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DEA Still Erroneously Citing the AMA on Medical Marijuana
On Tuesday I noted that the Drug Enforcement Administration, apparently in response to an emailing campaign organized by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), had removed from one of its webpages the claim that "the American Medical Association recommends that marijuana remain a Schedule I controlled substance." That statement is no longer correct, since the AMA last week approved a resolution saying marijuana's Schedule I status, which makes it unavailable for medical use under federal law, should be re-examined. But LEAP points out that another DEA webpage still says the AMA "has urged that marijuana remain a prohibited, Schedule I drug." Go here to bug the DEA about continuing to misinform the public on this subject.
New at Reason: Noah Berlatsky on Twilight: New Moon
New Moon, the latest installment in
the wildly successful Twilight series, opens in movie
theaters today. And as Noah Berlatsy writes, it's about much more
than just vampires and werewolves.
Sci Fi Sausage, Beaker Bacon, Vat-Grown Veal, and Test Tube Tuna
Some musings on the
glorious future of lab-grown meat, from the glorious
future-oriented mag, H+:
In-Vitro Meat will be fashioned from any creature, not just domestics that were affordable to farm. Yes, ANY ANIMAL, even rare beasts like snow leopard, or Komodo Dragon. We will want to taste them all. Some researchers believe we will also be able to create IVM using the DNA of extinct beasts—obviously, "DinoBurgers" will be served at every six-year-old boy's birthday party.
Humans are animals, so every hipster will try Cannibalism. Perhaps we'll just eat people we don't like, as author Iain M. Banks predicted in his short story, "The State of the Art" with diners feasting on "Stewed Idi Amin." But I imagine passionate lovers literally eating each other, growing sausages from their co-mingled tissues overnight in tabletop appliances similar to bread-making machines.
The rest of the piece is great, liming the economic turmoil to come in meat-based economies like Argentina and New Zealand, the ultra-urbanization of a non-agricultural America, the insertion of good fish fat in fat steaks, and the acceleration of the expanding circle of humanity.
But here's one place where H+ gets it wrong:
My final prediction is this: In-Vitro Meat relishes success first in Europe, partly because its "greener," but mostly they already eat "yucky" delicacies like snails, smoked eel, blood pudding, pig's head cheese, and haggis (sheep's stomach stuffed with oatmeal). In the USA, IVM will initially invade the market in Spam cans and Hot Dogs, shapes that salivating shoppers are sold on as mysterious & artificial, but edible & absolutely American.
My prediction: Beaker bacon will be seen in Europe as having far more in common with genetically-modified corn than delicious invertebrates. Powerful entrenched dairy and meat interests, plus the other farmers who support their industry (remember those milky protests just a few weeks ago?) will play on the European aversion to food biotech to achieve their own protectionist ends. And they are quite likely to be successful, in the short and mid-term at least.
Farmers are powerful here in America as well, of course, and cultured chicken won't make it onto the menu without a fight. Using Spam as the thin end of the wedge—forgive the mixed meat metaphor—will allow an easier transition here, but will slow the adoption of laboratory lamb on the other side of the Atlantic even more.
New at Reason: Shikha Dalmia on the Health Care Mandate
With unemployment reaching double digits
and public approval ratings sinking, ObamaCare has very little
going for it at the moment. So how come Barack Obama, Nancy
Pelosi, and Harry Reid have been able to march forward with their
grand designs undeterred? One reason, writes Shikha Dalmia, is
that Republicans have done precious little to seize the moral
high ground from them. By insisting on the removal of the public
option—instead of the individual mandate—as the price of doing
business, Republicans have missed a major opportunity to put
Democrats on the defensive and change the terms of the debate.
Literary Corner (Genre-Crossed Edition)
• Henry Jenkins explores the art that falls between genres.
• Paul McAuley ponders two hidden histories of science fiction, one that highlights sf's intersection with respectable literature and one that plunges deep into the trash.
• The best alternate history story I've read this year. It is also one of the best pieces of rock writing I've read this year. It also contains Muppets.
New at Reason: Radley Balko on How to Get Ahead in Law
From our December issue, Senior Editor
Radley Balko wonders how the prosecutor who convicted an innocent
man on dubious child molestation charges could go on to become a
state superior court judge.
