Meet your new thread, same as the old thread.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
You run a company sued for patent infringement. You employ a lot of people in good jobs, and you make good money. The other side seeks a TRO to enjoin your operations, and the judge says "no." Time passes. A new judge is assigned. The other side brings a new motion for a TRO, citing new facts and new law. The judge grants this motion, and orders you to suspend your operations. Do you obey the order, or do you figure that the first judge's ruling was good enough to give you cover?

Keep running. If you stop, you give the other side the argument that you can stop and tank the position that stopping would cause you irreparable harm. The irreparable harm standard is usually used as the basis fir the TRO, but it can be spun in reverse as persuasively.

I hated doing TROs. I can't think of a more annoying procedure. It's like having trial where no one's prepared.

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop




link

The more things change . . .

I bet there are similar Vietnam-era ones, probably featuring Jane Fonda.

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I hated doing TROs. I can't think of a more annoying procedure. It's like having trial where no one's prepared.

At least you get a chance to respond to the application. Imagine my surprise, innocent that I was, when I first learned that you can get a TRO ex parte from any state court judge in Texas.

[Adder]

Originally posted by ironweed
At least you get a chance to respond to the application. Imagine my surprise, innocent that I was, when I first learned that you can get a TRO ex parte from any state court judge in Texas.

Um.. RT, are you okay?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by ironweed
At least you get a chance to respond to the application. Imagine my surprise, innocent that I was, when I first learned that you can get a TRO ex parte from any state court judge in Texas.

You can do it in Jersey as well.

I've tried it in PA, but the procedure is so convoluted I wound up calling the other side and just setting up an emergency hearing. I still don't know how it works, and I've been involved in it 3 times.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

This is interesting:

• I would like to join David Bernstein in commending Bryan Caplan's new book, The Myth of the Rational Voter. It is the most important work on political ignorance in at least a decade, and possibly longer.
  
  Previous scholars, including myself (e.g. here and here), have explored the deleterious consequences of the average citizen's massive ignorance about politics and public policy. Since the 1950s, economists and political scientists have known that it is actually rational for voters to be ignorant, because the chance that any one voter will have a significant impact on the outcome of an election is infinitesmally small. There is little incentive to spend time and effort acquiring knowledge about politics that won't make any difference to political outcomes anyway.
  
  Bryan, however, goes beyond the standard rational ignorance analysis. He emphasizes that it is rational for voters to not only learn very little about politics, but to do a poor job of evaluating the information they do have. Good analysis of political information - like learning the information in the first place - requires considerable time and effort that rationally ignorant voters are have little incentive to undertake. Instead, voters are likely to fall prey to systematic errors in considering political information. As Bryan shows in detail, this helps explain why the majority of voters routinely fall prey to gross fallacies in their analysis of public policy - such as the belief that protectionism helps the overall economy; that the rise of modern technology is a major cause of longterm unemployment; and that foreigners are beggaring the American economy (all of these are actual examples from the book).
  
  Because there is so little incentive to acquire and analyze political information to become a "better" voter, most of those citizens who do invest in political knowledge are likely to do so for other reasons. These include reinforcing their preexisting biases and prejudices, using politics as "entertainment" (much in the same way that sports fans acquire knowledge about their favorite teams for similar reasons), and signaling membership in a social group. As Bryan's work suggests (and I discuss in some detail in this article), such motives for acquiring information are extremely conducive to biased and irrational evaluation of the knowledge gained. Bryan calls this kind of systematically biased thinking "rational irrationality." The title of the book is actually slightly misleading. Bryan is not arguing that voters are stupid or irrational. Rather, he contends that it is actually rational for the individual voter to engage in biased and severely flawed evaluation of public policy. Unfortunately, behavior that is rational for individuals can lead to very harmful collective outcomes.
  
