Events of the day remind me too often of Atlas Shrugged. I think a lot of writers are precogs - whether they know it or not - and I think Ayn Rand was definitely channeling a future. She just got a few of the flavors wrong, is all, cause of her background in Russia... But her picture of the United States failing is remarkably similar to what I see going on all around. The most salient thing is the appointment of people based on ideology and not competence and experience. That same cluelessness to how things actually work. One of the bad guys in A.S. is irritated when he can't get grapefruit juice cause the trains don't work cause all the competent people have left... but now things fail not because they decided to go on strike, that's not in their nature, but because they're forced out by ideologues. The so-called reconstruction of Iraq is a perfect example. There's a quote somewhere - I think it's Feith - telling someone he's not qualified for a job in the reconstruction cause he speaks Arabic. uh huh. Sounds like Ellsworth Toohey (tho I think I got the wrong book there) is at work. But here in our world it's not stinkin liberals who've done all this with their looney altruism, it's so-called conservatives (who aren't conservative at all, read Eisenhower, Goldwater, any o those real dudes) of the day who just assume that things will continue to work even with fools running... reliable, ideologically sound fools.

If James Kunstler is right, then we'll be needing all the help we can get, but it might be all gone. But locked out, not on strike.

I hope William Kunstler ain't right - and I'm getting more and more hopeful all the time.