william.scherk

I understand what you are saying. Of course she hasn't apologized for her lengthy kookrant. I contrast that unbalanced and near-demented tirade with her now more measured allowance for dissent. I see a difference in tone and accomodation of 'differing angles,' but you are right to critique the idea that she has gone soft on her earlier enemies. In her comments on the Atlas Shrugged movie it is obvious that she finds no reason to take back one word of her TAS/TOC jeremiads. You and Robert Campbell make clear why she is not sounding unbalanced now in the context of the McCaskey whoopup: it is a messy semi-public controversy involving only those she considers to be on her side of the chasm. She still loathes the opposition, and is unlikely to concede that what opened the chasm initially was authoritarian crazypants attitudes on the ARI side. She is unlikely then to revisit in her own mind the Reisman debacle or any other of the old irrational demands for obedience from her own grouping. Indeed she seems to be remarkably slow in getting her own shit together in the form of a response to the current demands for silence and/or obedience. None. Nope. Not a chance. She opens 'civil and respectful' discussion of recent events, but she carefully prunes anything that gets up her nose. What surprised me was that what I wrote did not get up her nose. I agree. Beyond laying out what facts she and her husband think are in evidence, she hasn't yet weighed in with any strong words, let alone a denunciation of Uncle Crazypants. What is odd and seemingly discordant about Betsy's most recent commentary is that she supports Biddle, but can't get let her own opinions out of the bag. Fear of the consequences? Fear of losing favour, of being found on the wrong (anti-Crazypants) side?

The Ayn Rand Lexicon is clear on sacrifice. It is bad. "'Sacrifice' is the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue." This makes sense when one reads of the sacrifices detailed in the holy books: the point of a sacrifice ostensibly to gain a benefit from gawd -- "burn up your calf or son or fruit platter on the altar, and I will smile on you and yours. Destroy one valuable thing and I, Lord of the Universe, will reward you with another thing." In Randian terms the killing and burning is a sacrifice only when gawd's favour is actually less valuable than that of the destroyed thing. An atheist like me might say, Holy Shit, you burned your child or goat for a promise that will not and cannot be delivered. You fool !! But that's me, and apparently I miss the point of looking at the situation in the Randian manner. If old Jahoshiwashy stakes out the calf and pomelos and burns it all up, and gets fuck all in return -- knowing in his heart that he will get fuck all in return, then yes, he has sacrificed. If, however, the torching of value actually did propitiate the Master and deliver a fabulous enduring bounty to Jahoshiwashy, then the action can't be said to be sacrifice at all . . . the charred and stinking bits of rind and fat and bone and muck on the altar are not in themselves stand-alone evidence of a sacrifice in the Randian sense. The destruction of value may or may not entail a sacrifice. It's all in the details of the deal and the implicated personal valuations. By a bit of the old switcheroo, of course, a situation somewhat similar on the surface can also be generally accepted as a sacrifice, yet by Randian lights be nothing of the sort. A mother decides to buy hats or gewgaws from QVC rather than fried chicken and coleslaw and chocolate milkshakes to feed her hungry child. Sacrifice? Did the mother sacrifice the health of her child? Nope, or rather, not necessarily -- not if the mother actually values her child less than hats. The child squawls, withers, expires or gets taken by The Wet Nurse, the hats are laid out on their stands, yet no one ought label this a sacrifice, unless and only if this mother did not give up a greater thing (by her own set of values). If QVC hat lady figured, Fuck it. My brat is obviously not as important as the fake suede ladies homburg and matching keyfob -- then she will obviously not be sacrificing young Whiny Starvy-face. She has given up a lesser value for a greater. No sacrifice in the Randian sense. It seem to me that this essence is all a thoughtful Randian need to grasp. The ramifications of this essential formula follow and all a good Randian can do is follow them where they ramify. Mind you . . . "For a man of moral stature, whose desires are born of rational values, sacrifice is the surrender of the right to the wrong, of the good to the evil." Which might let Objectivish folk assess the valuation of the monster mom as a gruesomely irrational act, something which no man of moral stature would do. But to use labels properly, to wield words in the proper Objectivish manner, we still should not name monster mom's actions as sacrifice. I hope against hope that I have got this all wrong.

