Austro-Athenian Empire The Web Journal of Roderick T. Long 2008-05-13T03:21:32Z Copyright 2008 WordPress Administrator <![CDATA[Feith-Based Initiative]]> http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/05/12/feith-based-initiative/ 2008-05-13T03:21:32Z 2008-05-13T03:21:32Z Terror Left-Libertarian Lapsus Linguae I just now saw Douglas Feith on The Daily Show saying: “The war has been longer and bloodier and costlier than anybody hoped.” At first I wondered: that sounds odd – why “hoped” rather than “predicted”? But then I realised the question answers itself: if he’d said “predicted” the counterexamples would be too easy to come by.

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Administrator <![CDATA[Turn That Frown Upside Down!]]> http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/05/10/turn-that-frown-upside-down/ 2008-05-11T03:43:17Z 2008-05-11T03:43:17Z Left-Libertarian Thank You Please May I Have Another Antiracism A panel of Federal apparatchiks is complaining that this proposed Martin Luther King statue is “too confrontational”:

proposed M. L. King statue

Ah yes. After spending decades carefully blurring King’s image to make him seem safe and non-threatening to the political establishment, the last thing our rulers want is a statue that might suggest an intractable King.

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Administrator <![CDATA[Everybody Must Get Cloned]]> http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/05/09/everybody-must-get-cloned/ 2008-05-09T22:23:17Z 2008-05-09T22:23:17Z Science Fiction Harry Knowles is giddy about this. I wish I could be, but for some reason – despite my being a Star Wars fan since 1977 – it just leaves me cold.

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Administrator <![CDATA[Destination: Apokolips]]> http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/05/09/destination-apokolips/ 2008-05-09T18:39:41Z 2008-05-09T18:39:41Z Science Fiction Starbuck Apokolips

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Administrator <![CDATA[The Shroud of Aristotle]]> http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/05/07/the-shroud-of-aristotle/ 2008-05-07T21:58:37Z 2008-05-07T21:58:37Z Ethics Rand Antiquity Left-Libertarian Whilst surfing for something else I happened across this description of Ayn Rand’s philosophy as “really nothing other than a Solipsistic ethical system thinly shrouded with Aristotle,” popular only because “a lot of college age kids want to hear … a philosophical rationalization for greed and selfishness.”

Ayn Rand I think one of the chief explainers of the divide between those who take Rand seriously as a philosopher and those who don’t may well be the interpretive divide between those who see her philosophy as a solipsistic ethical system thinly shrouded with Aristotle and those who see it as an Aristotelean system thinly shrouded with ethical solipsism. Obviously I’m in the latter camp.

So here’s a question for those in the former camp: if Rand’s ethics is just a rationalisation for greed and selfishness (in the conventional sense) and the Aristoteleanism is just a thin shroud, then what exactly is the contrast in The Fountainhead between Roark on the one hand and Wynand and Keating on the other supposed to be about? What is supposed to be wrong with Wynand’s and/or Keating’s modus operandi, from Rand’s point of view? If anyone can give a plausible answer that’s consistent with the view of Rand cited above, I’ll eat my conical hat. If not, then I’ll stick to my view that such readings of Rand are the product of a tin ear.

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Administrator <![CDATA[Moon of Kudzu]]> http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/05/07/moon-of-kudzu/ 2008-05-07T20:22:51Z 2008-05-07T20:22:51Z Science Fiction While I’m on the subject of hauntingly beautiful moon-related indie sf movies, the extremely low-budget Moon Europa project, which I was introduced to at Asheville’s Revoluticon in 2006, is one to keep an eye on. Check out the three trailers here, here, and here.

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Administrator <![CDATA[Moon of Ice]]> http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/05/07/moon-of-ice/ 2008-05-07T20:03:50Z 2008-05-07T20:03:50Z Science Fiction Iron Sky This trailer is beautifully done. So beautifully done, in fact, that I’m betting they put the bit with the dove in at the end just because they felt they had to make sure nobody thought they were out to glamourise the Nazis!

Anyway, I look forward to seeing more. (But since when do Germans drive on the left?)

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Administrator <![CDATA[But Probably Not the One Who Supported the Registration Act]]> http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/05/07/but-probably-not-the-one-who-supported-the-registration-act/ 2008-05-07T17:12:39Z 2008-05-07T17:12:39Z Anarchy Science Fiction Humor Terror Left and Right Left-Libertarian Rothbard is Iron Man! So we learn at the end of this piece by Jeff Tucker.

Now there’s an image that sticks in the mind ….

Rothbard as Iron Man

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Administrator <![CDATA[Grailward!]]> http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/05/06/grailward/ 2008-05-07T03:49:42Z 2008-05-07T03:49:42Z Democracy Left-Libertarian I just saw Hillary Clinton’s concession/victory speech, and all I could think of was:

It's just a flesh wound!  Come back here, I'll bite you!

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Administrator <![CDATA[Night of the Iguaçu]]> http://praxeology.net/blog/2008/05/06/night-of-the-iguau/ 2008-05-07T02:49:08Z 2008-05-07T02:49:08Z Science Fiction Niagara is cool (which according to Aristotle would be why it flows downward), but to my mind the world’s most beautiful waterfall, which I’ve always wanted to see, is Iguaçu Falls in Brazil:

Iguazu Falls

From the latest trailer it looks like Iguaçu Falls is going to be a major location for Indiana Jones and the Title That Goes On and On. Should be mighty purty ….

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