Recommended podcasts:
“The Global Rise of the Informal Economy,” Slate’s The Afterword (Dec. 31, 2011): an interview with Robert Neuwirth, author of Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy, who argues that “one-half the world’s workers—close to 1.8 billion people—are involved in the informal economy in jobs that are ‘neither registered nor regulated, getting paid in cash, and, most often, avoiding income taxes.’ In researching his book, Neuwirth traveled the world, visiting markets and street vendors in Nigeria, China, Paraguay, Brazil, and around the United States.”- “Tech News Today 418: The Facts About SOPA And PIPA,” Jan. 18, 2012;
- [citation needed] from SOPA, PROTECT IP Advocates, Cato Daily Podcast (Jan. 18, 2012), featuring Julian Sanchez. Good interview even though Sanchez seems to concede that piracy is a problem and a “criminal” activity.
I would not expect libertarians to have much sympathy for agents of the state when they are ensnared by the same webs they help create. And yet I do have some sympathy for former Arapahoe County, Colo. Sheriff (and one-time “Sheriff of the Year”) Pat Sullivan, who was arrested Tuesday on charges of methamphetamine distribution. Investigators say Sullivan offered meth to men in exchange for sex, and that he had also been “taking care” of meth addicts, going so far as to claim he was on a drug task force and was working for the Colorado Department of Public Health’s meth treatment program, which doesn’t exist.
It’s a dramatic fall from public grace for a man whose name adorns the very detention center where he’s being held on $500,000 bail. Sullivan served nearly 20 years as Arapahoe sheriff and ironically served on a statewide meth task force in 2000. His department undoubtedly arrested thousands on drug charges during his tenure. For his work he was named “Sheriff of the Year” by his colleagues in the National Sheriffs’ Association in 2001.
So it’s hard to feel sorry for someone who’s run afoul of the same unjust laws he once enforced. But consider this: Sullivan engages in some honest, peaceful, consensual trade for once, and ends up in an orange jumpsuit and shackles on national television, shattering a decades-long legacy as a tough and ethical law enforcement officer. It’s moments like these that makes one want to appreciate cosmic practical jokes.
From PokerNewsDaily.com I learn that the terrorists hate us so much for our freedoms, they are now preventing us from using their online poker rooms.
SwitchPoker.com, a small independent online poker room, became a trailblazer this week, becoming the first internet poker room to accept Bitcoin as a valid currency for both deposits and withdrawals. Bitcoin is a unique currency, as it is purely virtual and does not require financial institutions to process transactions… It does not accept players from the United States.
What will the terrorists think of next?
