Philip Greenspun debunks the notion that the economy is recovering: 1) you can’t trust GDP, 2) investment is falling, 3) there is no recovery in private sector jobs. It is also very interesting to me that the money stock is falling because lending has collapsed despite vast injections of reserves.

During the 1920s and 1930s, a majority of Americans came to believe that our involvement in World War I had been a horrendous mistake. The war was supposed to have made the world safe for democracy, but fascism, communism, and aggressive nationalism were the order of the day in Europe. In an effort to forestall future involvements in European conflagrations, Congress enacted stringent neutrality legislation.

I wrote previously on the Troll Tracker case (see Update on Patent Troll Tracker; Troll Tracker Lands Job Fighting Patent Trolls!). This case concerns defamation suits filed against “Troll Tracker,” aka Rick Frenkel, by two Texas lawyers, in the aftermath of Frenkel’s identity being revealed, after bounties put up by one of the subjects of his criticism, patent attorney Ray Niro.

A Baltimore startup with less than 5 employees, WhoGlue, is suing Facebook for patent infringement, based on a patent it previously--unsuccessfully--tried to unload at a patent auction. The patent, no. 7,246,164, is for a “Distributed personal relationship information management system and method”.

As noted here (see also here, here, here),

Cass Sunstein, who serves as “regulatory czar” in the Obama administration, seems to be well suited for his position. It appears that Mr. Sunstein wishes to regulate just about everything.

Lew Rockwell noted on his blog recently some tentative steps towards disarmament between the US and Russia; he’s right: blessed are the peacemakers.