Ayn Rand's "intellectual heir" gives a brief talk on Ayn Rand and, in particular, her philosophy of objectivism. It's an interesting primer. His comment about emotion is, I think, quite profound. So often we focus on how our emotions can blind us and hinder our faculty of reason, and yet, emotion is a gift that, properly used, can also bolster reason.

I had no idea that Branden was a psychologist. Actually, I thought Ayn Rand's "intellectual heir" was Leonard Peikoff, so I suppose that I didn't think much about Branden at all. Ayn Rand week at Reason TV has given me all kinds of tidbits like that.

If you've been following my site, you've probably noticed that the frequency of posts and articles has slowed considerably over the last 2 months. Well, there are a couple reasons for that. One is that Chapter 14 of John has given me a lot to ponder. So much, in fact, that I postponed any future writing on it until I finished "Jesus of Nazareth," by Pope Benedict XVI.

If you haven't read it, I recommend you get a copy. It's been an invaluable aide to me in understanding scripture and the person of Christ. It answers many common questions about who Jesus Christ is, and demonstrates why attempts to secularize the "historical" Jesus always fail. What we know about Jesus Christ can't be "demythologized." His person only makes sense if we accept that he truly is the Son of God. Turning him into a political radical or a squishy, apolitical liberal rabbi just leaves more questions than it answers.

Even more tremendous, though, is the way in which Benedict argues. He assumes a certain level of sophistication on the part of his audience. This allows him to take a bird's eye view of the various arguments, while also thoroughly arguing his points. That is, he doesn't get bogged down in explicitly defining every contrary position, but he does address them. And, for the curious reader, he provides a fascinating bibliography (no, seriously, even the bibliography of this book is interesting...) if you want to explore those other views.

The genius of this is that he's rejecting the small-minded constraints that often bind authors who are too monomaniacally focused on the scientific method. The manner in which he argues is authentically Christian.

Anyway, that has sent me on a lot of other reading (Charity in Truth, A Rabbi Talks to Jesus ...), which I suppose I should blog. But, I haven't yet.

Michael Moore is going around telling people that capitalism has done nothing for him. This really makes you wonder how serious he is. Doesn't he know any better? Did he bother reading up on the meaning of the word, "capitalism?" He must understand that all of his box office profits are the result of capitalism.

His rationale is intersting, though. In his telling, the banks and corporations were against him. Banks and corporations are agents of capitalism. Therefore, he fought capitalism and won.  Of course, every entrepeneur has his critics and naysayers. Was Michael Dell's success not a product of capitalism because his business school professors doubted his business model?

This raises the question, is Michale Moore a cynic making nonsensical statements for the simple sake of controversy? Does he realize that his conception of capitalism is fundamentally flawed, but feels the need to save face? Or is he just fantastically underaware but just not willing to put down the camera and microphone?

I think it is the latter. Consider this quote.

I don't remember in my lifetime where the President starts off a speech says, "And now class, today's topic is capitalism." They started using these words, so now it's on the table. Let's talk about it.

There you have it. Capitalism is apparently a new invention in Moore's world. All of a sudden, we have this nefarious newspeak that nobody bothered to explain to poor Michael. Well, I won't be spending $9.50 to let Michael Moore share his complete political illiteracy with me.

Just saw an old man jaywalk. The 3 tattoed skateboarders behind him, patiently waiting at the crosswalk.

At least the head of ACORN has the decency to be outraged about her employees' actions. Applause? http://tinyurl.com/mk3fle

I've heard people talk a lot over the years about "social justice," particularly in the context of the Catholic Church. Distributism seems to me to be an intellectual dead end -- more a repudiation of 1930s style fascism than, say, free market capitalism, and thus not very relevant. Secretly, I've always wondered if "distributism" and "social justice" weren't just code for socialism.

Well, reading Benedict's book, "Jesus of Nazareth" gives some interesting insight into what he believes would make for a more just society. He strongly condemns the "Marxist experiment," as well as "compassionate" government policies that breed dependence and obliterate the social order.

The aid offered by the West to developing countries has been purely technically and materially based, and not only has left God out of the picture, but has driven men away from God. And this aid, proudly claiming to "know better," is itself what first turned the "third world" into what we mean by that term today.

This is fascinating stuff, and not the sort of thing I'd expect to hear from a European. It's absolutely true, though, that the poverty we see in Africa and throughout the 3rd world is truly unparalleled in human history. The world is so rich than it was 2,000 years ago, and yet we still have starvation. How is this possible?

As Benedict tells us, when Jesus fed the multitude, he starts by asking for God's blessing. He breaks the bread, and commands people to share the loaves and fishes. Then, there is more than enough. They are moving from faith, to love to fulfillment. (I stress, this is Benedict's insight, not mine!)

If we are centered in Christ, we can find answers to hunger. However, putting this into practice is still difficult, if not impossible on a large, political level. As Benedict points out several pages later,

"the fusion of faith and political power always comes at a price: faith must become the servant of power and bend to its criteria."

I got a response to my tweet last night about breaking "into a friend's latop." Now, they gave me their laptop specifically because they were locked out and didn't have the latest password written down. So, I haven't gone rogue and started stealing bank account numbers between contracts.

This is the great mystery to me regarding computer security. Most systems have a mechanism that allows you to login in as an Administrator or "superuser" without a password. I've had to do this on Windows XP (for a college room mate) as well as Ubuntu Linux (for work). Even Vista with its vaunted security has back doors built in. You can promote regular users to Administrator status, erase passwords, and even crack shorter passwords. No 1337 h4x0r skills needed. (Beyond 8 or 9 characters, though, cracking a password can difficult, from what I've seen.)

The thing to keep in mind, though, is that this is a feature, not a bug. For your home system, you're not worried about hackers physically stealing your computer. You're concerned about online attacks. Most of the tools that allow you to recover, erase or bypass password security require physical access to your computer. You insert a "live CD," boot into a Linux variant, and you're on your way. When you accidentally lock yourself out of your system (maybe because you twice mistyped your new password in the same wrong way, as I've done) you're glad these weaknesses exist and that all your files are not irrecoverably lost.

So, moral of the story is, writing down your password may save you a big hassle down the road. If someone is able to dig through your desk drawers to find your password, they can already get into your system. If you're really concerned about prying eyes near your desk, scramble the passowrds with your Batman Decoder Ring, keep the list in your wallet and be done with it.

By the way, if you have these sorts of Vista problems, I recommend "Offline NT Password & Registry Editor."