Rad Geek People's Daily

• Society for Destructive Anachronism. Dorothy, Cat and Girl (2011-05-17). (Linked Friday 2011-05-20.)

• You Wanna Bet? Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2011-05-16). Betting is the replacement for dueling. It's not a perfect replacement, of course. (Nothing is a perfect replacement for anything else.) It only applies in certain cases. But what it has in common with dueling is the challenge either to back up one's opinion or retract it. In that sense,… (Linked Tuesday 2011-05-17.)

• Comment on Viking Cinema, Part Tveir by Roderick. Roderick, Comments for Austro-Athenian Empire (2011-05-16). Spoilage ensues: Asgard and Jotunheim have been at (uneasy) peace for a thousand years. Then some frost giants slip into Asgard to steal a Frostee MacGuffin, but after whacking a couple of guards they are killed by Odin's automated defenses. Thor wants to go to Jotunheim to smash all the… (Linked Tuesday 2011-05-17.)

• 28 Years Later; or Hey Hey Goodbye. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2011-05-17). Explaining why this is such a good thing would take a post far longer than I have time for right now. (Linked Tuesday 2011-05-17.)

From the Wall Street Journal (16 May 2011).

Gingrich Blasts House GOP’s Medicare Plan

White House hopeful Newt Gingrich called the House Republican plan for Medicare^[1] right-wing social engineering, injecting a discordant GOP voice into the party’s efforts to reshape both entitlements and the broader budget debate.

In the same interview Sunday, on NBC’s Meet the Press, Mr. Gingrich backed a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance….

— Laura Eckler, Gingrich Blasts House GOP’s Medicare Plan in the Wall Street Journal, 16 May 2011

Just a reminder: There’s No Right Way to Manage a Subsidy. And no right way to manage a captive market, either.

1. ^[1][Phasing out Medicare over the next 10 years in favor of a government subsidy for retirees to buy special government-regulated corporate health insurance plans for old people. –R.G.]↩

• Anti-Americanism As an Anti-Concept. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2011-05-13). Just as some questions (e.g., "Have you stopped bleating at your wife?") carry false presuppositions and so can't rationally be answered either yes or no, so some terms build false presuppositions into their meanings, making it impossible to use the term (at least in its ordinary sense) without signing on… (Linked Sunday 2011-05-15.)

• Jury awards $82,000 after woman is arrested when asking police for a business card. Aimee Green, The Oregonian, Portland News (2011-04-14). Jurors say if police aren’t in an urgent or dangerous situation, they should always hand over a business card when asked. (Linked Monday 2011-05-16.)

• Intellectual Property is Murder. Kevin Carson, Center for a Stateless Society (2011-05-11). Among the terms of a so-called "free trade agreement" between the European Union and India is a requirement for "data exclusivity" which will eviscerate India's generic drug industry. "Data exclusivity" means that clinical trials conducted before marketing by the company that originally produced the drug cannot be applied to meet… (Linked Monday 2011-05-16.)

A Knowledge Problem with Insider Trading Law. Brian Doherty: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2011-05-16):

Reihan Salam at The Daily is of course glad hedge fund villain Raj Rajaratnam was convicted for insider trading, blah blah, but spells out one of the perverse results of keeping those who know the most about companies (theoretically) from helping spread that knowledge and help bake it into the…

How the regulatory arm of the Money Monopoly — in order to “protect” small investors from predatory insiders, natch — ends up encouraging, nay demanding, faceless corporations with governance alienated from the enterprise and unaccountable to investors.