Should Meier's Suicide be Allowed as Evidence in Lori Drew's Myspace Case?

Posted on November 9, 2008, 5:04pm | Mike Riggs

On Wednesday, Lori Drew, the Missouri woman whose "cyber-bullying" led to the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier, learned that her motion for a bench trial was denied, and that despite her wishes to the contrary, she'll face a jury when her trial starts on Nov. 18.  It's hard to imagine Drew suffering less under a jury, but as the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog noted when Drew initially motioned for a bench trial, the judge didn't know enough about Myspace to have a sound opinion either way:

[U.S. District Court Judge George Wu] is still confused on a few points, according to [Drew attorney Dean Steward], with whom we spoke yesterday. “My sense,” Steward told the Law Blog, “is that Judge Wu still wants to hear some actual testimony regarding the MySpace terms of service and the way MySpace works. Much of the discussion at the hearing focused on whether you have to agree to the terms of service if you’re simply visiting the site [but aren’t a member]. My sense is that the judge wants someone on the witness stand that can tell him exactly how the technology works.”

Drew's lawyers are now asking the court to exclude Meier's death as evidence, but as Jacob Sullum pointed out in May, conspiracy is one of the charges U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien brought against Drew, which means Meier is fair game. My guess is that the jury will hang Drew out to dry if Meier's death can be submitted as evidence, despite the fact that O'Brien used a bastardized interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to charge Drew in the first place (and only after prosecutors in Missouri declined to charge Drew, arguing that she didn't break any laws). Drew's legal team has argued that Meier's death has nothing to do with the charges brought against Drew:

The defense has asked the judge to exclude mention of the death because the charges — that Drew violated a federal anti-hacking law by misrepresenting herself on the California-based MySpace site — do not involve Meier's death. The defense says use of it would be prejudicial and play to jurors' emotions.

I'll post an update as soon as Judge Wu decides whether the prosecution can tell the jury about Meier's suicide. In the meantime, read reason's coverage of the case here, here, and here.

Kiwi Conservatism

Posted on November 8, 2008, 2:39pm | Jesse Walker

At least one country is responding to the financial crisis by moving to the right, not the left. New Zealand voters have just ousted the longstanding Labor regime and elected a government led by the conservative National Party; the free-market ACT party will be part of the governing coalition. Which is not to say the new administration will always pursue pro-market policies. The London Times reports that Prime Minister-elect John Key, a wealthy former currency trader, is "expected to implement tax cuts and extra spending." A Bushian/Keynesian combination.

I was tickled at how the Times explained the concept of "New Zealand" to its readers:

John Key’s conservative National Party easily won power in New Zelaland, known internationally for its pristine environment and as the backdrop to the “Lord of the Rings" movies.

"A satisfying slap in the face to racism and parochialism"

Posted on November 7, 2008, 5:47pm | Damon W. Root

Left-libertarian Roderick Long offers some good reasons why he's "more pleased than not" with Tuesday's election results:

Sure, Obama is a corporate liberal whose policies are not really any less fascistic or imperialistic than McCain's, but a) he at least seems less trigger-happy than McCain; b) culturally, his election is a satisfying slap in the face to racism and parochialism (it's great to see a black person at last in the nation's highest-profile and most influential job—I just wish the nation's highest-profile and most influential job weren't the goddamn presidency)...

More here. Gene Healy on how the goddamn president became so influential here.

Who Shall They Give my Money to Next!

Posted on November 7, 2008, 5:39pm | Matt Welch

In addition to the horror-show of government giveaways listed below, it now appears as though America's crappy car companies will be seeking another $50 billion from the money factory formerly known as the United States Treasury. And if President-Elect Obama's first press conference is any indication, there'll be more green where that came from come January:

The news coming out of the auto industry this week reminds us of the hardship it faces, hardship that goes far beyond individual auto companies to the countless suppliers, small businesses and communities throughout our nation who depend on a vibrant American auto industry.

The auto industry is the backbone of American manufacturing and a critical part of our attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

I would like to see the administration do everything it can to accelerate the retooling assistance that Congress has already enacted.

In addition, I have made it a high priority for my transition team to work on additional policy options to help the auto industry adjust, weather the financial crisis, and succeed in producing fuel-efficient cars here in the United States of America.

And I was glad to be joined today by (Michigan) Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who obviously has great knowledge and great interest on this issue.

I've asked my team to explore what we can do under current law and whether additional legislation will be needed for this purpose.

Friday Unfun Links: Bailout Balance Sheet

Posted on November 7, 2008, 5:05pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

It's starting to feel like one of those epic nights at the bar in Washington, DC. You know, the evenings where you know you're running up a tab much bigger than you intended, but the bartender has your card, and it's just so easy to order one more round for the gang.

For those too sozzled or bozwozzled to track what we're spending on on bailouts these days, here's a quick tally:

$29 billion for Bear Stearns

$143.8 billion for AIG (thus far, it keeps growing)

$100 billion for Fannie Mae

$100 billion for Freddie Mac

$700 billion for Wall Street, including Bank of America (Merrill Lynch), Citigroup, JP Morgan (WaMu), Wells Fargo (Wachovia), Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and a lot more

$25 billion for The Big Three in Detroit

$8 billion for IndyMac

$150 billion stimulus package (from January)

$50 billion for money market funds

$138 billion for Lehman Bros. (post bankruptcy) through JP Morgan

$620 billion for general currency swaps from the Fed

Rough total: $2,063,800,000,000

That's a little over $6,800 for every man, woman, and child, or just under $15,000 for each of America's 140 million taxpayers.

Thanks (but no thanks) to Reason Foundation's Anthony Randazzo for these horrifying numbers, who also says "Oh, and keep in mind that this doesn’t include the hundreds of billions the Fed has and will buy up in commercial paper and lend out to other financial firms."

"Today there is a categorical difference between what Republicans stand for and the principles of individual freedom"

Posted on November 7, 2008, 3:46pm | Matt Welch

So sayeth Dick Armey, former Gingrich revolutionary and House majority leader from 1995-02. Armey, who now heads up Freedom Works, has uncharitable things to say about the last eight years of Republicanism:

Too often the policy agenda was determined by short-sighted political considerations and an abiding fear that the public simply would not understand limited government and expanded individual freedoms. How else do we explain "compassionate conservatism," No Child Left Behind, the Medicare drug benefit and the most dramatic growth in federal spending since LBJ's Great Society? [...]

The response by Mr. McCain to the financial crisis on Wall Street was the defining moment of the campaign. In what looked like a tailor-made opportunity to "clean up Washington," the Republican nominee could have challenged the increasingly politicized nature of Federal Reserve policies, and the inherently corrupt relationships between Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and various Democratic committee chairmen. Instead, his reaction was visceral and insecure: He "suspended" his campaign and promised "to put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption, and unbridled greed that have caused a crisis on Wall Street." [...]

Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006 because voters no longer saw Republicans as the party of limited government. They have since rejected virtually every opportunity to recapture this identity. But their failure to do so must not be misconstrued as a rejection of principles of individual liberty by the American people. The evidence suggests we are still a nation of pocketbook conservatives most happy when government has enough respect to leave us alone and to mind its own business. The worrisome question is whether either political party understands this.

I don't know if Armey is right about the political calculus of it all, but I do know that if Republicans react to Tuesday's drubbing by embracing less individual freedom in the form enhanced cultural conservatism, they are flirting with the possibility of going extinct. Ask newspapers, for one, how that whole, don't-attract-customers-under-30 thing has worked out for them.

Some Dick Armey hits from the reason archives: Before the 2006 elections he explained why Republicans deserved to lose. A few weeks before that, he kicked social cons square in the be-hind. In 1997, he was interviewed by contributing editor Caroyln Lochhead. And earlier this year he was on reason tv, talking about immigration:

New at Reason: Katherine Mangu-Ward on the Battle Over Arkansas' Interior Design Cartel

Posted on November 7, 2008, 3:00pm

Rep. Dan Greenberg and his small band of libertarians are taking on a vast state bureaucracy in Arkansas. But can he and his ideological partners in crime defeat the entrenched interests on the Interior Design Board?

Read all about it here.

About Those Five Million "Green Collar" Jobs...

Posted on November 7, 2008, 2:27pm | Ronald Bailey

...is a made up number that is meant to "inspire," according to its promulgators. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

The Apollo Alliance, a San Francisco coalition of environmental and labor groups, ... released a study in September. It concluded that five million green jobs could be had with an investment of $500 billion -- more than three times Mr. Obama's number [ of $150 billion].

Kate Gordon, co-director of the Apollo Alliance, says the numbers are less important than the message. "Honestly," she says, "it's just to inspire people."

Earlier this week, my colleague Jacob Sullum pointed out in his superb column "Green Herring": 

...both the Apollo Alliance and Obama, who has liberally borrowed from its ideas, mistakenly treat the manpower required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a measure of success, when it should be viewed as a cost to be minimized.

Whole WSJ article here. Sullum's column can be found here. 

The Bioethics Vote

Posted on November 7, 2008, 2:08pm | Ronald Bailey

Uber-bioethicist, Arthur Caplan has an insightful column about how voters thoroughly repudiated bioconservativism in this election: 

The state of Michigan passed Proposal 2, loosening restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. This means that in Michigan — whose universities such as Michigan State in East Lansing are major biomedical research powerhouses — scientists will be able to use the excess embryos created at in-vitro fertility clinics as a source of stem cells for research, as long as they have the written consent of the parents who sought treatment...

One of the main arguments against embryonic stem cell research is that all embryos are persons from the moment of conception. The voters of Colorado were given the chance to put that view into law with the proposed Amendment 48. The so-called “Personhood Amendment” sought to define fertilized eggs as human beings, extending them constitutional rights. Coloradoans defeated this amendment by a margin of three to one...

