Even though I entirely disagree with The Upcoming Robot Revolution, I really like it. It is a sort of unintended Bastiat satire for our time. Here we see the Luddite fear of technological innovation pushed to a reductio ad absurdum. I think it just makes it all the funnier that the author is entirely earnest and sincere in painting his dystopia where robots have taken away our jobs and much of the American population is being warehoused in “government welfare dormitories”.

Last week I attended the Public Choice Outreach Program and this week The Summer Institute each put on by the Center for the Study of Public Choice at George Mason University. Both events have been most rewarding thus far, and I would highly recomend them for students and scholars interested in the ideas of Public Choice.

They always go together, says this insightful editorial on the wacky left wing alternet.org. Now if they would just come around and oppose the welfare part of the welfare-warfare state.

When George Koether passed (2, 3), I noted “He once sent me a copy of his abridgment of Human Action“. Several people asked me about that, but I could not find it. This weekend I stumbled across it when rearranging my (paper) library. Turns out it was a special issue (Sept.

The Washington Post is astonished (and outraged) to encounter a libertarian. Writes Libby Copeland: “Republican Ron Paul missed out on the 19th century, but he admires it from afar. He speaks lovingly of the good old days before things like Social Security and Medicaid existed, before the federal government outlawed drugs like heroin.” Those are state initiatives of the 20th century, of course, but still read the rest.

This week’s eWeek features an article Microsoft Security Pricing: Predatory or Correctional?.

A paper by Ray Fisman and Edward Miguel for the National Bureau for Economic Research postulates that the number of parking tickets that legally-immune foreign diplomats acummulate in NYC and refuse to pay is a great measure of how corrupt their home countries are.

The list of violations per diplomat was led by Kuwait, Egypt, Chad, Sudan, and Bulgaria.

CNN is reporting that July 1 was the effective date for a host of new state laws, with more laws about to become effective. Not to worry, this latest mix of statist controls will finally order society in the correct manner. You can disregard the prior failed interventions, the capital chefs have finally got the recipe just right. You can sleep easy my friends. Thank goodness, it’s about time ...

Read New laws target bird flu, bullies and taxes at CNN.com ...