RedStateEclectic

Government Health Care Killed John Murtha

According to Politico:

The 77-year-old Democrat underwent scheduled laparoscopic surgery to remove his gallbladder at Bethesda Naval Hospital last Thursday but then, after his release, sought care at the Virginia Hospital Center over the weekend.

The congressman’s spokesman declined to say Tuesday what led him to be hospitalized again. But responding to questions Wednesday, he said that Murtha was in stable condition. Two persons said it appeared Murtha’s intestine had been cut inadvertently during the gall bladder removal.

Killed by government health care.  Maybe he can return the favor, and take the bill with him.

Edited to add: It gets even better. From Politico last week:

The 77-year-old Democrat underwent scheduled laparoscopic surgery to remove his gallbladder at Bethesda Naval Hospital last Thursday but then, after his release, sought care at the Virginia Hospital Center over the weekend.

So, the government health care facility screwed up the procedure, and Murtha ran to the private sector in an effort to save himself.  

The Amazing Julian Simon (1937-1998) - (3/3)

Writes F.A. Hayek in 1981:

Dear Professor Simon,

I have never before written a fan letter to a professional colleague, but to discover that you have in your Economics of Population Growth provided the empirical evidence for what with me is the result of a life-time of theoretical speculation, is too exciting an experience not to share it with you. The upshot of my theoretical work has been the conclusion that those traditional rules of conduct (esp. of several property) which led to the greatest increases of the numbers of the groups practicing them leads to their displacing the others — not on “Darwinian” principles but because based on the transmission of learned rules — a concept of evolution which is much older than Darwin.

I doubt whether welfare economics has really much helped you to the right conclusions. I claim as little as you do that population growth as such is good — only that it is the cause of the selection of the morals which guide our individual action. It follows, of course, that our fear of a population explosion is unjustified so long as the local increases are the result of groups being able to feed larger numbers, but may become a severe embarrassment if we start subsidizing the growth of groups unable to feed themselves.

Sincerely, F. A.Hayek

This entry at the outstanding free-market energy blog MasterResource inspired me to write the present RSE-post as well as this one and this one.

Also, consider my earlier Julian Simon's "The Ultimate Resource" ...

The Amazing Julian Simon (1937-1998) - (2/3)

In his Wall Street Journal obituary in honour of Julian Simon, Ben Wattenberg wrote in 1998:

His keystone work was "The Ultimate Resource," published in 1981 and updated in 1996 as "The Ultimate Resource 2" (Princeton University Press). Its central point is clear: Supplies of natural resources are not finite in any serious way; they are created by the intellect of man, an always renewable resource. Coal, oil and uranium were not resources at all until mixed well with human intellect.

The notion drove some enviromentalists crazy. If it were true, poof!--there went so many of the crises that justified their existence. From their air-conditioned offices in high-rise buildings, they brayed: Simon believes in a technological fix! [...]

If the real resource was the human intellect, Simon reasoned, and the amount of human intellect was increasing, both quantitatively through population growth and qualitatively through education, then the supply of resources would grow, outrunning demand, pushing prices down and giving people more access to what they wanted, with more than enough left over to deal with pollution and congestion. In short, mankind faced the very opposite of a crisis [under conditions of reasonable liberty, G.T.]

After all:

Simon sensed the primacy of something else that many environmentalists and crisis-mongers didn't catch on to for a quite a time: Human intellect could best be transformed into beneficial goods and services in an atmosphere of political and economic liberty.

The source.

The Amazing Julian Simon (1937-1998) - (1/3)

A great independent mind, American scholar Julian Simon, age 65, died unexpectedly on February 8, 1998.

”Fortunately for this planet,” Mr. Simon said in response to the Global 2000 Report, ”these gloomy assertions about resources and environment are baseless.”

Mr. Simon’s sunny view of the future became the basis for a highly publicized bet in 1980 with Paul R. Ehrlich, the Stanford University ecologist whose 1968 book, ”The Population Bomb,” predicted that one-fifth of humanity would starve to death by 1985.

Mr. Ehrlich and two colleagues from the University of California at Berkeley were piqued by an article Mr. Simon wrote for Science magazine titled ”Resources, Population, Environment: An Oversupply of False Bad News.” They responded to a challenge by Mr. Simon to Malthusians that the price of any natural resource would be lower by a mutually agreed-upon date, not higher.

Mr. Ehrlich and his colleagues took the bet on the belief that rising demand for raw materials by an exploding global populace would pare supplies of nonrenewable resources, driving up prices. Mr. Ehrlich said he had accepted Mr. Simon’s ”astonishing offer before other greedy people jump in.”

