The Objective Standard Blog

Archive for September 2008

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Looming Crisis over Free Speech

Posted by ARI Media at 2:15 pm

What: A lecture examining the escalating censorship in America and explaining what is needed to protect our freedom of speech

Who: Eric Daniels, research assistant professor at Clemson University’s Institute for the Study of Capitalism

Where: 101 Morgan Hall, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720

When: Monday, October 6, 2008, 7 pm

Description: In this lecture, Dr. Daniels examines the state of free speech in America and finds that it is under serious threat. From campus speech codes to anti-discrimination and harassment law, from campaign finance to commercial speech, Americans today enjoy less and less freedom in communicating their ideas. Today’s colleges and universities have become a hotbed of censorship, producing generations of Americans who have accepted suppression of speech as the norm. Daniels argues that the emerging crisis is a result of the lack of a proper understanding of individual rights, especially property rights. Only by understanding the proper basis of rights can we act to secure our freedom of speech and to protect the rights that give rise to it.

Bio: Dr. Eric Daniels is a research assistant professor at Clemson University’s Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He has lectured internationally on American history, particularly on American intellectual history, business history and political history. He taught for five years at Duke University’s Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace, where he was nominated for a university-wide teaching award. Dr. Daniels was a contributor to the recently published Oxford Companion to United States History, and wrote a chapter in The Abolition of Antitrust. He has appeared on C-SPAN and Voice of America Radio.

For more information on this lecture, please e-mail media@aynrand.org.

###  ### ###

Eric Daniels is available for interviews now and after his lecture.

Contact: Larry Benson
E-mail: media@aynrand.org          
Phone: (949) 222-6550, ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARI’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI. ARI does not necessarily endorse the content of the lectures and sessions offered.

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

Posted in: Announcements, Events, Individual Rights and Law

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Urgent Call to Action: EPA Threatens Your Life

Posted by John David Lewis at 11:50 am

From John Lewis and Paul Saunders

To all Americans:

NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD MEN TO MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD.

On July 11, 2008 the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR). This document details how the EPA intends to claim unlimited power over the life of every American.

The EPA action follows a US Supreme Court Decision ruling that defined carbon dioxide as a "pollutant." This ruling defies logic, nature, and common sense. The Canadian Government has openly declared that carbon dioxide is a vital "nutrient"—without it, plants die. It is a natural compound that we exhale. It has always existed in nature, often at far higher levels than today. If carbon dioxide is a pollutant, then all human life is pollution.

In response to the Supreme Court ruling, President Bush issued Executive Order # 13432 (May, 2007) directing the EPA, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Energy “to ensure the coordinated and effective exercise of the authorities of the President and the heads of the [DOT], the Department of Energy, and [EPA] to protect the environment with respect to greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, nonroad vehicles, and nonroad engines . . ."

The EPA’s document starts with a clear warning that using the Clean Air Act to regulate CO2 will lead to uncontrollable growth of the agency’s power:

"EPA’s analyses leading up to this ANPR have increasingly raised questions of such importance that the scope of the agency’s task has continued to expand. For instance, it has become clear that if EPA were to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act, then regulation of smaller stationary sources that also emit GHGs [Greenhouse Gases]—such as apartment buildings, large homes, schools, and hospitals—could also be triggered. One point is clear: the potential regulation of greenhouse gases under any portion of the Clean Air Act could result in an unprecedented expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy and touch every household in the land." (ANPR p. 5)

The ANPR also includes the following, in a comment by the Department of Agriculture:

"many of the emissions are the result of natural biological processes that are as old as agriculture itself. For instance, technology does not currently exist to prevent the methane produced by enteric fermentation associated with the digestive processes in cows and the cultivation of rice crops; the nitrous oxide produced from the tillage of soils used to grow crops; and the carbon dioxide produced by soil and animal agricultural respiratory processes. The only means of controlling such emissions would be through limiting production, which would result in decreased food supply and radical changes in human diets." (ANPR pp. 66-67)

Under these rules, the EPA will have the power to ration food production, to approve its content, and to control its distribution.

