Some of you may remember that I lamented the tragic death of Steve Irwin in 2006, the Australian I used to love to watch wrestling a crocodile after telling viewers that this was “reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllyyyyyyyyy dangerous!!!”

These are the words of one of the Daily Telegraph's arts correspondents Tim Martin.

This is to announce that Maria (my partner) and I have just brought to the world the future of objectivism.

Al Gore, the man who is launching an “assault on reason” with the current Global Warming hysteria, has this year released a book supposedly defending the use of reason in politics. Ironically, “The Assault on Reason” sounds like a title an Objectivist might have chosen himself for an essay denouncing the current culture of Al Gore’s propaganda.

A documentary called Victoria's Empire has just screened in the UK on BBC One. It is about the British comedian, Victoria Wood, travelling around the former British Empire of Queen Victoria and questioning how the people living there now feel about the British.

Yesterday I attended the "intelligence squared" debate in Westminster, London.
The debating team of Richard Dawkins, AC Grayling (Philosopher) and Christopher Hitchens (pro-Iraq War Journalist) won the above motion by 1205 to 778 votes with about 100 undecided. The team defeated were made up of a female Rabbi and church of England academics.

I went to see the new Bond film Casino Royale on the weekend.

Recently in the "Time Magazine" (Nov 13th), there was a Debate between two scientists - Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins (Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute since 1993) on the existence of God. These debates always run aground for Atheists at the merest whiff of the argument for morality. What typifies the Atheist argument is a rejection of an "absolute morality" - inherently associated with religion.

By accident I stumbled upon these two items at once.

The first is a video clip from March this year of an interview on a Manhattan Libertarian TV programme called “Hardfire” with the author Frederick Cookinham about his book “The Age of Rand – Imagining an Objectivist Future World.” The author claims that there will be an “Age of Rand” 50-100 years from now.

I saw the opera Tristan and Isolde on the weekend (staged by the Welsh National Opera), my first Wagner opera. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and see (with an open mind) if Wagner was really the operatic genius that some people claim he is.

Atheists are not necessarily rational or moral, but consistent mystics can never be. Therefore, atheism is in fact a necessary prerequisite for the consistent application of objectivism as a philosophy. I am convinced that if the majority of people in the world were atheists, after having rejected religious mysticism, it would be a lot easier to make the case for objectivism.

The Crocodile Hunter is Dead!!!

I was very sad to hear this news on the radio this morning.

I very much enjoyed Steve Irwin's fearless way of handling dangerous animals.

[From The Free Radical, Issue 67]

Charlie Chaplin was one of first geniuses of cinema and had a career that lasted over 50 years and spanned over 80 movies. During the height of his fame in the 1920s and 30s he was one of the wealthiest and most famous movie icons in the US. And yet after the Second World War Chaplin was to provoke a moral backlash and frenzy over his alleged communist activities that would see him effectively banished. How was it possible that such a man who had become the most universally recognized icon in the world suddenly became persona non grata in his adopted country?

A few months ago I attended the first small meeting of the Oxford Objectivist Society. They were showing a video of the Leonard Peikoff ford forum lecture:
“Why Should One Act on Principle?” (1988). I have never heard a talk from Peikoff before in my life. I was keener on meeting the members of the society than hearing the talk actually.

I got there after the video had already started, but even then it seemed pretty monotonous and nothing much new. However, near the end he made a point that really struck me as being quite self-evident, but also profound. (It is always the self-evident things that startle me the most).

Recently, I have had some philosophical epiphanies, independent of Objectivism, that I want to reveal to you here, that others may find them useful too.

The first of these I discovered when reading a book by the NZ philosopher - Jamie Whtye.

In the book he states that nothing is in fact “a matter of opinion“, that a statement is always either true or false.

You might think this should be obvious to any Objectivist, i.e. that A=A. Existence exists. What is true is true. What is false is false.

Last Tuesday (6th of June) I delivered a talk to a recently formed Oxford Objectivist Society. The society was started by a small group of students studying humanities in Oxford, mostly philosophy and economics.

The founder of the group had learned of my name from another Objectivist when recently in the states.

The speech I gave went down really well, and the students asked highly intelligent and probing questions afterwards. This was followed by a long, but enjoyable debate. We were having discussions long into the night at the college bar.