I haven't seen Beauty and the Beast, but I have come across a link to this analysis of relevant economics and history, which may be instructive as well as amusing ( Read more... )

I got one regular amendment this week, going to my regular Amended docket, and one post-allowance item showed up in my Expedited docket, so I'm up to four amendments, one of them Expedited ( Read more... )

I've been reading the Wall Street Journal, especially the editorial page, for many years, and have not always agreed with it, but I have mostly agreed with much of it. I do think that it has been going downhill lately by sucking up to Donald Trump. For example, it has heaped scorn on the House Freedom Caucus people, and on other critics who have ( Read more... )

There's a book which I have read, The Corruption of Economics, by Professor Mason Gaffney and Fred Harrison, which argues that not only did neoclassical economics take a wrong turn in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but that it was to some extent deliberately fraudulent, conceived as an anti-Georgist strategy by the robber barons ( Read more... )

We had a warm February, causing cherry trees and other plants to start blooming early, and then we had snow, leaving some of the new flowers dead or damaged. I am happy to report, though, that at least some cherry trees are now providing magnificent displays of blossoms.

To continue with Dan Sullivan's talk on "Southern Slavery, Northern Complicity," Mr. Sullivan said that there were Northerners who were OK with secession; they disapproved of slavery, but were willing to let the South go in peace. Lincoln was losing support. A delegation of Virginians came to see him, and he was willing to negotiate; he would not ( Read more... )

I stayed at work late on Friday, and when I went to the King Street Metro station, it was closed. There were to be shuttle buses, but not then and there, and buses through traffic are slower than Metro trains, so I splurged on a taxi. The driver, as it happened, recognized me from several months before, and we got to talking. He thought I had a ( Read more... )

I got one new amendment this week, and I disposed of one old one, so I'm back at two regular Amendments. There was a little drama; I had proposed to add an additional element to each independent claim to make them allowable, and the patent enrolled agent got back to me with word from his client: he was willing to amend two of the three independent ( Read more... )

Reason online has an item about six professors at Wellesley determined to protect students from the "harm" of hearing anyone express ideas they don't like. If you think that these are professors of physics and engineering (which you probably don't), then you're wrong. According to the comments, they're professors of sociology and such ( Read more... )

Donald Trump has been President of the United States for sixty days, and World War Three has not broken out, the Constitution has not been entirely trashed, and the government is not bankrupt (yet).

Let us count our blessings.