Bill Maher: Some Perspective
… found at Antony Lowenstein’s (author of “The Blogging Revolution” and “My Israel Question”) blog. I hope to have Antony on the show soon.
G’Day World #345 – Alex Epstein, Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
I’ve been a big fan of Ayn Rand‘s work since I first read “The Fountainhead” when I was about 20. I quickly read everything of hers I could get my hands on and I re-read both “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” every couple of years. I’ve wanted to do a show on her work for years.
However… this interview with Epstein was pretty disturbing. It started off okay as we talked about her work but then Alex started talking about the foreign policy of the United States and I was shocked at how extremely right-wing his views are. Rand was a huge believer in individual rights however Epstein’s view seems to be that the indigenous people of countries such as the Middle East, the Americas and Australia HAVE no rights. Personally I think the views he expounded in the latter half of the show represent the worst kind of American imperialist thinking and do NOT accurately represent Rand’s philosophy. But that’s just my opinion.
Listen and tell me your thoughts.
Alex Epstein has a BA in Philosophy from Duke University and is an analyst focusing on business issues at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.
Please support the show by throwing me some cash to cover the bills or, if you’re tight on the cash front, by blogging or Twittering about the show or joining the G’Day World Facebook group. There is a list of things you can do to support the show here.
The G’Day World theme music:
Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)
The Frankenstein Clarinet
I’m at the MediaConnect Influence event again this year (they must have forgotten what happened last time I was here) and the opening keynote is by the CEO of NICTA. Dr John Judge from NICTA is also here showing off their robot-controlled clarinet which won first place in the ARTEMIS Orchestra competition in Athens a couple of months ago.
The robot’s “mouth†uses two servomotors that apply force to the clarinet reed to make a sound. The smaller servomotor mimics the action of the human tongue, while the second applies a damping force to the reed, copying the action of the human lip. Force is applied to the clarinet keys by brass plungers with rubber or nylon feet depending on the key. “It is conceivable that in the near future, we could see an entire orchestra made up of computer-driven instruments like this clarinet,†said NICTA Chief Technology Officer Dr Chris Nicol, “They will interpret a musical score and follow a conductor.â€
If you want to stay up to date with other news from the event, keep an eye on Twitter.
Shatner Is Right!
Great video below of William Shatner explaining how easy it would be to bring Capn Kirk back from the dead. And he’s spot on! The Enterprise teleporter would have Kirk’s entire molecular signature! All you need to do is re-materialize him! I ROFLd my ass off when I saw how easily Shatner out-did JJ Abrams. To read the full story of Shatner v Abrams, go here.
Tex Perkins’ infomercial
An infomercial for Tex Perkins and His Lazyboys album “No. 1’s & No. 2’s”. This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time and it’s also the best viral marketing idea I’ve seen in ages. I think it’s going to go off. And the best thing about it is – this is exactly the kind of schmaltzy act you’d expect to see at places like Crown in Melbourne – but Tex is taking the piss out of them… and making money from doing it at the same time. Brilliant!
As Tex says:
Hi, my name’s Tex Perkins and I was huge during the early 90’s (a golden period for scumbag indy rockers). Having endured a 25 year career in the music biz, I’ve done and seen it all.
So here we are at the beginning of the new century and the record industry is on its knees, ravaged by years of careless self indulgent big spending and a complete inability to understand the potential of the new technologies, poor fools. It was within this context that I began work on my last contracted recording for Universal music. All was going well, and I was 3/4 way through the writing and recording of this ALL original album, when I was called in for a meeting with the biggest heads of the company. They showed me the figures, and they were very grim indeed. If things continued to slide, George Ash, the head of the company may have had to sell his private helicopter! They then began to openly beg me, that’s right, BEG me to help save the company and perhaps the entire record business.
It was then we came upon THE IDEA: I would record an album of classic cover versions, songs so good, so irresistible, so well known, so…classic, that the general public would have no choice but to hunt down, buy and love a bunch of songs that they can hear on Gold fm pretty much every day of the week anyway….. hmmm….