"Civil Forfeiture": That's a nice property you got there. A shame something's happened to it.

Many years ago (2004), Belle Waring quoted David Friedman on how to have a libertarian utopia:

David Friedman: Rights could be enforced privately, and imperfect but workable solutions to the holdouts in the railway case could also be found. "To justify taxation we need the additional assumption that rights enforcement cannot be done by the state at a profit, despite historical examples of societies where the right to enforce the law and collect the resulting fines was a marketable asset."

Now, everyone close your eyes and try to imagine a private, profit-making rights-enforcement organization which does not resemble the mafia, a street gang, those pesky fire-fighters/arsonists/looters who used to provide such "services" in old New York and Tokyo, medieval tax-farmers, or a Lendu militia. Nothing's happening but a buzzing noise, right?

Well, guess what? Because police departments benefit from the forfeiture of "criminal assets," the inevitable has happened: what qualifies as "criminal assets" has now expanded to the point where a motel owner who has had approximately 60 arrests out of the 125,000 visitors to his motel is now forced to defend his business against "civil forfeiture." Check it out: The United States vs. The Motel Caswell.

Praise where it is due: Walt Disney World Resort

I had sent a letter, regular postal mail, complaining about how one of the rides at Epcot has strobe lights, but there were no warnings about those strobe lights on the sign.

Much to my pleasant and somewhat stunned surprise, I got a telephone call back from the Vice President of Resort Operations, saying that he'd had one of his people look at the sign and yes, there were no warnings about strobe lights, but that there were indeed strobe lights in the ride, and that he was going to talk to "operations safety" about revising it.

Wow. Someone actually cared, at least enough to call and give the issue a second glance. Cool.