Today’s Links: November 10, 2011

OPINION

NATE ANDERSON: “Remember the Borderless Internet? It’s Officially Dead”
“‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,’ wrote L.P. Hartley in his terrific novel The Go-Between. But Hartley knew nothing of the Internet when he wrote his novel of adolescent sexual awakening; if he had, he might have been shocked at just how quickly the past became a foreign place. Indeed, from the perspective of the recently introduced Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would set up US website blacklisting, require search engine censorship, and divide the Internet into ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ sites, the sorts of Internet arguments being made in the late 1990s don’t sound like something from a foreign country so much as something from a foreign planet.”

CATHERINE RAMPELL: “Rick Perry’s Intrade Flash Crash”
“During last night’s Republican presidential debate, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas made an ‘oops‘ when he forgot the third of three federal departments he wanted to eliminate. As Nate Silver’s blog post noted, Mr. Perry’s odds of winning the Republican nomination halved within seconds on Intrade, an online market where people bet on the odds of various events.”

SHIKHA DALMIA: “Liberal Programs Deserve Blame for Income Inequality”
“Liberals are treating a new Congressional Budget Office study showing that income inequality increased in America over the last three decades as the smoking gun they’d always been looking for—the ultimate indictment of America, capitalism, and apple pie.”

NEWS

CIGARETTES – New Australia Smoking Law Bans Brand Labels
“Tough anti-smoking laws banning brand labels passed their last major legislative hurdle in Australia on Thursday and immediately faced the threat of court action from tobacco companies worried the move could spread and hurt sales elsewhere.”

LEGAL – Supreme Court Likely to Overturn California Law Requiring Killing of Downed Livestock
“The Supreme Court seemed ready Wednesday to block a California law that would require euthanizing downed livestock at federally inspected slaughterhouses to keep the meat out of the nation’s food system.”