william.scherk

Where did that information come from? Was the suit made public or noted/alluded to anywhere? It would be interesting to dig out some of the details, such as the year, who had the rights at the time, and so on. Almost as boring as Canadian politics, but hey. I found something on ObjectivismOnline that contains a note back from a Peikoff staffer:

Where did that information come from? Was the suit made public or noted/alluded to anywhere? It would be interesting to dig out some of the details, such as the year, who had the rights at the time, and so on. Almost as boring as Canadian politics, but hey.

Cute video spoof:

I'll admit I do not understand this. I thought the video was chilling propaganda aimed to publicize a nationwide '911' snitch line -- so that captives of the regime inform on their 'traitor' sons, so that suspicious activity is immediately reported to the secret police -- are you saying that Iranian propaganda is right, that the video is a 'hoot'? Be that as it may, how can 'pretty evil' regimes be 'overthrown' if not by 'community organizing'? If I understand the Soros-led conspiracy charges correctly, Soros puppets proceed under the following principles: -- infiltrate countries with his operatives, under the cover of humanitarian aid -- take control of the air waves by creating “independent media” under his own control; -- destabilize the targeted country with financial manipulations and political agitation, -- wait for an election, then disrupt it with charges of voter fraud -- take the streets with armies of activist youth whom Soros has recruited, trained and funded, all demanding that the incumbent step down. Have I got this right, or partially correct? If so, then, which countries have been Soros targets? As best I can understand from my researches, it goes like this: Soros helped fund the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in the Czech Republic, the “Orange Revolution” in the Ukraine, the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, and also helped to engineer coups in Slovakia, Croatia and Yugoslavia. What I really don't understand is what is 'bad' about 'community organizing' in these countries. What was the outcome in each of these countries, given that Soros 'helped' (without trying to figure out which 'coups' happened when in Slovakia, Croatia and Yugoslavia)? How do we check to see if these principles ruled over the colour revolutions cited? Help us out here, Michael. You seem to understand these things a whole lot better than anybody else on this list.

Here is how the Iranian regime views George Soros. You can't make this stuff up.

Hillary Clinton is many things, but not insane. "She has to be looking at challenging [Obama] in the primaries" is kookiepants stuff, in my opinion (but maybe this is better split off to a fresh thread -- we already seem to have drifted from the Soros/Leftist/Islamism/Google Egyptian machinations trope . . . ). -- I wonder what Soros-supported or otherwise leftist/Islamicists are actually doing behind the scenes in Iran? I expect that anyone caught actually consorting with The Great Satan will be sent to the gallows, since the mullahs don't seem to have any problem hanging young dissidents on specious grounds. I bet the psychotic regime in power will find even more US-infected 'traitors' now that the Secretary of State has spoken out strongly. They seem to have no problem blaming seditious elements for the demos today, going by PressTV's demented coverage. I expect to find a link between Clinton and the 'traitors' in my next gagathon review of their coverage. They have already claimed “There are confessions confirming that the US intelligence agency, CIA, has provided some influential figures at the sedition trend headquarters with money" . . . See today's report from Radio Free Europe for a few details on the recent jump in executions; but be warned the visuals are unpleasant/sickening.

I've been gagging my way through some of very recent videos from PressTV (official Iranian channel) that attempt to put a hard regime spin on events in Egypt. There is something almost evil in the disinformation that imbues their broadcasts. I was so pleased to see the denunciations from Al-Azhar clerics, and the general Egyptian revulsion at Iran's pretensions. The brutal crackdown today on the streets of Tehran is appalling, disgusting -- but more disgusting is the cavalier way the Iranian propaganda machine depicts its own anti-regime demonstrators as traitors, stooges, bought agents. They are so much more fearsome and foul than their Egyptian media counterparts ever were, and their dictatorship ever more violent and demented. How many executions of 'traitors' this week in Iran? It seems Iran has topped has reached the apex of countries that kill its own citizens -- a factory of death for dissidents.

What I got from the video interview was a sense of its resonance with the Egyptian audience watching it on DreamTV. While State TV and radio were painting the demonstrators as agents of dark forces, foreign forces, anti-Egypt forces, while the apparatus of control and persuasion was arrayed against the demonstrators, while the army was standing mostly neutral, while the outcome was still uncertain, the interview showed the power of television to vivify events, to personalize the actors, to directly engage emotion. Egyptian viewers were reported to have been intensely moved by the drama of the interview's final moments, by the faces of the dead and Ghonim's reaction. I may be wrong that it was great, cathartic drama, or that it spoke directly to the heart of viewers in that country. It did leave a strong impression on me.