  I do have a few disagreements with Bryan's analysis. In particular, I am skeptical of his argument that transferring more political power to knowledgeable experts is a good solution to the ignorance of the average voter. Ironically, the libertarian Caplan here makes the same kind of argument for increasing the power of experts as liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer in his 1993 book Breaking the Vicious Circle. Anticipating Caplan, Breyer argued that the ignorance and bias of voters justifies transferring power over regulatory policy to "nonpolitical" expert bureaucrats. I have serious doubts about both Bryan's and Breyer's paeans to expertise.
  
  Be that as it may, Bryan's book is a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in democratic theory and political participation.

Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy

[Adder]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This is interesting:

• I would like to join David Bernstein in commending Bryan Caplan's new book, The Myth of the Rational Voter. It is the most important work on political ignorance in at least a decade, and possibly longer.
  
  Previous scholars, including myself (e.g. here and here), have explored the deleterious consequences of the average citizen's massive ignorance about politics and public policy. Since the 1950s, economists and political scientists have known that it is actually rational for voters to be ignorant, because the chance that any one voter will have a significant impact on the outcome of an election is infinitesmally small. There is little incentive to spend time and effort acquiring knowledge about politics that won't make any difference to political outcomes anyway.
  
  Bryan, however, goes beyond the standard rational ignorance analysis. He emphasizes that it is rational for voters to not only learn very little about politics, but to do a poor job of evaluating the information they do have. Good analysis of political information - like learning the information in the first place - requires considerable time and effort that rationally ignorant voters are have little incentive to undertake. Instead, voters are likely to fall prey to systematic errors in considering political information. As Bryan shows in detail, this helps explain why the majority of voters routinely fall prey to gross fallacies in their analysis of public policy - such as the belief that protectionism helps the overall economy; that the rise of modern technology is a major cause of longterm unemployment; and that foreigners are beggaring the American economy (all of these are actual examples from the book).
  
  Because there is so little incentive to acquire and analyze political information to become a "better" voter, most of those citizens who do invest in political knowledge are likely to do so for other reasons. These include reinforcing their preexisting biases and prejudices, using politics as "entertainment" (much in the same way that sports fans acquire knowledge about their favorite teams for similar reasons), and signaling membership in a social group. As Bryan's work suggests (and I discuss in some detail in this article), such motives for acquiring information are extremely conducive to biased and irrational evaluation of the knowledge gained. Bryan calls this kind of systematically biased thinking "rational irrationality." The title of the book is actually slightly misleading. Bryan is not arguing that voters are stupid or irrational. Rather, he contends that it is actually rational for the individual voter to engage in biased and severely flawed evaluation of public policy. Unfortunately, behavior that is rational for individuals can lead to very harmful collective outcomes.
  
  I do have a few disagreements with Bryan's analysis. In particular, I am skeptical of his argument that transferring more political power to knowledgeable experts is a good solution to the ignorance of the average voter. Ironically, the libertarian Caplan here makes the same kind of argument for increasing the power of experts as liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer in his 1993 book Breaking the Vicious Circle. Anticipating Caplan, Breyer argued that the ignorance and bias of voters justifies transferring power over regulatory policy to "nonpolitical" expert bureaucrats. I have serious doubts about both Bryan's and Breyer's paeans to expertise.
  
  Be that as it may, Bryan's book is a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in democratic theory and political participation.

Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy

Finally, someone explains Hank.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Adder
Finally, someone explains Hank.

Not to mention the rest of us?

[Gattigap]

The LAT has a good piece about the downsides of corn-based ethanol. My favorite part:

• President Bush has set a target of replacing 15% of domestic gasoline use with biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) over the next 10 years, which would require almost a fivefold increase in mandatory biofuel use, to about 35 billion gallons. With current technology, almost all of this biofuel would have to come from corn because there is no feasible alternative. However, achieving the 15% goal would require the entire current U.S. corn crop, which represents a whopping 40% of the world's corn supply. This would do more than create mere market distortions; the irresistible pressure to divert corn from food to fuel would create unprecedented turmoil.

Sure, it'll cause havoc with our economy, but let's look at the bright side -- at least Coltrane won't have to travel all the way to a bodega to buy some Mexican Coca-Cola.

