Epistemology

My Refutation of the Doomsday Argument

Posted on

It has been more than a month since my paper, “Past Longevity as Evidence for the Future,” appeared in Philosophy of Science. (Update, 6/29/2011: Read about my revised and expanded paper, now available online.) The most important parts of the paper present my own positive ideas on an objective means for using knowledge of the […]

Politics

Ayn Rand’s Diagnosis of “Collectivized Rights”

Posted on

Explain this contradiction. When he discusses Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, Obama talks about killing or capturing them. But when he discusses Ahmadinejad, Khamenei, and the Iranian government, Obama talks about “diplomacy” and “a good-faith effort to resolve differences,” and “a new beginning.” Even in this past Tuesday’s press conference, when he finally condemned […]

Politics

Obama Submits to Evil

Posted on

Yesterday, while thousands of Iranians were protesting, and some were being killed by Iran’s ruling tyranny, Obama was interviewed by Harry Smith of CBS News. Here is an excerpt: Smith: People in this country say you haven’t said enough, that you haven’t been forceful enough in your support for those people on the street — […]

Politics

Obama-Care: A Tyrant’s Notion of ‘Choice’

Posted on

President Obama spoke in Chicago Monday morning at the Annual Conference of the American Medical Association about his plan for health care in America. The first part of Obama’s speech was a fairly accurate litany of current problems: more than $2 trillion a year (which is roughly $7,000 per person) is spent by Americans on […]

Politics

Now is the Time to Strike Iran

Posted on

The current rioting in Iran over Iran’s sham presidential election (in which all candidates were approved by the religious Guardian Council, ultimately selected by the religious Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) provides a good window of opportunity for a military strike by the U.S. and Israel against Iran. Of course, this won’t happen. If any of […]

Politics

The Mission of Public Schooling

Posted on

My friend Scott Soodek wrote this to me recently: I attended both of my daughter’s graduations this week. One got her Masters in Literacy from Hunter College (CUNY) and the other a BFA in Interior Design from Pratt Institute. The tone and content of the message from the speakers at each graduation was so contrasting, […]

Politics

Remembering D-Day

Posted on

On D-Day, sixty-five years ago today, the United States and its allies Great Britain, Canada, Free France, Poland, and Norway invaded Normandy; thus began a campaign to liberate France and other nations of Europe from Nazi Germany. On this one day, more than 1,400 American soldiers, and more than 6,600 Allied soldiers in total, were […]

Politics

Night of the Living Dead Auto Company

Posted on

General Motors is now dead. The company’s corpse will be owned and driven mainly by the bad guys who destroyed the U.S. auto industry: government and the labor union. As reported in The Wall Street Journal (see the first link above), the U.S. government will own 60%, the Canadian government will own 12.5%, and a […]

Art

Recommendation: Crosspoints

Posted on

It is rare for me to find a book, aside from the works of Ayn Rand, that I love reading. A great classic, such as Shakespeare play, can move me by certain elements of it and make me marvel at its greatness; but the dark or mixed sense of life of so many classics can […]