This is only the tip of an iceberg of massive government power, about to be unleashed against every American. The EPA intends, for instance, to take authority over transportation—including motor vehicle emissions testing, shipping, and railroads; to assume local building permit authority; to set emissions standards for lawnmowers; and to regulate nearly two and a half million buildings with natural gas heating..

To make matters worse, the U.S. Senate is now considering a bill, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007 and 2008: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-2191.This bill will add the following to the powers of the EPA:

  1. establish a Climate Registry, a bureaucracy to “collect high-quality greenhouse gas emission data” (Sec 1102)
  2. require business owners and operators to submit an “emission allowance” or offset credit for their emissions, with compliance determined by the EPA Administrator, who shall “establish and distribute . . . emission allowances” and set the penalties for non-compliance (Sec 1202). All natural gas emissions will be included (Sec 1204)
  3. establish a Domestic Offset Program, to “promulgate regulations authorizing the issuance and certification of offset allowances.” Project owners must “register emissions under the Federal Greenhouse Gas Registry” (Sec. 2402)
  4. establish a Carbon Market Efficiency Board, to set the quantity of emission allowances, the period of paybacks for an allowance, the interest rate at which an emission allowance may be borrowed, etc. (Sec. 2602-2604)
  5. establish "as a nonprofit corporation without stock, a corporation to be known as the `Climate Change Credit Corporation’," that “shall not be considered to be an agency or establishment of the Federal Government” (Sec 4201) This "corporation" will hold life and death power over every business in the United States.

The Lieberman-Warner Senate bill, and its equivalent in the U.S. House of Representatives, are not part of the EPA document, and not part of the EPA request for comment. But such legislation is part of the total environmentalist political agenda. It gives us an idea what is coming if we do not make our voices heard and end these plans to destroy our freedom and our lives.

We condemn and oppose all such outrageous attacks on American life, liberty, and property.

THE EPA HAS INVITED PUBLIC COMMENT ON ITS "ADVANCE NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULEMAKING."

To make our voices heard, we have transmitted a letter with comments to the EPA. We urge you to do the same. 

We invite you to:

1.  READ OUR COVER LETTERTO THE EPA, WHICH STATES OUR SIX REASONS FOR CATEGORICALLY OPPOSING THE EPA’S PROPOSED RULES:

2. READ OUR COMMENTS TO THE EPA, "THE EPA’S ADVANCE NOTICE OF PROPOSED RUINATION," WHICH FURTHER EXPLAINS OUR POSITION:

For a longer exposition of the reasons behind these comments, see the article by John David Lewis, "History, Politics, and Claims to Man-made Global Warming," forthcoming in the journal Social Philosophy and Policy vol. 26 no. 2; to be published as an edited volume "Environmentalism," edited by Ellen-Fraenkel Paul, Jeff Paul, and Fred Miller (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

3. READ THE EPA DOCUMENT (HERE ARE SOME EXCERPTS) AND ASK YOURSELF: DO YOU AGREE? IF SO, THEN SEND YOUR OWN LETTER TO THE EPA!

4. GO TO OUR SAMPLE LETTER, WHICH YOU MAY COPY, EDIT, AND SIGN—OR EXPRESS YOUR OWN VIEWS IN YOUR OWN LETTER.

IMPORTANT!!—Identify your comments as: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0318

5.  SEND YOUR LETTER, EMAIL, OR WEB COMMENTS TO THE EPA.

Here’s a link for submitting comments: http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComme…

Here’s where one can view comments already submitted:http://www.regulations.gov/search/search_results.jsp?css=0&&Ntk=All&N…

Or, send your comments by one of the following methods:

  • www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions for submitting comments.
  • Email: A-and-R-Docket@epamail.epa.gov
  • Fax: 202-566-9744
  • Mail:
    Air and Radiation Docket and Information Center
    Environmental Protection Agency
    Mailcode: 2822T
    1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.,
    Washington, DC 20460.

6.  COMMENTS ARE DUE BEFORE NOVEMBER 11, 2008.

If these plans are not stopped, we may eke out our lives chewing the equivalent of Ma Chalmers’ moldy soybeans.