Gattigap

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Gattigap
The LAT has a good piece about the downsides of corn-based ethanol. My favorite part:

• President Bush has set a target of replacing 15% of domestic gasoline use with biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) over the next 10 years, which would require almost a fivefold increase in mandatory biofuel use, to about 35 billion gallons. With current technology, almost all of this biofuel would have to come from corn because there is no feasible alternative. However, achieving the 15% goal would require the entire current U.S. corn crop, which represents a whopping 40% of the world's corn supply. This would do more than create mere market distortions; the irresistible pressure to divert corn from food to fuel would create unprecedented turmoil.

Sure, it'll cause havoc with our economy, but let's look at the bright side -- at least Coltrane won't have to travel all the way to a bodega to buy some Mexican Coca-Cola.

Gattigap

Unrelatedly, how 'bout those Iowa caucuses?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This is interesting:

• I would like to join David Bernstein in commending Bryan Caplan's new book, The Myth of the Rational Voter. It is the most important work on political ignorance in at least a decade, and possibly longer.
  
  Previous scholars, including myself (e.g. here and here), have explored the deleterious consequences of the average citizen's massive ignorance about politics and public policy. Since the 1950s, economists and political scientists have known that it is actually rational for voters to be ignorant, because the chance that any one voter will have a significant impact on the outcome of an election is infinitesmally small. There is little incentive to spend time and effort acquiring knowledge about politics that won't make any difference to political outcomes anyway.
  
  Bryan, however, goes beyond the standard rational ignorance analysis. He emphasizes that it is rational for voters to not only learn very little about politics, but to do a poor job of evaluating the information they do have. Good analysis of political information - like learning the information in the first place - requires considerable time and effort that rationally ignorant voters are have little incentive to undertake. Instead, voters are likely to fall prey to systematic errors in considering political information. As Bryan shows in detail, this helps explain why the majority of voters routinely fall prey to gross fallacies in their analysis of public policy - such as the belief that protectionism helps the overall economy; that the rise of modern technology is a major cause of longterm unemployment; and that foreigners are beggaring the American economy (all of these are actual examples from the book).
  
  Because there is so little incentive to acquire and analyze political information to become a "better" voter, most of those citizens who do invest in political knowledge are likely to do so for other reasons. These include reinforcing their preexisting biases and prejudices, using politics as "entertainment" (much in the same way that sports fans acquire knowledge about their favorite teams for similar reasons), and signaling membership in a social group. As Bryan's work suggests (and I discuss in some detail in this article), such motives for acquiring information are extremely conducive to biased and irrational evaluation of the knowledge gained. Bryan calls this kind of systematically biased thinking "rational irrationality." The title of the book is actually slightly misleading. Bryan is not arguing that voters are stupid or irrational. Rather, he contends that it is actually rational for the individual voter to engage in biased and severely flawed evaluation of public policy. Unfortunately, behavior that is rational for individuals can lead to very harmful collective outcomes.
  
  I do have a few disagreements with Bryan's analysis. In particular, I am skeptical of his argument that transferring more political power to knowledgeable experts is a good solution to the ignorance of the average voter. Ironically, the libertarian Caplan here makes the same kind of argument for increasing the power of experts as liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer in his 1993 book Breaking the Vicious Circle. Anticipating Caplan, Breyer argued that the ignorance and bias of voters justifies transferring power over regulatory policy to "nonpolitical" expert bureaucrats. I have serious doubts about both Bryan's and Breyer's paeans to expertise.
  
  Be that as it may, Bryan's book is a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in democratic theory and political participation.

Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy

Jesus, that's revelatory? I've said that maybe 900 times here. I think it was last described by someone as pointless cynicism.

Busted system full of solely self interested egomaniacs/congenital liars which omits by design any "real" person who dares speak honestly or has serious skeletons in his closet.

What does anyone expect? Most of us vote all year, in little mechanisms we employ to lessen the impact of the only policy that means anything to any of us anymore - taxes.

