Ayn Rand -- back from the dead and still dead wrong

"She's back!" screams the cover of Reason, the magazine "For Free Minds and Free Markets," featuring a photo of right-wing icon Ayn Rand looking suspiciously like the Bride of Frankenstein. (Seriously. Did you ever see the two of them together? I didn't think so.)

Like Frankenstein's monster, Rand's ideas are back from the dead and have attracted the attention of torch-bearing angry villagers like the teabaggers. Sales of her cinder-block-sized manifesto, Atlas Shrugged, are reportedly at their strongest ever (more on that later) and this Christmas we have not one but two Rand biographies from which to choose. (Apparently nothing says "magical holiday" like "angry screed.") There are also lots of "Who Is John Galt?" T-shirts and even the Atlasphere, an Ayn Rand dating and networking site.

So I felt compelled to find out what the buzz was all about.