In South Dakota a measure that would have banned abortions — except in cases of rape, incest and serious health threat to the mother — also lost. An even tougher version, without the rape and incest exceptions, was defeated two years ago. The 2008 initiative went down to a resounding defeat of 55 percent to 45 percent...

And even medical marijuana:

Michigan became the 13th state to enact an amendment legalizing marijuana use for medical purposes. Proposal 1 passed by a margin of 63 percent to 37 percent. It allows patients with “debilitating medical conditions” to register with the state and, with the permission of a physician, legally buy, grow and use small amounts of marijuana to relieve pain, nausea and appetite loss, among other symptoms. Massachusetts decriminalized possession of one ounce or less of marijuana, shifting the penalty to a $100 fine. 

Whole Caplan column is well worth reading here. 

Ryan Sager Will Have His Revenge on Salt Lake City

Posted on November 7, 2008, 1:50pm | David Weigel

It used to be Utah that reported back the biggest Republican landslide every year. Bill Clinton actually came in third there in 1992, behind Ross Perot. But as of this week, Oklahoma is now the most Republican state at the presidential level. The Mountain West has moved toward the Democrats. And it wasn't just Hispanic-heavy states such as Nevada and Colorado. Check out the four most reliably Republican western states, which went for McCain.

Idaho: Bush won 68-30 in the popular vote and all but one county. McCain won 62-36 in the popular vote and all but three counties. Most populous county: Ada (Boise), which went 61-38 for Bush but only 51-48 for McCain. Also, Democrats gained the first House district, the western Idaho sprawl that contains Coeur d'Alene and the Boise suburbs.

Montana: Bush won 59-39 in the popular vote and 50 of 56 counties. McCain won 50-47 in the popular vote and 44 of 56 counties. Most populous county: Yellowstone (Billings), which went 62-36 for Bush and 52-46 for McCain.

Wyoming: Bush won 69-29 in the popular vote and 22 of 23 counties. McCain won 65-33 in the popular vote and 21 of 23 counties. Most populous county: Laramie (Cheyenne), which went 65-33 for Bush and 59-39 for McCain.

Utah: Bush won 72-26 in the popular vote and swept all 29 counties. McCain won 63-34 in the popular vote and 27 of 29 counties. Most populous county: Salt Lake (Salt Lake City), which went 60-38 for Bush but only 49-48 for McCain. (If Ralph Nader voters had broken for Obama, he would have become the first Democrat to take this county since LBJ.)

Again, this wasn't about Hispanic votes. In 2004, John Kerry carried 24 percent of the white vote in Utah. This year Obama carried 31 percent. So what happened?

Voter Suppression in Virginia's 5th Congressional District

Posted on November 7, 2008, 12:39pm | Ronald Bailey

I keed! I keed! The Virginia 5th Congressional District race between Republican Virgil Goode and Democrat Tom Perriello is one of the tightest in the country.

Bleeding heart Perriello is now leading nativist crank Goode by around 600 votes. What's interesting is that some votes were temporarily "lost." As one of the local TV stations reports:

The numbers are changing in the Fifth District congressional race thanks in part to new results from Charlottesville.

The city's voter registrar says two precincts did not report complete results on election night. The oversight at both Carver Recreation and Jefferson Park Avenue skipped almost 600 votes in the tight race between Tom Perriello and Virgil Goode.

"The chief election officer did not generate a tally tape on the e-scan machine. So when they reported the numbers back to the registrar's office, they only read the numbers from the e-slate machine," explained Charlottesville Electoral Board's Rick Sincere. 

The additional votes have been reported to the state board of elections. We're told a majority of them were for Perriello.

I am particularly interested in this story because I happen to vote in the Carver precinct in Charlottesville, so one of the votes that may have gone astray was mine. Finding these misplaced votes in the People's Republic of Charlottesville has to be bad news for Goode.

Disclosure: Consistent with my stand that the Republicans have been very bad dogs and need to be rapped over their noses with a rolled up newspaper, I voted for Perriello. Besides I generally prefer bleeding hearts to nativist cranks.

All Mod Cons

Posted on November 7, 2008, 12:21pm | David Weigel

The American Spectator's Philip Klein reports from a meeting of the conservative movement's old Reaganite hands in Virginia.

There's a strong feeling, [Spectator Editor R. Emmet] Tyrrell said, that social conservatives, free market conservatives, and national security conservatives will all be able to work together.

He also said that "there's a sense that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are freer of wobbly-kneed Republicans than they were before the election."

[Spectator Publisher Al] Regnery said, "The consensus was that this was not a mandate for Democrats, that this country is still center-right. The overriding fear was that the Republican Party does not represent conservatives," and there was a desire to get behind genuinely conservative candidates.

Isn't it striking how the two parties react to defeat? In 2004, Democrats agonized about how the loss of "values voters" was a problem they'd have to overcome, that they needed a new Southern governor to win, because that's the only way they'd won since the 1970s. Late in the year Democratic leaders tried to anoint pro-life former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer as DNC chair on the harebrained theory that this would satisfy Republican voters somehow.

Party leaders say their support for preserving the landmark ruling will not change. But they are looking at ways to soften the hard line, such as promoting adoption and embracing parental notification requirements for minors and bans on late-term abortions. Their thinking reflects a sense among strategists that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and the party’s congressional candidates lost votes because the GOP conveyed a more compelling message on social issues.

Democrats spent much of the next two years in that box. Phil Bredesen, the conservative Democratic governor of Tennessee who has all the charisma of Stephen Wright at 4 a.m., was looked at as a prospective president because he cut spending and was, uh, from the South.

Flash forward to today, and the Democrats have elected a black senator who was raised in Hawai'i and Indonesia and who was accused by his opponent of being a socialist who befriended terrorists and voted for infanticide. So you can see why conservatives are skipping the "how do we change?" part and going right to hoping that Obama screws up. But this part of Klein's report doesn't make sense to me.

Although polls show that "conservative" is a more popular word than "Republican," it turns out that "Democrat" is a more popular description than "liberal," and the sentiment was that tougher language needed to be used to define Barack Obama and other Democrats as liberals.

Tougher? How about "socialist?" Oh, wait.

Language used to work for Republicans. Indeed, one of the more mockable exercises that Democrats tried from December 2004 to November 2006 was "reframing" their policies, because they were so in awe of how Republicans had popularized terms like "death tax" and made "liberal" a curse word.

Not So Junky DNA and Beware the Genome SPace INvaders

Posted on November 7, 2008, 12:04pm | Ronald Bailey

Decoding the human genome found that only about 10 percent of the 3 billion or so base pairs of the DNA in the human genome consists of genes that code for proteins. The remaining 90 percent didn't have any obvious function, so researchers called it "junk DNA."

A new report in Genome Research by researchers at the Genome Institute Singapore find that it's not so "junky" after all:

Using the latest sequencing technologies, GIS researchers showed that many transcription factors, the master proteins that control the expression of other genes, bind specific repeat elements. The researchers showed that from 18 to 33% of the binding sites of five key transcription factors with important roles in cancer and stem cell biology are embedded in distinctive repeat families.

Over evolutionary time, these repeats were dispersed within different species, creating new regulatory sites throughout these genomes. Thus, the set of genes controlled by these transcription factors is likely to significantly differ from species to species and may be a major driver for evolution.

This research also shows that these repeats are anything but "junk DNA," since they provide a great source of evolutionary variability and might hold the key to some of the important physical differences that distinguish humans from all other species.

In other words, these apparently long boring stretches of repeat DNA base pairs are central to determining which genes turn on when and by how much. In addition, some of these DNA repeats jump around inside genomes changing the expression of genes and the course of a species' evolution.

University of California, San Francisco neurologist Raymond White speulates:

"This hypothesis for formation of new species through episodic distributions of families of gene regulatory DNA sequences is a powerful one that will now guide a wealth of experiments to determine the functional relationships of these regulatory DNA sequences to the genes that are near their landing sites. I anticipate that as our knowledge of these events grows, we will begin to understand much more how and why the rat differs so dramatically from the monkey, even though they share essentially the same complement of genes and proteins."

Even more amazingly, biologist Cedric Feschotte and his colleagues at the University of Texas in Arlington have found that some DNA repeats have actually jumped between mammalian and other tetrapod species including African clawed frogs, anole lizards, South American opposums, brown bats, mice and rats. This kind of horizontal interspecies DNA exchange happens among single-celled organisms all the time, but biologists find it very surprising that it can happen between large multicellular species. The repeat sequences have been dubbed "SPace INvaders" or SPIN transposons and may have been carried into these animal genomes by a virus 45 to 15 million years ago.

And this SPace INvasion may have been responsible for a mass mammalian extinction. According to The New Scientist: 

The team thinks that the hAT transposon invasion occurred about 30 million years ago and spread across at least two continents. "It's like a pandemic, and one that can infect species that weren't genetically or geographically close. It's puzzling, scary almost," Feschotte says.

It may not be a coincidence that the time of the invasion coincides with a period in evolutionary history that saw mass mammal extinctions. This is usually attributed to climate change, Feschotte says, but it is not crazy to suppose that this type of invasion could contribute to species extinction.

The hAT transposon does not occur in humans, but some 45% of our genome is of transposon origin.

Feschotte's work on the hAT transposon is the first time that a "jumping gene" has been shown to have entered mammalian genomes, and the first time it has been shown to do so in at around the same time, in a range of unrelated species, in different parts of the world.

Feschotte admits that we cannot rule out another transposon offensive occurring in mammals....

Whole press release on junk DNA's new usefulness here. New Scientist report on SPIN here. 

New at Reason: Dave Weigel on the Libertarian Party and the 2008 Election

Posted on November 7, 2008, 12:00pm

In his final report from Atlanta, Associate Editor David Weigel analyzes the results after watching the election returns with LP presidential candidate Bob Barr.

Read all about it here. 