I think Carlin described the relationship of the voter and the candidate pretty well when he said "Garbage input, garbage result." Those of us with brains vote for who we think might do what we want, but not really expecting anything to change. Most of us prefer gridlock out of fear we'll get what we've had for the last six years again, or some Left wing idiot like Hillary fucking up the economy with pseudo-socialist policies.

This month's Vanity Fair has a great article on privatization of the govt. It describes perfectly why no rational person who doesn't have a direct, immediate business interest in it bothers worrying about the govt any more. Whether it's entirely public in character or partly privatized, it's generally a waste of money save the basic necessities it provides (which I'll never be convinced wouldn't be better distributed privately).

I do may patriotic duty every April 14, trying my damndest to avoid giving the thing a nickel more than the most liberal reading of the sections of the tax code pertaining to deductions and exemptions allow.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Jesus, that's revelatory? I've said that maybe 900 times here. I think it was last described by someone as pointless cynicism.

Busted system full of solely self interested egomaniacs/congenital liars which omits by design any "real" person who dares speak honestly or has serious skeletons in his closet.

What does anyone expect? Most of us vote all year, in little mechanisms we employ to lessen the impact of the only policy that means anything to any of us anymore - taxes.

I think Carlin described the relationship of the voter and the candidate pretty well when he said "Garbage input, garbage result." Those of us with brains vote for who we think might do what we want, but not really expecting anything to change. Most of us prefer gridlock out of fear we'll get what we've had for the last six years again, or some Left wing idiot like Hillary fucking up the economy with pseudo-socialist policies.

This month's Vanity Fair has a great article on privatization of the govt. It describes perfectly why no rational person who doesn't have a direct, immediate business interest in it bothers worrying about the govt any more. Whether it's entirely public in character or partly privatized, it's generally a waste of money save the basic necessities it provides (which I'll never be convinced wouldn't be better distributed privately).

I do may patriotic duty every April 14, trying my damndest to avoid giving the thing a nickel more than the most liberal reading of the sections of the tax code pertaining to deductions and exemptions allow.

I'm having a hard time drawing the connection between what that post said and what you say. The gist of the post is about how people do a poor job when they vote, predictably leading to bad government. You seem to think that because government is fucked up, its rational for people not to bother to vote. Or something.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm having a hard time drawing the connection between what that post said and what you say. The gist of the post is about how people do a poor job when they vote, predictably leading to bad government. You seem to think that because government is fucked up, its rational for people not to bother to vote. Or something.

He also seems to dismiss the amusing irony of quote pointing out how people pay attention to politics only to confirm their pre-conceived biases.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Adder
He also seems to dismiss the amusing irony of quote pointing out how people pay attention to politics only to confirm their pre-conceived biases.

Bush lied!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I'm having a hard time drawing the connection between what that post said and what you say. The gist of the post is about how people do a poor job when they vote, predictably leading to bad government. You seem to think that because government is fucked up, its rational for people not to bother to vote. Or something.

"Since the 1950s, economists and political scientists have known that it is actually rational for voters to be ignorant, because the chance that any one voter will have a significant impact on the outcome of an election is infinitesmally small. There is little incentive to spend time and effort acquiring knowledge about politics that won't make any difference to political outcomes anyway."

It is rational to not bother because whoever's in office makes little difference.

I don't want Hillary elected, but her election really won't effect me all that much, so it's not really a huge deal.

Save a business interest which could do work for the fed govt (if I can get the right lobbying outfit to grease the chute), it's rational for me to throw a dart at a board of candidates to select how I vote. Hillary won't do all that much damage and would be in gridlock anyway. And Iraq is like what, 3% of our budget? Bush is a terrible fool and an embarrassment, but I mean, really, would your life or mine have all that much different under him vs. Gore? I hate to see people die for no reason, but I'm far beyond thinking the forces that make those moves are somehow steerable by the populus. We're an empire. It's what we do. It sucks, but hey... what can I do? If they have a draft when my kid's of age, he'll be spending many years abroad. Selah...