Etc.

I thought I'd pass along this dog story.

I pity people who don't like animals.
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If you don't have the mental capability of seeing altruism not only as a social and personal good, but it is necessary for one's own self-interest, then you shouldn't even have a "legacy," let alone an "institute" peddling "selfishness" (i.e., greed masquerading as "self-interest") as a virtue.

I haven't read the two recent bios on Ayn Rand, but it is getting more likely that she did have some kind of social impairment which caused her to not fit in. Of course, Asperger's wasn't even a diagnosis until around 1943, long after she reached adulthood, and it wasn't thought about by the general public until the 1990s, long after she died. But something was clearly amiss with her. I don't think she was a sociopath, but her half-baked "philosophy" tends to attract those of a sociopathic bent.

What's dangerous is politicians like Paul Ryan and Alan Greenspan even buying that nonsense.

As an atheist Ayn Rand did not approve of shrines but the hushed, air-conditioned headquarters which bears her name acts as a secular version. Her walnut desk occupies a position of honour. She smiles from a gallery of black and white photos, young in some, old in others. A bronze bust, larger than life, tilts her head upward, jaw clenched, expression resolute.

The Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California, venerates the late philosopher as a prophet of unfettered capitalism who showed America the way. A decade ago it struggled to have its voice heard. Today its message booms all the way to Washington DC.

People bitch about the Mormons and their cultlike tendencies, but this is even more dangerous.
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