Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Glitches

The new and improved Blogger still has some glitches. Aggravating glitches! [Insert favorite cuss words here...]

GMU Goes Dhimmi: John Lewis Talk Cancelled

This email was distributed last night. I'm posting it in its entirety.

Dear Subscribers and Friends of TOS [The Objective Standard]

George Mason university has abandoned its commitment to freedom of expression on campus. At the last minute, GMU has caved-in to pressure from Muslim groups and has cancelled Dr. Lewis's talk, 'No Substitute for Victory: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism' which was scheduled for tomorrow night [i.e., tonight]. This is all we know right now. We will post details as soon as we have them. Please spread the word.

Yours,

Craig Biddle, Editor
The Objective Standard

[Everything in brackets, mine. Ed.]

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

All Thumbs

The other day I went to Best Buy and bought myself a thumb drive [also known as a flash drive]. It's a small "stick" that connects into a USB port.
My 4GB unit from the manufacturer PNY costs $64. Not too bad.
If you get/have one of these, look over the following website and see if you like these "portable apps"...

http://www.portableapps.com

They have versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Links added

Hat tips both to Amit over at Thrutch and to Gus for these new links.

God Is Imaginary

Pedagogically Correct

Check 'em out.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Quote

I only caught a piece of a documentary on singer James Brown last night, but I did catch a pretty good statement he made:

" Of course I have an ego. I had to have an ego to escape where I grew up. Where I grew up there was no way out."

It's a shame he seemed to have little or no education [not that public schools are worth a s**t in that regard] yet he became a world famous entertainer in spite of his personal demons, which haunted him all his life.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Correction

In rereading my post of 2/7, where I expressed my dissapointment at being escorted out the door at work, I neglected to mention that there were about 40-50 of us given the heave-ho, not just me. Sad for all of us, for sure.
I am involved with the career transition firm that my former employer set us up with and am learning tons of useful, great stuff about my possible future. We'll see how it goes.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Summer Seminar on Capitalism!

[Hat tip: Charlotte Capitalist]

The Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism is holding a summer conference to study the moral foundations of capitalism. This is indeed good news.

Here's the link:

http://business.clemson.edu/BBTCENTER/cci/conferences.htm


I have added The Clemson Institute to my blogroll, as well.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Plato's Republic

Well, I bought the book the lecturer recommended [The Republic of Plato by Allan Bloom. ISBN:0-465-06934-7]
The lecture series offered by The Teaching Company on this topic is first-rate. The professor who teaches this course sincerely admires the topic and offers us the challenge of dealing with Plato's obvious "communism".
Indeed, I am not even half-way through the course, but I see Leonard Peikoff's point of calling Plato "the first communist"--with Aristotle being the first capitalist.
For those who have not undertaken the reading of the Republic, the central theme throughout is focused on justice. "What is Justice?" asks Socrates, the main character in the story. Other topics [which Plato and his main character favor] include seperating people into classes, censorship, communal living, the banishment of private property, regulation by the city/state of education, etc., etc.
In short, we can see the beginnings of all the problems we face today. At a later date, I may choose to write a full review of this course and book.

Then again, it may be too depressing. ;-)

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Dissapointment

Earlier this evening at work, I was terminated. After eight years I was "downsized". I only blame myself. I should have prepared better for this event, but I had survived three 'purges' prior to this and just got caught blindsided. Oh well.

It's their loss, not mine.

Free Speech Denied at UCLA

The debate on Immigration Policy that was to be held on 2/6 at UCLA was canceled by the university in a shameless act of cowardice, and appeasement of the protestors who said they would disrupt the proceedings.

Here's the link:

http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13963&news_iv_ctrl=1221

Thursday, February 01, 2007

A New Declaration of Independence

[Editor's note: I found this at George Reisman's Blog. I have only given it a cursory glance, but at first blush, this seems pretty on-target. Okay, don't accuse me of heresy or anything....]

http://georgereisman.com/blog/2007/01/declaration-of-independence-2007-by-gen.html#links