The Only American Male With Less Athletic Skill Than I Have Shows He Can Catch a Ball
If you ever get that feeling that you have already died and everything around you is some bizarre virtual afterlife designed to make you figure out that you're no longer on Earth, well, this video will clinch it for you:
Related: Does free agency help the terrorists? Iraqi detainees taunt Wisconsin National Guard troops with references to Brett Favre's defection from the Packers.
Isn't It Awfully Nice For the Fed to Have a Penis?
An audit of the Federal
Reserve Bank would "substantially castrate the Fed so it cannot
do what it was set up to do," Rep. Melvin Watt (D., N.C.) said
yesterday, in an effort to tamp down a congressional uprising
against the Bush/Obama economic team.
This devastating exchange Thursday between Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas); along with weeks of close attention to the mismanagement of federal stimulus funds; Rep. Ron Paul's long-lived Fed Audit bill; and last but not least, continuing horrible news on every indicator Geithner cited to Brady (and a few he didn't); have together started a fire that is threatening President Obama's economic brain trust.
The Wall Street Journal gives some color:
At the Joint Economic Committee, a couple of House Republicans called for the resignation of Mr. Geithner, who, as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, played a major role in last fall's moves to prevent the collapse of the financial system. "The public has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job," said Rep. Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas.
Mr. Geithner, in an unusual public display of pique, fired back. "What I can't take responsibility is for the legacy of crises you've bequeathed this country," he told Mr. Brady.
Although several Democrats defended Mr. Geithner at the hearing, some liberal Democrats have been complaining that the Obama administration isn't doing enough to combat unemployment....
"Quite frankly, all the gambling on Wall Street is doing nothing to put people back to work in America and rebuild our economy," said [Rep. Peter DeFazio (D., Ore.), who earlier this week urged Geithner to resign].
One issue that has dogged Mr. Geithner is the rescue of American International Group Inc. last fall.... Mr. Geithner said Thursday that the government lacked powers it needed to handle the collapse of a financial company that wasn't legally organized as a bank. "Coming into AIG we had, basically, duct tape and string," he said...
Mr. Geithner's job status doesn't appear to be in jeopardy and several Democrats leapt to his defense.
I'm not so sure about that last bit. In his congressional hissy fit, Geithner gave the game away: He can't lay this on President Bush because, as Brady pointed out, when Bush presided over the $14 trillion inflation of assets that got us where we are today, Geithner was working the pumps with more eagerness than most .
As I noted the other day, Geithner's actions as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will probably not be deemed sufficient to fire him from his current job. But it is false and stunningly uncouth for Geithner to blame the previous administration for his manifest failure as head of the Treasury.
Geithner v. Brady, on television:
As for Melvin Watt's husbandry metaphor, you may want to unpack the image a little bit. (If you need to be alone, I'm totally cool with that.) When you castrate an animal, you do so to keep it from breeding (or to groom it for soprano roles in Grande Opera). So exactly what action is the Fed performing for the U.S. economy that requires intact male genitals?
In Hollywood, "Show Me Some Skin" and "Show Me the Money" Aren't the Same Thing
You might think that movies
featuring bare-breasted starlets are more likely to blow up at
the box office. But as Tom Jacobs notes in Miller-McCune, that
perception suggests you might not be "keeping abreast* of the
latest research."
Analyses of 914 films released between 2001 and 2005 indicated that sex and nudity do not, on the average, boost box office performance, earn critical acclaim or win major awards," reports a new study titled "Sex Doesn't Sell — Nor Impress." According to the researchers, sex and nudity were negatively correlated with a film's net profits from domestic distribution and had no positive impact on a picture's popularity or prestige according to a wide variety of measures.
"I have yet to see a way of crunching the numbers where sex/nudity has a positive relationship with box office, even controlling for MPAA rating or budget," reports co-author Anemone Cerridwen, an independent scholar based in Vancouver, British Columbia. "'Sex sells' is a myth, at least for this database."
Hollywood's Foreign Press Association, however, does seem more taken with the carnal:
"In the case of movie awards," they add, "sex/nudity does have a small positive correlation with the Golden Globes, an appreciation not shared with the Oscars."
Obviously, a tally like this
doesn't include pornography; I also wonder if the lack of
box-office boost from nudity is a recent phenomenon. As a movie
geek, my impression has always been that bare breasts were a
bigger selling point in the 1980s (especially in the genre
market). And these days, with the advent of comprehensive
celebrity nudity sites like Mr. Skin (obviously not safe for work!),
which indexes starlet flesh, I suspect big-screen nudity is less
of a draw.