Spitzer Won't Pay for Illicit Sex (Again, I Mean)

Posted on November 7, 2008, 11:49am | Jacob Sullum

Yesterday U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia announced that former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer will not face federal charges for paying women to have sex with him. "Prosecutors found no evidence that Mr. Spitzer had used public money or campaign funds to pay for his encounters with prostitutes," The New York Times reports, and evidently they decided that money laundering charges were not justified based on Spitzer's attempts to disguise payments to the Emperor's Club VIP, the call girl service he patronized. "On multiple occasions," Garcia said, "Mr. Spitzer arranged for women to travel from one state to another state to engage in prostitution." That in itself would be enough to justify prosecution under the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting or luring individuals across state lines for the purpose of prostitution. But current Justice Department policy says that, unless minors are involved, federal prostitution prosecutions "should generally be limited to persons engaged in commercial prostitution activities."

No one should be prosecuted for consensual sex, whether or not money changes hands. And much as I dislike Spitzer and relished his downfall, I don't think he should receive especially severe legal treatment simply because he's a celebrity, a politician, or a hypocrite. But I've always had trouble understanding the legal/moral distinction between the suppliers of illegal goods or services and their customers. The former would not exist but for the latter, who are the ones committing the real "crime," while the people they pay are merely accessories. It's also weird that the Justice Department wants to leave johns alone, even in cases where there is an interstate nexus and a clear statutory violation, yet insists on persecuting patients who use marijuana as medicine, even when they grow their own cannabis and it never leaves their homes, let alone the state. 

Hayne Sues

Posted on November 7, 2008, 11:37am | Radley Balko

Former Mississippi medical examiner Dr. Steven Hayne has filed a defamation suit against the Innocence Project.

He’s apparently using a College of American Pathologists' panel’s decision not to take action against him as conclusive proof that he’s vindicated, and that all of the many doctors, forensic experts, and current and former colleagues who have questioned his practices and professionalism are wrong.

Here’s a copy of the pleading.

I emailed the College of American Pathologists to see if they had any reaction, and if they're comfortable with Hayne's characterization of their report as a vindication of him. They had no comment.

Streakers, Child Molesters, Whatever

Posted on November 7, 2008, 11:03am | Jacob Sullum

Twelve participants in Boulder, Colorado's 10th annual Naked Pumpkin Run, in which the runners wear nothing but carved pumpkins (on their heads) while jogging through Pearl Street Mall, face charges of indecent exposure. If convicted, the Boulder Daily Camera reports, they will have to register as sex offenders, "a scarlet letter that could mark their professional and personal lives for years." On the bright side, they may save on Halloween candy.

[Thanks to the innominate one for the tip.]

New at Reason: Lisa Snell Remembers Marshall Fritz

Posted on November 7, 2008, 10:00am

Marshall Fritz, the longtime libertarian leader who founded the Advocates for Self-Government and created the famous World's Smallest Political Quiz, died November 4 of pancreatic cancer at the age of 65. Lisa Snell, the Reason Foundation's Director of Education and Child Welfare, remembers him as an eloquent champion who believed and practiced the notion that liberty starts at home.

And the Bailout Rescue Goes on

Posted on November 7, 2008, 9:45am | Matt Welch

The federal government is preparing to take tens of billions of dollars in ownership stakes in an array of companies outside the banking sector, dramatically widening the scope of the Treasury Department's rescue effort beyond the $250 billion set aside for traditional financial firms, government and industry officials said. [...]

Since the announcement of the program to inject capital into banks, a number of industries, including automakers, insurers and specialty lenders for small businesses have approached the Treasury with hat in hand. Some have been turned away because they are not banks and thus not eligible for capital.

The new initiative would make it easier for the Treasury to aid a wider variety of firms if their troubles put the wider financial system at risk, government and industry officials said.

Whole Washington Post story here. A sampling of reason pieces on the bailout here.

The Onion's Sweet Farewell to Ron Paul

Posted on November 7, 2008, 8:46am | Brian Doherty

Strangely un-snarky, charming and apt while still funny, farewell to the Ron Paul Movement from this week's Onion:

After piling the last of his Campaign for Liberty signs in the back of a beat-up Ford truck Thursday, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) once again abandoned his candidacy for president and rode on out toward the low western sun, but not before vowing to come back to Washington "when [the country] is ready." "When the river swirls and the wind blows, and when uncontrollable inflation forces us to revert to the gold standard, and the Federal Reserve bank is exposed as the unconstitutional, neofascist cabal it really is, you'll see me coming over that hill," said Paul, leaving a dusty cowboy hat and a stack of "no" votes on his seat in the House of Representatives. "But don't you fret, America. If you ever feel like your government is getting too big or too intrusive, just give a little whistle, and there I'll be. I'll be there quicker'n you can spit." Although no one has seen or heard from the Texas congressman since Thursday, sources report the Ron Paul for President campaign has gained an additional $2.3 million in contributions since his disappearance.

My reason cover feature from the midst of the Ron Paul movement, back in February.

Intern at reason This Spring: Last Day to Apply!

Posted on November 7, 2008, 8:30am

reason is now accepting applications for the spring 2009 Burton C. Gray Memorial Internship. The intern will work in our Washington, D.C. office for 10 weeks during the spring semester, and receives a $5,000 stipend.

The job includes reporting and writing for reason and reason online, helping with research, proofreading, and other tasks. Previous interns have gone on to work at such places as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, ABC News, and reason itself.

To apply, send your résumé, up to five writing samples (preferably published clips), and a cover letter to:

Gray Internship
reason
1747 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009

Electronic applications can be sent to intern@reason.com, with the subject line "Gray Internship Application." The deadline for applications is November 7, 2008.

Nebraska and Affirmative Action

Posted on November 7, 2008, 7:13am | Nick Gillespie

On Tuesday, Nebraska voters passed a ballot initiative barring the use of race- or gender-based affirmative action in recruiting students, faculty, and employees at state insititutions, including schools and universities. From an AP account:

The Nebraska constitutional amendment prohibits public agencies from giving preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex or ethnicity when hiring and performing such tasks as awarding contracts and granting scholarships.

The ban passed with almost 58 percent of the vote. A similar measure was on the ballot in Colorado, but the vote remained too close to call Thursday.

The League of Nebraska Municipalities is reviewing how the amendment might affect hundreds of local governments across the state, Executive Director Lynn Rex said. Some federal grants, such as those for affordable housing, are tied to affirmative action, she said....

"Affirmative action is something often done on the front end of the hiring process to make sure you have a job description that doesn't limit candidates, and that you have a recruitment process," [Southeast Community College President Jose J.] Soto said. "Ninety percent of affirmative action has nothing to do with ... using race or gender to make a hiring decision. It's to provide open access to opportunities."

More here.

The proposition is being challenged in court, on the grounds that the signatures collected to put in on the ballot were fraudulent. The prop was spearheaded by Ward Connerly, the University of California regent behind the successful attempt to stop race-based set-asides in California's public sector more than a decade ago. How will affirmative action and other forms of preference, which have (I think) declined as a hot-button issue over the years, fare in Obama's America?

reason interviewed Ward Connerly in 1998. It's a very interesting, very relevant, conversation and is online here.

In the November issue of reason, Michael C. Moynihan reviews two new books on race and argues that "Barack Obama's 'post-racial' posture reflects a quiet but radical shift in liberal ideas about race in America."

New at Reason: Friday Funnies

Posted on November 7, 2008, 7:00am

In the latest edition of Friday Funnies, Scott Stantis tackles the bailout, big government, and the GOP.

Can Libertarians and Conservative Get Over Bush?

Posted on November 6, 2008, 8:17pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

Ilya Somin lays out the options for the future of the libertarian-conservative alliance at Volokh Conspiracy, in light of the fact that the "Bush years have severely strained and perhaps broken the conservative-libertarian political coalition.":

Obviously, a lot depends on what conservatives decide to do. If they choose the pro-limited government position advocated by Representative Jeff Flake and some other younger House Republicans, there will be lots of room for cooperation with libertarians. ... Conservatives could, however, adopt the combination of economic populism and social conservatism advocated by Mike Huckabee and others. It is even possible that the latter path will be more politically advantageous, at least in the short term.

Much also depends on what the Democrats do. If Obama opts for moderation and keeps his promise to produce a net decrease in federal spending, a renewed conservative-libertarian coalition will be less attractive to libertarians.

Go join the very lively discussion in the comments over there, or extend it right here. Can libertarians and conservatives still be friends?

A Chavista at the EPA?

Posted on November 6, 2008, 5:20pm | Michael C. Moynihan

According to the Washington Post, Barack Obama is "looking at possibly appointing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Environmental Protection Agency, according to sources familiar with the process, though he is eying several other prominent environmentalists as well." Kennedy is a well-know 2004 election conspiracy theorist who is under the impression that we are all being held hostage in fascist America. Ho-hum. So would you be surprised to learn that RFK II is also a Chavista? Of course not!

Check out the video below to watch the Kook of Camelot argue in favor of the nationalization of oil companies and argue that Chavez is the "kind of leader my father and President Kennedy were looking for" in Latin America. Yes, Bobby Kennedy, former Tailgunner Joe McCarthy staffer, and Jack Kennedy, who oversaw the invasion of Cuba, would have surely loved Hugo Chavez.

Kennedy rambles through a litany of American sins in Latin America, both real and imagined (School of the Americas, the Oligarchs, United Fruit, Chiquita banana, etc), and engages in the logical fallacy that if one side has done some horrid things—and who could deny that, for example, the United States overthrew Jacobo Árbenz—the other guys must be battling for a more democratic future.

Kennedy says that Chavez has built thousands of top-notch clinics (see here and here for a more realistic view of his health "missions"), increased literacy by one million (false: see here and here), is "helping indigenous people by giving them rights for the first time in their history" (false), is "doing real land reform" by "redistribut[ing] land that is not used" (Really?), and has overseen countless "free and fair elections," despite his coup-monger past (Has he never heard of the Tascon list? Or Henrique Capriles Radonski?) Oh, and of course the United States "engineered the coup" and "kidnapped" Chavez in 2002.

