Whole Foods coming to OKC

Here's the report at News9.com:

Whole Foods to Open in Oklahoma City

Posted: Aug 28, 2009 11:15 PM CDT
Updated: Aug 31, 2009 9:05 AM CDT
News9.com

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Whole Foods Market has plans to open a location in Oklahoma City in the near future.

A Whole Foods employee confirmed a store should be open within the next 16 months, but a location has not yet been revealed.

Whole Foods already has a location in Tulsa.

Learn more about Whole Foods at their Web site.

Objectivist Round Up

This week's Round Up is hosted by Reality Talk.

In Defense of Oil

The Ayn Rand Center has a new page on its website devoted to Oil.

And here's a blog post about it at Voices for Reason.

Conservatism: an obituary

Now online at the Ayn Rand Center website:

Conservatism: An Obituary

Ayn Rand discusses the appalling spectacle of conservatives trying to defend capitalism - while scurrying to evade its actual meaning; also, why conservatives are an impediment to laissez-faire capitalism.

The original alternative energy market

Here's a good article by Mr. Epstein on the origins of the oil industry which posits - among other things - that oil was originally considered to be as esoteric - and as unlikely to be a candidate for financial success - as solar or wind power today.

Energy at the Speed of Thought: The Original Alternative Energy Market

What made it possible for oil to be so successful?

Freedom.

(No, the market was nowhere near completely free in the 19th century, but it was much freer than anything that exists today.)

Happy Oil Day, everybody!

I received this press release from the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights yesterday:

Celebrate Oil Day!

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 26, 2009--Tomorrow, August 27, marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the oil industry in the United States.

According to Alex Epstein, an analyst with the Ayn Rand Center, “Nearly every item in your life would either not exist or be far more expensive without oil; there is simply no comparable source of practical, portable energy.

“Yet today people increasingly label oil a pollutant that damages rather than enhances our lives and, even worse, an addiction--likening our consumption of oil to a junkie’s self-destructive heroin habit. This is profoundly ignorant, not to mention unfair to the petroleum industry that tirelessly innovates, year after year, to find more oil and extract it more efficiently.

“In previous generations, the birth of the oil industry was celebrated, and deservedly so. Oil has sustained and enhanced billions of lives for more than 150 years by providing superior, affordable, ultra-convenient energy--and is as vital today as ever.

“Today, though, we should be celebrating petroleum and the industry, past and present, that uses it to work miracles in our lives.”

###

Mr. Epstein is an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, focusing on business issues.

Mr. Epstein’s op-eds and letters to the editor have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Canada’s National Post, and the Washington Times. He is also a contributing writer for “The Objective Standard,” a quarterly journal of culture and politics. Mr. Epstein has been a guest on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs.

Virtual Objectivist Club

The following is an excerpt of an email from Keith Schacht:

I helped start the Objectivist Club Network (OCN), an organization dedicated to helping all Objectivist Campus Clubs. OCN is not affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute, although we support them and regularly communicate with them to ensure our respective organizations are not duplicating efforts.

Recently we've expanded our efforts to solve a new problem: there are students interested in joining an Objectivist club where no club exists. Some of these students start their own club, but others don't have time to start a club or do not find enough participants on campus to form a club.

We've created the Virtual Objectivist Club (VOC) for these students -- a phone-based discussion group dedicated to the study of Objectivism. Meetings will be weekly, beginning this September, each moderated by an experienced Objectivist. The group is open to any current students who would like to learn more about Objectivism.

My request: Please help spread the word to any students you know who may be interested in learning more about Objectivism. The deadline for applying to the VOC is August 31st. Students can learn more and apply at: http://www.oclubs.org/voc

Please let me know if you have any questions and we greatly appreciate you sharing this with others!

Keith & the OCN Team

9-13 Tea Party

I received this yesterday:

www.okcteaparty.org -- Contact okcteaparty@fastmail.fm or teapartynews@gmail.com
“The Original Oklahoma City Tea Party Folks”
Post Office Box 94851, Oklahoma City, OK 73143

PRESS RELEASE
August 21, 2009

Oklahoma City – The OKC Tea Party has announced their next event, the 9-13 Solidarity March and OKC Tea Party, will be conducted the afternoon of September 13, 2009 at the Oklahoma State Capitol. The Solidarity March will begin at 3:00 p.m. on the east side of the Oklahoma History Center at the intersection of Northeast 23rd Street and Kelley Avenue across from the Oklahoma Governor’s Mansion. The OKC Tea Party Rally will begin 4:30 p.m. at the North steps of the Oklahoma State Capitol. The march and rally coincides with the Taxpayer March on D.C. scheduled in the Nation’s Capitol the same weekend.