Here is the relevant five-minute selection featuring the final question, in which Hsieh discusses the virtue of politeness, in the context of recent whoopups bedevilling Objectivish folk: http://www.vdoc.ca/musicFiles/hsiehnoodlecastLastQuestion.mp3 Incidentally, Paul Hsieh has posted a new article in which he discusses how the worried well should approach "whether McCaskey acted properly in publicly posting Leonard Peikoff's letter." See Should McCaskey Have Released Peikoff's Letter?

I don't believe she has converted it to a Youtube version, so you may be stuck. If you can't watch it on her site or at Ustream without rupturing your Kaypro, she has an audio-only version posted at Noodlefood. The production values of the video are such that you would not miss much. The webcam stares at her as she reads off her computer screen and occasionally orients her eyes to the viewer.

I have put up several comments on Noodlefood threads concerning the McCaskey/Harriman/Biddle whoopup . . . and none have been deleted. This is surprising, since she had earlier consigned me to the Inner Circle Of Heck because of my satirical comments back when she got snuggly with Perigo.** I believe Diana has moved on somewhat since her titanic 14,000 word denunciation of Chris Sciabarra. If you watch/listen to her inaugural Videoblog, she seems to be honestly reaching for a durable set of principles by which Objectivists can wisely manage disagreements. I guess it is because the present whoopup simply cannot be contained, cannot be curbed, cannot be stifled -- and she very much wants to SAY SOMETHING STRONG (have a listen to the concluding remarks concerning the whoopup at around 47:30). ++++++++++++++++++ ** "At the moment she has got herself in a stew of quite amusing contradictions over at SOLOPassionofbitchingaboutBarbaraBranden, where her toadies gush and Valliant and his demented wife continue to examine the sheets of Ayn Rand's 1968 bed for stains of evil. La Mertz finds herself an able match in the quick-witted Shayne Wissler, but cannot acknowledge this because she has only the one eye in the middle of her forehead -- the one and only eye in the kingdom that Sees all, Knows All. I'll tell ya, if she ran for meter-maid in my town, I would move to Costa Rica in fear she would take power and start killing people. As it is, she has her universe, her castle, her king, her fellow maniacs and enough rectitude to fill the Bay of Fundy."

This, for instance, is one speculation. I've got one of those 'the dog did not bark' questions, Michael. Let's say you or I retained a belief that there was a substantial and independent existence of mind apart from the body (brain/nervous system). How would we go about finding evidence for the belief? Where would we expect to find substantial evidence and yet do not? When a brain is injured, it seems that the mind is injured, whether in small lesions to particular areas -- causing small but profound deficits in function -- or large blunt force trauma leading to unconsciousness, coma and death. I think I recommended to you the Antonio Damasio book "The Feeling of What Happens." I hope it is on your reading list. In it there is some fine, thoughtful speculation on the detailed connection of mind and brain.

I don't think the measures cited in the Fowler paper attempt to 'quantify the ideological contents of a political judgments.' Rather, the paper assesses liberal/conservative attitudes, adolescent social milieux and the prevalance of a particular allele implicated in 'novelty seeking' behaviour. A number of instruments have been used over the years to measure individual political attitudes, and longitudinal research has found that the stances are relatively enduring. Not only are the stances relatively enduring, certain aspects of personality can predict the left/right stance of individuals. It's not rocket science, Bob. If you read the paper you will find the answers to your questions therein -- no need to rely on my paraphrase nor the six slim paragraphs from MSK's introduction. Here again is the link to the full text, and here is the abstract: Scholars in many fields have long noted the importance of social context in the development of political ideology. Recent work suggests that political ideology also has a heritable component, but no specific gene variant or combination of variants associated with political ideology have so far been identified. Here, we hypothesize that individuals with a genetic predisposition toward seeking out new experiences will tend to be more liberal, but only if they are embedded in a social context that provides them with multiple points of view. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we test this hypothesis by investigating an association between self-reported political ideology and the 7R variant of the dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4), which has previously been associated with novelty seeking. Among those with DRD4-7R, we find that the number of friendships a person has in adolescence is significantly associated with liberal political ideology. Among those without the gene variant, there is no association. This is the first study to elaborate a specific gene-environment interaction that contributes to ideological self-identification, and it highlights the importance of incorporating both nature and nurture into the study of political preferences.

