My Page: Christian Probasco
“I’m not going to bombard you with graphs and statistics, which don’t make much of an impression on intelligent people anyway.”
--Edward Abbey, One Life at a Time, Please, pp14
“In 1984 the Bureau of Land Management…confessed that 31 percent of the land it administered was in ‘good condition’ and 60 percent in ‘poor condition.’ And it reported that only 18 percent of the rangelands were improving, while 68 percent were ‘stable’ and 14 percent were getting worse.”
--Edward Abbey, One Life at a Time, Please, pp15
A father of five and a supposed anarchist who admired Thoreau’s dictum, “That government is best which governs not at all,” an implacable enemy of the “Anthill State” which was a “technocratic despotism…the enemy of personal liberty, family independence, and community sovereignty,” Abbey was also an advocate for state-imposed birth control.
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Under pressure from environmental groups, Utah’s BLM dropped another 80,000 acres near Fillmore and Fishlake National Forest from next weeks sale of oil and gas leases, according to articles in the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News.
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Back in 2004, Haley Owen Hooper was pulled over by Sevier County deputies looking for the owner of the car she was driving. She says they searched the car without her permission. When she refused to perform a field sobriety test, they took her into custody.
“They arrested me for nothing,” said Hooper, “…I mean, they weren’t even looking for me.”
A female nurse at the Sevier County jail strip searched Hooper. When she refused to provide a urine sample, deputies obtained a warrant for bodily fluids. She offered to give blood but was told by one of the deputies, “in a black cowboy hat,” according to her, that the judge wanted urine. Next step: a male guard stripped her in front of several other male guards. She was held down and a catheter was forced into her.
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The Utah BLM appears to be going forward with the Dec. 19 sale of oil and gas leases, some of them in the vicinity of national parks, despite objections from environmentalist groups and at least nine Democratic senators.
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Contributions for and against California’s Proposition 8 reached $75.2 million, making it possibly the “costliest state ballot measure ever,” according to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune. And all the numbers aren’t in yet. [more]
Winter, to me, means skiing or at least memories of skiing, sledding and four-wheeling in southern Utah, when I seem to have most of the wilderness to myself. But I tell my wife, “Winter is death.” [more]
Obama garnering more democratic votes in Utah than any other candidate since 1968, when Hubert Humphrey was on the ticket. 35 percent of the vote went to Obama while 65 percent went to McCain. [more]
Why healthcare isn't likely to get well soon
The Sick and the Well
McCain and Obama offer stark choices for improving our broken healthcare system. McCain suggests a small tax credit that might begin to bring some healthcare costs down and Obama wants a systematic political overhaul, which will ultimately result in some rationing. Both plans are especially unpalatable in the West, where most people would prefer to pay fair market prices for individual medical services. But the political system that should be abetting the market in delivering fair prices has been manipulated by special interests to the point where most health care is out of reach of most individuals.
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Taxpayer Bailout: Ownership Society?
Thanks for the Bailout, America!
In my last blog I wrote, “It seems to me that the real lesson of 9/11, besides that terrible things can happen to innocent people, is not to depend too much on law enforcement agencies for your safety, or for rescue.”
That’s law enforcement agencies. But as for the government itself—well, who knows? The government bails out and bestows privileges on special interest groups, which includes everyone but working folks. But somehow we got in! We put some money down on a reasonably priced house in rural Utah at the height of the boom and our loan was approved by a major mortgage company which then cratered spectacularly. Seemed like bad timing, especially with the interest rate we had to pay, but that we were approved at all may have been because of Bill Clinton's and George Bush III’s push for more housing of the indigent. The “push” that resulted in looser standards for lenders and ultimately, bizarre financial instruments that couldn’t possibly have worked, except in theory.
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Making Sense of the Senseless
The Real Lessons of 9/11
Several articles have already been published under the above title. Former Alaska Senator and supposed libertarian Mike Gravel had this to say about the lessons we should have learned: [more]
