Atlas Shrugged (Part I) had a strong debut weekend despite the effort of its philosophical critics, including some leading movie reviewers, to pan the effort and to discourage attendance (see the Appendix below where Walter Donway challenges Roger Ebert).

This movie and the classic 1957 book are important for today’s energy debate in a variety of ways, beginning with Enron and continuing with Obama energy policy. And how Rand undressed Richard Nixon with the energy crisis of her day(Part V–see schedule below)!

“Ah, Ha!”: Interpreting Enron/Ken Lay

For me personally, Ayn Rand’s philosophy was the key that unlocked the mystery of Ken Lay and the magical new energy company, Enron. I had once studied Objectivism but lost interest in Ayn Rand, finding it too dogmatic for my taste. (In retrospect, I ‘threw the baby out with the bath water’.)…

“Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933)

“[The 1930s Great Depression and today’s Great Recession] were preceded by extraordinary expansions of bank credit, which fueled run-up’s in stock prices and real estate values…. The two economic crises also elicited similar (and equally counterproductive ) fiscal policy responses, combining substantial increases in federal spending, financed primarily by bollorwing, with higher taxes and more regulatory controls on the private sector.”

In line with conservative values, and with the passion of a local Tea Party leader, U.S. Senator LeMieux (R–FL) is behind his state’s lawsuit against the federal government’s healthcare reform law.  He also has a national debt clock on his WEB SITE, and his headline platforms include reducing government waste and improving transparency and accountability from soup to nuts.

So can we feel assured this senator upholds these values across the board?

No, unfortunately, when it comes to the failed government experiment with politically correct renewable energy.

Senator LeMieux has co-sponsored a bill–along with 25 of his closest friends across the aisle–to extend the ARRA 1603 tax credits, doling out 30% of project costs up front to so-called “renewables.”

So what goes? Florida is not a big renewables state.…

The free-market energy blog MasterResource is nearing its second anniversary (first post: December 26, 2008).  Our viewership has steadily grown, and we have reached as high as #7 on the “green blog” list of Technorati (as of 11/24: #32 out of 6,246).

The strength of MasterResource is the quality of our bloggers, some well-known names in the free market movement and others new names with now uncovered expertise. In particular, we have tapped into a talent base of individuals who are critics of industrial windpower, many of whom come from an environmental background and now appreciate the free market perspective.

We also appreciate the hundreds of comments that our blogs are generating, which is more talent bubbling to the top. In addition to supportive comments, we post critical comments that are in good taste.…