I'd like to hijack this post a little. In the end of the interview, Thor talks about a Dan Brown review of his work as prescient. and I thought about how many people in this site as well as others believe Atlas Shrugged was projecting 60 years into the future and here we are. How did she know that?
Rand was very clear that every government mechanism employed in the book she looked to History for and found. From the Directive to "Anti Dog eat dog Rule" to the "Equalization of Opportunity Bill."
Remember when Rearden steel had to give up their patents? The US has had a rule of commandeering patents for national security interests since WWII. My overall point is, yes, technological advances bring interesting challenges and Thor eloquently speaks to how authors train to "misbehave" regarding these issues to create great stories that may end up being real life scenarios. But I wanted to point out Rand was clear history repeats itself and she looked BACK in creating government's role in AS not forward.

I was fascinated by the black panelist's (Val) assertion that the term "racist" can only be applied to the group that held the power (read: white).

This seems to stem from the NAACP's definition that surfaced years ago, and was picked up by the liberal community. The NAACP claimed, and obviously still claims, that a minority can never (by definition) exhibit racism. A neat trick...and only meant to confuse, and marginalize, the debate.

Fed just a scandal? it will be part of the end