Critical Thinking and Fishing; The population of Panama is 4.2 million people, according to the Population and Housing Census conducted in 2023. The government has announced a new extension date for the fuel subsidy. Maintenance work on the Centennial Bridge is set to begin in August; Conspiracy Theory.

Friday, July 14, 2023 During the last two weeks, we were entertaining a couple of good friends who came down to visit from Texas.  Scott, who\’s former Air Force Intel and his lovely wife Julie who is quite the giggly sort, both gave us a run for our money in diversion and entertainment.  Scott and I became close friends when he came down to work on a contract in Panama a few years ago.  Since then, I’ve been up to visit them as did my beautifully giggly better half as well!  What fascinates me most about this friendship we have isn’t what we have in common, as much as it is that which we don\’t have in common.  Although neither of us are extremist in our thoughts and opinions, we do have widely distinct ideas of how the world goes ´round.  But it’s refreshing to be mentally stimulated and that’s one hell of a great appeal to our debates and reviews.  I mean, what fun is there in just everyone agreeing about everything, right? One of our back n forths still has me thinking about the evolution of thought, and how during the course of tens of thousands of years, we’ve not only gotten smarter through more technology, but we’ve also lost quite a bit of those discoveries that got us to where we are today.  Scott is highly skilled in Critical Thinking.  Critical Thinking is essentially an organized method which guides you to reach deeper into analytic thought than you’d normally be able to reach.  It’s not about “what” you think, it’s about “how” you think and the hypothesis you’re able to develop through organized thought. So we dabbled in these thought methods and exercises over the last weekend which eventually took us to a series of conclusions about lost intellect.  First of all, we laughed about how so many people tend to lean towards “the aliens” when it comes to things we don’t understand.  \”The pyramids were impossible to build by mankind with the great intellect we have today, so our stupid ancestors probably had help by aliens to accomplish these amazing feats.”, is a thought process that is seemingly more common nowadays than it should be.  Why can’t we just accept that previous civilizations had discovered better methods in construction than we have today?  And why can’t we just accept that this “technology” has simply been lost due to natural disasters, extinctions, disease, invasions (not by aliens) or other massive disruptions?  There are millions of people who couldn\’t produce fire unless they had matches and fuel.  If we had another mass extinction, and you were left to your own wits, would you be able to recreate methods to harness solar energy?  How about nuclear fission, or something much more simple like hydroelectric power?  Probably not.  I could start a fire without a match, but I’m screwed when it comes to generating massive amounts of controlled energy. Oh, and we went fishing.  That was pretty great too.  Pedasi never fails to produce at least a couple dorado or tuna.  This time, after 2 hours of nothing, we started to pay more attention to the whales – one of them even seemed to wave at us, so we turned our boat towards him/her hoping to get a better look.  Not even 2 minutes after turning in the whale’s direction, it dove out of sight and at that very moment we got our first fish on!  That made us think too.  Was the whale intentionally signaling for us to head towards fish to help us out?  Was it aliens?  We may never know, but that day did get much better immediately after and we collectively brought in 8 fish into the boat, with both of my sons getting their first tunas EVER. TOP NEWS and TIDBITS: Yoli’s Wisdom THE POPULATION OF PANAMA IS 4.2 MILLION PEOPLE, ACCORDING TO THE POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS CONDUCTED IN 2023. Comptroller Gerardo Solis. The population of Panama is 4,202,572, as revealed by the population and housing census conducted in 2023. \”I am pleased with the arduous work of the Institute of Statistics and Census and each of the departments of the Comptroller\’s Office that made these censuses possible, in addition to the 8,848 enumerators and supervisors who carried out this census activity with positive results,\” said Gerardo Solís, the Comptroller General of the Republic, during a press conference. It was indicated that during the census exercise, the number of estimated households exceeded the figure provided by the cartography department by 1,492,690 private households. Meanwhile, the enumerators reached a total of 1,589,018 residences, which means an additional 96,328 households. In terms of education, it was determined that the school-age population from 6 to 11 years old is 423,036 students. The Comptroller\’s Office highlighted that this represents an additional 32,051 students compared to the 2010 census, which recorded a student population of 390,985. Furthermore, the estimated number of children and adolescents enrolled in the education system between 5 and 19 years old reached 918,336, compared to 836,109 in 2010, indicating an increase of 82,227 students since the previous census. The institution emphasized that the illiteracy rate \”decreased systematically.\” In 2023, it decreased from 5.5% to 3.7%. In concrete terms, the Comptroller\’s Office stated that in 2010, there were 148,747 individuals who could not read or write, while in 2023, the number decreased to 123,674. The census revealed that the insured population amounts to 1,911,824 individuals, representing an increase of 135,904 insured individuals compared to the 2010 census. Regarding self-identification, significant increases were observed compared to 2010. The indigenous groups showed a growth of 280,553 individuals who self-identified as indigenous, totaling 698,114 individuals. In 2010, the figure reached 417,559 individuals. In the case of Afro-descendants, there was an increase of 973,568 individuals compared to 2010, when the census recorded 313,289 individuals who self-identified as Afro-descendants. In 2023, the total reached 1,286,857 individuals. READ HERE: POBLACIÓN DE PANAMÁ ES DE 4.2 MILLONES DE PERSONAS, SEGÚN CENSO DE