Two points stand out from Biddle's piece. He finds it unremarkable and completely acceptable that ARI has nothing whatsoever to say about the kerfuffle. He also finds Peikoff to be unjust in his moral condemnation. I contrast this to the behind the scenes outrage of those benighted Objectivist Academic Centre students who not only find injustice in Peikoff's email denunuciation, but who also find a disgusting obiter dicta in the few official ARI/OAC instructions to date. I repost an excerpt from the announcement of a teleconference on November 8th. For those of you who spend time on Facebook, you've likely become aware of various discussions on the internet by some Objectivists regarding Dr. John McCaskey's recent resignation from ARI's Board of Directors. We understand that some of you have questions, and more importantly, that some of you are genuinely struggling with how one should respond based on the limited public information and subsequent "chatter". We therefore want to meet with all of you to discuss both why Dr. McCaskey's resignation is a private matter, and more urgently, to provide some guidance on how to objectively think and communicate about a matter that appears as difficult to understand as this one does. There will be no discussion, no further questions entertained during the teleconference. Submitted questions may or may not be answered by Brook and the two Ghates. Silence is otherwise all anyone can expect from ARI and its educational arm, OAC. I hope some brave OAC student will do his or her utmost to break through the crust that ARI loyalists are determined should seal the affair. In a posting today, Diana Hsieh has made clear the bones of her and her husband`s forthcoming Judgement; support ARI silence and guidance down the line while tut-tutting over the injustice visited on McCaskey: To forestall any confusions, Paul and I wanted to make one point clear now. Like Craig Biddle, we think that a person can judge Dr. Peikoff's ultimatum about and moral condemnation of Dr. McCaskey as wrong, while still very much respecting and admiring Dr. Peikoff and his achievements. Moreover, a person can do that while judging the Ayn Rand Institute to be blameless in this matter. That's basically Paul's and my view. We have some concerns about ARI's future, but we regard their silence on this matter as the right course. Unless something changes, we expect to continue our support of ARI. Peikoff seems to have walled himself off from his supporters and from all calls to speak further to the issues . . .

It doesn't seem so. It's not like the paper is hard to follow. Why don't you look it over and see if it hold true to your model of a spoof? One of the hall marks off a good spoof is that it is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. Indistinguishable if one skims, perhaps . . . as did the editors of the journal, Social Text, when Sokal's paper arrived. The fun part of the Sokal spoof was its garbled synthesis of quantum hooey with postmodernist critical theory hooey. In his commentaries explaining the genesis and process of his paper in Social Text, Sokal was surprised that no one in the editorial process took the elementary step of submitting the paper to peers for review. Peers with some basic knowledge of physics could have and would have exposed the howlers and tipped off the editors that this was a shonky, hilarious mix of jargon and fluff and demented linkages. So, it seems to me that a knowledgeable person such as yourself could have picked out the bullshit in "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" by paragraph two. Can you do the same with the Fowler paper? or with the six other references I cited above? How shall we distinguish between hooey and non-hooey? +++++++++++++++++++ Sokal followed the appearance of his paper in Social Text with an explanation of his 'experiment' that appeared in Lingua Franca. Here is an excerpt from that piece, "A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies": 'For some years I've been troubled by an apparent decline in the standards of intellectual rigor in certain precincts of the American academic humanities. But I'm a mere physicist: if I find myself unable to make head or tail of jouissance and différance, perhaps that just reflects my own inadequacy. So, to test the prevailing intellectual standards, I decided to try a modest (though admittedly uncontrolled) experiment: Would a leading North American journal of cultural studies -- whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross -- publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a] it sounded good and (B] it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions? The answer, unfortunately, is yes.'

It doesn't seem so. It's not like the paper is hard to follow. Why don't you look it over and see if it hold true to your model of a spoof? So the alarm bells go off. So you check for smoke, fire, combustibles, intruders or shorts. What do you find when you look? The idea of quantifying political ideology is a non-starter, it seems, which obviates any further discussion of research on political ideology. I don't suggest that all of the research is without defect . . . I just wonder what might trigger your alarm, and what you do to test your initial conclusions.

