by Matthew Record

“I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there’s something wrong, pass a law and do something about it.” — Milton Friedman

Objectivism is the philosophy developed and espoused over time by Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and fleshed out through a series of newsletters and lectures in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.Rand, Leonard Peikoff and others in her braintrust offer a tantalizingly simple modality for understanding political systems, sociology and indeed, the epistemological nature of mankind’s mind. Quietly but with a presence that announces itself more and more forcefully each year, we are living the heyday of Rand’s intellectual influence. Objectivism has come to the fore throughout the conservative movement since the ’80s in general and through the recent rise of Libertarianism as a political economic force, in particular.  Full story »

Don Dixon and Mitch Easter co-produced REM’s first two (and arguably best) albums, Murmur and Reckoning. S&R contacted Dixon earlier today to ask if he had any thoughts on the band’s break-up. Here’s what he had to say.

I’ll miss R.E.M. but I completely understand why they’re calling it quits. I haven’t spoken with anyone in the band yet but I believe they’re sincere when they speak of this as a group decision and point to their mutual respect. I think each of them want to move on to other things and not end up hanging around too long like some bands we know.

One must remember when these guys came of age. Full story »

You’ve probably heard by now: REM, one of the progenitors of alt.rock has called it quits after 30 years and 15 albums.

The first five REM records (Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Life’s Rich Pageant and Document) deserve at least 18 stars out of a possible 20 and 1992′s Automatic for the People earned five more. By any standard, they depart the stage as one of the greatest bands in rock history, and there’s probably a very good argument to be made that they’re the greatest American band ever. That would no doubt be a lively debate, of course (and one where the band wouldn’t be terribly well-served by the last 15 years or so of its history). Still, their music was groundbreaking and relentlessly original, and along with fellow mid-’80s college radio darlings U2 and INXS they forged the alt.rock landscape in ways that paved the way for thousands of artists who would follow. Full story »

Yesterday, on Facebook, one of my friends posted a graphic of the president and this recent quote, which is making the rounds:

I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare…

And today, over at the Great Orange Satan, msblucow has an interesting poll up aimed at gauging how likely voters are to support Obama’s reelection bid in 2012. More to the point, why they are likely to vote for him (or not)? If you click through to the poll, there’s a series of questions that asks if the president’s actions on a series of issues make you more likely to vote for him, less likely, undecided, or do his actions and policies have no effect. Full story »

by Miles Dean

After a few days of “rope-a-dope” when the Republicans said, “some good ideas, we’ll try to work with the President on his Jobs Bill,” the Republicans have reverted back to their old “raising taxes on the Job Creators” position and cast themselves as the protectors of these Job Creators and the little guys who might have those created jobs.

They’ve also asserted that most of the taxpayers don’t even pay any taxes, “so, they got nothing to bitch about.” Seems that they’ve forgotten to include in “taxes” the Social Security, Medicare, sales and other taxes that are disproportionately higher for the middle and lower income earners than the Republican “Job Creators”

Even when Warren Buffett says that it’s unfair that his secretary pays more of her income in taxes than he does, it falls on deaf ears. Full story »

My alma mater, Wake Forest University, has a “career connectors” group on LinkedIn, and there’s currently a thread where one of the university’s career dev folks asks for some input on a project she’s working. Specifically, she asks: “If you were hiring a recent graduate, what top five professional skills do you want him/her to possess to be a strong candidate in your profession?”

Great question. Since I’m all in favor of young Deacons taking the world by storm, I thought I’d try to contribute some advice. Here’s a slightly buffed out version of what I wrote.

1: Develop communications skills. Especially the ability to write clearly and flawlessly. The erosion of writing skills over the past 20 years has been dramatic, and a student who can demonstrate this ability has a huge advantage over the competition. A warning, though. Full story »

Complaining about George Lucas ruining everything is almost as played out as the Hitler bunker-mashup meme. Unless you can complain about Lucas through Adolf Hitler. “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. And that’s where i’m at, bitches.”