On the other hand, if it's high-profile enough, celebrity nudity still draws traffic on the web: When Lindsay Lohan bared all (tastefully, of course) for New York magazine last year, web traffic instantly shot up 2,000 percent.
*Ha-ha! Abreast!
Thanks For Your Massive, Generous, and Unprecedented Support of the 2009 Reason Webathon!
On behalf of everyone at Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website, Reason.tv, and Reason magazine, I want to thank you for generous support of our work. The webathon officially ends at midnight tonight, but as you can from our torch graphic in the upper-right-hand corner, you've polished off the arm and all but the tip of the fire up there too!
So far, over 600 of you in countries as far away as Australia and Japan kicked in more than $56,000 to keep our journalism, public policy research, and video productions running at top speed.
So again, thanks very much. We can't do it without you and we won't let you down as your voice in the public debate for "Free Minds and Free Markets." 2010 promises to be a hugely important year for politics and it's good to know that supporters like you have got our backs.
Once again, the Al Sharpton donation video:
East Anglia University Climate Research Unit Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research Hacked -- Scandal Brewing?
The
blogosphere is hopping with reports that the British Climate
Research Unit's computers have been
hacked and possibly embarrassing internal emails and other
documents are now circulating on the web. Earlier this year, the
CRU, which teams up with the Hadley Centre to produce one of the
most cited global temperature datasets*,
rejected accusations that it had destroyed original
temperature data making it difficult for outside scientists to
evaluate their adjustments to the datasets.
Before jumping to conclusions, remember that many of us write private emails that we might not want to see publicly distributed. Will follow up as details become available.
Mucho kudos to threadjacker PicassoIII.
*corrected. The CRU computers have been hacked, not those of the Hadley Centre as originally misreported.
British Nanny State Bans the Word Orwellian
Okay, so the word hasn't been banned. It's just been rendered useless.
Health and safety inspectors are to be given unprecedented access to family homes to ensure that parents are protecting their children from household accidents.
New guidance drawn up at the request of the Department of Health urges councils and other public sector bodies to “collect data” on properties where children are thought to be at “greatest risk of unintentional injury”.
Council staff will then be tasked with overseeing the installation of safety devices in homes, including smoke alarms, stair gates, hot water temperature restrictors, oven guards and window and door locks...
Nice also recommends the creation of a new government database to allow GPs, midwives and other officials who visit homes to log health and safety concerns they spot.
The guidance aims to “encourage all practitioners who visit families and carers with children and young people aged under 15 to provide home safety advice and, where necessary, conduct a home risk assessment”. It continues: “If possible, they should supply and install home safety equipment.”
The proposals have been put out to consultation and, if approved, will be implemented next year.
New at Reason: Anthony Randazzo on Chris Dodd's Plan for Overhauling Wall Street
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris
Dodd released his plan for overhauling Wall Street regulations
last week. Among its components is a proposed new organization,
the Agency for Financial Stability, which would have the power to
break-up those companies considered too big to fail. In other
words, writes Reason Foundation Policy Analyst Anthony Randazzo,
the agency would enjoy unprecedented power over the private
sector.
Is Health Care Reform Really Deficit Neutral?
Not if you include the cost
of the "doc fix"—the permanent change
to Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors—that the House yanked
out of their reform package so that its bad fiscal news wouldn't
show up in their allegedly deficit neutral health care bill.
Here's the CBO,
responding to a request from Congressman Paul Ryan, on what
happens when you look at the total effects of both the doc fix
and the reform bill in the House:
CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 3961 [the "doc fix"], by itself, would cost $210 billion over the 2010–2019 period. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation have separately estimated that enacting H.R. 3962 [the health care bill] would reduce federal budget deficits by $109 billion over that same period.
CBO estimates that enacting both bills would add $89 billion to budget deficits over the 2010–2019 period, somewhat less than the sum of the effects of enacting the bills separately because of interactions between their provisions. The agency estimates that the two bills together would increase the budget deficit in 2019 by $23 billion relative to current law, an increment that would grow in subsequent years.
Now, those numbers are reasonably small in comparison to the overall bill. But it's that last phrase—"an increment that would grow in subsequent years"—that is what's most important here. Not only would passing these two bills in combination (as House Democrats originally intended when they included them in a single bill) raise the deficit, it would produce lasting, expanding effects. The total result of reforms to our health care system, by the CBO's estimation, not only wouldn't be deficit neutral, but would actually create a new, long-term problem that's expected to get bigger over time.
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