It is amusing how the inquiry played out -- a lesson in confirmation bias. If one starts from the apparent anomaly of a person holding something to the ear, the question I think ought to have been 'what else could the lady be holding, if not a cell phone?' The perhaps not obvious answer is 'a 1928 hearing aid.' Many commenters have put forth this idea, but it appears not to have occured to the mysterian who obsessed over the footage. Here is a link to a page at Siemens' website, picturing a battery powered hearing aid on the market in 1924 . . .

The whole dang thing is posted at Fowler's website, "Friendships Moderate an Association between a Dopamine Gene Variant and Political Ideology."

This smells fishy, though. What do you find fishy now that you may have had a chance to look deeper into the research, Michael? Yes, more than plausible -- in thirty years of psychological research into political/ideological disposition, there are varied plausible connections found between temperament/personality traits and social behaviour/attitude that aren't exactly 'political.' If you are familiar with the Big Five factors of personality theory, you may not be surprised that research has apparently found strong correlations between high scores on the 'openness to experience' factor and liberal political attitudes. The line of inquiry pursued by the study featured in your link is informed by these interesting correlations, and by other findings that 'novelty seeking behaviour' could be correlated generally to the same factor. Not a big jump to testing genetic regions that were suspected to play a part in predisposing folks to that kind of behaviour. The current research tries to tie together a few of the converging lines with the novel finding of an actual variation on the genome -- laid alongside plausible social/environmental variables suggested by prior research. That's what I find to be startling and interesting -- findings that at once support several explications of observed differences. The general subject of this work has long fascinated me -- touching as it does a central psychological puzzle: "Why do people believe/act as they do in 'right/left' terms?" The related questions that I have always hoped might be answered are these: -- is temperament/personality a reasonable predictor of 'political values' or 'political orientation'? (and if so, how strong are the presumed associations) -- how exactly does research establish a 'conservative' versus 'liberal' personality? -- do longitudinal studies of personality/temperament suggest that 'conservative' or 'liberal' political orientations are enduring? -- does research on 'political personality account for a 'libertarian' orientation? for 'conversion' behaviour? -- what kinds of milieus tend to reinforce or weaken the posited tendencies to one pole or the other? Other OL readers who have the same interests as I might be aware of some earlier research by Jonathan Haidt. This research made a bit of a splash (search on "What Makes People Vote Republican?") since he appeared to chastize fellow liberals for a shrunken sense of morality. His particular angle is only one take on the more general variables, of course. I include a few links and abstracts at bottom to highlight some other angles taken. What emerges from the multiple strands of research may be a set of basic, relatively reasonable premises built on straightforward, valid observations -- there are real personality differences between folks who can be most firmly attached to one 'pole' or the other -- and there are actual 'ingrained' temperament/behaviour variations that are directed in part by genetic endowment. What this means, of course, what this portends, what this says about the morality of either pole . . . this is where the research conclusions can be used to buttress prejudices on either side. In much of the commentary surrounding Haidt's splash, for example, and at other times when the orientation/personality research appeared above the media waterline, it seemed that the information was simply added to a toolkit of psychological disparagement. The 'left' simpletons were in effect seeking a datapoint to support 'conservatism' as birth defect, and the 'right' stupidos did exactly the same thing in reverse. It's the old kneejerk 'argument by evulness' crap, in my opinion. I bet that as we each here ponder the predictions of this kind of research, we could test the presumptions and premises basic to the research against our own life experiences and against our own score on the five factors of personality. Do the predictions hold or not? Can one see oneself in the varied findings? Of course, the predictions of the research noted above are quite specific, and we would need to be tested for the gene variant to make a proper test of those particular findings . . . a striking aspect of this research is that it can be done again with different cohorts -- if the correlations hold on subsequent study, then fishy or not, we have some reliable information to further ponder. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Some Politics May Be Etched in the Genes Geneticists who study behavior and personality have known for 30 years that genes play a large role in people's instinctive emotional responses to certain issues, their social temperament. It is not that opinions on specific issues are written into a person's DNA. Rather, genes prime people to respond cautiously or openly to the mores of a social group. Only recently have researchers begun to examine how these predispositions, in combination with childhood and later life experiences, shape political behavior. Thinking styles and the big five personality traits revisited The big five personality traits Neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are known as the big five personality traits in psychology. The five-factor personality traits model (FFM) resulted from several decades of factor analytic research focusing on trait personality (see Antonioni, 1998). Neuroticism (N] is the opposite of emotional stability. People high on the N scale tend to experience such negative feelings as emotional instability, embarrassment, guilt, pessimism, and low self-esteem. People scoring high on the extraversion (E] scale tend to be sociable and assertive, and they prefer to work with other people. Openness to experience (O] is characterized by such attributes as open-mindedness, active imagination, preference for variety, and independence of judgment. People high on the agreeableness (A] scale tend to be tolerant, trusting, accepting, and they value and respect other people’s beliefs and conventions. Finally, people high on the conscientiousness (C] scale tend to distinguish themselves for their trustworthiness and their sense of purposefulness and of responsibility. They tend to be strong-willed, task-focused, and achievement-oriented. Nursery school personality and political orientation two decades later Preschool children who 20 years later were relatively liberal were characterized as: developing close relationships, self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating, relatively under-controlled, and resilient. Preschool children subsequently relatively conservative at age 23 were described as: feeling easily victimized, easily oVended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited, and relatively over-controlled and vulnerable. Examining the Differences in the Moral Foundations of Liberals and Conservatives Liberals and conservatives have different moral foundations, according to research published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2009. The moral foundation theory developed by Graham and his colleagues consists of five main moral foundations: Harm - caring for and not hurting others, Fairness - equality and reciprocity, Ingroup - loyalty to one’s group, Authority - respect for leadership, and Purity - the sanctity of social norms and customs. “Liberals generally justify moral rules in terms of their consequences for individuals; they are quite accustomed to balancing competing interests and to fine-tuning social institutions to maximize their social utility. Conservatives, in contrast, are more likely to respect rules handed down by God (for religious conservatives) or from earlier generations.” Unlike studies one and two, this third study also included libertarians as a potential political affiliation, who were more likely to violate the five moral foundations for money than either liberals or conservatives. Interestingly, although libertarians are often viewed as being similar to conservatives, the difference between libertarians and conservatives was greater than the difference between liberals and conservatives. “Libertarians may support the Republican Party for economic reasons, but in their moral foundations profile we found that they more closely resembled liberals than conservatives,” as Graham and his colleagues explain. Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show. Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work. Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions. The results show "there are two cognitive styles -- a liberal style and a conservative style," said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research. Researchers Find a 'Liberal Gene' Liberals may owe their political outlook partly to their genetic make-up, according to new research from the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. Ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4. The study’s authors say this is the first research to identify a specific gene that predisposes people to certain political views. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter affecting brain processes that control movement, emotional response, and ability to experience pleasure and pain. Previous research has identified a connection between a variant of this gene and novelty-seeking behavior, and this behavior has previously been associated with personality traits related to political liberalism.

