Free kibbles

Interesting take on anti-trust and property rights:

The antitrust oligarchy maintains that competition must overrule property rights -- in order to protect the "rights" of consumers -- but that implies one can acquire a right to something one does not possess. Consumption is not a source of rights. Nor does competition have any meaning when a group of self-selected oligarchs reserve the right to retroactively annul any exercise of property rights that offends them.

I hadn't ever thought of it like that.

If only the government had attacked Microsoft sooner, some say, we'd live in a much better world today with better operating systems!

But that's true. Microsoft really was a major killer of innovation. Copying better products and offering them for free thanks to OS subsidies works for consumers in the short run, but it stifles innovation by putting innovators out of business and suppressing investment in innovators in the long run. Modifying their OS to make their copies run fast and the innovators' originals to run slow and buggy harms us all. Buying all the speech patents and burying the technology for decades has harmed us all, but the Mises argument against that is the technology shouldn't have been patented to begin with. There are very few real monopolies that need addressed, but Microsoft was one.

"This is the harsh reality and the reality that we face. Sacramento is not Washington – we cannot print our own money. We can only spend what we have." As if that's a bad thing.

Map by county of transportation stimulus boondoggles.

For anybody who thinks that the aristocrats in Washington are taking care of everything for us, this questioning of the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve should put an end to that. The ignorance is amazing. And liberals want to give people like this control of the life and death decisions of over our health care.

Protectionism in Obama's stimulus boondoggle has sparked a (so far minor) trade war with Canada and is costing jobs in the US. Obama is a genius at repeating the mistakes of the past.

Scientists discover a common ancestor of monkeys, apes and humans.

Cato misses the point by a mile when it claims that Obama shouldn't limit credit now. Government should never limit credit. Getting has no business interfering with credit card companies and their customers ever.

Drug kidnappings in Phoenix. FARC and cocaine. FARC and Chavez. Heroin, Taliban and al Qaeda. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). 2 million Americans are arrested for drugs each year. 100 year anniversary of the international war on drugs. Obama's drug czar doesn't realize the US is waging war on Americans.

"About 112 million Americans reported using an illegal drug at least once in their lives in 2005, and more than 35 million had used an illegal drug in the past year." Laquisha Turner. Ryan Frederick. Charlie Lynch. Schwarzenegger suggests legalizing marijuana. Great Depression leads to repeal of prohibition.

Obama's plans to subsidize alternative energy will be as wasteful as Carter's and all the others. Investors invest. Government subsidizes.

Apparently for some data centers, not paying your phone bill is a crime.

OMG, this car is ugly.

Walmarts reduce obesity in low income neighborhoods, bringing a more nutritious diet to the poor. Walmarts also make the people near them wealthier. We should burn them all to the ground!

Defense attorney sting exposes fraudulent forensics bite mark expert, but states continue to allow him to testify.

13 year old gets associate degree from Minnesota Community College while still attending junior high school, plans to take higher college courses as he continues high school. That's one way to keep kids from getting bored with dumbed down government schools. He's taking advantage of an incredible opportunity. I wonder if he can pass the eighth grade final exam from 1895.