The law of unintended consequences surely isn’t universal. Government often seeks to destroy things and truly does succeed in doing just that (alternative medicine, unlicensed professionals, and the like). What it taxes in order to punish, it truly does punish (cigarettes, alcohol, imports that compete with powerful domestic industries). What it regulates to ban, it does often succeed in eventually banning (large-bowl toilets, insecticides that work, effective medicines that the FDA judges too dangerous).

Anabaptist communism did not spring out of thin air at the advent of the Reformation. Its roots can be traced back to an extraordinarily influential late twelfth century Italian mystic, Joachim of Fiore (1145–1202). Joachim was an abbot and hermit in Calabria, in southern Italy. It was Joachim who launched the idea that hidden in the Bible for those who had the wit to see were prophecies foretelling world history.

Anthropogenic global warming has been a dubious proposition from the outset to anyone with the slightest understanding of social science as it pertains to coercive government, science “science,” and the nexus of the two. Even if you didn’t read about it elsewhere (and there were places where you could), you could (and should) have easily thought up the evil plot in the whole thing.

Can you imagine how awesome a blog by Murray Rothbard would be? Or Mises Dailies by Mises himself? These great men were not given their full due in their lifetimes, because they were writing in the media era of the monolithic broadcast and the monolithic print run. With such a model, power and interest has a competitive advantage over truth. But the internet (at least the present “pre-net-neutrality” internet) is different. The truth will out, eventually, in a decentralized model.

Dubai is delaying payment on its debts and that has sent stock markets around the world lower. This could be a trigger that reverses the remarkable bear market rally that has taken place since March.

Dubai was also the location of the crisis signal in the Skyscraper Index in August 2007. Things have become increasing less optimistic in what was considered a “magic kingdom” for the success of remarkable construction projects.

Jason Rosenhouse over at Evolution Blog provides the following “breain teaser”:

It is the month of August; a resort town sits next to the shores of a lake. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

As I mentioned in Radical Patent Reform Is Not on the Way, in In re Bilski, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) modified previous holdings regarding the patentability of software or business-method patents in upholding the rejection of patent claims involving a method of hedging risks in commodities trading. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court and oral arguments were heard earlier this month.