Wolves
Hunters are literally lining up for their wolf tags. While bad-state Wyoming won’t get a season, Idaho has set a quota of 220 tags, Montana 75, pretty timid limits. Such a small take from hunting might “educate” wolves regarding humans and livestock, but it won’t slow the eating down of game by wolves.
The big question is if federal Judge Donald W. Molloy will grant environmentalists yet another preliminary injunction stopping the 2009 hunt. His decision should settle any further debate over whether he’s really a judge, or just another black-robed ideologue.
Whitefish
Over considerable and increasing public opposition, Whitefish City Council jumped the gun on the streetscape test and voted to start turning dirt this fall. Anyone who has threaded the needle down Central with the new stripes and temporary curbs must cringe when considering winter, especially if the city does the same rotten job of snow control it did last year.
Much of the current council’s foolishness so far, such as the “doughnut” war, the Critical Areas Ordinance, mishandling BNSF’s fuel plume problem, the Safeway fiasco and the ice-cream mural, is reversible with the election of saner minds.
But concrete is forever. Perhaps the council incumbents know this, and intend to cement their “legacy.” They’ve already made their mark at the new parking lot, with those weird “bicycle racks” that look like relics from a prehistoric cult.
Bears
The National Park Service recently decided to shoot a troublesome grizzly sow near Oldman Lake. One of her two cubs died during capture, the other sentenced to a living death in the Bronx Zoo. Given that sows with cubs are doing their part to get grizzlies off the endangered species list, it was a triple shame.
But when cubs start running around bleating like there’s a daddy bear trying to kill them, momma bears go into kill mode, treating anything nearby and warm (like humans) like a bad daddy bear.
The parkies had already spent tons of taxpayer money giving Oldilocks “aversion therapy” with Karelian dogs and rubber bullets. It didn’t take. Momma was a time bomb, the bear equivalent of white trash, raising two little bomblets to boot. Let the usual suspects complain all they want, but shooting her was the right thing.
Health care
Histrionics about “death panels” aside, nobody should trust Congress’ ability to improve medical cost issues with yet another thousand-page whopper that nobody can explain. Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester should both be ashamed for hiding from questions about their party’s product, but Congressman Denny Rehberg shouldn’t be basking in the love, either.
I’ve thought more about health insurance, from an earlier age, than most. I had cancer as a teenager, covered by my Dad’s Air Force insurance. But it turned out that trying to buy my own insurance after college was a far bigger shock than the diagnosis.
Without exception, even after jacking the annual deductible up to $10,000, the premiums exceeded all my other living expenses. What scared me most, wasn’t covered.
I looked into trying to plow the premium money into a medical savings account or something, maybe get a tax break for trying to be responsible without getting robbed. But it wouldn’t pencil. I could only set aside a little bit, and still had to buy the high-deductible rip-off.
Wouldn’t it be smarter if the law encouraged Americans to salt away big bucks, and after saving enough, walk away from the insurance shysters (and their government enablers) completely? Doing so would help start the long march back from the “other people’s money is no object” situation created by Medicare, which is a fundamental reason why medical services are so outrageously expensive for everyone.
Well, Congress (and Mr. Rehberg) changed the medical-savings law with Medicare “reform” in 2003. But the requirement to buy the rip-off insurance stayed in, and the annual contribution limit was raised to only $3,000 per single or $5,900 per family.
One thing’s for sure. When my medical “luck” runs out, I won’t want any end-of-life counseling.