President Obama and fellow Democrats use the phrase “shared sacrifice” so often that the phrase is now a standard term. I have not heard any Republican use the term favorably, but neither have I heard any Republican dispute the notion. The only argument I have heard some Republicans raise is that the Democrats are hypocrites, […]
Today I celebrated Independence Day by reading the Declaration of Independence and some pages of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Anyone who wonders about the connection is invited to read the right-hand column of the home page of this blog. Second Renaissance Books once published a tear-off calendar, “Ayn Rand Quote of the Day • […]
I have just completed a revised and expanded version (80 pages, double-spaced) of my paper, “Past Longevity as Evidence for the Future”; it is available online here. (Update, 7/31/2011: This work is now available as an eBook; see here. Update, 5/8/2016: This expanded work is now available as a paperback book on Amazon. See here.) […]
Behold the mind-boggling irrationality of those directing American foreign policy. Today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked a guest, “As you leave office, how much of a disappointment is it to you that Iran still [has] an active nuclear weapons program?” The guest replied, Well, I think it’s an ongoing problem for the […]
The scandal over the lewd photo of U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D – New York) sent from the Congressman’s Twitter account has received much press the last few days. But no one seems to have identified what should be the most scandalous part of the scandal: this statement by Weiner. I think that what people […]
Peace is not the answer. War is the answer. President George W. Bush never asked for or followed my advice, but I sent him this letter on April 6, 2002: Dear Mr. President: I urge you to make a radical change to your policy regarding the conflict of Israel against the dictatorial and murderous regimes […]
… because we are still acting like police and social workers while our enemies are fighting a war, and because our political leaders still do not recognize the enemy: Islamists, especially Islamic governments. The evil monster Osama Bin Laden has been killed (shot in the head) by American military heroes. Good. But centuries from now, […]
(A slightly revised version of this post appears in Capitalism Magazine, April 17, 2011) I do not recommend the movie based—unfaithfully and ineptly, in my judgment—on Atlas Shrugged (Rand 1957) that opens today. (See my analysis of one scene here.) Instead, I urge every thoughtful individual to read the novel, again and again, and to […]
I have seen the movie, Atlas Shrugged Part 1. I do not plan to publish a review, but I have written an essay comparing one scene, viewable on the Internet, to the corresponding scene in the novel. In this essay, my secondary purpose is to judge this small part of the movie; my primary purpose […]
For the past two weeks, since the political protests in Eqypt began, Americans have been arguing about how to handle Egypt. The way to handle Egypt is to handle Iran. During the rioting in Iran in June 2009, I wrote the post Now is the Time to Strike Iran. Of course, any time is a […]