The Ehrlich group bet $1,000 on five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — in quantities that each cost $200 in October 1980, when the bet was made. Mr. Simon agreed that he would sell the agreed-upon quantities of the metals to the Ehrlich group 10 years later at 1980 prices. If the combined prices of acquiring the metals in 1990 turned out to be higher than $1,000, Mr. Simon would pay the difference in cash. If prices fell, the Ehrlich group would pay him.

During the decade, the world’s population grew by more than 800 million, the greatest increase in history, and the store of metals did not get any larger. Yet in the fall of 1990, with the prices of the metals down sharply, Mr. Ehrlich mailed Mr. Simon a check for $576.07.

Mr. Simon wrote back a thank you note, along with a challenge to raise the wager to as much as $20,000, tied to any other resources and to any other year in the future. Mr. Ehrlich declined to take him up on the new offer.

The entire article.

Gary Johnson on ReasonTV

Nice condensed version of this interview:

Ruining a Country and a World

While America is practicing a global military imperialism China is pursuing a spectacular global economic imperialism. Ironically, America's militarism is being financed indirectly by China buying up America's debt. Where China and other countries are ascendant economically the US is a failed industrial state, having devolved from a production economy to a consumption economy. If the US, as the world's singular superpower, refuses to accept a diminished role in a multi-polar world the potential for conflict is daunting, especially with China. We jump back sixty years and Cold War II is upon us. If US belligerence goes unchecked there could very well be a conflict between the US and China that will put the present inept tin pot conflicts in their proper perspective.     

 As long as America's militarist addiction prevails there will be endless warfare to serve its imperial ambition of "full spectrum dominance." It becomes a necessity to justify the presence of this monstrous military redundancy. Indeed, if there were no wars initiated or provoked by the US, people might start asking why are we enslaved to this trillion dollar baby; this military perversity that sucks countries dry, that kills in tens of thousands, that commits war crimes, defies international law, and saps resources better spent elsewhere.

via www.nolanchart.com

A though provoking piece from a "liberal-centrist".

(We're not just about libertarian conservatism anymore ;) ).

Green Police

Somewhat related to my last post:

A Quick Note on Global Warming

A while back (I don’t have the time or inclination to dig for it right now—sorry), Eric (I think) wrote either in a post or a comment to a post, about the problem of global warming ideology having soaked into the kids—even while their parents and grandparents are starting to question the veracity of the theory after the e-mail revelations.

Depressed, I report to you that this is absolutely the case.  I’m grading papers tonight—a short paper that asked students to identify what they think is the most important problem facing us today, review the different sides of the question (via research), and then tell me what direction they think we ought to take.  At least 3 students (so far) have chosen Global Warming as their “most important topic.”  Sigh.

To a person, they are spouting the Al Gore “polar ice caps are melting, and seals and polar bears will die” mantra.  To a person, they are highly critical of the United States and industrialization.  To a person, they have been unable to bring themselves to look at “alternative views”, maintaining instead that “the facts are”…

I don’t expect all of my students to agree with me (although they’d be better off if they did), but I do expect that they should be capable of at least looking at the other side and defending THEIR positions from alternative views.

George Will Predicts 2012

In 2013, when President Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor, is counting his blessings, at the top of his list will be the name of his vice president: Paul Ryan. The former congressman from Wisconsin will have come to office with ideas for steering the federal government to solvency.

Not that Daniels has ever been bereft of ideas. Under him, Indiana property taxes have been cut 30 percent, and for the first time Standard & Poor's has raised the state's credit rating to AAA. But in January 2010, Ryan released an updated version of his "Roadmap for America's Future," a cure for the most completely predictable major problem that has ever afflicted America.

Some calamities -- the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, Sept. 11 -- have come like summer lightning, as bolts from the blue. The looming crisis of America's Ponzi entitlement structure is different. Driven by the demographics of an aging population, its causes, timing and scope are known.

Funding entitlements -- especially medical care and pensions for the elderly -- requires reinvigorating the economy. Ryan's map connects three destinations: economic vitality, diminished public debt, and health and retirement security.

via www.washingtonpost.com

Ryan's "Roadmap" looks to be a nice start on the road to getting our fiscal house in order--which of course means that no one will pay attention to it.

Paleo-Diets

NEW YORK — Vlad Averbukh says he'll need a napkin at lunch. "It could be bloody." What he doesn't require is a fork.

A follower of America's "paleo diet," or simply "the caveman lifestyle," New Yorker Averbukh does things the old-fashioned way.