Ma Chalmers is a character in Ayn Rand’s epic novel Atlas Shrugged (NY: Signet, 1996), 858, 862. Because government bureaucrats had taken control of all transportation, and arbitrarily decided that soybeans were more important than the wheat crop of Minnesota, that wheat crop—vital to human survival—was left to rot. Millions of dollars in tax money had been given to Ma Chalmers’ "Project Soybean," a sociological project intended to change people’s behavior, “for the purpose of reconditioning the dietary habits of the nation.” A bureaucrat explained the government’s action: “Well, after all, it is a matter of opinion whether wheat is essential to a nations’ welfare—there are those of more progressive views who feel that the soybean is, perhaps, of far greater value [than grain]." As a result, the wheat rotted and the soybeans were too moldy to eat.

SOURCES CITED:

The ANPR:  Environmental Protection Agency, “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” 40 CFR Chapter I [EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0318; FRL-8694-2] RIN 2060-AP12, “Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act.” Signed by the EPA Administrator July 11, 2008: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads/ANPRPreamble.pdf.

The Supreme Court Decision: Massachusetts et al. V. Environmental Protection Agency et al. Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit No. 05–1120. Decided April 2, 2007: http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21106. 

The Supreme Court decision and the Executive Order are discussed in the ANPR, pages 78-83.

The Canadian Government statement on carbon dioxide is by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, which advised that "growers should regard CO2 as a nutrient." Studies have shown that plants suffer and die when CO2 falls below 200 parts per million. The present level is about 380 ppm. Early in the Earth’s history, CO2 has been as high as 5,000 ppm. Plant life grew vigorously when levels were between 2,000 and 1,000 ppm.

Posted in: Announcements, Environmentalism, Individual Rights and Law

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Urgent: Oppose Bailout of Wall Street Now

Posted by Craig Biddle at 4:12 pm

Despite enormous citizen opposition to the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, U.S. lawmakers are reviewing a tentative agreement to pass it, and the House and Senate likely will vote tomorrow. This proposal is an outrage, and Americans who value liberty must oppose it in the strongest terms possible.

I urge you to write your elected officials and the presidential candidates now. Tell them that supporting this bill is an obscene dereliction of responsibility and a travesty of justice, and let them know that you will forever condemn any and all politicians who support it.

You can contact elected officials using this website. Here is the basic text of a letter I sent out yesterday, which I modified per varying contexts. You are welcome to use this text as is or modify it as you see fit.

Dear [elected official]:

I and other Americans will forever condemn any and all politicians who vote for or in any way support a bailout of Wall Street.

Every thinking American knows that the cause of this catastrophe was government intervention in the economy via the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, etc. The notion that more government intervention will solve the problem is absurd, and to act on that notion would be an obscene dereliction of responsibility and a travesty of justice.

The only sound solution to this problem is for the government to acknowledge that its intervention is the fundamental cause of the situation, and, correspondingly, to remove its hands from the economy and let the market correct itself via bankruptcy procedures, liquidations, takeovers, etc. This would lead to a highly volatile market for a brief time, but the market would quickly reallocate assets to those who are most competent, and the economy would begin to recover.

This is not rocket science; it is economics 101, and Americans know it. Don’t test us.

Sincerely,

Craig Biddle
[address]
[phone number]

Posted in: Announcements, Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law

Friday, September 26, 2008

Math Magic

Posted by Lisa VanDamme at 6:43 pm

Most math curricula are an absolute pedagogical mess.

I have long known that math programs treat children like human calculators, programming them with processes they use to input numbers and churn out results. But this became poignantly clear to me when I tried to teach my daughter long division this summer.

Confronted with a problem such as 2,832 divided by 8, I began my "explanation," hearkening back to the process that had been drilled into me in third grade. "8 goes into 28 how many times? 3. So you write a 3 above the 8. 8 times 3 is 24. Subtract 24 from 28 and you get 4. Then bring down the 3. 8 goes into 43 how many times?…" and so on. At the conclusion of my presentation, she said something simple but telling: "That is going to be a lot for me to remember."

Indeed, it is a lot for her to remember, because she is remembering, and not understanding.

