There's been a lot of talk in the last couple years how prophetic Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is. Many have noted the parallels, but one that I haven't seen made anywhere are the ones between Colorado of the book and North Dakota of today.
In the midst of a widespread recession, North Dakota is booming. The oil industry is leading the way with ripples in air traffic, rail traffic, lodging, and even higher education. It's attracting industry and the industrious just like Colorado did in the fictional work.
In the book, what did Colorado desperately need? Reliable rail transportation. The government and its crony capitalist collaborators fought tooth and nail against the heroes of the story, Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden, as they tried to supply it to the state.
And in real life, we have the spectacle of Obama "delaying" the start of the Keystone XL pipeline. Aside from linking the booming shale oil industry in Canada with the Texas refineries, it was also going to be a vital transportation vehicle for the Bakken Formation.
I'm more than a little worried to see what else might come to pass from Atlas.