OKC Tea Party spokesman Dan Ward describes the group as one made up of strictly volunteers that are committed to organizing rallies that allow as many Oklahomans as possible to get together and see that they are not alone in their disgust with the rapid growth of government. “Contrary to what’s been alleged, we are not controlled or funded by any political group. We don’t endorse candidates, political parties, or political activist organizations. We merely point out bad behavior and let the people decide what they need to do as individuals.”Ward said.

The crowd at the group’s last rally was estimated at between 6 - 7,000 Oklahomans and others attending from out of state. That first large Tea Party protest in Oklahoma City was conducted on April 15th (“Tax Day”) in response to the Fall 2008 bank bailout, the federal government’s ‘Stimulus’ legislation passed this Spring, and the pending takeover of General Motors and Chrysler by federal authorities. It was organized after a call was made on the air by CNBC business correspondent Rick Santelli on February 27th. As a result, over 700 other Tea Parties were conducted around the country in response to Santelli’s impromptu call for action.

According to OKC Tea Party director Margie Drescher, “Oklahomans actually have more reason to show up on September 13th. For our original rally in April, we had only perhaps two major issues that were greatly disturbing average Oklahomans. Now we see a pattern that seems relentless.” The pattern she described included the actual government takeover of GM and Chrysler, the pending Cap and Trade energy legislation and the current Presidential and Congressional effort to completely take over America’s health care system. “All of this only a select few seem to want. And when Americans find out the details, they know in their hearts and minds it is inimical to our founding principles and will greatly lower our standard of living.” she said.

The September 13th event was previously scheduled for September 12th before a conflict developed between an already scheduled event the same day, September Fest. Because the Oklahoma Highway Patrol cancelled all other scheduled events that day due to manpower concerns, the OKC Tea Party Rally and March was moved from Saturday to Sunday.

POINTS OF CONTACT FOR THIS RELEASE:

Margie Drescher, Director, OKC Tea Party – (405) 595-7622, teapartynews@gmail.com
Dan Ward, Deputy Director, OKC Tea Party – (405) 470-4756, okcteaparty@fastmail.fm

The Mission of the OKC Tea Party/Patriots In Action is to conduct premier rallies to call, educate, and inspire and motivate to action all Oklahomans and our elected representatives in order to restore out of control governments at all levels to governments that are operated according to the precepts and principles of our Founders and the limits imposed by our Founding Documents.

GOP Health Care Reform Is More of the Same

Press release from the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights:

GOP Health Care Reform Is More of the Same

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 25, 2009--In a Washington Post editorial yesterday, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele offered his principles for reforming health care. While he rightly condemned the Obama plan for expanding government control over health care, Mr. Steele vowed to preserve the existing government policies and programs that are responsible for today’s health care crisis, such as Medicare and Medicare Advantage.

Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center, writes, “If the government guarantees health care to people, costs have to skyrocket. When someone else is footing the bill for health care costs, consumers demand medical services without having to consider their real price. The artificially inflated demand this creates sends expenditures soaring out of control. It is irrelevant whether the government finances this spending spree directly, as it does with traditional Medicare, or indirectly, as with Medicare Advantage. In the end, the results are the same.

“The only way to fix the problems caused by government interference in medicine is to eliminate government interference in medicine. By returning to a truly free system where each individual is responsible for his own health care costs, we would unleash the power of capitalism in the medical industry, leading ultimately to high quality, affordable medical care for Americans. Let’s start looking at ways to phase out government interference in medicine.”

The Morality of Health Care

Paul Hsieh has a post at NoodleFood which is a good resource for advocates of a free market in health care.

He contends that the focus in the health care debate is shifting from economics to morality:

This is good news for free market reform advocates. . . . Most Americans want to "do the right thing", but they are sometimes mistaken as to what that right thing is. Fortunately, more and more people are raising the point that universal health care is wrong because there is no such thing as a "right" to health care.

Paul surveys some recent op-eds on the morality of health care, and includes a look at Leonard Peikoff's classic essay, "Health Care Is Not A Right".

Rights are guarantees of freedom of action. There is no such thing as a right to the product of another person's effort. This includes medicine.

Yes, we do need to reform the government's policy on health care: government needs to get completely out of the health care business and let the free market do its job.

As Anders Ingemarson put it in a letter in the Denver Post, this

. . . will result in an abundance of health care options for people of all means.