Watch the whole nutty rant below:

New at Reason: Nick Gillespie Makes Three Predictions About Barack Obama's America

Posted on November 6, 2008, 4:00pm | Nick Gillespie

Will Barack Obama be a game-changer in American life when he takes office in January? Or will he be more of the same that we've seen over the past eight years? And will we stop using the term game-changer?

Nick Gillespie prognosticates. Read all about it here.

Assisted Suicide in Washington

Posted on November 6, 2008, 3:17pm | Jacob Sullum

On Tuesday voters in Washington state approved an assisted suicide law similar to Oregon's Death With Dignity Act by a 58-to-42-percent margin. Washington is only the second state with such a law, which allows patients who are certified as terminally ill to obtain prescriptions for barbiturates they can use to end their lives. This option is not a huge advance for liberty. Only people who want to kill themselves for what the government considers a legitimate reason are eligible, and they have to go through a state-mandated ritual: clearance from two doctors who agree they are likely to die within six months, two oral requests at least 15 days apart, and a written request signed by two witnesses. As Thomas Szasz has noted, this whole humiliating procedure could be avoided if the government did not presume to restrict adults' access to drugs. Still, laws like Oregon's and Washington's do make some people in some circumstances a bit freer. Furthermore, the clash over this issue between Oregon and the Bush administration, which wanted to prevent the use of prescriptions for suicide, led to a Supreme Court decision that preserved some measure of federalism in the regulation of medicine, even in the wake of the Court's medical marijuana decision.

More reason coverage of assisted suicide here, here, and here.

The Ron Paul Vote

Posted on November 6, 2008, 12:32pm | David Weigel

It'll be weeks before we know exactly how many votes were cast for which candidates. Two Senate seats and a bunch of House seats are still too close to call because of the outstanding ballots. But I don't think there are too many outstanding votes for third party presidential candidates. How'd they do?

Bob Barr (LP): 490,689 votes. Only around half of what the campaign had hoped for, and had expected given its efforts in a bunch of close states. It's the second-best Libertarian presidential performance of all time, better than Harry Browne's two runs or than Ron Paul's run in 1988, but well behind Ed Clark's 921,128 votes in 1980.

Ralph Nader (Various Parties): 661,736 votes. A huge letdown for him, too, given the improved organization and ballot access he achieved this campaign. It's his second-worst performance in four runs for president, worse even than 1996, when he got 685,297 votes with a "non-campaign" on fewer state ballots. That year he scored 237,016 votes in California. This year he scored less than 90,000, even though Barack Obama was winning the biggest Democratic landslide there since FDR beat Alf Landon. Overall Nader got fewer votes than Eugene McCarthy in his forgotten 1976 run. I'd say something like this plus his racial attacks on Barack Obama mean "his career is finished," but when a guy's determined to become as relevant as those Jimmy Buffett for President bumper stickers there's not much you can do.

Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party): 175,868 votes. Despite the Ron Paul endorsement, this is only the second-best Constitution Party performance ever: In 1996, Howard Phillips got 184,820 votes. The difference was in Alan Keyes, who stole the party's California ballot line and scored more than 30,000 votes there. (This doesn't include write-in votes, though, and even Paul himself had to write Baldwin in on the Texas ballot.)

Cynthia McKinney (Green Party): 142,865 votes. Only slightly better than the party's abysmal 2004 performance, which was hindered by Ralph Nader's decision not to run, then his decision to run, then his decision to atack the Greens when they didn't nominate him.

Ron Paul (Various Parties): 19,852 votes. We don't know how many write-in votes he got yet, but that's what he pulled by being on the ballot in Montana and Louisiana.

So if you add together Paul with the four candidates he gathered at the National Press Club to endorse (and include Barr, who was invited), Paul's favored candidates got around 1.5 million votes. In a historical perspective, that's... not that impressive, still. Ralph Nader got almost twice as many votes in 2000, and John Anderson got almost four times as many in 1980. It's a bigger third party vote than 2004, but not by much.

Why was this if everyone told the pollsters they were furious with the way the country was going and hated the two parties? I'd say it's because there was a Democrat and a Republican that people basically liked, but that wouldn't explain why 1988 third party voting was so low. I'm not hearing any of this discussed in the rest of the media, so Bob Barr's complaint from Ron Paul's presser rings true: The way to keep attention on libertarian political arguments was to consolidate behind one candidate. For all of Paul's flaws, his totals in Montana and Louisiana indicate that he probably could have run a Nader 2000-style campaign and gotten about Nader's 2.8 million votes.

New at Reason: Ronald Bailey on Michael Crichton

Posted on November 6, 2008, 12:00pm

Pop novelist, television producer, movie director, medical doctor, creator of the long-running hospital drama E.R., and sometime public-policy provocateur Michael Crichton has died of cancer at age 66 in Los Angeles. Reason's science correspondent Ronald Bailey assesses the life and work of the Jurassic Park author.

Read all about it here.

Reason Writers Around Town

Posted on November 6, 2008, 11:21am

Managing Editor Jesse Walker's weekly freeform radio show, Titicut Follies, will be broadcast on WCBN-FM this afternoon from 12 to 3, eastern time. If you live in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area, you can tune in at 88.3 FM; if you live elsewhere, you can listen online.

For more information about the show, go here. For podcasts of previous programs, go here and here.

Recently at Reason.tv's YouTube Channel: Where's My Bailout?; Craigslist Founder on "Nerd Values"; Universal Preschool: Silver Bullet for Education Reform or a Waste of Money?; and more

Posted on November 6, 2008, 11:06am | Nick Gillespie

Besides offering up high-quality video fixings at reason.tv, we've also got a robust channel at YouTube that you can subscribe to and get automatic notification of new releases.

Among the recent offerings:

Where's My Bailout?: A rescue plan for the rest of us (1.48)

Craigslist's founder Craig Newmark on "Nerd Values," his support for Obama, and more (8.30)

Universal Preschool: A silver bullet for education reform or a waste of money? (9.24)

The GAO's Transition Wishlist

Posted on November 6, 2008, 10:57am | Nick Gillespie

The Government Accountability Office has released its list of "urgent policy concerns...[that] are critical and time sensitive and require prioritized federal action." The list, presumably in descending order of importance is as follows: 

•  
  • oversight of financial institutions and markets,
  • U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan,
  • protecting the homeland,
  • undisciplined defense spending,
  • improving the U.S. image abroad,
  • finalizing plans for the 2010 Census,
  • caring for service members,
  • preparing for public health emergencies,
  • revamping oversight of food safety,
  • restructuring the approach to surface transportation,
  • retirement of the Space Shuttle,
  • ensuring an effective transition to digital TV, and
  • rebuilding military readiness.

More information here.

I can follow the GAO, which is absolutely one of the most useful resources for journalists and small-government devotees of all professions, through first four. But then I think they start getting a bit lost in the weeds (and not simply because caring for service members and rebuilding military readiness should probably be folded into numbers two through four into a single bullet point about totally revamping about half of all discretionary government spending). I just don't see how the retirement of the Space Shuttle makes it onto the list. Can't we just ignore it until it goes away?

The Cocaine Standard

Posted on November 6, 2008, 9:37am | Jesse Walker

The Telegraph reports from Guerima, Colombia, where government troops recently drove out FARC guerillas:

Countless ordinary people depend on the coca trade. "We are sitting on a mountain of coca and a series of Farc 'IOUs' ", said one local. "We need the rebels back to pay the debts and buy the coca, otherwise the town will die."

No money has reached Guerima for months and transactions are conducted in coca, with one gram enough to buy a soft drink.

Add that to your list of commodity moneys. I found the story via Wired for Strange, which also notes that bottle caps are being used as a currency in Cameroon and claims that drug-free urine is being used as a currency behind bars:

This strange alternative to money is used in the prison system; they have been known to use cigarettes, sardine cans and now urine. This has become a precious commodity because drug screening has become much more prominent in penitentiaries. Clean samples are traded and they are usually kept in a condom and warmed to body temperature by rectal insertion.

A commodity, yes -- but a currency? Seems to me that the Piss Standard would be especially susceptible to inflation.

Rahm Emanuel's Universe

Posted on November 6, 2008, 9:33am | Radley Balko

Jim Lindgren reads from the manifesto of Rahm Emanuel, Obama's reported new chief of staff, and finds a man who wants, among other things, "universal college access," to cut gasoline use in half, and "universal retirement savings." But far more creepy is the centerpiece of what Emanuel simply calls "The Plan:"  universal citizen service.

From Emanuel's book:

John Kennedy was right: A nation is defined not by what it does for its citizens but by what it asks of them. If your leaders aren't challenging you to do your part, they aren't doing theirs. We need a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us by establishing for the first time an ethic of universal citizen service. All Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defense training and community service. This is not a draft, nor is it military. Young people will be trained not as soldiers, but simply as citizens who understand their responsibilities in the event of a natural disaster, an epidemic or a terrorist attack. Universal citizen service will bring Americans of every background together to make America safer and more united in common purpose.

Obama's service plan is just as troubling.  He wants to mandate 50 hours of community service per year for middle and high school students.  And he's offering a $4,000 federal-funded tuition credit in exchange for 100 hours per year from college students.  For most students, the latter will become a mandatory part of getting a degree, as colleges will merely raise their tuition to compensate for the vouchers.

So who gets to decide what constitutes "community service"?  Who gets to decide which causes and organizations will be credit-worthy, and which ones won't?

Something tells me that you'd be more likely to get one of Obama's vouchers by going door to door for one of ACORN's living wage campaigns than, say, volunteering for a libertarian nonprofit organization that advocates against things like government-mandated community service.

Glenn Reynolds, Manny Klausner, Randy Barnett, and Brink Lindsey on the Future of Libertarianism

Posted on November 6, 2008, 9:16am | Nick Gillespie

Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds sits down via cyberspace with Reason Foundation trustee Manny Klausner, Georgetown law prof Randy Barnett, and the Cato Institute's and reason contributing editor Brink Lindsey on Reynolds' Washington Watch videocast.