You have my respect, Brant, for insisting that your mom die at home -- and for insisting on caring for her yourself. Hope to see you posting again soon. Take care of yourself too.

Thanks for the reminder, Neil. I forget some of my Objectivish Minifacts, so can you remember if this means Jame Valliant is now able to say word one about it? I recall that he was very mysterious about why he could not comment on the hardback edition. It would give him something to do besides posting the ARI party line on McCaskey/Peikoff at Noodlefood, and will supplement his work at Wikipedia.

It's grey to me. She needn't ask my permission to send my email directly to you or Kat, should needn't feel icky doing that nor feel icky sending it out to her message-in-a-bottle secret CC list. I view these things like letters. If Betsy sent me a letter, the 'intellectual property' of the letter might be said to belong to her, but I am free to share its contents as I would any other letter ("I received a letter from the psychotic Mrs Grundy. In it she rants 'blah blah blabbity blah' . . ."). I can, if I wish, hand the letter around to colleagues. I can share that letter directly with you or Starbuckle or my lawyer or whomsoever I desire. Same with an email. It doesn't go into an inbox as if entering a safe. Under certain circumstances I might go beyond sharing the contents of the letter hand to hand. I might paraphrase some of or the entire content and make that public, or if I felt the sender's expectations of privacy were outweighed by its threatening or scurrilous or defamatory content, I might publish it in its entirety, and let a hundred flowers bloom. I like what PZ Myers does on his site. He tells readers that he reserves the right to publish any email sent to him, at his sole discretion, and he publishes entire missives including headers when he sees fit (for example, today). This is what happens when discussion is squelched or when folks go snaky and when folks send evasive, belligerent, or overweening backchannels. Here's the note to Speicher. Feel free to paraphrase Speicher's rantback on WSS . . . it will be instructive. When you tip a rock all sorts of things squirm out. "Hi Betsy, I am sure you won't be reconsidering making your private commentary on the Peikoff/Harriman/ARI/McCaskey/Tracinski kerfuffle public, but I thought to let you know that the first lengthy 'paraphrase' of your commentary has now appeared. This will have wide circulation, as OL is a secret treat for a lot of Objectivish folk, and is the most-read online Objectivish-leaning community outside the Atlasphere. http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9169&st=400&p=110845entry110845" Bottom line: some fence-sitters don't want their timorous bootlicking to be belittled. Too bad. Speicher can go piss up a rope.

