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The Sinners Shall Perish June 3, 2006

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Misc , comments closed

Pat Robertson is an instrument of God — in more ways than you’d probably imagine. Apparently God doesn’t use the good old preacher only for publicity … I mean gospel-spreading. No, He enlists the man’s property as well, whenever there is need for “swift justice” … specifically his planes!

Via the Houston Chronicle:

Two pilots were killed and three passengers suffered minor injuries when a small jet owned by religious broadcast Pat Robertson crashed in Long Island Sound while flying in heavy fog. Robertson was not aboard.

The twin-engine Learjet 35 went down a half-mile short of the runway at Groton-New London Airport on Friday, and officials with the National Transportation Safety Board were expected to arrive at the airport Saturday to begin investigating why.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said the jet hit at least one approach light mounted in a cove near the airport and landed upside down in about 4 to 8 feet of water.

The passengers were able to get out of the plane on their own and were taken to a hospital, state police spokesman Sgt. J. Paul Vance said.

Their names were not released, but authorities said the three were men in their 50s.

They were headed to Connecticut to attend a charity golf tournament at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, said Phil Laferrera, a tournament organizer.

Whenever the good Reverend comes to his senses, I’m sure he’ll corroborate my theory that God rightfully struck these sinners because they were mindlessly heading to the Devil’s Lair, Foxwoods Resort Casino … just as he routinely strikes Devil worshiping minions (e.g: Indian Ocean tsunami, Katrina and past hurricane season, and more recently, that massive earthquake in Indonesia).

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Announcements March 10, 2006

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Meta, Misc , comments closed

I’ve had a rather very busy schedule as of late, and in light of the need to comply with the demands of my priority scale, I’ve decided to put some activities to indefinite halt: regrettably, updating this blog is one of those activities. As regular readers might have already noticed, the posting frequency around here has already gone to the dogs — so this is really just an “official” statement of sorts … to make things official explicit, to both to meself and others.

Now, in the interest of clarity: this is not an end to my blogging “career” — the venerable Goddess Gaia willing, I shall never fall victim to the scourge of unsustainable blogging. Hence, this site is not going down just as these archives will remain up, and in case something extraordinarily extraordinary happens, I may write a word or seven. Bottom line: it is my intention to come back when I get a lighter schedule; this however, I don’t expect any time soon.

Still in the interest of clarity, subscribers to my RSS feed will keep seeing a daily aggregation of links to stories that I find interesting from my del.icio.us account. You are encouraged to subscribe if you aren’t already.

That said, it’s been quite a pleasure so far, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the academy everyone who stopped by, especially the few [the very few as a matter of fact], the proud, the regular i, Egoist readers. ;) .

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Now on to better news: starting this moment, I will be offering free web hosting to Objectivists who want, or need it. That is, if you want to set up a personal weblog, a community forum, a mailing list, or a simple blank HTML page, etc … and you need webspace to host it, let me know and I will see how I can help you … if I can indeed help you. Did I mention that only Objectivists [or students of Objectivism] need apply? Good.

Here’s what you get:

… well you get the idea. Please note that whatever you intend to have hosted should be able to run on a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl) setting. If you need help with said setup I will be happy to help you … keeping in mind of course that I have no intention of becoming your webmaster … it’s nothing personal.

Finally, as this thing is still in “beta” status, I will most likely only be taking in around 5 people. The offer is on a first-come-first-served basis. Please forward your requests (either for the service, or for clarifications) to my email address: resident[dot]egoist[at]gmail[dot]com.

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UPDATE: Slots filled, above offer expired.

Roundum Randup January 17, 2006

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Culture, Misc, Politics, Sci-Tech , comments closed

This is a roundup of interesting things from the past few days which I’ve had no time to fully comment upon.

This is a must-read from Andrew Dalton at Witch Doctor Repellent. He sheds much needed light on the leftist concept of “root cause”, or rather, their sneaky corruption of the actual concept of “root cause”:

[T]here is a whole array of words and phrases like this: not only root cause, but also diversity, sustainability, and proportional response. All of these terms have broad meanings in everyday English. But when used by a leftist, they are actually Trojan horses for a specific worldview.

“Root cause” wears the cloak of reason. After all, what rational person could be against finding the root cause of a problem? The problem is, “root cause” is usually a code word for something on a list of purported causes that have been pre-approved by leftists. Things not on that list, like human choices or philosophy, don’t count. Go ahead, just try saying that the root cause of bullying is a bully’s choice to use violence. Or that the root cause of Islamic terrorism is Islam. Both are correct, but the self-appointed experts in “root causes” will treat you as either a Neanderthal or a Hun if you say such a thing.

The Hat Tip for that goes to the Secular Foxhole.

This is a hilarious must-see. After much dancing around, Allah (that’s “God” for the English speaking) has finally accepted to pose for Robert Tracy at Illustrated Ideas. The result is an excellent piece of art, and a very fitting portrait for the Madman Upstairs.