If you want to grasp the poverty of your own education in math, I offer you the following challenge: explain long division. Explain it to a child, to an adult, to yourself—but really explain it. Use words to describe not the process, but the reason for the process: why each number goes where it does; why you subtract, or divide, or bring down; why the process works. It won’t be easy. I maintain that if you had been educated properly in math, it would be.

One of the defining principles of the VanDamme method is a concerted effort to ensure that every item of knowledge possessed by the child is true knowledge, to ensure that he understands it thoroughly, independently, conceptually. To realize this goal in math will require a total overhaul of the standard curriculum. It will require that someone strip the program down to essentials, arrange the material with total faithfulness to hierarchy, and design assessments that are true tests of the child’s understanding.

Meanwhile, we can take moderate steps in that direction, by requiring, for example, that the children give complete, verbal explanations for all that they do in math.

Mr. Steele, VanDamme Academy math teacher for a group of 7 & 8-year-olds, demands of his students that they not just blurt out answers, or crank through mechanical processes. He makes them explain the processes using the proper terminology and demonstrating that they understand what they are doing and why.

If, for example, he is teaching subtraction with borrowing, and puts a problem on the board such as 2700 – 350, someone in the class will invariably ask, "Can I just tell you the answer?" Mr. Steele’s answers are charming—and pedagogically correct.

Sometimes he says, "I don’t want you to do ‘magic math.’ I don’t want you stare up at the sky, come up with a number, and blurt it out to the class. That doesn’t help us understand, and that doesn’t show me that you understand. I want you to explain how you arrived at your answer."

At other times, he says, "Let’s play a game called ‘Mr. Steele bumped his head and can’t remember math.’ Don’t just give me the answer, teach me the process by which you arrived at your answer."

The students proceed with explanations that demand, among other things, that they use concepts of place value (if they begin the problem above by saying, "0 minus 0 is 0," he says, "That’s true," and waits for them to tell him that you put a 0 in the ones’ place before he writes a 0 on the board), and that they explain what they are doing when they borrow (if they say, "Cross out the 5 and put a 4, and put a 10 in the tens’ place," he will ask, "What does that 10 represent? 10 what? 10 monkeys?" which will make them giggle and offer the correction, "10 tens silly!").

These children are not treated like human calculators, they are treated like thinking beings. And when they truly grasp the concepts they are using, when they can explain them fully and articulately, when they retain them because they are not memorizing, but understanding—that is real math magic.

Posted in: Education

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Why Big Government Is Back, and How to Shrink It to Its Proper Size

Posted by ARC Media at 12:47 am

Washington, D.C.—In a talk delivered last week at the Costa Mesa Hilton in Orange County, California, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, explained the reasons for the resurgence of big government in America and called for a moral revolution to reduce government to its proper size and function.

According to Dr. Brook, the current level of government involvement in the economy is almost unprecedented in American history. As Dr. Brook noted, even though the current housing and financial crisis was brought about by government regulations, controls, and widespread interference with the markets, all we hear from the left and the right are calls for more government regulations, controls, and interference with the markets.

In Dr. Brook’s view, these calls for bigger and bigger government are due, not to any alleged failures of the market, but to a longtime cultural hostility to its moral basis: the selfish pursuit of profit.

Capitalism and markets, observed Dr. Brook, are all inherently about self-interest and the pursuit of profit. Capitalism encourages and enables selfishness, and as long as our culture looks at profit and self-interest as vices, he argued, big government will always be preferred to free markets.

Dr. Brook also made the point that capitalism has always been defended pragmatically, on the basis that it creates wealth and economic growth—which it does; but it’s time, he said, to defend capitalism on principle, on the basis of its morality, on the basis that it protects the rights of individuals to pursue their own values and allows them freedom to act in their own self-interest.

As Dr. Brook explained, the current crisis is indisputable evidence that we need a massive reduction in the size of government, in the number of regulations and in the level of taxation. But first, he said, we will have to reject the morality of altruism, which holds that self-sacrifice, not self-interest, is the good—and adopt a new morality of rational self-interest, one that says that pursuing our own personal values and goals under freedom is a good thing; and that only a morality compatible with capitalism and private markets will save us from this crisis and prevent an even worse one in the future.