It's about 30 minutes of peace, love, and prognostication. And well worth watching (especially Klausner's defense of the Libertarian Party as an institution). Free registration required.

Fun Election Facts for the Kids

Posted on November 6, 2008, 8:18am | David Weigel

- The biggest Libertarian vote total in the nation, and the biggest ever, was given to John Monds, a candidate for the Public Service Commission in Georgia. At the moment he's won 1,056,225 votes, which, unfortunately, means he loses 67-33 percent.

- Barack Obama's historic summit with Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher happened in Lucas County, Ohio. Obama carried the county 65-34 over John McCain.

- There are three states where John McCain outperformed George W. Bush: Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee. The rest either matched their 2004 margins or broke for Obama.

- About one in nine Montana voters who decided their votes in the last week went for Ron Paul.

- Alan Keyes Party candidate Alan Keyes got around 30,000 votes in California, just ahead of Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney, who lives in California.

- If you subtract the other candidates and read California like a rematch between Obama and Keyes (the two Illinois U.S. Senate candidates in 2004), Obama wins 99.5 percent to 0.5 percent.

- Cindy Sheehan got 17 percent of the vote in her race against Nancy Pelosi.

- States where Bob Barr came in third place: Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas. States where the Barr vote total is bigger than the gap between Obama and McCain: Indiana and North Carolina. [Corrected: Did the math wrong earlier.]

- Hillary Clinton won 21 states in the primaries if you count the contested Florida and Michigan contests. Obama beat McCain in 13 of these states. (I bring this up because I remember being on Clinton campaign conferences calls where it was argued that only Clinton could take these states.)

- As Matthew Yglesias notes, almost all of the areas where McCain dramatically outperformed Bush were in Appalachia. Arkansas and Oklahoma are just as striking.

New at Reason: Steve Chapman on Obama's Victory

Posted on November 6, 2008, 7:00am

The improbability of Barack Obama's rise, writes Steve Chapman, should help sustain conservatives in their hour of disappointment. This election furnishes irrefutable proof that America is a special country, with possibilities that don't exist elsewhere.

Read all about it here. 

Advice to GOP...

Posted on November 6, 2008, 12:14am | Radley Balko

...just put your hands behind your back, whistle softly, walk away, and pretend like it never happened.

Come to think of it, I should probably do the same thing.

Gore Vidal Escapes From Home, Appears on BBC

Posted on November 5, 2008, 6:10pm | Michael C. Moynihan

The BBC has a deep fondness for Gore Vidal, the Castro-loving octogenarian crackpot who, I am told, once wrote a few decent novels. I once appeared on a BBC World Service program with Vidal, who muttered some scripted provocations about pederasty; stuff that would have likely shocked a radio audience in the 1950s, though a routine that hadn't aged particularly well. Listeners were supposed to be shocked and impressed by this bit of theater; a rude, semi-coherent old coot says dirty things, making the Bill Grundy-like host uncomfortable.

And yet again, it appears that one of his attendants left the gate unlocked, and Vidal wondered into a BBC satellite studio to offer his analysis of the presidential election. Mercifully, the host cuts him off and, one imagines, calls the LAPD:

New at Reason: Todd Seavey on Libertarianism in a Liberal World

Posted on November 5, 2008, 6:00pm

Two weeks before the 2008 election ushered in a period of Democratic dominance of government, a panel of scholars gathered at Princeton University to discuss the question "Liberals and Libertarians: Common Ground or Separate Agendas?" Contributing Editor Todd Seavey reports on what they decided.

Read all about it here. 

Obama and the Surge

Posted on November 5, 2008, 5:48pm | Michael C. Moynihan

Does Europe love us again? Are America's deep cultural and racial divisions healed yet? Would there be, as the Los Angeles Times headlined, "an Obama surge on Wall Street, and beyond?" A few economic stories that caught my eye, arguing that an Obama victory might spark a rally in the stock market:

Toronto Globe & Mail:

So, if investors have woken up this morning to find Mr. Obama is president-elect, good for investors; history suggests it's a sign that things are looking up. Then again, they were probably bound to get better anyway.

The Washington Post:

Stocks staged the largest Election Day rally in history yesterday, bucking tradition and casting aside growing evidence that the country is slipping into a recession.

The end of the presidential contest between Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) eliminates some uncertainty at a time when traders are searching for an end to the recent market volatility and trying to grasp the breadth of a recession that many assume has already begun, analysts said.

CNN/Money predicted a market surge today, writing that "analysts" were confident that "stocks will likely get a boost regardless of who wins..." Andrew Young predicted that "There would be a boost of 1,000 points on the stock market the first week after he's elected." The Telegraph wondered if a "Barack Obama victory [will] boost shares."

But the Dow took a dive today, dropping 5 percent—almost 500 points—by close. The Guardian was surprised that the "historic election win failed to spark a worldwide stockmarket rally today." The Daily Mail was puzzled that the "Obama Bounce prove[d] elusive." The market slide can most assuredly not be attributed solely to the election of Barack Obama (though the Hannitys of the world will doubtless try). After all, we have been seeing this sort of market schizophrenia for the past few months. But to all of those who saw in Obama's victory some sort of economic panacea—and believe me, I have spoken to plenty of people who, like Andrew Young, believed an immediate market recovery would follow the rejection of the Republican Party—I'm here to remind you that it ain't going to be that easy.

More Aftermath Bumbling in the Cheye Calvo Raid

Posted on November 5, 2008, 3:48pm | Radley Balko

Cheye Calvo, you'll remember, is the Berwyn Heights, Maryland mayor whose home was mistakenly raided by Prince George's County, Maryland police.  Calvo's two black labs were shot and killed, and he and his mother-in-law were bound at gunpoint for hours, even after it was clear that the police had made a mistake.  The raid came after police intercepted a package of marijuana sent to Calvo's address through a delivery service.  Police conducted no additional investigation before sweeping in with the SWAT team.

When asked about Calvo's case in an interview a local newspaper last month, Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson offered up a truly bewildering response:

Johnson said he didn't think an apology was necessary and said he has not spoken with Calvo about the incident.

"Well, I think in America that is the apology, when we're cleared," he said. "The authorities have to be able to follow evidence. Sometimes we realize that people are victimized. … At the end of the day, the investigation showed he was not involved. And that's, you know, a pat on the back for everybody involved, I think."

He expressed condolences for Calvo's pets but said he understood the actions of law enforcement.

"I try putting myself in the situation of the sheriff who entered the house," he said. "They had one set of information at the time. … The thing we have to do is make sure those incidents don't happen again."

I'm having a hard time comprehending what sort of mindset you'd need to have to come to the conclusion that Calvo's innocence equates to "a pat on the back for everybody involved."  As for making sure incidents like what happened to Calvo "don't happen again," the utter cluelessness of politicians like Jack Johnson is precisely why they do keep happening.  Over and over.  It also likely factors into why Johnson presides over the county with one of the worst police misconduct records in the country.

I last wrote about Calvo's case in response to a Milwaukee police detective who had defended the raid in a letter to the editor of National Review.

Without U.S. Aid, Cocaine Production Might Have Increased Even More

Posted on November 5, 2008, 3:43pm | Jacob Sullum

A new report (PDF) on Plan Colombia from the Government Accountability Office concludes that "drug reduction goals were not fully met." That's a pretty generous way of looking at it. As the GAO notes, one of the $6 billion aid program's two main goals when it was launched in 1999 was to "reduce the production of illicit drugs (primarily cocaine) by 50 percent in 6 years." Instead "coca cultivation and cocaine production levels increased by about 15 and 4 percent, respectively." On the brighter side, "opium poppy cultivation and heroin production declined about 50 percent." Hence the current worldwide heroin shortage.

New at Reason: Michael Moynihan on Barack Obama and the Future of American Racial Politics

Posted on November 5, 2008, 3:30pm

From our November issue, Associate Editor Michael C. Moynihan explains how Barack Obama's "post-racial" posture reflects a quiet but radical shift in liberal ideas about race in America.

Read all about it here.

Did the California Supreme Court Help or Hurt Gay Couples?

Posted on November 5, 2008, 1:33pm | Jacob Sullum

It seems safe to say that the gay marriage movement is worse off now than it would have been if California's Supreme Court had not ruled last spring that the state constitution requires equal treatment of same-sex couples. In response to that decision, voters have, by a 52-to-48-percent margin, enshrined unequal treatment in the constitution instead. This is just the sort of outcome that critics of the decision who oppose discrimination in this area (including reason online contributor Steve Chapman) were worried about.

The Los Angeles Times says the passage of Proposition 8 "throw[s] into doubt the unions of an estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who wed during the last 4 1/2 months." But according to Berkeley law professor Joan Hollinger, quoted last summer in The Advocate, "Constitutional scholars agree that the amendment cannot be effective retroactively," since that would violate the U.S. Constitution's prohibition of state laws "impairing the obligation of contracts."

In May I criticized the constitutional reasoning underlying the California Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling. Last month Terry Michael defended the legalization of gay marriage by the courts.

New at Reason: Obama-Rama! Read our recent coverage of America's next president

Posted on November 5, 2008, 1:30pm

With last night's historic election of Barack Obama as America's 44th president, take a look back at reason's recent writing on the senator from Illinois.

Jane Elliott, Call Your Agent*

Posted on November 5, 2008, 1:28pm | Radley Balko

My policy disagreements with Obama aside, last night was of course a historic chapter in America's long and sordid history of race relations.  Unfortunately, another civil rights issue—gay marriage—went down to sweeping defeat.

I don't think the government should be in the business of giving its blessing to committed relationships of any kind.  But to confer preferred tax and right of contract status on straight marriages but not gay ones simply isn't consistent with the principle of equality under the law.