<p>On a tangent, but showing the relative rankings of Oist site traffic as ranked by Danielle Morrill at her site in a post called "Who’s Actually Getting Read in Objectivism (Online)." </p><br><br> <blockquote><p><strong>Popular Objectivism Related Websites</strong></p><br> <ol> <li><a href="http://www.aynrand.org">Ayn Rand Institute</a> – 48,886 uniques (this is down 43% from a year ago)</li> <li><a href="http://capitalismmagazine.com">Capitalism Magazine</a> – 21,807 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com">The Objective Standard</a> – 19,076 uniques <em>*provided by author</em></li> <li><a href="http://www.dianahsieh.com/">Diana Hsieh</a> – 15,272 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.solopassion.com/">Sense of Life Objectivist</a>s – 13,097 uniques <em>*provided by author</em></li> <li><em> </em><a href="http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/index.html">NobleSoul.com</a> – 11,983 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://aynrandlexicon.com/">Ayn Rand Lexicon</a> – 9,691 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.atlassociety.org/">The Atlas Society</a> (The Objectivist Center) – 8,800 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://rebirthofreason.com/">RebirthofReason.com</a> – 7,937 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/">Ayn Rand Bookstore</a> – 6,846 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.theatlasphere.com">The Atlasphere</a> (the dating site) – 6,684</li> <li><a href="http://objectivismonline.net/">ObjectivismOnline</a> – 6,647 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.4AynRandFans.com">Forum 4AynRandFans.com</a> (Betsey Speicher)- 6,110 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.peikoff.com">Leonard Peikoff</a> – 6,002 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.geekpress.com">Paul Hsieh</a> – 5,344 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.muditajournal.com/">Mudita Journal</a> – 4,954 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.ObjectivistLiving.com">ObjectivistLiving.com</a> – 4,708 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://the-undercurrent.com/">The Undercurrent</a> – 4,040 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.aynrandcenter.org">The Ayn Rand Center</a> – 3,721 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.arc-tv.com">Ayn Rand Center TV</a> – 2,679 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.newclarion.com">The New Clarion</a> – 2,471 uniques <em>*provided by author</em></li> <li><a href="http://www.nathanielbranden.com/">Nathaniel Branden</a> – 2,430 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.treygivens.com">Trey Givens</a> – 1,815 uniques <em>*provided in comments</em></li> <li><a href="http://www.randex.org">Randex.org</a> – 1,512 uniques <em>*provided by author</em></li> <li><a href="http://blog.ariarmstrong.com/">Free Colorado by Ari Armstrong</a> – 1,440 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://Capitalism.net">Capitalism.net</a> (George Reisman) – 1,191 uniques</li> <li><a href="http://www.daniellemorrill.com">Danielle Morrill</a> (this site) – 1,081 uniques <em>*provided by author</em></li> </ol></blockquote>

I don't censor and I don't submit to intimidation Good call. Strip away Betsy's bluster and apparent rudeness, and realize it is embarrassment she wants expunged, not words. But she should be embarrassed for her ridiculous notion of a 'message in a bottle' and she should be embarrassed for the timorous Kremlin line she peddled. That line is subject to critique. whether it comes from a bottle, from ARI's airhole, from the OAC guidance committee, or wheresoever. The OAC-side talking points have been unveiled, and they suck. They invite not only criticism, but scorn. That is what ridicule is for, to scorn, to lance, to embarrass and to shock, to jolt somebody into seeing their own behaviour in critical relief. Further Speicher efforts to have Starbuckle's report on the secret message removed, that further references to Starbuckle's report be removed -- these efforts invite only further scorn for the same old Silent Treatment Speicher has been peddling all along . . . since she shut down discussion at THEFRM and since she popped her little missive in its bottles and since said to herself, "I hope no one ever finds out what I think" and set her thoughts bobbing off in the dark stream of the internets. When will Speicher figure out she is on the dumbass side this time?

