Afternoon roundup

Some highlights from the closing of the browser tabs:

• Do immigrants vote for the broken institutions they fled? No. No they don't.  


• America foisted Anti-Money Laundering legislation on New Zealand; New Zealand used it to kill iPredict and make it damned hard to run international remittances. Meanwhile, New Hampshire exempts Bitcoin and virtual currencies from money transmitter regulations. A bit like how American pressure in international forums makes drug legalisation harder, while US states legalise. There's much to be said for federalism.


• The anti-GMO cult goes after some petunias (NBR $). They've been sold since the 80s and are harmless, but somebody just noticed that they have a corn gene. Amazing that MPI has resource for witchhunts. 


• In defense of cultural appropriation


• There was never an idyll of a sovereign modern state unconstrained by bond markets and financiers. Bond markets rather helped create the modern state.