Taiwan’s struggle to maintain its independence from China is is one of the great political dramas of our time.
In yesterday’s elections, the Taiwanese people rejected heavy overtures from Beijing as well as some damands within their own country for reunification with China.
It’s a topic that deserves serious interest and attention from any sincere advocate of political freedom. (Link via InstaPundit)
Author: s1e2t3u4p5
Presenting the Fair Tax to the President's Panel
We’ve noted before that the Fair Tax proposal currently before Congress may be the most viable option available to eliminate the IRS during our lifetime.
The President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform will hold its eighth meeting on May 11th and 12th in Washington, D.C. The May 11th meeting will focus on specific options for tax reform and Tom Wright, FairTax.org executive director, will present the FairTax solution to the panel on Wednesday. The exact time is not available, but they are listed on the agenda on Panel III.
The meeting will be covered from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET on C-Span3 (reruns on C-Span 1 and 2). You can also watch streaming video on the C-Span web site.
More Ayn Rand Conferences
After our announcement yesterday of the summer conferences produced by the Ayn Rand Institute and the Objectivist Center, some members have written to bring our attention to two other conferences we did not mention, including the European Objectivist conference in London from September 9 – 11th, and the Sense of Life Objectivists conference that was recently held in Newport Beach from April 22 – April 27.
We appreciate the heads-up, and will include information about both of these conferences when we send out next year’s conference calendar.
Howard Roark Fan: Indian Actress Preity Zinta
A new interview with IndiaFM reveals that Indian model and actress Preity Zinta is a huge fan of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead:
So is there any particular book that she did recommend as a ‘must-read’? “Don’t know if it would do the same to others, but it definitely changed my perspective about life” she declares. And the miracle book is� “Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead” she replies.
“My dad gifted me the book when I was in the 8th standard” she says. “Not that I made sense of it then but I loved the character of Howard Roark. He is a strong, able guy who overcomes big storms in his life. I loved that trait in him” she points out. “I must have read it several times over the years and each time I am filled with admiration for Howard for the way he lived life with steely determination & endurance” she points out.
Firefly Movie 'Serenity' in Select Cities on May 5
Ayn Rand fans who have enjoyed the TV series Firefly — and there are a lot of you — may be excited to learn that it the new full-length Firefly movie, titled Serenity, will be available for preview in select cities on May 5th. That’s a full four months before the scheduled public release of the film.
The Serenity trailer was released just yesterday. (It looks very, very good.)
If you’ve not yet discovered Firefly, be sure and read Monica White’s Atlasphere review “The Ascendance of Firefly” from last fall. Better still, buy the Firefly DVDs and see for yourself.
Here is the actual sneak preview announcement from Firefly Creator Joss Whedon, which was recently posted in the Browncoats message board:
Well.
It gets better.
As thus: The movie is very nearly finished. You’ve seen many pretty images in the trailer. But I’ve still got work to do and you’ve still got months before you can see it.
Unless.
And, no, I’m not talking Australia (but Hi, Australia! anyway), I’m talking here in the more-or-less-United States, a one time multi-city Browncoat sneak event. Thursday, May 5th at 10:00 pm, the movie (Serenity! Pay attention! Jeez.) will be playing at exactly 10 theaters in 10 cities across the country. You (or possibly someone much like you) (or possibly a robot EXACTLY like you, but with better manners and sonic arm-lasers, sent to take your place) will be able to buy a ticket to see Serenity months in advance. Not just the bitty trailer with not enough Kaylee and Book, but the whole film, in its extremely almost completed state.
You probably have some questions. How is this possible? What cities exactly will it be in? What are these changes my body is going through? All valid. It’s possible because some clown put a bunch of Universal execs in a theater full of Browncoats and dude, they came out SWEATING, they never seen energy like that. They loved it, and even though they were already wicked supportive of the movie (see: earlier posts re: we’re making the movie) they simply weren’t ready for you guys. When I whinged on about pushing the date and everyone here was posting about “what do we do till September”, they agreed to let me sneak it out.
Maybe they thought it was a fluke. Maybe they wanna see if people really do care about the flick. Or maybe they’re just treating us with respect and kindness, though that last option confuses and terrifies me as much as these changes my body is going through (I’m “perspiring” and becoming “interested in girls”, which believe me is very unsettling when you’re 40.) Does it matter? The plan works for me, and it can work for a select bunch of y’all. Here’s what I know:
The cities to be hit are:
Seattle
Austin
Sacramento
Boston
Altanta
Chicago
San Francisco
Las Vegas
Denver
The Portland of Oregon
If you’re in or near one of those, you might wanna stop by. There’s supposed to be a “Can’t Stop the Signal” page on this website (I don’t know where it is — hey, I remembered my damn password, doesn’t that buy me any cred?) There should be more info there soon about how to get in, bringing peeps into the fold, I think there’s even competetions and stuff. (All I know is I have exactly 20 Brownie points. I answered ONE triv Q and got it wrong. Forget cred. I have no cred.) Now a couple of us might just creep into one of those major metropolitan multiplexes to see if anyone does show up, so remember: swearing in Chinese ONLY.
All right. This will please the fans and satisfy the employers of Joss Whedon, so I must stop as my arm-lasers are getting tired. I politely thank you for your attention.
Should be fun.
-j.
