- HOME! Waking up in the tropics, then struggling home through a blinding snowstorm 26 hours later is not fair! Not fair at all! But thank heaven for heroically dedicated friends; I didn’t have to drive myself that last crazy six hours.
- Why is every mainstream media article about the census a propaganda piece that could have been written by flacks at the Census Bureau? And why does every one of them repeat the lie about “just 10 questions”? Sure, there are merely 10 questions for people who live alone, but there are seven additional questions for each other resident — and each and every one of them too damned nosy. My dogs are getting tired of revealing their personal details. For the record, they’re all Canine-hyphen-American and they resent having to identify themselves as border collies or pit bull mixes or whatever.
- Uh oh. Those long-feared Social Security IOUs are coming due.
- Thomas Cole on “The Course of Empire.” These 19th-century paintings (first linked from LewRockwell.com last week) may be overdramatized for contemporary tastes. But they sure do tell a plain truth.
- Speaking of the census, in another one of those “unbiased” news stories (in which “irrational fear” of the census was promoted only by “fringe groups”), I learned the specific figure on the Big FedBux being promised to “your community” (e.g. bureaucrats, government-connected do-gooders, etc.) for each person counted: $400. No link to that article, sorry. It was in a print publication. But here’s a “Diary of a Census Resister.” (FWIW, most census resistance tales are even less eventful than his.)
- Some people don’t believe it when you tell them they probably commit three felonies a day. But here are some typical felonies. And the people who actually committed them.
- Free-market medical practice. Yes, it still goes on even here in the USSA. In case you missed the link he placed in the comments section last week, here’s Dr. Jim Brook’s great story of his own practice in Idaho Falls, Idaho. An average of $37 per visit — including house calls??? Darn, Dr. Jim, you make me wish I lived in Idaho Falls!
- The bad consequences of good intentions in housing codes. Sigh. Although the incidents are more complex than the author paints them (Like this, for instance), it’s still hard to see the point of making things worse for hard-up people by throwing them out of their homes for code violations.
- Uh oh, part II. The fedgov announces a plan to “improve” broadband Internet service across the USSA. Details are sketchy, but the proposal includes, “Creating a ‘digital literacy corps,’ modeled after AmeriCorps, to help people unfamiliar with the Internet (particularly residents of low-income and minority communities and seniors) learn how to use it.” Uh … yeah. So it’ll now cost $10,000 and six months to teach granny to receive emailed pics of the kidlets instead of a free half hour.
- NOW … WHERE WAS I? A free autographed copy of my upcoming book of collected and expanded Hardyville columns to the first person who answers this question: “What region was I in or what tribe was I visiting when I was in the ‘Wayback-Outback’ portion of my recent trip?” If you didn’t follow trip posts or if your memory needs refreshing, click on the “Travels” archive at the right. Rules are: 1. Only one answer per person; 2. Do not name the country. I’m looking just for tribe or region — and I dropped enough hints that somebody’s bound to get it. Submit your answers as comments on this post.
Beruca tribe? Around the Gulf of Nicoya?
Any word on a release date for the Hardyville book, Claire?
Central America
Cuna tribe, in the San Blas Islands
Well, that was quick! We have a winner. It’s Plinker. The “Wayback-Outback” was the very untouristy island of Ustupu/Ogobsucum in the Comarca de Kuna Yala — aka the San Blas Islands, aka the self-governing province of the Kuna tribe — in Panama.
L2 is also correct; Lorri and I were in Central America. And Pat was pretty close since her guess was in a neighboring country. But the book goes to Plinker who hit the 10 ring of the target.
So, Plinker … What gave it away? I’m figuring the outfit on the old lady in the birthday picture was The Big Clue, since it shows the one thing the Kuna are famous for — their gorgeous handmade molas.
Joel … not sure when the book will be out. But I get the impression from Dave Duffy that it’ll be very soon. I’m used to publishers taking six months. It’s been only two since I turned in the manuscript. Guess I should ask Dave. But in any case, when it’s here, Plinker gets the first copy.
Well, I had guessed the country with the first reference to “sinful avenue.” But the molas removed any doubt.
Re Dr. Brooks’ medical practice in Idaho Falls, I note that at one point, he says, “The patient is the customer, not the insurance company or the taxpayer.” The CUSTOMER — not the Client or Consumer. I had to read that twice to see Customer, because Customer is rarely used these days, it is becoming an obsolete word.
The one thing that bothers me about his practice is what does the patient do if she/he really NEEDS a specialist of some sort. I wonder if there are any specialists practicing medicine this way? If not, the price would be exorbitant for a patient, in fact it would be next to impossible without insurance, and the entire process might be a shock to the patient unused to that kind of treatment.
Finally, you didn’t mention your flying experience home; did you fly any distance, or did you ride home all the way?
Pat, good question about specialists. But in a true free market, wouldn’t insurance be available to cover extreme & catastrophic events — just as homeowners’ insurance covers thefts and fire but doesn’t cover a new paint job or new carpet? Can’t say what the uninsured (like me) must do now when serious tests or procedures are required. But as the article I linked to last week (re free-market medicine in El Salvador) showed, even specialty care need not be exhorbitant, depending on how it’s structured.
Much to think about. But if government would get out of the way, you know as well as anybody that the problems you posit could be solved.
As to travel … I flew 9 hours, hung out in airports for 7, rode in a car for 6+, and was awake for additional hours, morning and … well, morning again. It was a very long day, especially with that snowstorm at the end. But unlike on my outbound trip, there were no TSA- or airline-driven disasters.
Worst thing that happened — idiotic, but hardly a catastrophe — was that in Panama’s Tocumen International Airport, I was screened three more times after passing through security — this time by the airline (Copa). They searched my carry-on by hand before allowing me to sit at the boarding gate, checked my passport three times in the boarding area, AND they took away the water I bought after I passed through security and confiscated the empty water bottle I was carrying to fill later. Complete moronity. Useless security theater. Pointlessly annoying. Too stupid for words. But small beans compared to Other People’s Security Horror Stories.
I assume Copa, as a foreign carrier taking passengers to the U.S., felt obligated to perform all that nonsense to show the TSA that they are “taking extra steps” to prevent terrorism.
“Can’t say what the uninsured (like me) must do now when serious tests or procedures are required.”
Yeah, this is what I was thinking of, when one system exists side-by-side with another. I don’t have health insurance either, and I suspect it’s wiser to stay healthy!
I don’t worry about a free market like I do about the current “market” — or worse, the health “market” that is to come when the Obamaplan goes through.
Dog-gone it Plinker you are too fast for me.
Or I am too slow to be involved with quizzes.
I missed [I read it but it didn’t register] the Sinful Avenue reference but the molas were pretty specific to me.
I had lost [in my rusty trap like mind] the name of the Islands [San Blas] but knew the lady to be a Cuna and the country to be Panama. [Caribbean side]