Sadly, that concept seems to be less clear to black Americans than it does to other races, even as the country today celebrates the symbolic achievement of electing America's first black president.

In California, the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage actually failed among white voters, 51-49.  It was the 70 percent support from black voters that put the measure over the top.

Florida's ban would have passed among white voters 60-40.  But it passed among blacks 71-29.

The exit polling data isn't yet ccomplete in Arizona, but that state's ban passed with 56 percent of the vote, but with 55 percent from white and Latino voters.  So it seems likely that blacks were more enthusiastic about banning gay marriage than other ethnicities in that state, too.

Kind of a sad irony if in helping achieve one civil rights milestone, last night's historical black turnout also helped perpetuate state-sanctioned discrimination against gay couples who wish to marry.

(*Headline explanation here.)

Not Goode Enough

Posted on November 5, 2008, 12:06pm | David Weigel

Yesterday wasn't quite as bad for the GOP, in terms of House and Senate losses, as the polls said it might be. But if you want an example of why the party's long-term problems are worrying, look at Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode.

Goode was elected as a Democrat in 1996 to a district that covers south central Virginia and includes Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia. In 2000 he left the Democratic Party and became an independent. In 2002 became a full-blown Republican. He kept winning re-election fairly easily. It helped that the GOP Senate and Assembly under Gov. Jim Gilmore (R) gerrymandered the state to create a solid majority of Republican House districts.

In 2006, Goode was re-elected easily. He then reacted with horror to the election of Rep. Keith Ellison, a black Muslim from Minneapolis, and his decision to be sworn in on a Koran.

The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.

No one expected Goode to lose this year. His standing in the polls suffered after some late-breaking financial scandals, but he usually won his district easily. But as of right now he's losing. He's down 100 votes, and might turn what was a 8-3 Republican majority in the House delegation into a 6-5 Democratic majority. The Democrats have locked up seats in suburban D.C. and the Chesapeake region.

This is illustrative because of the way the McCain campaign ended. It was a mess. Frustrated that the media beyond talk radio hadn't picked up on the Bill Ayers story, McCain and Sarah Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists" and demanded he reveal the extent of their "relationship." In the final week of the race, the campaign demanded that the L.A. Times release a tape of Obama at an event with Rashid Khalidi, a pretty mainstream (American-born) Palestininan scholar. Over the weekend a 527 blasted the airwaves with ads that rebroadcast Jeremiah Wright's "God DAMN America" quote. On election day the McCain campaign alerted reporters to the freakish story of two "New Black Panthers" standing outside a Philadelpia polling place with nightsticks. Why, I have no idea. Well... I have an idea, but I don't want to say it.

McCain did not run a bigoted campaign. He deliberately pulled punches (like never talking about Wright unless prompted) and he probably feels good about that today: What if he'd sunk into the gutter and lost anyway? Because he would have lost anyway. Karl Rove, whom everyone makes fun of today, was completely right in the 1990s when he realized that America was becoming a less and less white, more and more cosmopolitan country, and that any path for Republican dominance depended on winning the Hispanic vote and pulling some percentage of the black vote. As Steve Sailer (who's controversial but gets this stuff) points out, McCain won a 12-point victory among white voters. But white voters only made up 75 percent of the electorate, and even that number is distorted by the rejection of Obama among Southern whites who also rejected John Kerry by a landslide. In those Appalachian states that were supposed to shred Obama, he did much better. Pennsylvania, Obama lost the white vote by 3 points. In Ohio he lost it by 5 points.

In Michigan, the home of the Reagan Democrats, and of Detroit, whose "hip-hop mayor" Kwame Kilpatrick is going to jail, Obama won the white vote by 4 points.

It's way too easy to write the "Party X will never recover" story that looks silly in two years. I remember Grover Norquist pronouncing the Democrats dead in 2004. But we've got definitive proof that racial politicking is not enough to win an election anymore. Too many white voters reject it, and there are too many non-whites to make it electorally sensible.

New at Reason: Radley Balko on America's Two Party Monopoly

Posted on November 5, 2008, 12:00pm

The two major parties, writes Radley Balko, have cemented their grip on power by creating laws that make it virtually impossible for upstarts to compete with them. They have done with campaign laws what federal business regulations tend to do in the private sector—protect the behemoth, entrenched dinosaurs that dominate the industry by making it too expensive and difficult for anyone to challenge them.

Read all about it here. 

We Did Get You, CC

Posted on November 5, 2008, 10:58am | Jesse Walker

The Onion reports:

WASHINGTON--African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."

Does Drug Policy Reform Have a Bigger Popular Mandate Than Obama?

Posted on November 5, 2008, 10:27am | Jacob Sullum

The Marijuana Policy Project's Bruce Mirken notes that the majorities supporting the marijuana decriminalization measure in Massachusetts and the medical marijuana initiative in Michigan (65 percent and 63 percent, respectively) exceed the share of voters who went for Obama in each state (62 percent and 55 percent respectively). In those states at least, you could say marijuana reform has a bigger popular mandate than the president-elect. In retrospect, this is not so surprising: National polls have long indicated that a large majority of Americans think 1) patients who can benefit from marijuana should be able to obtain it legally and 2) people should not go to jail for smoking pot. (So far they do not take the next logical step, which is to recognize that people who simply help others smoke pot should not go to jail either.) Obama already has promised to call off the DEA's medical marijuana raids. In light of the popular support for drug policy reform, is it too much to hope that he will step back generally in this area and (as the Constitution requires) allow states to experiment with different approaches?

McCain's Weird Campaign

Posted on November 5, 2008, 10:11am | Jesse Walker

When was the last time a presidential candidate ran to the center during the primaries, then chased the base in the general election?

Massachusetts Is for Decriminalized Marijuana Lovers

Posted on November 5, 2008, 9:54am | Nick Gillespie

They still want an income tax (idiots) but 65 percent of Bay State residents have used the ballot process to decriminalize amounts of pot under an ounce. You'll get civil penalties and up to a $100 fine once the law goes into effect.

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) hails the vote thusly: This is "the first time in history that a decriminalization initiative appeared on any statewide ballot, and voters passed it by what appears to be an overwhelming majority."

MPP has a great chart of state and local initiatives and the outcomes (some good, some not so good) here.

Stay Classy, Ralph Nader

Posted on November 5, 2008, 9:41am | David Weigel

It's going to take a while for Americans and pundits (often the same thing!) to adjust to a black president. There are cliches and turns of phrase and narratives that simply won't sound right if applied to a black man. Ralph Nader's getting a head start on this.

During the campaign, Nader suggested that Obama was "acting white" by not barnstorming the country and talking about poverty or something. But the irony is that Nader's one of the sorriest practitioners of ethnic politics out there. "Sorry" in the sense that it never works. He's run for president four times and each time chosen a hilariously unqualified ethnic minority running mate: Winona LaDuke (American Indian), LaDuke again, Peter Camejo (Hispanic) and Matt Gonzalez (Hispanic).

Nader's long nightmare is over, in a sense, because I don't think liberals can stay mad at him when they've won the presidency in a rout and he couldn't stop them. But his race obsession looks even worse compared to Bob Barr. "It just illustrates the tremendous demographic changes, generational changes in this country," Barr told me last night, discussing Obama's win. "This really is a very different country, in some ways much better country, than it was several years ago.”

Doherty Talking About Guns and Heller in Chicago Area Thursday Night

Posted on November 5, 2008, 9:32am | Brian Doherty

I'll be giving a talk about my out-any-day-now book on the historic Heller case and all the interesting debates--legal, empirical, constitutional--surrounding it, called Gun Control on Trial, in the home area of the next president of these United States tomorrow (Thursday) night.

The talk is sponsored by the McCormick Freedom Museum. It's free, but an RSVP is requested. All Chicago metro area reason fans and enemies encouraged to stop by and say hello.

TIME: 6:30 - 8 p.m., Thursday November 6

PLACE: Catigny Vistors Service Center, 1 S 151 Winfield Road

Wheaton, IL 60187

And In Last Place...

Posted on November 5, 2008, 9:32am | Jesse Walker

I had predicted that, not counting write-ins, the Prohibition Party would land in last place. I was wrong: At the current count its nominee has 631 votes, with five people finishing behind him. The fellow who's losing to everyone else is Bradford Lyttle of the U.S. Pacifist Party, who presently has 97 votes. As the character in Doonesbury once said, "We must have swept my immediate circle of friends!"

Ralph Nader has outpolled Bob Barr, and it looks like Alan Keyes is beating Ron Paul as well. As for the smaller libertarian-themed candidacies: Charles Jay of the Boston Tea Party currently has 2,291 votes; Tom Stevens of the Objectivist Party has 674 votes; and George Phillies, who appeared on an alternate Libertarian Party line in New Hampshire, has attracted 433 votes. If you add up the totals for Barr, Paul, Jay, Stevens, and Phillies, you...still finish behind Nader.

Republicans Become Campfire Girls. Can Libertarians Be Camp Counselors?

Posted on November 5, 2008, 9:12am | Katherine Mangu-Ward

Good morning, Republicans! Welcome to the wilderness. We saved you a seat right over here, next to us. Looks like we'll have a lot of time to talk in the next four years.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) kicks off the conversation with an article in today's Washington Post:

In some respects, raising a new standard was made easier by yesterday's rout. The Republican Party is not bound by election-year promises made by its presidential nominee. More important, the party is finally untethered from the ill-fitting and unworkable big-government conservatism that defined the Bush administration. This is not to say that it will be an easy transition. Congressional Republicans picked up some unattractive habits over the years in an effort to hold on to power....

But there is reason for Republicans to feel optimism. Politically, America remains a center-right country, and America loves a chastened and repentant sinner. As surely as the sun rises in the east, the Democrats will overreach. 

Flake on reason.tv here:

Arkansas: Fear the Gay

Posted on November 5, 2008, 9:03am | Radley Balko

Yesterday, 57 percent of Arkansas voters decided that the state's 9,000 children in foster care are better off there than adopted by a gay couple.