UPDATE: I started to notify some of the usual suspects, and noticed that they’ve already blogged the phenomenon themselves. It’s good to see this movie getting the attention it deserves.
Socialism Bad for Your Sex Life
From an MSNBC article by Glenn Reynolds about the situation in Sweden:
It’s almost as if high taxes, heavy regulation, and an extensive dole sap people’s desire to work hard, making the society as a whole worse off so that those policies don’t just redistribute wealth, but actually destroy it. That’s probably because they do, and have done so everywhere they’re tried. People are usually pointing to some socialist paradise or other where life is wonderful, but — not to put too fine a point on it — those places are basically a lie. Socialism just doesn’t work, anywhere, for very long. You’d think people would learn.
One of the unfortunate things that happens under socialism is that people have fewer children. (This is a bug. For a while it was seen as a feature, but with the world now facing a global baby bust, it’s a bug.) This disturbing essay from The Belmont Club spells out what Europe’s demographic collapse means. I think it’s a bit on the pessimistic side — but the Europeans had better hope that I’m right about that. And we Americans should be very grateful that we didn’t follow the Swedish model. Socialism produces shortages — and in Sweden’s case, apparently, it’s even managed to produce a sex shortage among the formerly randy Swedes. Which just proves that too much government can ruin anything, given enough rope.
Indeed. Read the full article for details.
TSA to be Dismantled
On Wednesday we published our column by Walter Williams detailing the worthlessness of the Transportation Security Administration’s policies.
Today we learn the White House has asked the agency’s director to step down.
Just a coincidence? You decide!
Joanne P. McCallie Takes Spartans to 2nd in U.S.
We noted in March of last year that Michigan State University women’s basketball coach Joanne McCallie is a huge fan of Dagny Taggart.
She’s been a busy woman during the past year, and was recently named Big 10 Coach of the Year (her fourth such award).
Earlier this month she was also named the Associated Press Coach of the Year:
McCallie, in her fifth season at MSU, has led the Spartans to the greatest season in school history. Michigan State is making its first appearance in the Final Four after having never been past the second round previously. The Spartans won a share of their second-ever Big Ten regular season title with a school-best 14-2 league record and won their first ever Big Ten Tournament title.
McCallie has guided the Spartans to a 32-3 record, smashing the previous school record for wins in a season (23). MSU is in the midst of a school-record 16-game winning streak and had its best-ever home record with a 13-0 mark at the Breslin Center. The Spartans have beaten 12 nationally-ranked teams, easily surpassing the previous school record of five in one season. Among the Spartans’ victims have been No. 1-ranked Stanford, No. 2-ranked Ohio State and No. 3-ranked Notre Dame, marking the first times MSU has ever beaten teams with those national rankings.
Yesterday her team lost the national title game to Baylor, but McCallie plans to stay in the limelight with a fresh round of high-profile recruits for next year’s season.
We’ll be working to see if we can get an interview soon with this prominent fan of Atlas Shrugged. Stay tuned.
Objectivist Travelers Web Site
Atlasphere member Vanessa Smyth has launched a web site for Objectivists who are interested in the travel group that her mother and her late father (Suzanna and Charles Tomlinson) began several years ago. For more information, visit the web site for Objectivist Travelers.
Celebrity Rand Fan: JP Roney, of The Profits
From the Wisconsin State Journal’s coverage of the Madison Area Music Awards:
Saturday night’s second-annual Madison Area Music Awards ceremony was professional, streamlined and entertaining.
Madison musicians and fans nearly filled the 1,300-seat Union Theater as the award categories zigzagged across numerous genres. Even the nominees’ wardrobes were eclectic. Best underage artist Brittany Hayes wore a Grammy-worthy evening gown, while best new artist Dafino displayed thrift- store fashion.
And why would we care? Because this happened:
Presenter Sybil Augustine of community radio station WORT-FM delivered a well- received diatribe against the FCC, and Shinky of the punk band New Recruits gave his best Liam Gallagher impersonation while decrying the city’s upcoming smoking ban. The show’s only moment of awkward silence came after J.P. Roney of best overall artist and best acoustic artist winners and performers The Profits thanked, among many other things, “the philosophy of Ayn Rand.”
I have no idea who The Profits are, but it’s certainly enough to raise one’s curiosity about the band.
UPDATE: You can learn about the band at www.theprofitsband.com, where this bio appears for JP Roney:
John Paul Roney – vocals, acoustic guitar, piano
JP is a Senior at UW Madison majoring in Pre-Law. He started singing at the age of 5 in The Madison Boy Choir, traveling to Japan and Greece to sing for up to 300,000 spectators as a soloist, and performed a lead role in an opera with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra starring alongside Metropolitan Opera star Kit Foss. In 1995 he was selected to sing in the National Honors Choir comprised of the top 100 singers in America, who performed for President Clinton in the White House. In high school, he had a daily guest spot on Madison’s 92.1 WMAD radio as goat boy, performing and writing comic skits. He began college studying opera performance until he picked up the guitar and switched majors. His influences include folk, alternative rock and hip-hop.
His bio also includes a promotion of Atlas Shrugged and a link to the web site of our very own Sarah Saturday, whom we interviewed here about a year ago.
The Profits web site includes downloadable mp3s of their music. Check out “Sex at Six” if you want a grin. (There’s a live version available and a studio version too. The studio version is easier to hear.) For some nice acoustic guitar work, listen to “High Horse” and “Margot.”