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  • Soybeans and wheat

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 087 – pp. 932-941

    I have a question. Why hasn’t JG come after Eddie Willers yet? He’s got to be a candidate for the gulch. And his disappearance would most likely hasten Dagny’s decision..

    Anyway, just before Phillip leaves, he tells Hank he’s never had any concern for his feelings. Hanks asks if Phillip has ever had any concern for his. Phillip tells Hank he has no feelings.

    Of course Rand would beg to disagree as she recalls ALL the suffering that Hank has been through…

    Then she describes the look in Phillip’s eyes…

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  • Francisco’s farewell… and trouble for Hank?

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 086 – pp. 922-931

    Hank’s feeling a little melancholy about it all. Like he betrayed Francisco, who was sacrificing for him.

    Dagny tells him Francisco did it for them. For them all. (So what the hell are you two doing???)

    What is it with these two? What is the drive not to give up? I mean, I understand the will not to give up. No quitters. But like Jim said before, they’re doers. Why not “do” where you can actually do something? Why keep trying to save the lost cause. Are they there for the little guys, like the tramp on the train, who refused to give up even though he was a lost cause too? Maybe. I guess I can see that.

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  • A September 2 surprise!

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 085 – pp. 909-921

    Somehow destroying a company like d’Anconia Copper or Rearden Steel is one thing. But destroying an innocent like Cherryl sinks the whole bunch to a new level of moral depravity.  (Not that I’m sentimental, but that bit pissed me off.)

    That said, the drama is starting to pick up. I mean it was all well and good living in Atlantis for a month. But the real drama is here where the scumbags live. Hey, call me a jerk. I read the Bible and TMZ.com.

    I stopped a couple pages early yesterday. Felt it was the fitting thing to do as the chapter ended with Cherryl. Time to get back on pace.

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  • A tragic, untimely end…

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 084 – pp. 902-911

    The world, as represented by ole Jimmy Taggart, is rapidly spiraling down into a moral abyss. He’s just hit it with Lillian Rearden. More or less taking advantage of a woman down on her most-undeserved luck to satisfy not a sexual but a power lust.

    Yeah, he’s a sick POS. (And I’m getting the sense he’s going off the deep end.)

    Anyway, back to the ever-increasing drama…

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  • Jim Taggart’s descent to oblivion

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 083 – pp. 892-901

    Now we shift back in time. (Just an hour or so) Jim Taggart is sitting in his study and sees Cherryl leave the apartment.

    He slams the door and we get into a little “crazy scene.” (The kind of stuff that wins actors Oscars. — I have never made a prediction this early, but…

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  • The light goes on for Cherryl

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 082 – pp. 882-891

    Yeah, Jim keeps heading on down the path with Cherryl.

    “What path is that?” you say.

    (more…)

  • Jim Taggart is a piece of shit

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 081 – pp. 872-881

    OK, for those who came in late. Things are picking up. A little. Hank and Dagny have taken the last steps they can against the looters. Jim and his cohorts are taking over the rest of the world (to loot it.)

    (By the way, anyone interested in how this works in real life should read the Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein. It’s essentially about how countries are bankrupted and destroyed so that the US can come in an cash in. Personally, I think she misdirects her blame at Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of economics. Well, in truth, they were all there for the events she describes, but I think she unfairly takes issue with the free market theory. What she inadvertently reveals, is its misapplication.)

    All I’m gonna say is, if this story doesn’t end with a huge 21st century battle between the looters and the industrialists with handheld x-ray machines, self-sustaining motors, giant xylophones and maybe a couple light sabers and an terminator or two, I’m gonna be pissed. Anywho…

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  • Jim Taggart’s hollow conquest

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 080 – pp. 862-871

    “Now tell me,” he asked, “where were you?”

    Can’t tell you. Don’t know. Couldn’t’ find it if I wanted.

    “Who is he?”

    “Who is John Galt?”

    Ohhhhhhhh!

    (more…)

  • Revelations all ’round

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 079 – pp. 852-861

    You know, I’m thinking. Wasn’t Hank Rearden’s motive one of self-interest too? I mean he made a choice. And he chose what he wanted to do. He knows he can re-build Rearden Metal. Maybe he was protecting a higher ideal too — Dagny. She’s the last remnant of capitalist morality in the world. Maybe this was his way of defending her as a principle. Maybe he is the moral hero of the book.

    Anyway, on with the show…

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  • Saving the country’s morale

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 078 – pp. 842-851

    “How many trains have been discontinued in the country in the past three weeks?”

    “It has eliminated thirty per cent of the trains run in the country,” said Eddie. “The only competition left is in the applications to the Board for permission to cancel trains. The railroad to survive will be the one that manages to run no trains at all.”

    That’s quite an explanation.

    What’s going on in Dagny’s head?

