controversial, taken from a novel that many have wanted to film but nobody can crack, “Atlas Shrugged.” At least you have Angelina Jolie on board. [A:] [....] Adapting “Atlas Shrugged” is a huge responsibility because this book, this woman, are so fervently loved and followed by millions of people. It’s like taking on “Lord of the Rings” with maybe a different sort of devoted following. Rand would be, I think, today a great libertarian icon. Perhaps that’s what Angelina Jolie is interested in making the movie. For me, Rand is this writer of big, broad themes and emotions. But so am I, thematically. People accuse her of being heavy-handed, and I hear the same thing said about me. It is the Russian way, I think, of doing things. That was my window into this, growing up under the same repressive regime.
Monday, May 05, 2008
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2008 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting: Detailed notes
Peter Boodell, Seeking Alpha
Capitalism
[Charles Munger:] A lot goes on in bowels of American industry which is not pretty. A lot of people got overdosed on Ayn Rand. They would hold that even if an axe murderer in a free market is a wise development. I think Alan Greenspan did a good job on average, but he overdosed on Ayn Rand that whatever happens in free market is going to be alright. We should prohibit some things.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Friday, May 02, 2008
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Social justice is a stupid idea
Jordan Rothman, Brandeis Hoot (Brandeis U, Waltham, MA)
I am becoming more of an objectivist, a follower of the tenets laid out by the contemporary philosopher Ayn Rand. Her beliefs stem from the central philosophy that people should not live for others nor ask others to live for themselves. Social justice is diametrically opposed to this philosophy.
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Gordon Campbell interviews Rodney Hide
Gordon Campbell, Scoop
Atlas Shrugged
Interview with the leader of New Zealand’s Act Party.[Q:] Have you ever read Ayn Rand? [A:] Yes. [Q:] Why do you think her work remains so popular, especially among the young? [A:] Its easily accessible. She wrote… you know, like a novel, rather than strictly economics or philosophy or political science. And she creates characters who are heroes. So I can imagine it being quite powerful. I think people who are libertarian by persuasion are very influenced by the first libertarian book that they read.
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Modern liberalism at wit’s end
Barry Loberfeld, FrontPage Magazine
Atlas Shrugged
Capitalism
Review of The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics, by Jonathan Chait."[While] conservatives believe, say, that progressive taxes inhibit incentives to work, they would not change this view even if it were proven wrong, because buttressing their position is a deeper belief about the immorality of big government. Liberal support for bigger government, on the other hand, is entirely rooted in what liberals believe to be its practical effects,” [Chait writes]. [But] [e]ven the "moralist" defenders of the free market, those who do indeed maintain a "belief about the immorality of big government," do not ignore "practical effects." After all, what was Atlas Shrugged but a demonstration of the consequences -- for everyone, not just the John Galts -- of a collectivized economy?
Thursday, May 01, 2008
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Director sets the stage
Phil Villarreal, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)
Atlas Shrugged movie
Atlas Shrugged
Interview with writer/director Vadim Perelman, whose latest project is The Life Before Her Eyes.Perelman’s next project, writing Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged” along with “Braveheart” writer Randall Wallace, was [...] a challenge. Perelman says he's still waiting for the studio to approve the script, but that everything was still on track for a 2009 release, barring an actors strike. That film is expected to star Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. “It was difficult in a sense,” Perelman said. “It’s such a huge novel to cut down, to make it visual, flesh out the characters and so on. What parts to leave in or leave out. It was easier in a sense because it has a classical novel structure, but ‘The Life Before Her Eyes' was very much a poem and essentially very evocative.”
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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In the Sellwood Kitchen
Michael and Erin O’Shaughnessy, The Bee (Portland, OR)
Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead
Full house tonight in the Sellwood Kitchen: Josh & Adam (as per), Jim (as of late), and Erin’s girlhood chum, Allee, who notches up the intelligence quotient by about 50%. (Sure, I can namedrop Ayn Rand, but she’s actually read “The Fountainhead”. Oh, and Jim’s read “Atlas Shrugged”. Eggheads.) Ayn Rand developed a philosophy called Objectivism (she preferred Existentialism, but Nietzsche had already nicked it). Rand’s idea that happiness is the moral purpose of our lives, and productive achievement is our noblest activity, sounds tempting at first listen, but I balk at her unswerving conviction. I am certain of nothing.
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We have enough oil here in the U.S.
Philip V. Brennan, Newsmax
Ayn Rand Institute
Let it be said loud and clear — there is not a single shred of evidence that DDT poses the least kind of threat to the health of the planet’s people, yet on the flimsiest of grounds created by an alarmist book, “Silent Spring,” by the late Rachel Carson based on myth rather than science — this life-saving chemical is banned and whole populations die. Think that’s an accident? Think again. As I quoted Michael Berliner co-chairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif., in last week's column, the mankind hater's goal is nothing less than the extinction of humanity.
Monday, April 28, 2008
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The new pyramid builders II
Edward Cline, Family Security Matters
Atlas Shrugged
[T]he artificially high price of oil charged by OPEC [...], which has a near monopoly on oil production as a result of Western-sanctioned expropriations and Western environmental policies, [....] facilitates the incursion of Islamic jihad, both the "soft" kind through financial and political manipulation, and the "hard" kind of Islamofascist violence, which is funded by especially Mideast money from all the Persian Gulf states. (Therefore, we are subsidizing our own decline and ultimate destruction. What did Ayn Rand have to say about the "sanction of the victim?" The principle applies to civilizations as well as to individuals.)
Sunday, April 27, 2008
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More older folks flocking to MySpace and Facebook
Arlene Gross, Newsday (New York)
Atlas Shrugged
[Eugene] Fridman, an applications developer for Chase Bank, said he likes the Q&A feature [of the LinkedIn website ] and checks it once or twice a day. “It’s really fun to read what other people are interested in,” he said, such as a recent online discussion about which books had the greatest influence on them. Soon after that dialogue, Fridman got a copy of Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged,” a title mentioned by several people.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
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Movie: Science ‘expels’ intelligent design
Dennis Carter, eSchool News
Ayn Rand Institute
On the pro-“intelligent design” movie, Expelled.“Intelligent design is completely devoid of any positive scientific content, and consists of nothing more than a religiously motivated attack on evolution,” said Keith Lockitch, a resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, a California-based nonprofit that describes its mission as promoting rationality, capitalism, and individual rights: “To the extent intelligent-design advocates are facing obstacles in academia, it is because they are not doing real science--they haven’t been expelled, they have flunked out of the scientific community, just as a faith healer would flunk out of medical school.”
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Legislature works toward adjournment
Henry C. Jackson, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Waterloo, IA)
Atlas Shrugged
[House Minority Leader Christopher] Rants compared this year’s session to the novel “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, a book he said he gave his House page as a gift. “It sums up the continual struggle between the looters and producers,” he said. “They’re the looters.”
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Andrew Lipke Q&A
Spence D., IGN.com
Atlas Shrugged
Interview with musician Andrew Lipke.[Q:] Who or what are your non-musical influences and why? [A:] [....] I'm influenced by the writing of Ayn Rand, especially Atlas Shrugged with its rich metaphors and extremely dense and thought provoking imagery; and the many teachings of religious and spiritual doctrines around the world.
• •
30 years ago in Reason
Reason
Personal life
“The luckiest beneficiaries of [Ayn Rand’s] work are the people who read her and never see her, never meet her, never have any reason to deal with her in person. Then they get the best of what she was.” —Nathaniel Branden, “Thank You Ayn Rand, and Goodbye”
Friday, April 25, 2008