Dr. Brook’s talk is available for free at: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_big_government

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Yaron Brook is executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. His articles have been featured in major newspapers such as USA Today, the Houston Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Providence Journal and the Orange County Register. Dr. Brook is often interviewed on radio and is a frequent guest on a variety of national TV shows, having appeared in the new Fox Business Network, FOX News Channel (The O’Reilly Factor, Your World with Neil Cavuto, At Large with Geraldo Rivera), CNN (Talkback Live and the Glenn Beck Program), CNBC (Closing Bell and On the Money), and C-SPAN. Dr. Brook, a former finance professor, lectures on Objectivism, capitalism, business and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.

To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Center for Individual Rights. All rights reserved.

Posted in: Events, Individual Rights and Law

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Monopoly Myth: The Case of Standard Oil

Posted by ARC Media at 12:40 am

What: a talk in defense of laissez-faire capitalism that will tell the real story of Rockefeller’s rise to market dominance in the oil industry

Who: Alex Epstein, fellow at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, a division of the Ayn Rand Institute

Where: Smith Building Room 105. Georgia Tech Campus, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332

When: Monday, September 29, 2008, at 8 pm

Description: Most of us were taught in school that laissez-faire capitalism was tried in the 1800s–and failed. Without government regulations and antitrust law, we learned, businessmen used “anti-competitive” tactics to become giant, unchallengeable monopolies. The most famous monopoly was John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust, which supposedly used its “market power” to squelch innovative competitors and jack up consumer prices at will. But did this really happen? Did laissez-faire really fail? No, argues Alex Epstein. In this talk Epstein will tell the real story of Rockefeller’s rise to market dominance–and explain how his success was the result not of shady practices, but of his company’s incredible ability to bring the cheapest, best oil to millions of Americans. Epstein will argue that the case of Standard Oil raises many questions about Americans’ commonly held beliefs on monopolies, competition, and government. Is antitrust law really necessary to protect us against monopolies and promote competition? Was the government right to punish Microsoft for “monopolization,” and is it justified in investigating Google and Yahoo for “anti-competitive” behavior? Epstein will address these questions and more in his 45-minute talk, followed by a question-and-answer period.

Bio: Alex Epstein has a BA in Philosophy from Duke University and is an analyst focusing on business issues at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He was the editor and publisher of The Duke Review for two years. He is a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. His Op-Eds have appeared in such publications as the Detroit Free Press, Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Arizona Republic, Canada’s National Post, Indianapolis Star, Orange County Register, Tampa Tribune, and the Washington Times. Mr. Epstein has been interviewed on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs on business topics such as income inequality, media and internet regulation, oil industry profits, social security and the FDA.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrandcenter.org

###  ### ###

Alex Epstein is available for interviews now and after his talk.

Contact: Larry Benson
E-mail: media@aynrandcenter.org          
Phone: (949) 222-6550, ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI.

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Center for Individual Rights. All rights reserved.

Posted in: Business and Economics, Events, History

Saturday, September 20, 2008

A Critique of Global Warming Science and Policy

Posted by ARI Media at 11:44 pm

What: A panel discussion challenging widely accepted views on global warming science and policy, followed by a Q & A.

Who: Keith Lockitch, Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights and Willie Soon, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Where: Taper Hall of Humanities (THH) Room 102

When: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 7:00 pm

For maps and directions, click here: http://www.usc.edu/about/visit/upc/driving_directions/

Description: It is now widely believed that man-made greenhouse gases are causing an unnatural warming of the earth that will have devastating consequences for human life. Environmentalists and politicians are pressing for severe restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions aimed at preventing global warming. But are these beliefs and policies justified? What does the scientific evidence actually support regarding the causes of climate variability and the role of anthropogenic greenhouse gases? Are the predictions of catastrophic changes supported by scientific fact? Is government economic intervention aimed at severely restricting greenhouse gases an appropriate policy response? Panelists will address these critical issues in a lively discussion.