Mark Cuban is rich. Really, really rich. And like a lot of rich people, he has an opinion on all this talk about government and taxes. A snip:

I’m not against government involvement in times of need. I am for recognizing that big public companies will continue to cut jobs in an effort to prop up stock prices, which in turn stimulates the need for more government involvement. Every cut job by the big companies extracts a cost on the American people in one way or another.

…

So be Patriotic. Go out there and get rich. Get so obnoxiously rich that when that tax bill comes, your first thought will be to choke on how big a check you have to write. Full story »

by Hannah Frantz

Before I came to Rwanda, I spent a week following The New Times, Rwanda’s online newspaper, to get a sense for where the country is today. The impression that I reached was that in the 17 years since the genocide, all conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi had been resolved and that everyone was making a collaborative effort to move towards peaceful relations. In my mind, Rwanda was this utopia where, through collaborative efforts, everyone could live in harmony. I’m realizing slowly that this isn’t necessarily the case. Full story »

Speaking in urgent tones from the Rose Garden at the White House, Obama rejected Republican arguments that his proposals amount to “class warfare,” saying it comes down to “math.” “It is wrong that in the United States of America a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million,” he said, adding that anyone who opposes that principle “should be called out.” – LA Times

I’ve said this before, but while the wealthy may be paying less than you want them to pay they are still paying higher tax rates.  The loophole Warren Buffet is exploiting is Section 1256 and probably benefits a very small number of people who get their income primarily through non-equity options – hardly the bulk of high earners, who get them through salaries.

Year 2011 income brackets and tax rates Full story »

Not everyone found the reporting of the late Pakistani investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad one hundred percent credible. But that may have just been a function of how incredulous they were at the extent to which he was able to insinuate himself with al Qaeda and the Taliban.

One of his most impressive contacts was long-time militant Ilyas Kashmiri, who fought in the Kashmir until President Musharraf wound down fighting there. Kashmiri then moved to Pakistan’s tribal areas and turned on the state, once trying to assassinate Musharraf and later named as a mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

In a thought-provoking — to put it mildly — article on Shahzad’s murder for the New Yorker, Dexter Filkins writes: “Muhammad Faizan, Shahzad’s colleague, said, ‘The militants used to call him, not the other way around.” Full story »

Today is the day that my University of Colorado Buffaloes head down to Mile High to take on the Rams of Colorado State in the Rocky Mountain Showdown. I’m sure several dozen CSU fans will be breaking out their green and gold overalls and doing some tailgating, although I’m not sure how that’s going to work since I’ve never seen a tailgate on a tractor. Whatever.

Anyway, most years the week leading up to this game is full of sports radio chatter about the big “rivalry.” Which has always struck me as a bit silly, frankly. I know a lot of marketing departments would like for us to think it’s a rivalry, but it really isn’t. Full story »

We noted back in 2009 an historic event. An oil tanker made its way from South Korea to Rotterdam—by way of traveling across the Northeast Passage, that region from the Bering Straight to the northern tip of Norway. This is major. For hundreds of years, nations have been searching for a Northwest Passage across North America, and this stimulated the imagination of generations of Englishmen and others as few other enterprises have done. And for hundreds of years, Russia has had two obsessions—the role of the north in the Russian character, and, as a far more practical matter, access to a year round warm weather port. I can’t speak to the first, but the second appears on its way to becoming reality.

The north, that vague unknowable land, that vague concept, that place of mystery, silence, purity, solitude and the Northern Lights. Oh, and the dumping ground for the world’s nuclear waste, air pollutants and chemical contaminants. That magnet myth, for exploration, for voyages of discovery back in the days when nations believed in voyages of discovery as expressions of national pride. Whatever it is, it is going to be trashed in pretty short order. The place is dying a slow death. Well, being murdered is more like it. Full story »