The Red Queen’s Race

I got one regular Amended case this week, and two on my Special Amended docket; I was able to post Office Actions on the two amendments that I previously had on my Amended docket, so now I have one amendment on my Amended docket and three Board of Appeals decisions affirming my rejections on my Special Amended docket.

So if you think I’m in errror about the patentability of your claims, let me ask you, Are you feeling lucky today, punk?

I also posted a first action rejection on a case from my Regular New docket, and have started working on my current oldest Regular New.

Georgist Conference in O’Fallon, Part Forty-Eight

To continue with Joshua Vincent’s late-morning talk on Sunday, July 30, 2017, “What Works and What Doesn’t, in an Era of Polarization,” Josh spoke of our activities as a relay race, and getting leverage in the academy: not so much with economists as with urbanists, finance and development people, etc., who are interested and becoming knowledgeable.

You’ll be called a Communist, a Fascist, whatever. Don’t be stopped. Find Common Ground.

Parking lot owners will hate you. Josh has experiences. A conservative Republican worked with the Democratic mayor to get LVT in Altoona; he saw that Fiori, a landowner, would be against it.

Become a valuable source of information.

Show up: Kiwanis, Rotary Club, whatever. In Hartford, Connecticut, we have support from capitalist pigs and from the Working Families Party.

We’re primates, and there are always moments of aggression. Divisiveness leads to destruction. People get high, like drug addicts, off hate and destruction, but these aren’t good in the long run.

During the Q&A session, Bill Batt said to Joshua that while Joshua attended the Pennsylvania League of Cities, and did well with them, Batt went to the New York mayors, and had little success, but instead got laughed at.

Someone (maybe Batt again) said that in South Africa, the provincial legislature has asked for LVT for the Western Cape.

After that came lunch, with more brief reports from member organizations.

Backpage Founders

You don’t have to approve of prostitution to see problems with the moral panic over “sex trafficking” — a usefully ambiguous phrase which can mean abduction and enslavement, or voluntary sex work, or giving a prostitute a ride. There was an article in Reason about the founders of Backpage, the supposed evil sex trafficking site which was in fact commended by law enforcement for helping them catch actual coercive sex traffickers.

The prosecutors seem to be attempting to postpone an actual trial, while keeping Larkin and Lacey confined to their homes, and seizing property associated with them, trying to make it impossible for them to obtain legal representation.