Online test . . . here.

Were there any facts in the story that you could pick out and comment on, Adam? What do you take from the story, once you have checked its contents for truth and context, and once you have evaluated the sources? -- what other facts or background need to be considered?

Thank gawd the old fusspot has sagged into a coma, finally. Under the cover of boredom, the Canucki programme to establish a multicultural communist** caliphate inches closer to reality. A sprawling European hellhole just the other side of Niagara Falls. Rich, healthy, educated, funny, polite, peaceful and smug. Snore on, Phil. _______________ ** If Hillary Clinton is marxist, as our marriage counsellor to the stars believes, then Canadians are commies from coast-to-coast to coast.

I don't think anyone thinks we are kidding, Joel. Jewish New Scotland? Arab/Scots running the province of PEI? A Muslim Mayor of Calgary? A Prime Minister inviting a TV satirist for a sleepover at the Canucki White House? Jack Layton, trilingual socialist member of parliament, in a Mao jacket at a multicultural pancake breakfast? Why would we kid? Carol, here is Ma Chow, Olivia Chow, Rick Mercer . . . and Jack speaking Cantonese . . .

For those US readers who have yet managed to stave off coma or death, I give you a video of our Prime Minister singing the Who's The Seeker at a secret Party gathering. Here is that same Prime Minister hosting a sleepover at his official residence with Canada's (Newfie, gay, atheist) John Stewart, shown on State Television. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FGIQpdtS_Y

All the money is on Team PEI PS -- why aren't you dead? MacDonald, of course. Obviously a CaBretoner who braved the perilous journey to the bright lighthouses and unlimited horizons of PEI where dreams can be realized. Those people are so versatile. They rule the coal mines deep, and are the seas' commander. The Jewish MacDonalds of Cape Breton are fearsome indeed, but hold not a candle to the Maronite Arabs of PEI, who twice seized power in that province via free and fair elections. For those who think that PEI is only potatoes, Anne of Green Gables and incredible women's field hockey, I invite you to look up the Ghiz family, whose blended Scottish and Lebanese ancestry represents all that is Canuckistani politics -- a seething horror of boredom and normality.

Wonderful takedown of Iranian pretensions to leadership over the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, by Iranioan exile Amir Taheri**, from the pan-Arab news site Asharq Alawsat. Egypt: Change within the regime, not regime change ____________ ** Taheri is known for occasional fabrications of news items emanating from Iran, but his polemic is a welcome antidote to those who see only parallels between Iran 1979 and Egypt 2011.

Egypt's news outlet Al Masry Al Youm reports on an Al-Jazeera interview tith Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Though al-Qaradawi has refused official ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, he has a wide following in the Middle East, as broadcaster/Islamist ideologue/religious authority. He is also banned from entering the US. MSK has noted al-Qaradawi several times on OL, notably in this post. Al-Qaradawi: Freedom takes priority over Islamic law (this story has been repeated in thousands of other news aggregators and blogs. Al Masry Al Youm is a privately-owned news outlet)

You might be right in your sorting, Tony -- an open-ended "and why?" question would give greater understanding, but that is a journalistic, not a survey question. I suggest wading in to the site using the tools on the graphic interface page to test certain assumptions. I like that one can take your two camps idea and see if it usefully describes the data . . . I find seemingly odd juxtapositions of opinion, and the 'why' questions engendered lead to digging in other sources -- indices on press freedom, economic freedom, historical notes, and so on. For example, Egypt. What do Egyptians think about 'democracy,' the place of Islam in society/politics, Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, free enterprise, the 'struggle' between modernization and tradition, and so on? I add this to what I have learned about the history of Egypt, its institutions, its press, its place in Arab history, its demographics, and further questions arise. The data on nearby countries is similarly broad and sometimes odd -- why do Christians suppport Hezbollah? What might explain the fall in Turkish attitudes towards the US? What happened in 2003 that Jordanian favour towards the USA plunged to 1%? How can an extremely pious Muslim country like Indonesia be so favourable to the USA? Why does China hold the USA in such (relatively) high regard? Michael's impressions of Iranian opinion are also cogent -- how to assess opinion in countries that are almost entirely closed to inquiry? I am finding that some of my assumptions are not supported in the data. Which is sobering. But perhaps it is better to find out that what I thought I knew isn't actually true; it can be good to discover where 'what you know just ain't so' . . . if you know what I mean.

