Tyler Vs Hennepin

 George Will wrote about this case, as did Somin in Powerline and Tottenburg at NPR.

If I understand Tyler owned a condo, she left for assisted living and apparently left the condo unoccupied. Years later the county took the condo for nonpayment of taxes, auctioned it off, and kept the proceeds.  It sounds like a case of injustice.

What the brief summary seems to miss is that Tyler not only didn't pay her taxes, she didn't pay her HOA dues nor her mortgage.  The Minnesota law says if the county takes the property for unpaid taxes, that action wipes out all mortgage and HOA fee debts.

To me it's hard to see how Tyler should get any money. If she'd declared bankruptcy, then the three creditors: county, mortgage holder, and HOA would presumably fight over the proceeds of the auction.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with invalidating the law. 

This is a tear-jerker case, which might lead to poor decisions.  we'll see.

Rural Broadband--in Vermont per Walt Jeffries

 Walt Jeffries at Sugar Mountain Farm has been a very quiet blogger for a good while, and it's been even longer since I blogged about him.  (I'm sure I did, but too lazy to check.) He and his family have pigs, plus other livestock, on a farm in Vermont. 

He ceased right after he had gotten the necessary inspections to butcher their hogs on the farm and sell the meat across state lines, as well as within Vermont.  Building the butcher shop had been a multi-year endeavor, chronicled in the blog. After that he may have had less material to use in the blog.  Don't know.  I also thought maybe his children might have had problems with his blogging as they grew to adulthood, which would explain his silence.

Anyhow, he's recently returned to blogging, at least a little. His latest post reports the approach of fiber optic cable to his farm. He might go with that way, as opposed to Musk's Starlink system.  He credits the USDA broadband effort.  That's interesting because he's basically a libertarian type, reluctantly dealing with the regulations needed to get his butcher shop and retail sales operation running.

Hugh Hefner and Ayn Rand

New Yorker piece on Hefner. My first memory of Playboy was my freshman year at college.  My roommate had arrived earlier, and had decorated his bookshelf with a recent centerfold.  As a naive rube from upstate NY it was both shocking and intriguing.  Not enough of either for me to ever subscribe to it, but it continued to be a presence in my mental world.

For some reason now I pair Hefner and Ayn Rand, both libertarians.  I was probably more influenced by Hefner than Rand, since his views seemed more mainline than hers.  I don't know if that's a common linkage; googling doesn't seem to bring up that many hits.  Her general influence seems to have persisted more than his, at least intellectually, though his impact on the culture was greater.

El Chapo's Escape Is Not a Crime

I was looking back to see when I first started blogging.  It was January 2005 and my first post linked to a Post article on an escape from Mexican prisons. According to the article, merely escaping from prison was not a crime in itself.

Liberrals in a Bind on Organic Checkoff?

Liberals, being mostly urban types, tend in my observation to have little sympathy for the various agricultural promotion programs.  And libertarians definitely think they're an encroachment on the freedom of the individual producer. 

So this line from todays Farm Policy'  may set up an interesting conflict:

"Mr. Lies also noted that, “Schrader said he also is working on an amendment with Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Wis., to establish a national checkoff program for organic producers.”

Why?  Because I think liberals are also more favorable to the organic movement.  Do they support a checkoff to promote organics or do they resist to promote freedom?

Paarlberg on Foodie and Libertarian Myths

Via Farm Policy, Robert Paarlberg has an article at Good Food.  A couple excerpts here:

Our federal farm programs are designed to supplement the income of farmers, not subsidize the production of food. Most federal farm support programs either give cash to farmers whether they grow more crops or not, or boost farm income by raising crop prices through import restrictions, market controls, or temporary land set-asides, all of which make food artificially expensive, not artificially cheap.

One USDA study in 2008 found that over the previous 25 years the price of un-subsidized fruits and vegetables—controlling for season and quality—had fallen at almost exactly the same rate as the price of chocolate chip cookies, cola, ice cream, and potato chips. So that other popular claim—Americans are obese because unsubsidized healthy foods have become more expensive—is also bogus. 

Snow and Ethics

We live in a townhouse cul-de-sac that's Y-shaped, about 30 or so houses on each arm of the "Y".  The Reston area has just gotten about 20 inches of snow, which offers an object lesson in the ethics of libertarian rugged independence.

Generally I'd say we're rugged independents here.  Each of us operates on his or her own time schedule and concepts.  Some get out before the snow has stopped, others will appear in a couple days. Some people shovel their way to the common sidewalk (on cluster property), and stop.  Some don't shovel.  Others shovel some part of the common sidewalk.

Once we get to the parking area, we're still independent.  The cluster pays for the area to be plowed (heavy 4-wheel drive pickup with front blade).  Usually that works okay.  But today, one person got his 4-wheel drive SUV backed out of his space (ignoring the advice to stay home and off the roads), and then got stuck.  Fortunately it wasn't at the entrance to the cul-de-sac, but it was at the base of one branch of the "Y", meaning that side didn't get plowed.  The late word is that the 4 wheel drive has gone out on two of the trucks of the contractor, so that side may never get plowed.

Even where the plow went, it couldn't do all that much.  For most cars, there's 5 feet between the back of the car and the plowed area, at least on the side that got plowed.  (Unfortunately because of the configuration I've got about 15 feet behind my car.)  So each of us is faced with the job of shoveling snow off the top of the car, from the sides of the car, and from the back of the car to have a chance to get to the plowed lane and then stuck. Now comes the test.  The best tactic which serves everyone's interest is to carry each shovelful of snow to the front of the car and dump it the other side of the sidewalk from the car.  The best tactic for each person is to get out early and dump the shovels of snow on his neighbor's car, or behind his neighbor's car in the plowed lane.  You may be hindering the people who live on the part of the cul-de-sac further from the street from getting out, but it saves you work.

Libertarians Surprise One.

From Volokh conspiracy

"And the poor and politically weak are the most important potential beneficiaries of libertarian public interest efforts in the fields of economic liberties and property rights, among others. The wealthy and powerful can usually defend their property rights and other economic interests in the political process and therefore have much less need for judicial protection."

Libertarian Meets Reality

Ilya Somin, one of the libertarian-leaning types at Volokh.com, had surgery and blogs
about the advantages of an extended family (someone can stay with you to help you over the first days of recuperation). As a friend told him, they're good insurance against risk.

Of course, if he were a good libertarian he'd go to the market for home health aides.

(Since my wife had her foot put in a cast on Wed, I feel a link.)