Well-understood adjectives sure, but most of them, when applied to political principles, are not so well understood as some like to think.

Note that to the world outside of the United Kingdom, Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democratic parties seem indistinguishable, and outside of France, the Parti Socialist and UMP seem indistinguishable, and an outside observer would struggle to identify key points of contention between the Australian Labor and Liberal parties, etc. This phenomenon, that outsiders see the major political parties in another country as indistinguishable, is not unique to the United States. The concerns of public debate of one nation nearly always seem trivial to another.

That's complete bullshit.

Left and right, when used to refer to political beliefs and associations, are relative terms. That's why they're apt metaphors. Without a singular frame of reference, they're meaningless. (And, if you have the sense to see the metaphors for what they are, disoriented. Then you can look at individual policy issues, and realize that we have two fascist parties.)

I did not misread it. I did not address sustainability, only availability. However, since you brought the point up, market expectations of future supply (i.e., production sustainability) are part of demand.

Keeping the air clean is a transaction, though (or rather a series of transactions). It requires exchanges of value (trade-offs). The positive and negative in externalities is not about some perceived social value; in that sense, economics, like any other serious scientific discipline, is value free. (Well, unless you're Paul Krugman.)

Using the word transaction was probably not the best; in economics, it has a meaning different from its common use.

From the Wikipedia article, you cited:

In economics, an externality (or transaction spillover) is a cost or benefit, not transmitted through prices[1], incurred by a party who did not agree to the action causing the cost or benefit.

The negative in negative externality is not a value judgment in the sense of moral or ethical values (for which economics, like any scientific discipline, has none), but an assessment of increased cost (including lost profit or lost potential profit) from an action to which you are not party. A positive externality is decreased cost or increased profit from an action to which you are not party.

Some examples:
1) I run a café and someone just saw the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast, and now my café is full every day for three weeks; my positive externality is my competitors' negative externality.

2) The pious Marians in the previous example crowd out my regular customers and once they're gone, some of my previous regulars don't return, a positive externality for my competitors.

While the same action does not always have positive and negative externalities, and they do not in any sense balance, the same action, decision, or market influence can act as both a negative and positive externality.

Because of the political process though, the factory operator does not have control over the decision to pollute certain substances; he was not given that decision: the very definition of an externality; it most definitely is an increased cost and therefore a negative externality for him. I'm not saying he should have that decision; I'm saying he doesn't have the decision. It is external to him.

Malthusianism: scaring the shit out of ignorant do-gooders for more than two centuries now.

No, fuck that. They can stay; I'm going.

Partly true.
Externalities are effects that change the value of goods for persons not engaged in a transaction, of which regulation is an example. (I want clean air and water; I don't care about your process for manufacturing widgets. Widgets are not my concern, but I get my clean air and water, and your widgets are more expensive, a negative externality for you.) Calling government regulation a force outside the market is missing the entire point.

By introducing or maintaining government regulators, however, you open the doors for regulatory capture, and the operating market is the competition for influence over regulators, rather than the open market.

No. Supply and demand account for value, not price. Price is given in some other good for which the determination of value is separate and distinct. During periods of high inflation, it's not goods becoming scarcer or demand increasing that changes the amount you pay for them. Supply and demand change the value of the currency during periods of inflation or deflation, changing prices throughout the market.

Actually, it does. It's called supply.

It was never intended to do anything. The law of supply and demand was not created by direct human action with any intentions; it has been observed to be true.

Virii is not a word. If you really feel you must use a Latin plural, use vira, but Latin had no plural for virus. If it had one though, it would most likely have been vira. (Neuter second declension nouns ending in -us were extremely rare and there existed several conflicting plural formations. The ending -ii however only exists for masculine or feminine nouns ending in -ius.) Had it been masculine, the plural would be viri (the closest word to virii), but it was neuter and viri means “men” or “man’s” (plural nominative or singular genitive/possessive of vir).

You should fix that to “less than lethal” or better yet “mostly harmless.”

James Randi, hallowed be his name, is irrelevant. Congratulations. You know how throw in non sequiturs.

I don't care what crackpots send you emails, but what linked to does not refute anything I said. It says that it may be useful for mild post-operative pain (similar to placebo). (My preferred post-operative pain treatment is bourbon, but pick your own poison.) if acupuncture is so effective for pain relief, try using it during an operation. Try having a tooth pulled with acupuncture and gas or novacaine.

If I'm going to get a placebo for something, I'll take a pill rather than be a pincushion for some nutjob that rejects germ theory for some vitalistic prescientific bullshit.

Nah, they're reducing everything but the EU budget, but it's pretty even across the board. Their expert panel recommended against continued funding for quackery but Parliament are the experts at patronage, and kept it in.

Thank you. I thought I was going crazy.