The Church analogy also works well in the 'private matter' fumblings of ARI zealots. Betsy Speicher, among others, have compared ARI board matters to business practice, corporate internals -- see Starbuckle's paraphrase above. I thought a Church metaphor better as read by tweaking Betsy's contentions . . . 'She says that those accepting ARI's support should conform to ARI's mission in the same way people working for a large corporation church should support the company's church goals as set out by upper management ecclesiastical authorities. [sigh.] She says that this is necessary and proper for the corporation church -- or for ARI -- to do its job. That a young person just starting out may join a corporation church to learn the business philosophy or he may become an OAC Divinity School student to learn Objectivism. That both thereby acquire support, education, and guidance and that is very important in the beginning. That after a while, the young employee novitiate may seek new opportunities or want to work in a new direction incompatible with the corporation's church goals, so he will leave the company church to work study elsewhere or to start his own business church. In likewise manner, she concludes, an OAC divinity student may eventually have an independent career in academia, do research and writing in areas of his personal interest, and/or expand or use Ayn Rand's ideas in ways that are outside the scope of ARI's concerns. And that this "is fine too."' It's a nice shit or get off the pot moment for everyone.

John McCaskey has added a comment to a thread following his Amazon review: Andrew Layman writes, "This review is unhelpful because McCaskey . . . omits nearly all of of the essentials of a good review." My remarks do omit what would be essential to a comprehensive book review. But this is a nice thing about a bookstore's bulletin board: The contributions do not all need to stand alone as full reviews. I limited my contribution to something I happen to know a lot about and something I thought would help potential buyers decide whether to read the book and if so, how to get the most out of doing so. Since I wasn't providing a comprehensive review, I picked the neutral 3-star rating. I also noticed several other reviewers were commenting on the theory of induction presented in the book's first chapter rather than that theory's illustrations presented in the remaining chapters. I found several of those reviews helpful. But even if that first chapter is momentous, it's virtually a transcription of lectures given by someone other than the book's named author. It doesn't seem fair to rate a book primarily for the part the author didn't write. That many of the book's philosophical elements are unconventional is plain enough. The author and publicists make a point of it. But that some of the historical accounts are also unconventional will not be obvious to those unfamiliar with the field. I wanted, in my limited remarks, to let readers and potential readers know this was the case. I hoped bookstore patrons would find that helpful. I see many did. I also hope many buy the book -- and it looks like they are doing so. In the store's Epistemology section, the book is right now at # 14, just behind Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Congratulations to the author! My thanks to Andrew Layman, Mike999, and the others for contributing to the discussion. Regards, John

She poses sharp questions and uses effective rhetoric, I'd say. She ups the ante on Uncle Grandpa, that's for sure. He seems autistic by not answering her emails. Diana is DISAPPOINTED and promises "judgements" to come. So, the ARI/OAC internal discussion will come out of the fog for a while, as we wait for the 'guidance' to be delivered Nov 8. Diana's questions will no doubt be at hand on that fateful day.

Please don't. Although we are in minority, there are Canadians on OL. Why not talk about or use Canada as a reference to this discussion? Maybe, but in the same way resurfacing your driveway structurally alters your household. I quote a bit of Duhaime's page on marriage (in Canada): -- Marriage is the state-recognized, voluntary and exclusive contract for the lifelong union of two persons. -- Marriages have to be consummated by sexual intercourse between the couple and are voidable if impotency is discovered. Impotency includes an aversion to sexual intercourse. However, a single act of consummation eliminates this possible ground for voiding a marriage (once consummated, always consummated). -- Provincial marriage acts provide details on the legal age required for marriage. Generally, marriages of males below the age of 15 are voidable and below the age of 12 for girls. So, we are able to make a comparison of sorts. What I am saying is that you or rodney123 or Ted should find ample evidence of the hellish torment that will descend on America should same-sex unions be legalized. Use the Canuckistani example of the effects of 'gay marriage' to reinforce the argument of Dark Days Ahead.