Bios:

Keith Lockitch is a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, specializing in science and environmental policy. His writings have appeared in publications such as the Orange County Register, San Francisco Chronicle, Australia’s Herald Sun and Canberra Times, and USA Today magazine. Dr. Lockitch has been a frequent guest on radio shows such as The Thom Hartmann Program on Air America Radio. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics.

Dr. Lockitch teaches for the Ayn Rand Institute’s Objectivist Academic Center; he teaches writing for the Center’s undergraduate program and a history of physics course for its graduate program. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and has conducted postdoctoral research in relativistic astrophysics at the University of Illinois and at Pennsylvania State University.

Willie Soon is both an astrophysicist and a geoscientist at the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Soon is the receiving editor in the area of solar and stellar physics for New Astronomy. He is also the chief science adviser of the Science and Public Policy Institute (based in Washington DC). He writes and lectures both professionally and publicly on important issues related to the Sun, other stars, the Earth as well as general science topics in astronomy and physics. He is the author of The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection, published March 2004. He also co-authored (with P. N. Okeke) the textbook Introduction to Astronomy that is used (now taught at the University of Nigeria) for students with little or no access to telescopes. Dr. Soon’s honors include a 1989 IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Graduate Scholastic Award and a Rockwell Dennis Hunt Scholastic Award from the University of Southern California for “the most representative PhD research thesis” of 1991. In 2003 he was invited to testify in the United States Senate and was later recognized, with a monetary award, for “detailed scholarship on biogeological and climatic change over the past 1000 years” by the Smithsonian Institution. In June 2004 he was presented with the Petr Beckmann Award of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness for “courage and achievement in defense of scientific truth and freedom.”

All views expressed are strictly his own and do not reflect upon any other person(s) or institutions.

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI.

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

Posted in: Environmentalism, Events, Science and Technology

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Advertisers vs. the Free Market

Posted by ARI Media at 11:40 pm

Washington, D.C.—The Association of National Advertisers, a trade association representing 400 companies, has asked the Justice Department to use antitrust law to halt a proposed Google-Yahoo search advertising partnership. The deal, the group claims, will “diminish competition,” increase Google and Yahoo’s “market power,” and “raise prices.”

“This call to prevent Google and Yahoo from collaborating is an attack on the free market,” said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Google and Yahoo, individually or combined, have no power to force anyone to advertise with them; their only power is the power to continually persuade advertisers that their services are the best use of advertisers’ money.

“If the members of the Association of National Advertisers object to the advertising options offered under a new Google and Yahoo partnership, there is a simple solution: don’t advertise with them. But they have no right to dictate to Google and Yahoo how to run their businesses.”

###  ### ###

Mr. Epstein’s op-eds and letters to the editor have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Canada’s National Post, and the Washington Times. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Epstein has been a guest on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs.

Alex Epstein is available for interviews.
Contact: Larry Benson          
E-mail: media@aynrandcenter.org          
Phone: (949) 222-6550 ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

Posted in: Business and Economics

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Afghanistan-Pakistan Nightmare

Posted by ARI Media at 10:34 am

Washington, D.C.—Seven years into the Afghanistan war, America faces resurgent Taliban and Islamist forces carrying out more daring and increasingly deadly attacks on U.S. troops. Suicide bombings, once rare, are a commonplace in Afghanistan. According to news reports, the number of roadside bombs has been climbing (from 1,931 in 2006 to 2,615 last year). More Americans died in Afghanistan this year, so far, than did in the first three years of the war, combined.

Appearing before Congress, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported, with signal understatement, that he’s “not convinced we’re winning in Afghanistan.”

Why has this war—once thought of as the right war—gone so wrong?

U.S. military and intelligence officials have pointed to the tribal belt along the Afghan-Pakistan border as a source of the problem. The region is a safe haven for Islamists, where they train, plot and launch attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan (and on targets in the West). Many officials suspect Pakistan’s intelligence service, ISI, of colluding with the Islamists and allowing them sanctuary, and complain that Pakistan’s government—a supposed U.S. ally—has failed to do enough to root out the Islamists. The remedy now being pushed in Washington involves sending U.S. Special Operations forces on raids in the tribal areas (as recently happened) and deploying several thousand more troops in Afghanistan.

