Medary.com

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Seventeen

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

November 17 (Tuesday, Day 20, Richard’s Bay, South Africa) (continued) -

We continue the tour of the St. Lucia Nature Reserve outside Richard's Bay, South Africa:

Weaver birds

More after the jump . . .

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Sixteen

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

November 16 (Monday, Day 19, Crossing the Tropic of Capricorn) -

The ship started rocking and rolling around 3 AM but we slept until 7 AM. (Filbert woke up at some point to find out that the unranked SDSU women lost to #11 Arizona State by 9 points and that the #8 LadyVols beat #7 Baylor by 9.) We ate breakfast in Compass Rose since Snookums figured the ship would be rocking less on Deck 4 than on Deck 11 at La Veranda.

During the Captain’s noon announcement he said that the pilot for Richard’s Bay will board our ship tomorrow at 4 AM via helicopter (!) and that passengers can’t be on balconies or any open decks. What a party pooper. He also said that the temperature is going to be 59° when we dock and will be a high of 66° later in the day. That is radically different than the scorching heat we’ve had so far. It’s a good thing we brought jackets with us. The seas are currently at 2.5 meters and will get to 3 meters before calming down around midnight. (Regent makes only one ship-wide announcement per day and that’s at noon. Holland America makes at least two and sometimes three per day.)

There was supposed to be a special Asian lunch on the pool deck but it was moved inside. The staff vs. guests shuffleboard tournament was postponed until November 18. We ate lunch inside at La Veranda and then went back to our cabin and did internet work.

November 17 (Tuesday, Day 20, Richard’s Bay, South Africa) -

All part of a nutritious breakfast!

More after the jump . . .

M. Simon posted this at Classical Values:

The government is in essence a criminal organization.

It can murder - through wars and punishment for crime.
It can print money.
It can make you a slave through taxes. (taxation is theft)
It can make you a slave through imprisonment.
It can kidnap you. (politely called arrest)
It can demand ransoms. (fines)
It can steal your property. (confiscations)

Now don't get me wrong. Government has a certain utility. And we have laws and limits (in so far as possible). But ask yourself. Who do you trust with that kind of power? Who do you trust not to get corrupted by that kind of power?

I think it's instructive and informative to consider just exactly what kind of criminal organization governments actually are.

It's a protection racket, obviously. Government promises to protect you from bad guys, from harm, from whatever evil or harm it can discover, manufacture, or create in order to keep you in line and paying the protection money. So did Al Capone.

Consider government from this angle as you listen to debates on "health care reform," "protecting the environment," and "economic stimulus/recovery." Who is government saying that they'll protect? (Hint: they always say they'll help you. As in "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.")

Who are they actually protecting? (Hint: it's probably not you.)

Who will they get the money from to do that "protecting?" (Hint: it's probably you.)

And watch how they talk about putting the the hit (sometimes figuratively, sometimes not) out those who have the temerity to oppose their schemes.

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

The more complicated the whole, the more dependent we become on that division of knowledge between individuals whose separate efforts are co-ordinated by the impersonal mechanism for transmitting the relevant information known by us as the price system.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Fifteen

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

November 13 (Friday, Day 16, Zanzibar, Tanzania) (continued) -

Monkeys in trees. You could probably figure out that one on your own.

Our tour of the Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park continued through the monkey-infested jungle, before moving on to the mangrove swamp.

More after the jump . . .

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

And because all the details of the changes constantly affecting the conditions of demand and supply of the different commodities can never be fully known, or quickly enough be collected and dissemenated, by any one center, what is required is some apparatus of registration which records all of the relevant effects of individual actions and whose indications are at the same time the resultant of, and the guide for, all of the individual decisions. This is precisely what the price system does under competition, and what no other system even promises to accomplish.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Fourteen

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

November 13 (Friday, Day 16, Zanzibar, Tanzania) -

Zanzibar bus queue on the dock

Before meeting for our tour, we weighed ourselves and were pleasantly surprised to see that we were at our pre-cruise weights. Yippee!!! (Not using the elevators on the ship really does work!) We met for our tour at 8:45 AM and boarded our air-conditioned bus. We were going to Jozani Forest Reserve to see red colobus monkeys that can only be found in Zanzibar. The forest was about 22 miles away from the ship and the drive was on a nice asphalt road. Our guide said that the road was about 1 year old. Who knows what it was like prior to the asphalt?

More after the jump . . .

On November 28, 2007, I posted:

I don't think you could pay me enough money to watch what will likely be the most grotesque parody of serious political discussion since . . . well, since the CNN/YouTube Democratic Presidential Debate.

And no, I didn't debase myself by watching the Democratic one, either.

Upon further consideration, you probably could pay me enough money . . . but we're talking at least ten figures here.  And that still wouldn't make me LIKE it.

UPDATE:  Was I right, or was I right?

According to the industry magazine Advertising Age, I seem to have been right.

Again, I don't know that it's necessarily wrong to have opponents show up during these forums. But the problem for CNN is that it didn't do the same for the Democratic YouTube debate and it's just coming off a Las Vegas debate where it seemingly pushed a student to ask Hillary Clinton that ridiculous diamonds or pearls question (and included James Carville in the post-debate analysis). Like George W. Bush finding out which 30% of the country still supports them, then doing something to frustrate even those voters, CNN seems intent on finding its few remaining Republican voters and driving them into the arms of Fox News. (You just have to take a quick glance at Drudge to see how this is being played on the right.)

(Emphasis mine.  Hat tip Instapundit.)

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

The tendency toward monopoly and (central) planning is not the result of any "objective facts" beyond our control but the product of opinions fostered and propagated for half a century until they have come to dominate all our policy.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.