A few words to Greece.

Whole Foods (or "Whole Paycheck" as some call it) shows a pattern of defrauding customers through mislabeling weights.

There are other unsavory things about that company.

The UK welfare system ruled that Mark Wood was not disabled and was capable of working. Apparently it was mistaken, because instead he starved to death. He now has a posthumous art exhibition.

That wasn't the last time the system was wrong about this. Why does it make so many mistakes? Partly because it has quotas for various things it does to cut people's benefits.

Now it seems to have a quota for accusing poor people of fraud.

The unemployed who feel discouraged about finding work are now pressured to attend brainwashing sessions for this "psychological problem".

10 years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that cities could seize buildings (including homes) to give to private development on the excuse that this would be "good for the community". The result was a popular movement that has mostly ended the practice.

Can we validly "presume" that governments "wouldn't be pursuing a development project in the first place unless they anticipated some benefit to the public"? Not at all. The idea that a handout to a company is "good for the community" was Scott Walker's excuse for handouts.

As this particular case shows, the whole idea of achieving a "benefit to the public" through a handout to the community is stupid. Companies make cities and states compete to offer handouts. Overall, the taxpayers lose and only the companies gain.

Why do so many politicians endorse these foolish ideas? Perhaps someone rich rewards them for it.

Apple has banned iThing applications that show the confederate flag. Not only those that use it as a symbol of racism, but even strategic games that use it to represent confederate army units fighting in the Civil War.

It is absurd to interpret those games as an instance of use of the confederate flag as racist symbol today. But censorship is wrong; even censorship of racism. We can say we despise racist hatred, but we must not forbid people from expressing it.

This is not the only political position Apple has censored.

It is wrong for Apple to ban applications based on what they say, but the root of this evil is that Apple has designed the operating system for the iThings as a platform for censorship. That should be a crime.