But while there’s reason to believe Islamists enjoy the support of Pakistan’s intelligence services and military, this is far from the fundamental reason why, despite a U.S. war against them, the Islamists are resurgent in Afghanistan. This nightmare is yet another result of Washington’s broader “compassionate” war.

From the beginning, our military was ordered to pursue Taliban fighters only if it simultaneously showed “compassion” to the Afghans. The U.S. military dropped bombs—but instead of ruthlessly pounding key targets, it was ordered gingerly to avoid hitting holy shrines and mosques (known to be Taliban hideouts) and to shower the country with food packages. And even more so today, according to a report by the New York Times, “vast numbers of public, religious and historic sites make up a computer database of no-strike zones” while Air Force lawyers vet all air strikes. The U.S. deployed ground forces—but instead of focusing exclusively on capturing or killing the enemy, they were also diverted to “reconstruction” projects for the sake of the Afghan population.

The Bush administration allowed the enablers of bin Laden to flee and find a welcome home in Pakistan’s tribal region, where they regrouped. Washington then passed off to Pakistan the dirty work of rooting them out. Given that Pakistan had helped create and put the Taliban in power, it should be no surprise that the Islamists there have grown stronger. (They feel themselves so safe that they hold press conferences and give interviews by cell phone.)

The half-hearted war in Afghanistan failed to smash the Taliban and al Qaeda. Instead of defeating them, Washington’s timid war scattered the Islamist forces and left them with the moral fortitude to regroup and launch a brazen comeback. What we need is a war policy that proudly places America’s interests as its exclusive moral concern and ruthlessly destroys our enemies.

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Mr. Journo is a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. He specializes in foreign policy and the Middle East. His writings have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, and the Globe and Mail of Canada. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Journo has been a guest on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs.

Elan Journo is available for interviews on this topic.

To interview Mr. Journo or book him for your show, please contact Larry Benson:
949-222-6550, ext. 213
media@aynrandcenter.org

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARC’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

Posted in: Foreign Policy and War

Monday, September 15, 2008

A Critique of Global Warming Science and Policy

Posted by ARI Media at 11:50 am

What: A panel discussion challenging widely accepted views on global warming science and policy, followed by a Q&A

Who: Keith Lockitch, fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, and Willie Soon, geoscientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Where: 145 Dwinelle Hall, UCB campus, Berkeley 94720

When: Thursday, September 25, 2008, 6:30 pm

Description: It is now widely believed that man-made greenhouse gases are causing an unnatural warming of the earth that will have devastating consequences for human life. Environmentalists and politicians are pressing for severe restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions aimed at preventing global warming. But are these beliefs and policies justified? What does the scientific evidence actually support regarding the causes of climate variability and the role of anthropogenic greenhouse gases? Are the predictions of catastrophic changes supported by scientific fact? Is government economic intervention aimed at severely restricting greenhouse gases an appropriate policy response? Panelists will address these critical issues in a lively discussion.

Bios:

Keith Lockitch is a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, specializing in science and environmental policy. His writings have appeared in numerous newspapers and he has been a frequent guest on radio shows. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Dr. Lockitch teaches a history of physics course for the Ayn Rand Institute’s Objectivist Academic Center. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and has conducted postdoctoral research in relativistic astrophysics at the University of Illinois and at Pennsylvania State University.

Willie Soon is both an astrophysicist and a geoscientist at the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Soon is the receiving editor in the area of solar and stellar physics for the journal New Astronomy. He is also the chief science adviser of the Science and Public Policy Institute. He writes and lectures both professionally and publicly on important issues related to the Sun, other stars, the Earth as well as general science topics in astronomy and physics. He is the author of The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection.

For more information on this talk, please e-mail media@aynrandcenter.org

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Dr. Keith Lockitch is available for interviews now and after his panel discussion.

Contact: Larry Benson
E-mail: media@aynrandcenter.org          
Phone: (949) 222-6550, ext. 213

For more information on Objectivism’s unique point of view, go to ARI’s Web site. The Ayn Rand Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI. ARI does not necessarily endorse the content of the lectures and sessions offered.

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

Posted in: Environmentalism