I recently posted about Vladimir Shlapentokh’s opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor, in which he misrepresents Ayn Rand’s ideas and calls for Tea Partiers to distance themselves from her. In that post, I focused solely on his absurd claims about Rand’s politics; here, for those who may be interested…

[caption id="attachment_28169" align="alignright" width="241"] Image: Wikimedia Commons[/caption] In a recent Christian Science Monitor editorial, Vladimir Shlapentokh suggests that the popularity of Ayn Rand among Tea Partiers should “concern all Americans” and recommends that Tea Partiers distance themselves from the 20th-century philosopher and novelist. Why? According to Shlapentokh, Ayn Rand was…

Examines Daniels’s recent New Criterion article “Ayn Rand: Engineer of Souls” and ponders the question, “Why, to the detriment of his own credibility, would an otherwise capable intellectual so grossly misrepresent Rand’s actual views—and do so, not at a cocktail party, but in a public forum?”

According to this story (hat tip to Bob Murphy), NATO is considering honoring soldiers who courageously . . . choose not to fight. Most military awards in the past have been given for things like soldiers taking out a machine gun nest or saving their buddies in a firefight, said…

Shows how the establishment of private waterways, and the protection of property rights therein, would solve myriad pressing problems, from water pollution to depleting fish stocks to disputes about rights-of-way.

Examines the moral ideas of Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins, exposes some curious truths about their ethics, and provides sound advice for theists and atheists alike who wish to discover and uphold a rational, secular morality.

Last night, TOS contributor Dr. John Lewis delivered his speech “‘No Substitute for Victory’: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism” to a packed auditorium at George Mason University. Despite a coordinated effort by GMU’s Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to disrupt the event, Dr. Lewis argued logically and persuasively that…

…by Yaron Brook in this ARI press release, Advanced Cell Technology's attempt to develop a means of harvesting stem cells that meets the approval of religious critics of stem-cell research has failed. From an Australian news source: The breakthrough technique was meant to answer critics at the papal palace, the…

In "Hezbollah lets Iran buy time for nukes," Arizona State University professor Orde Kittrie provides an overview of Iran's nuclear program, recounting the regime's goals and discussing the "lucky break" it got toward achieving those goals when Hezbollah recently attacked Israel from Lebanon. The big winner thus far in the…

If you want a good laugh—at the expense of a bad book—check out the work of Brendan Powell Smith at www.thebricktestament.com. Smith explains the project and its beginnings in the introduction to his first book, The Brick Testament: Stories from the Book of Genesis: There I was enjoying a leisurely…

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that the rights of homosexuals can be violated by majority vote. This Reuters piece reports that a popular vote on the issue of gay marriage could occur in 2008. Such a vote would place the rights of Massachusetts homosexuals at the mercy of…

Our policy in Somalia is but a small part of the absurdly-named "War on Terror"; however, a June 14th New York Times article entitled "U.S. Calls Hasty Meeting to Seek Somalia Solution" provides a good example of the tragic flaw that pervades all of our efforts in the battle against…

A story from an Arabic news site reports an interesting development in Saudi Arabia: female to male sex-change operations: Reports reveal that in 2005, there were no less than five cases of women who underwent surgery to become men in the Kingdom, according to Al Watan…. Some Saudi officials have…

On Wednesday, Condoleezza Rice announced, in so many words, that the US will indefinitely suspend military action against Iran in favor of "diplomacy," giving the theocracy a fresh green light to fund Islamic terrorism and develop nuclear weapons. Despite millennia of evidence to the contrary, the Bush administration clings to…

Yesterday on NPR's radio show "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross interviewed Michael Farris, president of the fundamentalist Christian school Patrick Henry College. This regrettably named institution seeks to train home-schooled Christians to be tomorrow's leaders, "ready to reclaim the biblical principles upon which our land was founded." The interview with…