Strangely, as the discovery devolved into a partisan battle the inventor destroyed the prototype and walked off, vowing to "stop the engine of the world."

Floyd Ferris of the State Science Institute assured reporters the project would continue unimpeded.

Sorry about the delay--the filter put your reply into spam, but I found it. I am a nerd--straight A in grade school, SAT and ACT scores in the 99 percentile. I also was on the track team, can still hit a 50-70 mph fast ball. I had problems with the clique all four years in high school. I never thought about blowing away the bitches who made my teen years hell, and they never tried to blow me away with anything but peer pressure. There has to be a reason for these teens acting out besides envy. I find the things I learned in school are no longer being taught--instead, our kids and grandkids learn how to be victims. I fought it with my own kids teachers, I see my son fighting it with HIS kids' teachers. And one of the many ugly faces of Progressivism is called Common Core. It's been working under the radar for at least three generations... Project X is going to become our way of life here very soon.

Sorry Robbie--when I am keeping a second or third ear out for my hubby getting into things I tend to get sidetracked! It was Davenport... Sometimes I think I might be developing Alzheimer's myself, but the experts say it's the stress on the caregiver that causes symptom mimic. I hope so...

I don't find anything wrong with that. But nerds provoke resentment among their peers. They get all the good grades. So those same peers look for other things the nerds can't do. Typically that includes athletic endeavors.

But student athletes have a problem. They don't apply themselves, so their status is threatened.

And they come to see the nerds as the source of the threat. They believe the reason they're failing is that the nerds are succeeding.

So you hear of the nerds getting crammed into a locker.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris started a chilling trend: they came to their school (Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.) and murdered thirteen of their classmates before suiciding.

Project X is an adult Combine Incident.

I crossed that flooded river in '93, Robbie--by train, no less. It was amazing to see the high-water marks two stories up on buildings in Des Moines and I know how little most people realize it would take to bring us down to a pre-electronic level. Crossing the Mississippi would no longer matter if the vehicles wouldn't run...most people have no idea how life would be then, either. If we lose the infrastructure, we lose it all--and one good CME in the right direction would take care of it. When I was researching my book over 12 years ago, I found that back then just one power station transformer cost $10 million, they are made in Korea, and no one keeps a spare on hand... maybe the Project X in the movie should be an EMP projector.

So, what's wrong with being a nerd? The Stadler mindset is not exclusive to nerds--besides, where would we be without nerds? An honest nerd is not an oxymoron--an honest politician is. I agree the good doc was extremely necessary to make this story happen--what amazes me is just how many of him are actually out there right now!

You might as well know: I was that same sort of nerd, though not quite as accomplished as Stadler. The difference was: I did not develop this insane hatred for people that Robert Stadler developed. I would not have betrayed John Galt, as Stadler did. Had I been in Stadler's place, I would have chafed under the pressure to get grants, sure. Maybe I would have had to admit--"Sorry, John, but the grants didn't come through--and I won't get grants the way the world wants me to get them." His career would have interested me--and when, in this alternate version, he came back to say it was time to go on strike, I would have done it in a heartbeat.

But what kind of story would that have made? That's why Stadler was necessary, just the way he was.

Remember: the premise of AS is that the USA had to abandon air travel. That's why the Taggart Bridge will, in the story universe, become all-important.

A hundred-mile radius, anyway. And more to the point: that's what cuts the Taggart Bridge in half.

That was a great read. The "ivory tower" mentality is starkly evident with "peer papers" excluding "commercial papers". --one of many attitudes that may very well cost us our future if we can't make a dent in those iron-clad attitudes.

Check out my new post on an Atlas Shrugged video game. Even if you don't play video games or aren't promoting AS III, this post is important for all Atlantis citizens regarding the future planning of a physical Atlantis. No joke.

Maybe so, on the understanding of the average audience member. It might be a moment to actually get through to teenagers. Most teenagers like to seeing things being destroyed in video games. If they saw the effects of such wanton destruction, then maybe ....

Without ProjectX, the bridge across the Mississippi River is not destroyed. The Nat Taggart bridge is the structural linchpin that is the key to the collapse of the looters and moochers.

Project X is critical, and its location is critical. They can still make changes to the movie ...