It means Fatfinger and is also the reason my posts often have 'edited' below my signature. If you could fix it, yes, please.

From a 22-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey from Spring 2010 (the latest). See also the full report, and a graphical interface for the Global Attitudes Project, which allows you to zero in on specific questions by country and region. Much to ponder; I found this table quite surprising.

All the money is on Team PEI PS -- why aren't you dead?

Are you trying to kill the American readers here, Carol? This is going beyond boring and tedious into lethal force. But, since you bring out the heavy weapons, like Jack's Chinese mother-in-law, I am going to go one-up, into 'if you read this you will probably die' territory. Cite: Jack Layton speaks about cancer: NOT DEAD YET? Hah! This will most likely finish you off. Call the funeral director and kiss your children. Cite: Statement on Mother’s Day by Jack Layton, leader of the New Democrats STILL BREATHING? Okay, the penultimate Canadian killing machine. Jack Layton on The Hour. Say your goodbyes . . . don't make me post a video of Jack Layton speaking his bromides in French!!!!!!

Peikoff sold off the rights, and the movie is of course associated with The Atlas Society. ARI cannot possibly be seen to offer any support whatsoever to the evul Kelley-ites. In any case, this is just the trailer. More indicative will be the kind of reaction from the Kremlin in Irvine when the actual film opens. Will any Kremlin-associated folks even dare to review it? Will the Party members go see it in disguise? Peikoff sold off the rights and the rights ended up with the enemy. What to do? I think head + sandbox are the only open options for ARI itself, but the enthusiasm for the movie is totally largely positive at OO.net, The FORUM and at RoR. Check the movie's Facebook page for more reaction. I predict the whole Rand-inflected movement will do everything in its power to swamp the initial 100 screens . . . and that ARI itself will say nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing and then some crashing nothing.

Maybe you are watching the finger and not what the finger is pointing to. The preview website has 600+ comments -- have you weighed in there? The Youtube site has over a thousand comments, and over 100,000 views. Did you take part? If Phil bothers you so much, William, you could start a thread in your own corner to spare the rest of us your posing on this thread about the Atlas Shrugged movie - which may end up doing more for Objectivism than three decades of the Ayn Rand Institute. You are right, Ted. Perhaps I should go back to my corner. Maybe Phil is right, too -- that this isn't an Objectivist site, and that the lack of positive comment on the trailer in this thread may mean something dire. I liked the trailer, on balance. I hope the movie makes as big a splash as the Youtube video has made in one day and more. I hope the movie opens strong and that initial distribution expands based on positive audience reactions, and that discussion of Ayn Rand's ideas moves out of the O-bubble. I would love to see the movie replicate the success of Atlas Shrugged and build an audience, be well-distributed on DVD and other media, and offer an introduction to a whole new generation. I hope that the negative bitches like Diana Hsieh are forced to give an honest review of the production, not evade all mention of it. I hope ARI folks react in some way. I hope those who have fervent hopes for this movie's impact work very hard in social media to further extend the impact. I hope the various factions can be objective and give it a push, uniting behind the notion that the movie can make a large impression in the wider world. I hope there is a mention of the trailer above the waterline of Objectivish forums, and I wish you every success in your own endeavors, Ted. I appreciate that you don't like me, consider me dishonest, loathe my interventions, don't read the threads I begin, and are generally a "Scherk is without value" partisan. It means nothing to me, frankly.

Wall Street Journal: Egypt's Military Rulers Suggest They Will Honor Israel Treaty CNN: Egypt: U.S. military officials meet with Middle East counterparts New York Times: Military Offers Assurances to Egypt and Neighbors Jerusalem Post: PM welcomes Egypt military pledge to maintain peace treaty Ha'aretz: Netanyahu: Egypt-Israel peace is cornerstone of Mideast stability Fox News: Main Opposition Groups to End Protests in Cairo Bob Kolker: Remember the Bastaille! 1793! The Terror! Shit down their necks!

Maybe you are watching the finger and not what the finger is pointing to. The preview website has 600+ comments -- have you weighed in there? The Youtube site has over a thousand comments, and over 100,000 views. Did you take part? If you don't like this site, since it is no longer (in your eyes) has Objectivist value, you have choices, Phil. You can snipe, tut-tut, cross your arms across your chest and retreat to a place of superiority and righteousness. You can open your own gated community forum. You can fuck off entirely and try your chances at SOLO or RoR or OO.net or the Speicher forum or Noodlefood or some other place. Do you ever wonder why some people (me, at least) associate you with a scolding, prissy, incorrigible rectitude?