I'm listening to the Atlas Shrugged audio book as I work. It is even more scary listening to it because it sounds so much like what is being said in the media today.

Dagny and Reardon are just about to ride on the John Galt Line to open it.

Klunky, but I like it.

This is why it is pointless to applaud this guy for a few lines in a speech.He is turning this country upside down. You don't have to hate on him but he is not deserving of any respect.

Though a little on the long side (especially Galt's speech at the end) Atlas Shrugged was one of the best books I have ever read. I definitely recommend it for anyone who questions big government or wants to think outside their own little box.

Hey Evelyn, Neal isn't the only one taking forever to finish the book. I started reading it about 3-1/2 years ago...got bored with it and found something else to read...picked it back up...got bored with it again and found something else to read again...picked it up again...got bored with it again...picked it up again...I'm on page 750ish which means I've got about 300 to 400 pages left and I just don't know if I can make it. It just drags on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...PAY IT OFF ALREADY!!! It's not a bad book but come on, make your point Ayn. It actually kinda kept me on the edge of my seat a little bit until she crashed her plane in this mysterious valley and now I'm about ready to just give up on it. A mysterious valley that no one else knows about? I suddenly feel like I'm reading a second-rate science fiction novel. I mean that "plot twist" or "storyline" about the secret valley I think is just lame. Somebody just give me the Cliffs Notes version so I can move on with my life.

So how much is HE going to make?

Hey Neal,how about your real name of Neal Adolph Boortz Jr?

Go to http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/products/ProductDetail.jsp?productID=BK_BLAK_002079&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes, and you can listen now. There are two unabridged versions (I have listened to this one... the other is 60 hours and was released 12/08). Put it on your ipod/smartphone/computer/cd/blackberry... and enjoy.
The first time through is remarkable. The second time is revealing, and the third and subsequent times are where you pick up on the little things that Ms. Rand put in there, especially the dance between Francisco, Hank, and Dangy.

I just can't wait for directive 10-289 to come out and make sure that we have peace and prosperity in our time.

Neal, your the only one taking for ever to finish the book. Read it already!

For those unable to read the book Atlas Shrugged for whatever reason, it also comes in 50 audio CDs. I listened to it each day on the way to and from work.

Considering this administration, I wonder if the amount the Comp Czar determines that you should be paid will depend on how much you contribut to the Democratic Party ?

Just called our library...she's holding it for me...so I guess I'll be starting it this weekend.

Copyleft wouldn't know the difference between socialism and capitalism, just as long as the freebies keep coming at the expense of the working class. Ayn Rand was so close to today's reality. But, how do we get through to knuckleheads like Copyleft? I've come to believe they're hopeless and they're multiplying with the help of leftist teachers and professors.

My problem with Ayn Rand is she never said anything in two words that could be said in two thousand.

Read the opinion again and then go read the actual constitution.

The opinion Copy posted says REPEATEDLY state state state. Not Federal.

Note: The Court recently reaffirmed Hope Natural Gas's emphasis on the bottom line: "[t]he Constitution within broad limits leaves the States free to decide what rate-setting methodology best meets their needs in balancing the interests of the utility and the public." Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch, 488 U.S. 299, 316 (1989) (rejecting takings challenge to Pennsylvania rule preventing utilities from amortizing costs of canceled nuclear plants).

In dispensing with the necessity of observing the old formulas for rate computation, the Court did not articulate any substitute guidance for ascertaining whether a so-called end result is unreasonable. It did intimate that rate-making "involves a balancing of the investor

(pause here for a moment to notice the word INVESTOR)

and consumer interests," which does not, however, "'insure that the business shall produce net revenues' . . . . From the investor or company point of view it is important that there be enough revenue not only for operating expenses but also for the capital costs of the business. These include service on the debt and dividends on the stock. . . . By that standard the return to the equity owner should be commensurate with returns on investments in other enterprises having corresponding risks. That return, moreover, should be sufficient to assure confidence in the financial integrity of the enterprise, so as to maintain its credit and to attract capital."187

For those of you who are interested, and from the looks of things many, many of you are, www.freerepublic.com has a book club going right now regarding Atlas Shrugged. Many insightful comments regarding the book and its eerie correlation to todays events.

Go to this site:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/*/index

and in the upper right corner type in "Freeper book club". You can then look at comments on a chapter by chapter basis.

You don't have to join the site to read the comments.

Just as 1984 was a warning so was Atlas Shrugged. Yet we see it being used as a blueprint.

As much as none of this is Constitutional, I see a bright side to the compensation caps on bailout receiving corporations. It will incent management to either not take the government money, or pay it back as quickly as possible to remove PrezBO from their lives.

Not right now. Read it in January and again in May.

how about a duke for agriculture or a baron for textbooks? As Justice McReynolds once said "it's too much to say that the Constitution is gone."

I believe that Obama is using Atlas Shrugged as his playbook.

The U.S.S.R. has been revived and all the maps are to be updated immediately.

