The Washington Post reports that the government of Massachusetts is threatening the grocery chain Whole Foods with criminal penalties for the unspeakable crime of...considering opening on Thanksgiving.

Episode 30 of the This Week in Tech Podcast, “Live from the Podcast Expo” features a panel of techo journalists talking about podcasting and its impact on the distribution of content.

One of the points was that the firms who did the best job locking down their software and preventing piracy have all failed, while those that were more lax about copying ended up with more users and did better.

Please, forgive the shameless self-promotion, but, in an expanded response to a friendly enquiry, I put together a list of the ulterior motives which might explain why the Fed has suddenly decided to stop publishing M3 data next March.

If nothing else, the piece seems to have been taken up as a navigational warning of the looming economic icebergs which the Arch Counterfeiter and his political masters on the bridge of the USS Titanic will have to try to avoid next year.

Murray Rothbard defines the phrase free market: “a summary term for an array of exchanges that take place in society. Each exchange is undertaken as a voluntary agreement between two people or between groups of people represented by agents.”

Benjamin Barton makes the argument. (via Volokh)

Here is an awesome AP story explaining how the cell phone market is changing African life for the better. Cell phones are circumventing government controls connecting brokers and consumers more efficiently. Prepaid minutes are a form of currency. Cell phones are adding true wealth to the African capital structure that can’t be done with foreign aid and isn’t tracked by Keynsian statistics.

Alan Murray of the Wall Street Journal defends the Sarbanes Oxley Act, arguing that its costs do not explain why more companies are going private. In contrast, the CEO of Georgia Pacific explained that his company sold out to private Koch Industries in order to avoid mounting Sarbox costs. Murray claims that estimated annual auditing costs of $14 million (on average) are small compared to CEO compensation and stock options. This comparison is inappropriate.

Here is Robert LeFevre’s classic argument for a purely free society, the essay that made him a leading, if controversial, spokesman for the libertarian position on government and society.