"A lot of folks might find this unpalatable. But to me it tastes good," he says, lifting an uncooked cut of beef the size of a book.

Chomping on the raw meat in a small park by the Hudson River, Averbukh, a 29-year-old website manager, explains how paleo dieters are trying to turn mankind's clock back to the Paleolithic Era.

"The theory is that you only eat what our ancestors ate 10,000 years ago. It's what you could get with a stick in the forest," Averbukh says.

via rawstory.com

And how long did the cavemen live? Were there 90 year old cavemen??

Change We Can't Believe In: Let's Kill the Internet

More evidence that change has come/is coming to America, FBI edition:

The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years, a requirement that law enforcement believes could help it in investigations of child pornography and other serious crimes.

FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users’ “origin and destination information,” a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting on Thursday.

Yes we can (spy)!

via www.lewrockwell.com

His Inner Agnew

This week the President again showed how thin-skinned he is about criticism in the media. Maybe he’s so sensitive to criticism because he's gotten so little of it.

The president’s advice came in answer to a question from Sen. Mike Bennet, D-CO, who is facing a difficult re-election fight back home and wanted to know what Democrats and Republicans can do "to fix this institution so that our democracy can actually withstand the test that we're facing right now."

"You know what I think would actually make a difference, Michael? I think if everybody here -- excuse all the members of the press who are here -- if everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, your blogs," Obama said, before being interrupted by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, who piped up, "And MSNBC!"

Obama, appropriately reminded of the network with shows more friendly to liberals, continued, "Just turn off the TV -- MSNBC, blogs -- and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics. ... It is much more difficult to get a conversation focused on how are we going to help people than a conversation about how is this going to help or hurt somebody politically."

Glenn Thrush was reminded of another politician who was sensitive about his press reviews.

President Obama's back is against the wall, so he's getting in touch with his inner Agnew, hitting the neo-nattering nabobs of cable and the Net.

via stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com

You have to be of a certain age or older to remember the "nattering nabobs of negativism."  I don't actually have a specific memory of the original statement, but was aware enough of the Nixon Administration to learn about it somewhat later.

Ron Paul Mocks The DHS, the DOE, HHS, Etc...

Here's pretty much what we want our politicians to believe:

The unfortunate problem with advocating the abolition of Homeland Security is that the issue is so easily demagogued.

The GOP jammed this behemoth beast into our lives and wallets using the time tested We Have To Do Something RIGHT NOW methodology (known as Not Letting A Crisis Go To Waste on the other side of the aisle) and our gullible national psyche now continuously intones that if DHS did not exist, there would be a terrorist under every American bed.

Apparently being wrong is something that is not permitted in Washington, so even if they magically transformed into fiscal conservatives tomorrow, the GOP could not abolish DHS because it's their monster.  To admit that it was an impulsive reactionary program with little basis in anything except an excuse to spend money and grab power would obviously bring about something traumatic - maybe even the Apocalypse -  and nobody wants that. So they're stuck spending their Sunday mornings talking solemnly about all the drama they've managed to avert, while insisting that those details are very highly classified, so we're just going to need to trust them on that because we're not included in the "need to know" crowd.

Heck, we might actually be terrorists! Who would actually support the systemic dismantling of American defenses except terrorists and socialists, after all?

And there's the kicker. The left can't touch it because, although the words "can't afford" seldom enter their talking points, they do concede they can't afford being seen as being soft on terror.   So they play both sides of the coin by feigning concern over the loss of our civil liberties contained in the Patriot Act while in campaign mode, but voting to fund every program contained in it after elected.

And so it goes. (Our money, I mean.)

Way, Way Behind.

Tomorrow after church, I make a quick trip up to Lincoln to take part in a “round table discussion” with some other grassroots folks in the area.  The discussion, which is going to be taped by a couple of locals who broadcast a show on the local public access channel, is supposed to be on the general topic of liberty and activism.

I admit to being a little bit leery about this whole thing.  Every time I think public access, pictures of things like this float around in my head. (You don’t have to watch it all to get the point).

Quiet, Please!

From Fox News:

Obama Tells Dems: Turn off CNN, Turn off Fox

I wondered if he was actually suggesting to our elected representatives that they should simply resort to sticking their fingers in their ears while yelling, "Lalalala - I can't hear you!" But that's not it. No, he wants them to "just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics."

Like that's going to happen! The people that work in Stanenow's and Levin's offices always seem terribly irritated that they're forced to deal with the unwashed untouchables voters that live in their state, and that's just on the phone. So, Obama suggesting that Carl and Debbie should walk among the little people?  

I think he's got a future in stand up.