And here comes Diana Hsieh, with husband Paul Hsieh, at Noodlefood . . . offering "The Resignation of John McCaskey: The Facts." "As some of you might already know, Dr. John P. McCaskey resigned from the Board of Directors of both the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) and the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship in early September. He did so in response to an ultimatum by Dr. Leonard Peikoff in an e-mail to Arline Mann, the co-chair of ARI's Board. Before you read further, you should read Dr. McCaskey's announcement of his resignation. It includes Dr. Peikoff's letter in full, reproduced with the permission of Dr. Peikoff and ARI. We -- Diana and Paul -- are deeply concerned about this conflict because of its three-fold impact on our values. First, we've been public supporters of and donors to ARI and Anthem for many years. We care about their use of our donations, and we want them to be effective in performing their respective missions. Second, we're heavily invested in the broader Objectivist movement. We're concerned for its efficacy, direction, and credibility. We do not wish to see the recent work of scholars, intellectuals, and activists undermined, or future work derailed. Third, we know, respect, and like Dr. Peikoff and Dr. McCaskey. We were surprised to learn of a conflict of this magnitude between them." And then? Well, you will have to go to Noodlefood to find out.

The text of the ARI 'guidance' teleconference announcement is now on field. What makes this interesting is the Q and A. -- I wonder how forthright will be the questions put to the Kremlin representatives. The feebleness of the email itself portends an equally feeble teaching moment on November 8. But who knows, there is a fierce head of steam built up among ARI supporters, and maybe everyone on the line will get with reality and realize that Uncle Grandpa needs a talking to and his handlers and toadies need to give their fucking heads a shake. From SOLO via Boaz the Boor: Dear OAC Students, We're looking forward to starting up the OAC year in a few weeks, and to seeing all of you in class soon. In the meantime, we want to invite you to a phone meeting we're planning to have with the entire OAC student body (this is the first such meeting, I believe.) For those of you who spend time on Facebook, you've likely become aware of various discussions on the internet by some Objectivists regarding Dr. John McCaskey's recent resignation from ARI's Board of Directors. We understand that some of you have questions, and more importantly, that some of you are genuinely struggling with how one should respond based on the limited public information and subsequent "chatter". We therefore want to meet with all of you to discuss both why Dr. McCaskey's resignation is a private matter, and more urgently, to provide some guidance on how to objectively think and communicate about a matter that appears as difficult to understand as this one does. [!!!] Because of our travel schedules, the meeting will be a few weeks away on Monday, November 8, 2010 at 2 p.m. PT. This meeting will take place via the OAC bridge line (dial in to 1-800-xxx-xxxx, enter Guest Access Code xxx#.) Yaron Brook, Onkar Ghate and I will speak with all of you then--and we're looking forward to it. Because there will likely be many people on the line, it may be hard for us to take questions live so I'm asking you to send any questions you might have to oac@aynrand.org by November 1, 2010. Your questions will help us frame the discussion so we encourage you to send those in. (Please note, this phone call is for registered OAC students only. The phone access information is confidential and should not be shared or distributed.) Have a good few weeks, and we'll "see" you all in class soon. Best regards, --[name omitted]

Here is the BBC video I referenced in an earlier post. Pertinent to the question "Did Stephen Hawking co-author The Grand Design?"<br><br> <object width="737" height="542"><param name="movie" value="http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/external/player.swf"></param><param'>http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/external/player.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><param name="FlashVars" value="playlist=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ebbc%2Eco%2Euk%2Fworldservice%2Fmeta%2Fdps%2F2010%2F03%2Femp%2F100312%5Fblackburn%5Fvideo%2Eemp%2Exml&config_settings_skin=silver&config_settings_showFooter=true&"></param><embed src="http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/external/player.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="737" height="542" FlashVars="playlist=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ebbc%2Eco%2Euk%2Fworldservice%2Fmeta%2Fdps%2F2010%2F03%2Femp%2F100312%5Fblackburn%5Fvideo%2Eemp%2Exml&config_settings_skin=silver&config_settings_showFooter=true&"></embed></object>