That would be the:

United States of Socialist Republics

Coming soon to a history book near you.

Pat, the Czars were before the socialists, they were the so-called Elite of Russia, about equivalent to a king and just as corrupt as socialists.

Rockhouse, I agree on the Constitution. But the left figure if it doesn't specifically say they can't they they think they can. Kinda skip over any references to "not granted by the states" part.

I'm reading Atlas Shrugged for the forst time. I'm about two-thirds of the way through. It is totaly uncanny how that novel mirrors today's headlines. For example, the Government appointed a "wet nurse" to keep tabs on Hank Rearden, and Obama appoints some college punk to keep tabs on the GM and auto industry. Scary, scary stuff.

i guess that i shouldn't be this libertarian on the site.

i am reading online "Our enemy, the State", by Albert Jay Nock (October 13, 1873 – August 19, 1945)

He described the state as that which "claims and exercises the monopoly of crime".

you can read it here: http://www.bigeye.com/enemy.htm

I've re-read Atlas Shrugged twice now since the head looter took charge, and it's amazing how a book from over 50 years ago so accurately portrays this administration's goals, ideas, and objectives.

What's truly amazing is that Thomas Paine some of the same ideas more than 200 years ago:

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." - Thomas Paine, Common Sense, January 10, 1776

The Looters depend on societies “Atlases” to produce the revenue with which they can buy the loyalty of the Dumb Masses.

When enough Atlases decide to chuck it all the system will collapse on itself, as it has every other time this type of system has been tried.

It's time for a little “Civil disobedience” by the Atlases in the form of a Strike.

If this proposal survives Congress, I WILL guarantee that its provision will cover all publicly traded companies. And there will be attempts to make it completely universal for employer with more than 20 employees.

Read Atlas Shrugged back in college 1970. Even then thought it would never happen here. My daughter read it as recent as 2008. Since then things have changed dramatically, and for the worse. We know what is happening what how to stop it?

I haven't read it for years but, this just keeps getting scarier and scarier. Why can't we as a country ever see were our leaders and taking us. John Adams had it right. The Democrates will destroy us.

Rand grew up in Russia and lived through the end of the Czars and the rise of Communism. I'd gamble that she has some very accurate insights into the trend toward communism and socialism and what life is like living under those forms of oppression.

Copyleft: Is it still a fantasy (or, rather, a nightmare) if it actually happens, as described, in real life?

Stop wasting your time reading and see how it all turns out in real life. We're living the book!!

I wanted to read Atlas Shrugged. I was in the County Library and could not find it. Checked the computer and found that every copy in every branch was checked out. Sounds like other people are getting the idea this will come true.

Who is John Galt?

No, you aren't the only one reading Atlas Shrugged. My 16 year old son checked it out of our local library yesterday. I expect him to be the Libertarian presidential candidate in 2040. (If it's not too late by then to salvage this country).

The Law by Frederic Bastiat
Good to be King by Michael Badnarik
The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul
Blowback by Chalmers Johnson

Producers not moochers

I'm on page 689 right now. As my wife said, "there's a lot of words in there", but it is hard to put down...and sometimes it looks like the government has used it as a guide. Great book, though a little scary.

If you haven't read the book, or even got it on tape, you need to. It will shed an entirely new light on the looting going on!

Hello my name is Ayn Rand
I wish my books weren't so bland
But I write on and on and on
About the phallous and laissez-faire.

Of course you know I'm an immigrant,
But a good one. Not a lecherous malcontent.
I was one before it became unfashionable.
And now I'm all the rage, baby.

I smoke cigarettes like a coke-fueled coal plant.
Got no money for me? then get away you pissant.
I'm alive, and I'll live forever.
Have you bought my latest book yet?

I dream about John Galt.
I lurk, I pray, I urge, but it's not my fault.
Tagg me once and for all!
Walt Whitman can just die in a fire!

No more euphemisms. Call them what they are: Tyrants!

Only on Page 200, which took forever to get to...Atlas Shrugged is easlily the most thought provoking book I've read

They get lots of federal money through Medicare and Medicaid. Maybe the pay czar can limit the income of those physicians that selfishly went through 4 years of college, 4 years of med school and 3-5 years of residency/fellowship in order to help others and make a high income.

They are just testing the waters. Like I have been saying all it takes for us is to let our guards down and they will eat us alive. We are in deep trouble. These people are not our friends. Obama worshipers really have no clue. This guy is not on their side. The screwed up thing is that McCain would be doing the EXACT same thing as Obama is and Republicans would be defending it. Alot of you should be ashamed of yourselves. You believe these morons. They are telling lies every single day and it is the truth because THEY say it is. You have been deceived. For instance one huge truth is that neither Congress nor the President is in charge right now. It is the banks. Hell several Senators were quoted just this past week saying that the banks literally own Congress and that they make the rules. There are forces at work here that most do not understand and the ones who do know keep quiet about it.

http://www.randpaul2010.com/