One of my favourite authors from childhood has died. I learned about the fourth dimension from A Wrinkle in Time, and was haunted by The Arm of the Starfish.
Nyaya Ayn
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
My article “Ayn Rand and Indian Philosophy” appeared last year in the anthology Ayn Rand at 100 published by the Liberty Institute in Delhi, India. Unfortunately, the version of my article that was printed was filled with editorial errors – changes that affected my meaning, misattributions of quotations, and so forth. So I’ve put a corrected version online.
(For some thoughtful and judicious commentary on my article from a young Indian Randian with the unassuming name of Ergo, see here. I expect an even more incisive analysis after he actually reads it.)
Anthologies Abound
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Can’t remember if I announced this before, but information about the anarchy/minarchy anthology I co-edited with Tibor Machan is available here. As you’ll see, the book is coming out in February, is pricier than I’d like, and contains contributions from many familiar comrades, including Aeon Skoble, Charles Johnson, John Hasnas, Lester Hunt, Jan Narveson, and your humble correspondent.
Just be thankful it’s not as pricey as this book that Fred Miller and Carrie-Ann Biondi edited on the history of philosophy of law, which has two articles by me, one on the Socratics and one on the Hellenistics.
Unto Him Who Hath
Just yesterday I posted an interview in which I said:
You have things like taxes and regulations and licensing fees and zoning regulations and various things that make it easy – the richer you are, the easier it is for you to start up a business because you can afford the lawyers to pay and the fees to jump through all these hoops and so forth. I mean, for example, there are a lot of places where a license to operate a taxi cab costs $100,000, which the average poor person doesn’t have lying around. I mean, a taxi service would be an excellent service for someone to start out with if they don’t have a lot of money because it doesn’t require a lot of capital up front. All you need is a car and a cell phone to start off with if you want a small taxi company – things like that.
Now today’s LRC brings yet another example of how government uses taxi regulations to shaft the poor and benefit the rich.
The government’s meter is always running ….
Agorism East
While on my Kraków trip (about which I still promise to blog!) I was interviewed for the Polish libertarian site Liberalis.pl by J?drzej Kuskowski (who said I was the first libertarian other than himself that he’d ever met in the flesh! – apparently Polish libertarians interact mainly by email). Our discussion focused primarily on left-libertarianism.
The interview is now online; here’s the Polish version. If your Polish is a little rusty, here’s the English version.
Galactic Art
Frank Frazetta did some art for the original 1970s Battlestar: Galactica. Now I’m a Frazetta fan, but these paintings really weren’t his best work. This one is presumably supposed to be Athena, Apollo, and Starbuck facing in the wrong direction as Cylon raiders attack. The ships and weapons don’t look quite right. I don’t know why the Galactica has a traffic signal stuck to its underside.
This one shows some female crew members (it illustrates an early episode when all the male crew were sick) running for their Vipers as Cylon raiders again attack. If that’s supposed to be Athena, she’s still facing the wrong way. And the second woman from the right is clearly about to fall on her face.
Allegedly this pic was also supposed to be Galactica-related, but it beats me how.
Star Wars artist Ralph McQuarrie also did some early Galactica art: see here, here, here, here, here, and here. Too bad the show never looked as good as his paintings. I remember seeing some of these pics in an old Starlog.