The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It was incredibly motivating to me. It encouraged me to think as an individual, take risks to reach my goals, and responsibility for my successes and failures. I loved it. I don't know how many times I have read it, but it got to the point where I had to stop because I would get too fired up.
CARLSON: According to recent poll, more than 20 percent of Americans believe in ghosts. [...] OK, look, ghosts are real. I think ghosts are real. I will just put it out there. I don‘t think there‘s any question actually. But a lot of people don‘t think that. [...]
KELLERMAN: I don't know if you are aware this is being broadcast live around the world, Tucker.
CARLSON: That‘s hardly the dumbest thing I have ever said.
KELLERMAN: [...] I don't believe in any supernatural phenomenon. I'm not superstitious at all, but in my view, religion is essentially superstition. And if--once you believe in God and supernatural forces, that your senses can't take in, just based on faith, on belief, you should believe in ghosts. It boggles my mind that like 90 percent believes in God, and only 20 percent believe in ghosts.
And as we mature as a culture, and as we become more sophisticated, I think there's less religious literalism, especially as rocket ships went into the sky said no God? Oh, well, God exists in a psychological space. And as we get more sophisticated, we like to have it both ways. Yeah we kind of believe in God, but no we don‘t believe in ancillary stuff attached to it.
Three years ago, a brave Algerian-born woman named Samira Bellil went public with the story of her horrific life growing up in the immigrant ghettos of France. She described a world in which young girls are routinely brutalized by boys, and where violence against women is endemic. Young women who dare to go out on dates or wear makeup or dress immodestly can be punished by gang rape -- also known as tournante, or "passing around." Samira was first gang-raped when she was 14, by her boyfriend and his friends. "I couldn't say anything, because, in my culture, your family is dishonoured if you lose your virginity," she recalled. "So I kept quiet and the rapes continued." When her parents found out, they kicked her out; her neighbourhood also rejected her. Her book, Dans l'enfer des tournantes, shocked the nation. [...] The plight of abused Muslim women would be regarded as intolerable if the victims were culturally French. But a pervasive cultural relativism, largely rooted in the left, has allowed France to tolerate the intolerable for quite a while. The results aren't pretty. The recent rise in fundamentalist Islam has made the situation even worse. Teenage Muslim girls are forbidden to play sports or to visit coed community centres or movie theatres. Young bearded men, in the role of religious police, enforce strict dress codes. [Margaret Wente,"For Muslim girls, becoming truly French is not an option", November 8, 2005]
Latin America's radical left took to the streets Friday as populist figures such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez ... In a speech lasting more than two hours, Chávez unsparingly criticized President Bush and his policies in the region and said Latin America was uniting against the "imperialism of the north." "We are creating a great political body in the south, and not only geographically," said the Venezuelan leader, whom U.S. officials have accused of subverting democracy in his country and his neighbors. 'This is the great task of our region, to create a consensus of 'the South' that will bring better lives to all our people.'' Chávez repeated charges that the United States was planning to invade his oil-rich country and promised to defend it in a "war of 100 years." U.S. officials have denied any such plans. ... A giant banner of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary and Argentine native, hung from the roof. Chávez said he'd talked to Castro shortly before speaking and received emotional words of encouragement from the 79-year-old leader.
Project Valour-IT, in memory of SFC William V. Ziegenfuss, provides voice-controlled software and laptop computers to wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand and arm injuries or amputations at major military medical centers. Operating laptops by speaking into a microphone, our wounded heroes are able to send and receive messages from friends and loved ones, surf the 'Net, and communicate with buddies still in the field without having to press a key or move a mouse.This cartoon is based on suggestions from John of Argghhh! and Bill Faith.
In some areas, it is possible for an immigrant or his descendants to spend a whole life without ever encountering the need to speak French, let alone familiarize himself with any aspect of the famous French culture. The result is often alienation. And that, in turn, gives radical Islamists an opportunity to propagate their message of religious and cultural apartheid. Some are even calling for the areas where Muslims form a majority of the population to be reorganized on the basis of the "millet" system of the Ottoman Empire: Each religious community (millet) would enjoy the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs. In parts of France, a de facto millet system is already in place. In these areas, all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist "hijab" while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheiks. The radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling alcohol and pork products, forced "places of sin," such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters, to close down, and seized control of much of the local administration. A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out. [...] President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community. That illusion has now been shattered — and the Chirac administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what the Parisian daily France Soir has called a "ticking time bomb." It is now clear that a good portion of France's Muslims not only refuse to assimilate into "the superior French culture," but firmly believe that Islam offers the highest forms of life to which all mankind should aspire. So what is the solution? One solution, offered by Gilles Kepel, an adviser to Chirac on Islamic affairs, is the creation of "a new Andalusia" in which Christians and Muslims would live side by side and cooperate to create a new cultural synthesis. The problem with Kepel's vision, however, is that it does not address the important issue of political power. Who will rule this new Andalusia: Muslims or the largely secularist Frenchmen?The solution is capitalism: a social system based on individual rights. Under such a system one is free to practice ones religion so long as one does not violate the rights of others. Editor' Note: For those who are seriously interested in this issue I recommend Ayn Rand's brilliant essay "Global Balkanization" posthumously published her book The Voice of Reason.