Massachusetts Is for Income Tax Lovers

Posted on November 5, 2008, 8:47am | Nick Gillespie

One of the more heartwarming (and hopeless, to be honest) ballot initiatives in play yesterday was the one that would have ended Massachusetts' state income tax. It got its ass kicked, with only 30 percent of voters in the place that gave us the Boston Tea Party and more voted to end the income tax.

Ah well, Sam Adams, brewer-patriot, rest in peace. You gave it your best shot lo those many years ago. We always disappoint history.

Alaska's Voters Take a Pass on Accountability

Posted on November 5, 2008, 8:32am | Radley Balko

With only early voting ballot counting remaining, convicted felon Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) leads challenger Mark Begich by by 3,300 votes.

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) also has a stunning 17,000 vote lead, despite trailing in all of the pre-election polling.

Backwards into the Future: California's Anti-Gay Marriage Proposition Apparently Passes; and Arizona's and Florida's Too

Posted on November 5, 2008, 7:35am | Nick Gillespie

From the Wall Street Journal:

Early poll results Tuesday night showed California voters leaning toward overturning same-sex marriage in the state in a decision that could impact how the issue plays out elsewhere in the nation.

Approval of Proposition 8 would be a stunning upset in a $70-million campaign that just weeks ago looked to be running in favor of preserving gay marriage rights.

By 12:34 a.m. in California, 53.1% of voters favored passing Prop 8, as the measure is known, and 46.9% were against it, with 60% of precincts voting, according to the Secretary of State. However, both sides cautioned the vote could be very close and that it might still be early to declare a winner.

The passage of Prop 8, as it is known, would be a major victory for religious conservatives seeking to ban gay marriage in other states, and a crippling setback for the gay rights movement nationwide.

More here.

And just to throw more a wrench into things, the LA Times reports that whites opposed the initiative, blacks supported it, and latinos were split.

So is a new post-racial America one in which gays still get left at the altar? Oy.

Update: Similar initiatives specifying marriage only as the union of a man and a woman, forerver and ever or however long it lasts, passed in Arizona and Florida. Read more here.

In Connecticut, voters rejected a prop that would have allowed the state Constitution to be rewritten to ban gay marriage, which the Nutmeg State Supreme Court ruled was legal recently.

Congrats to Obama, and a Cheery Note to Everyone Else Too

Posted on November 5, 2008, 7:07am | Nick Gillespie

Congratulations to president-elect Barack Obama, whose historic victory, however certain it seemed in the final phase of this campaign, is actually a testament to a very sharp and determined candidate. Like a lot of people who has no dog in the fight between Republocrats and Demicans, I have no shortage of worries about Obama in the White House but I do hope the one clear potential—an end to an odious racial discourse that has always poisoned America since the colonial days—comes through in a huge way.

And here's hoping everything else works out better thany any of us hopes.

In the meantime, and especially for those who were not Obamaniacs, I commend Brian Doherty's great column from 2004 in which he pals around with Bush-haters right after John F. Kerry's heart-rending (to some, even some not named Kerry) defeat:

Apocalyptic Democracy: Life goes on, long after the pain of the election is gone

You may be lucky enough to live in a community of discourse where you haven't noticed, but let me tell you: Some people are very, very upset about the results of the election last week....

Consider my own post-election ritual. I went on tour with an absurdist touring cabaret, 25 or so of us in a converted Green Tortoise bus going from San Francisco to Portland and Seattle and back. Once, at a gas station off the 5 somewhere north of San Fran, a small town cop circled us for a while suspiciously while we gassed up, but we were otherwise unhassled. No internal passports, no one asked for our papers. We entered freely into deals with sellers of diesel, lodging, sandwiches, and beer. We met friendly, amusing, and interesting people, hundreds of whom paid $7 to watch us amuse ourselves with a series of lunatic acts playing hard-but-fair with decades of America's indigenous cheap medicine show, sideshow, and musical traditions.

We visited old waterworks in Seattle and museums of Asian culture. We stood on a hill near the Gasworks in Seattle, watching seaplanes land and private sailboats glide and with some inexpensive imported Japanese keyboard technology enjoyed an impromptu singalong of some classic American popular song from the '20s to the '60s while rolling around on grassy hills. (A plaque at the Gasworks informed us, grimly, that even though we can now produce certain coal fuels synthetically, this doesn't mean it's OK for men not to serve in the military. Really.)

We had snowball fights near Mt. Shasta. We bought six-shot espresso drinks and Italian sodas with cream near Grant's Pass, Oregon, just after sunrise. We were, among others, an old Japanese man obsessed with American cowboy song, a young American woman raised by urban artists riffing on '80s dance styles, a former Clinton White House press worker, a German videographer, an expert card trickster from the Midwest, a central figure in a comedic cult religion, a hard-driving punk rock used car salesman turned barkeep, an aging Australian blue heeler, and one cranky libertarian journalist.

We all got along swimmingly along the highways and byways of this great land. Hardly any of us mentioned the election. (I did get an opportunity to do a version of my why I don't vote rap, but in the spirit of friendly bantering camaraderie, not enemy-making ideological conflict) It was sweet, and fun, and gave me many of those brilliant and touching and intense moments that make life seem like a good idea.

Only in America? I don't know, but in America, yes, whoever is president. We are rich, richer than any people in history. (Yes, even most of our poor.) The possibilities of a joyful life are all around us. I say sincerely to people whose political ideologies I find sometimes horrifying: it's a damn shame to let something like the results of an election ruin your chance to enjoy the myriad possibilities of life-real life, not political life-in these United States.

Whole thing, well worth reading, here.

New at Reason: Jacob Sullum on Barack Obama, Green Jobs, and the Economy

Posted on November 5, 2008, 7:00am

Barack Obama's "green jobs" rhetoric, writes Senior Editor Jacob Sullum, is part of his strategy to conceal the enormous expense associated with his plan to "transform our entire economy."

Read all about it here. 

McCain's Classy Concession

Posted on November 5, 2008, 2:12am | Matt Welch

Aside from the speech's almost astounding graciousness, note McCain's visceral disgust at the anti-Obama/Biden sentiments in the crowd. Sentiments he knows, on some basic level, that his campaign–especially the Sarah Palin wing of it–whipped up. As I mentioned in my column of this morning, McCain was extremely proud of the way he waged his campaign in 2000, and some important part of him must be flabbergasted that it was Barack Obama taking the comparative high ground this time around. McCain has always seen partisan politics as kind of dirty; to really compete on the presidential level, he convinced himself, he had to hold his nose, at least until the stench became too much to bear.

It's in that context that you should take in McCain's comment about Sarah Palin, that she's a "great campaigner." It played like a compliment to a ravenous Phoenix crowd that loved the Alaska governor much more than their own semi-native son. But coming from a man who chose his concession speech to make a forceful and moving address about race and unity in America, and who will no doubt be doing some serious soul-searching these next few weeks about the conduct of his failed campaign, it was probably more of an insult.

The Oh-So Incredible Success of Anti-Immigration Politics

Posted on November 5, 2008, 1:39am | David Weigel

Not to beat a dead burro, but let's check: How has the Great Immigrant Backlash of 2006-2007 affected the GOP? The folk hero of the movement, Hazelton, PA Mayor Lou Barletta, has lost his challenge to mummified Democrat Paul Kanjorski. I don't recall a single public poll that showed Kanjorski winning. But he did.

The Democrats have gained two Senate seats in the Southwest, in Colorado and in New Mexico, as those states fell to Barack Obama (along with Nevada). At this hour they look to have picked up one House seat in Nevada, one in Colorado, one in Arizona, and two in New Mexico, all while losing nothing from their 2006 sweep in the area.

It's yet more evidence that immigration restrictionism is terrible politics. On this, Karl Rove was right.

Re-Districting

Posted on November 5, 2008, 1:24am | Matt Welch

Continuing my octennial tradition, I spent part of Election Night at the Ralph Nader party inside the National Press Club before taking a post-victory stroll around the White House. At Nader HQ, I had a very pleasant conversation with a Hit & Run-reading Nader-backer about Milton Friedman's ideas on the negative income tax.

The front of the White House, like indeed much of Washington D.C. right now, is a very big, very joyous young-people party. It's like Del Playa on a Friday, only starring every model who ever appeared in a Benetton ad. I saw two different two-man brass bands perform enthusiastically received versions of "When the Saints Go Marching In," which is a statement either about Hurricane Katrina, or about the limited repetoire of happy white dudes with trombones.

Unlike in 2000, the crowd outside was much more celebratory, much less shouting angry taunts in the direction of the presidential bedroom, for whatever little that's worth. It's a bit startling to have people roll down their windows and yell "O-ba-ma!" at you, but they seemed pleasant enough. Not for the first time, I wonder what it must feel like to vote for the winning team.

A Few Down-Ballot Races

Posted on November 4, 2008, 11:18pm | Radley Balko

• It looks like Oliver Diaz, Jr. will lose his bid for reelection to Mississippi’s Supreme Court.  That’s really too bad.

•  Drug warrior Mark Souder will win in Indiana.

•  Bright spots?  Medical marijuana won in Michigan, and marijuana decriminalization won in Massachusetts.

President Barack Hussein Obama II

Posted on November 4, 2008, 10:44pm | David Weigel

It's going to be called as soon as the West Coast comes in at 11 p.m. ET. I've been too busy interviewing Barr people at his election party to check the House races lately, but so far Murtha is winning, and a lot of the close races are breaking their way.

Death Watch

Posted on November 4, 2008, 10:29pm | Jesse Walker

Jack Kevorkian's independent congressional campaign is getting about 3 percent of the vote in Michigan's ninth district. I'm not a Kevorkian fan (cf. Michael Betzold and Thomas Szasz), but if you want a particularly forceful way to vote None of the Above...

Rangel-Obama 08!