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  • Dagny’s return from paradise

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 077 – pp. 832-841

    “The buildings seemed worn by weeks of summer heat, but the people seemed worm by centuries of anguish.”

    Dagny’s back in the Big Apple. Apparently things have gone down hill in just the last month. These ten pages are more or less catch up so I’m just going to hit the highlights. (I want to get moving on that Project X — or Thompson Harmonizer plot twist.)

    So she got dropped in Watsonville NE. Made her way to the train she took to the airport. While on the train she realized that her return from the dead was going to be a public affair. (Wait’ll you see how she covers her bases on that!) At the airport boarding the plane she stops a reporter, identifies herself and tell’s him she’s alive before boarding her flight.

    The news is out all over by the time she lands.

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  • Project X – pt. 2

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 076 – pp. 822-831

    “Project X,” Dr. Ferris was saying, “was devoted to some special research in the field of sound. The science of sounds has astonishing aspects, which laymen would scarcely suspect… And it was discovered that there are certain frequencies of sound vibration which no structure, organic or inorganic can withstand.”

    Oh man. Don’t like where this is going.

    For effect, Rand describes the goats chained at the farmhouse and a baby kid goat — “barely a week old . . . bounding in a manner of deliberate, gaily ferocious awkwardness. . .”

    Adorable. It’ll be too bad when something awful happens to it.

    Dr F is describing how these sound waves are controlled and focused. And finally he re-christens Project X. . .

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  • Project X

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 075 – pp. 812-821

    But then again, maybe I judge too harshly. Self-interest is the thing that Rand is all about, and Galt is looking out for his interests. OK, maybe he’s not such a liar… Maybe.

    Anyway, as they’re saying goodnight, Dagny bursts into a stream of Galt-worship that come dangerously close to blasphemy.

    “…my love and my hope to reach you and my wish to be worthy of you on the day when i would stand before you face to face…”

    Sounds like a wish of some sort of divine judgment.

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  • Decision Day!

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 074 – pp. 802-811

    I can’t wait!!

    “Yes or no, Miss Taggart?”

    She’s at a meeting with the “heads” of state — Mulligan, Galt, Francisco and Hugh Akston.

    Now I think we all know what her answer will be. The only question is whether she goes back to save the railroad or to save Hank.

    So what is her decision?

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  • Romantic Objectivism … Bullshit

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 073 – pp. 792-801

    Galt, Francisco and Dagny walk out to see d’Anconia Copper mine #1.

    Francisco and Galt chat but Dagny is watching Francisco. She notices the “quality of his glance whenever it rested on Galt.”

    Francisco obviously looks up to Galt. He’s the alpha dog in this pound.

    And the way Rand is describing this, or at least the way I’m reading it, it’s leaving me with a little bad taste in my mouth. (Like a really cheap cigar.)

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  • Philosophical tid-bits from the valley

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 072 – pp. 782-791

    Now we cut to a section where Rand does a little philosophical exposition via her characters. She expands her worldview to beyond the realm of just “business.”

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  • “Dagny in Love” and other romantic twists

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 071 – pp. 772-781

    Francisco says:

    This country was the only country in history born, not of chance and blind tribal warfare, but as a rational product of man’s mind. this country was build on the supremacy of reason — and , for on magnificent century it redeemed the world.

    Indeed. The birth of the US was brought about by thinking men. Men who understood the dangers of unchecked power and the different guises that tyranny assumes. Our founding fathers. They had a vision. They brought that vision to life. And in the ensuing centuries, it has become corrupted by — what I’d say are inevitable forces of “civilized” society.

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  • St. Paul, Capitalism and Ayn Rand (a few extra thoughts…)

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 070 – pp. 762-771

    Cut to scene, Dagny’s at the airfield in Galt’s Gulch (that’s what they’re calling it.) Who gets off the plane but Owen Kellogg.

    He brings back a bit of reality. It’s been three days since she’s been missing and the outside world thinks she’s dead. Harsh reality.

    “She nodded slowly, grasping the events she had not thought of considering.”

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  • Visit from an Osprey

    I usually don’t get to see cool shit like this up close but, it would seem that an osprey decided to stop next door for a little dinner.  Unfortunately the sun sets quick this time of year and I had to run for my camera, tripod,  (find some new batteries!!) so I only got a couple shots of him (her?)  But they came out pretty cool.

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  • A guest for breakfast

    Atlas Shrugged – Day 069 – pp. 752-761 (One extra page at the end of the last chapter.)

    Chapter 2 – Utopia of Greed! (Don’t know but it sounds good.)

    So it’s morning and Dagny wakes up to see John Galt who’s already working at his desk.

    She broke something on the “ray screen” of the power plant when she crashed so he has to run off and do his “handy man” thing. Dagny insists on cooking breakfast while he’s at work.

    Getting kind of domestic after only one day.

    As she’s cooking, a man she’s never seen runs up and in through the front door.

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