Charles Krauthammer has a … well … not-so-nice review of Steven Spielberg’s Munich at the Washington Post. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but from the mere trailers that I’ve seen, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were right — here’s an excerpt:

It is an axiom of filmmaking that you can only care about a character you know. In “Munich,” the Israeli athletes are not only theatrical but historical extras, stick figures. Spielberg dutifully gives us their names — Spielberg’s List — and nothing more: no history, no context, no relationships, nothing. They are there to die.

The Palestinians who plan the massacre and are hunted down by Israel are given — with the concision of the gifted cinematic craftsman — texture, humanity, depth, history. The first Palestinian we meet is the erudite translator of poetry giving a public reading, then acting kindly toward an Italian shopkeeper — before he is shot in cold blood by Jews.

Then there is the elderly PLO member who dotes on his 7-year-old daughter before being blown to bits. Not one of these plotters is ever shown plotting Munich, or any other atrocity for that matter. They are shown in the full flower of their humanity, savagely extinguished by Jews.

But the most shocking Israeli brutality involves the Dutch prostitute — apolitical, beautiful, pathetic — shot to death, naked, of course, by the now half-crazed Israelis settlingprivate business. The Israeli way, I suppose.

Feel free to have a crack at the rest.

Gus Van Horn points to a very disturbing article from City Journal concerning the possible, and imminent overt loss of freedom of speech in this country, through the inclusion of alternative media [e.g.: blogs, talk radio, etc...] within the sphere of Campaign Finance Reform laws. Yes, I am speaking of censorship in worse form than it exists right now, including that institutionalized through the FCC. Gus Van Horn has his own excellent thoughts on the subject, as well. Excerpting either article here would do them rather little justice, so make sure you read them both in their entirety.

As an aside though, I’d like to note that this continuing loss of freedom in the intellectual realm is nothing but a consequence of the now almost-complete process of interpreting away the concept and principle of the sanctity of property rights from the Constitution. Without property rights, no rights can be practiced in reality at all — and if people think that they can have any social system other than capitalism and still keep their rights, they are (parahrasing their Father, Kant) about to be woken up from their dogmatic slumbers.

Amit Ghate has a great colum of the above name at Capitalism Magazine. It does a pretty good job at showing how far today’s politcians have strayed away from the actual meaning of the constitution and the kind of government established by the Founding Fathers of this great country. Specifically, the article is about the nowadays-too-common confusion (or is it deliberate?) between (1) a Democracy and a Constitutional Republic, and (2) the institution of the Right to Vote, instead of the Right to Life, as the fundamental human right.

Both misconceptions are actually only two sides of the same coin, and you can see the evidence all over the news: Free and high-voter-turnout elections in Iraq and Afghanistan are celebrated all over regardless of the outcome, because allegedly, these people have the right to govern themselves even if that means voting not only oneself, but others as well, into tyrannical theocracies. And if you have any doubt as to just how serious these people are, you should know that some of them think this alleged “right to vote” should be mandatory. Yes, a mandatory “right”! If this isn’t a blatant contradiction in terms, I wonder what on this earth could possibly ever be?!

If you’ve followed the news lately, you must have heard of the safe return of NASA’s Stardust Capsule — which had the mission of capturing comet samples from space, which in turn could probably tells us “where we came from.” Obviously these scientists are incredibly behind the times! For it is written:

In the begining there was nothing,
Then God came out of nothing,
And created everything
… out of nothing.

That is from Part I, Chapter I of the Grand Infallible Book of Eternal Truth (or simply “G.I.B.E.T”, as it is popularly known) — which was written about 6 millenia ago. Where have these scientists been living all this time? Don’t they know that all True Knowledge resides within the Book, and only within the Book? Or are they just not aware of the Existence of the Book? I wonder what Reverend Pat is going to say about this … people tryin’ to disprove the Infallibility of the Book an’ all…

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Happy New Year! January 1, 2006

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Misc , comments closed

Happy 2006 people! I hope you had a great time whatever holiday it is you celebrated, whether it be Festivus, Godmas, Giftmas, Christmas, Chanukkah, Christmukkah [this latter I can't stand the sound of!] … or whatever else you cooked up. As for those resolutions you’ve made, keep in mind that the year does not end in February, but in December.

With respect to other matters, I will be migrating this blog’s archives to Wordpress any time now … well, maybe tomorrow. The unblievable amount of comment spam that I’ve been getting makes this an absolute must.

One more time: happy 2006!

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Farewell Before Christmas December 29, 2005

Posted by Resident Egoist in : Misc , comments closed

It’s the holidays, and life is very uncomfortable in New York right now due to the ongoing transit strike. This is very likely to be my last post till next year, so here’s me wishing a merry Christmas and a great new year to all who happen to drop by. It’s been a very eventful year — may the next be one of hapiness for all the good folk.

Once again, happy holidays!

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