Freespace

Thanks

To Devil’s Robot for the link—and the amusing quote from the oral argument in Edwards v. Aguillard.

Still more interviews

I’ll be on KSFO AM 560 in San Francisco tomorrow at 7 a.m. to talk about the Kelo case.

Update: Oops! That’s Monday at 7 a.m.

Medical mystery?

From the headline of this article, you would think that this was a story about brilliant doctors solving some persistent mysterious ailment. Instead, it turns out to be a horror story about socialized medicine. A faulty diagnosis from the British medical system years ago deprived this girl of meals for years—and then a real medical system finds that all she had was bad tonsils. How said that the story doesn’t focus on the scandal like it should.

Then there’s this article on the same story that urges us not to draw the obvious lesson:

Dr Peter Koltai, who also treated Tilly, admitted that it was a “pretty strange case” but stressed that it should not be generalised.

He did not blame the British doctors for not making the same discovery, but admitted that “if a team effort had been put together they could have come to the same conclusion.”

But why should they put in that effort? As government-paid doctors, not beholden to the satisfaction of their clients, they have no reason to—they get paid anyway, and they get the same bureaucratic stonewalling if they do try to show some effort.

Update: Look, obviously there are misdiagnoses in the (relatively!!) free-market medical system in America. But you can sue doctors for misdiagnosis—which you would probably not be allowed to do under a socialized medicine system. And under Britain’s socialist medicine system, patients have to wait so long to see a doctor to begin with, not to mention the bureaucratic hurdles that stand in the way of any doctor in a socialized medicine scheme if that doctor wants to do something unusual, that I think it’s quite fair to blame this case, at least in large part, on socialized medicine, and not on just simple misdiagnosis.

More radio

I’ll be on the Bruce Elliott show on WBAL AM 1090 Baltimore, at 11:30 p.m. Eastern tonight, to talk about the Kelo case.

Props

Found this post which links to my Liberty article about eminent domain, and which says “I have long maintained—and I am not alone in this assessment—that the Institute for Justice is the single most effective libertarian organization in the country.” Indeed. I think of PLF first, of course, but IJ is at the forefront of reform on economic liberty, eminent domain, and similar issues, and they deserve your support. They’re an amazing group of people with an outstanding organization. Don’t forget to send a few bucks their way.

A personal note

As readers know, I’m in the godawful process of trying to buy a house. Since I have a moment (shh—that’s a secret), I wanted to say to the world how wonderful Erin has been about the whole thing. Erin is a beautiful, charming, sweet woman, but her common sense and maturity and attention to detail have impressed me all over again. None of what we’ve done so far would have been possible without her. She found us a loan, she found us an agent, she more or less found us the house itself, she’s found us (cheap!) furniture. She has been awesome. In this extremely stressful time, all of her best qualities have been revealed in a way that I always knew was possible, but which is wonderful to watch, in any case. She has all of the classic virtues of womanhood, plus many extra, and I am extremely proud to be her fiancé. I love you, Erin. Thank you for all the things you do.

Update: No, we don’t have the house yet. Still working on that.

Establishment in the states

Aside from Kelo, I’ve also been spending a lot of time at Panda’s Thumb comments section discussing whether and to what degree the Establishment Clause should be incorporated to the states. (Just keep scrolling.)

More on Kelo

I was on Sacramento radio this morning about Kelo. I’ll be on the air in Pasadena later today. If you haven’t already, check out the SCOTUS Blog’s post about what happened there. And of course, you should always read the Eminent Domain Watch weblog, which covers the subject very well. (Thanks, by the way, to Jason Kuznicki for the kind words.)

Speaking of words, Orin Kerr is right that the mystery four words are just about the lousiest ending for any oral argument. But as I’ve noted before, the city’s lawyer is just about the lousiest representative they could have.

Kelo stuff

IJ has some nice photos and things from the argument in Kelo today. On the news this morning, the city attorney could not possibly have sounded worse. Speaking to reporters, he actually said—no, I am not making this up—that the city needed the power to take people’s homes “to make the trains run on time.” Really. The man used a phrase most commonly associated with Benito Mussolini. You can’t make this stuff up.

Update: Here! You see?

But some justices sided with the lawyer for New London, Wesley Horton, who argued that there is no difference between using land for potentially lucrative real estate deals and other public purposes. “If a person can’t find a job or can’t get basic services because the town can’t afford it, it’s just as important as the trains running on time,” Mr. Horton told the judges.

It was part of his oral argument! Priceless.

Neoconfederates

I was really pissed at Cathy Young lately. So to be fair I should say she is absolutely right on here.