Posted on November 4, 2008, 10:11pm | Damon W. Root

Embattled rent control crook and English Only-tax evader Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) is playing host to a massive election night party outside the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building on 125th Street tonight in Harlem. I'd try estimating the size of the turnout, but it was really too damned crowded to tell. The main focus was the jumbo TV erected at the side of the plaza, but there was also a stage where Rangel and other bigwigs piped up periodically to address the crowd.

To call the mood celebratory would be a serious understatement. This is a crowd steeped in the historical importance of the moment, quite conscious that they're gathered in America's most famous black neighborhood to watch the election of America's first black president. That's something every classical liberal should appreciate. When it comes to state-sanctioned violence and oppression—including restrictions on such fundamentals as the right to own property and the right to keep and bear arms—African Americans have suffered the very worst that government has to offer. That's not to say that the coming Obama adminstration is going to be very good for individual liberty, but his election represents a victory for classical liberalism nonetheless.

Here are some of the photos I shot. 

You can't quite tell, but Charlie Rangel was wearing one damn fine bowtie.

This following image, or versions of it, were everywhere, even on the podium above. Just who's running for president, anyway? Isn't the dude on the left getting top billing?

Here's the free market in action, even in Obama's America!

Here's one of the capitalists selling the above pins.

No comment.

On a final, unsettling note, here's overlord Chris Matthews, overseeing all from the jumbotron.

Election Day Freebie Watch: Part 5

Posted on November 4, 2008, 10:11pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

After posting about the New York Times food section last week, I got a flood of angry mail about my too abrupt dismissal of Brooklyn's beers.*

Worshippers of the hops are welcome to head to Brooklyn and make the call for themselves on this Election evening, since Moe's is offering Election Day discounts on Hop Obama, one of their fine native beverages. A final semi-freebie for the day.

My esteemed colleague Damon Root was there at lunch, and he made this pronouncement: "Beer you can believe in. Keep the change."

*And by "flood" I mean that Damon sent a single polite email suggesting that I give Brooklyn ales and the like another chance.

Is Obama a "Stealth Candidate"? Is America Now a Center-Left Country?

Posted on November 4, 2008, 9:50pm | Nick Gillespie

At Fox News, there's an interesting (read: tedious but what else is on?) debate about whether this election, which seems to be trending big for the Dems all around the horn, is a coff-coff game-changer in American politics. Are we moving, ask the pundits there, from a center-right country to a center-left country?

Fortune's Nina Easton says it's the latter and that the election (so far) is a repudiation of laissez-faire economics, deregulation, blah blah blah; she also says that Obama has told her he's a pragmatist, not an ideologue, and that he's surrounding himself now with centrist Dems such as Robert Rubin and old warhorses such as former Fed head Paul Volcker. Her take (which is at odds with her general take on the meaning of the election) is that Obama isn't going to mess with NAFTA or basic free trade policy.

Juan Williams argues that we don't even know Obama's stance on card check, which would suspend secret ballots for union votes, or any number of other issues. Fred Barnes argues that the Republicans are losing big but not because anything or anybody is changing in the country. Go figure.

I suspect that the toughest thing to figure out about this election is simply the fact that, with the possible exception of single-payer healthcare, virtually every scare scenario you can generate about Obama (many with good reason) has already been put into place by the current GOP administration, typically with the enthusiastic aid of Republicans in Congress. Whether we're talking about the Medicare prescription drug benefit or the war in the Iraq or the federalizing of education policy or the PATRIOT Act (which recycled Janet Reno's law enforcement wish list) or trade sanctions or regulatory overload or the freaking bailout, the Bush admin has been there and done that.

Which isn't to say that Obama won't be terrible in his own particular way, especially since Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will stand taller come January. But he's really going to have work at it to distinguish himself from his predecessor.

Hit & Runners, what worries you most about the new day a-dawnin' in America?

Michigan Approves Medical Marijuana

Posted on November 4, 2008, 9:31pm | Nick Gillespie

The Marijuana Policy Project reports that Michigan voters have approved a medical marijuana initiative that will "permit terminally and seriously ill patients to use medical marijuana with their doctors' approval." The Wolverine State is the 13th state to allow basic decency to rule the day.

More here.

reason on medical marijuana.

Ohio Goes for Obama

Posted on November 4, 2008, 9:18pm | Nick Gillespie

Fox News is calling Ohio for Obama, which means it's really all over for McCain.

Let the post-game analysis begin.

Barr Smashing the Third Party Opposition....***(Not Anymore....)

Posted on November 4, 2008, 9:17pm | Brian Doherty

...says CNN right now, with 11 percent of precincts reported. The Libertarian Party's Barr is at 108,000 or so, more than four time the Ron Paul-anointed Chuck Baldwin, and a good 30K ahead of Nader.

If a straight extrapolation holds, Barr will far exceed the 550,000 I called for him in a comment thread earlier in the day, and actually reach the magic million. Developing....

UPDATE: Won't be updating this all night--check the link for the freshest--but with 14 percent of precincts reporting, Barr's at 120K, not quite 30K ahead of Nader with 91,000, and still about 4 times ahead of Baldwin.

UPDATE II: The straight extrapolation is already faltering--with 17 percent reporting, a straight extrapolation from now would have Barr totalling 805,000 or so. Despite my own earlier call of 550K for Barr, with this information I've already made a bet with someone that he'll now beat 600K.

UPDATE III: I promised I wouldn't update all night, and I won't! But one more at least. Yes, straight extrapolations are dangerous things. With 23 percent reporting, Barr's at 163,737--still ahead of Nader, but by less than 20K now. And the extrapolations continue to mislead--from this point, if all remains equal, Barr will total in at around 712,000.

UPDATE IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE. I really am walking away from the computer for a while now. The heading should now more appropriately, at 28 percent of precincts reported, "Barr beating the Third Party Opposition." He's still ahead of Nader, but only by 8 thousand or so, and that may well not hold--in fact, it seems likely not to.

A straight extrapolation from right now would have Barr at 655K total. But remember how misleading that has been so far: he's right now only at about 67 percent of where he would be if the extrapolation from 11 percent reported held. So, I'm feeling better and better about the prediction I made before I had a bit of data on actual votes: 550,000 for Barr. And feeling a little nervous about that breaking 600K bet.

UPDATE V: With 31 percent reported, Nader is within a thousand or so of Barr, who is at 196,212. This headline will doubtless no longer apply in any variant within an hour or so of 7:15 pacific time, when I now write.

UPDATE VI: Went to listen to a bunch of well-to-do people at a hoity Pasadena hotel mostly cheer and clap the Obama acceptance speech (then heard one earnestly explain to table mates how people lose incentive to work when jobs or money are guaranteed); when I returned to my computer, well, Nader was/is over 130,000 ahead of Barr.

And it looks certain that I both lost my bet (made in the flush of a Barr whose vote totals were highly overweighted in that first 11 percent of precincts that reported) and overwhelmingly likely that I overestimated Barr's pull in my pre-vote-count guess: With 85 percent reported as I write, Barr is at 442,061 votes.

Well, he did do better than Badnarik, just like all his fans promised he would. 

Poll Closings at 9 p.m.: Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming

Posted on November 4, 2008, 8:53pm | David Weigel

When Arizona is declared "too close to call," you have permission to laugh.

At 9:05, Barr campaign manager takes the stage at the Barr party to start thanking staff. Wayne Allyn Root is here, talking with Shane Cory. (Wayne had bet on McCain winning the election.) Everyone's attention is occupied when Georgia is called for McCain, with Barr scoring only 1 percent of the vote at that moment.

I talked to John Monds, the LP candidate for Public Services Commissioner who's aiming for the biggest LP vote total in Georgia history. He's on track--he's won a precinct! And he's up around 25 percent of the vote.

Diebold, Die!

Posted on November 4, 2008, 8:51pm | Nick Gillespie

I voted for the first time in at least four years (and possibly for the first time since 2000). In Oxford, Ohio, on an electronic machine created by Diebold, the bete noire of all manner of voting conspiracists (as I said in reason's presidential poll, I tapped the screen for one Bob Barr). This was my first time with such an apparatus—I grew up in New Jersey, where we voted on steampunk-clanky mechanical machines involving flipped switches and pulled levers and all sorts of weirdly old-fashioned seeming stuff. There was something comforting about having to exert yourself to cast a ballot, though it seemed kind of implausible that anyone was really tabulating whatever the hell was on the inside of the machine (indeed, in the Garden State and New York, stories would always come out weeks after a given election of whole tractor trailers filled with voting machines simply disappearing).

The Diebold electronic screen was not comforting in the least, though it seemed easy and transparent enough to use. There was a paper tape that you could read as the vote was tabulated, etc.

As we wait for the polls to close and the results to come in, I'm curious if Hit & Run readers care much about the technology of voting. And what interesting (or like mine, uninteresting) experiences did you have today? 

AP story on machines not malfunctioning, big turnout, and the like.

Kind of a Comforting Thought on Election Night...

Posted on November 4, 2008, 8:41pm | Nick Gillespie

The "In the News" listing on Google News' homepage reads thus at 8.44 P.M. ET:

In The News
Antonio McDyess  Tony Fadell  Denver Nuggets  Steve Fossett  Jennifer Hudson	Keanu Reeves  Ben Roethlisberger  Guitar Hero  Phillip Fulmer  Derek Anderson

Obama Takes Pennsylvania; All Over But the Screaming, Shouting, Gnashing of Teeth...

Posted on November 4, 2008, 8:36pm | Nick Gillespie

...and possible passage of a single-payer healthcare plan early next year...

More on the Obama win in The Keystone State via Reuters.

The Essence of Hypocrisy

Posted on November 4, 2008, 8:22pm | Mike Riggs

In Florida Obama is six points ahead of McCain, and for some strange reason, Prop. 2, which would ban gay marriage and civil unions, is also ahead—by 20 points.

It's too early to call, as they say, but my guess is that a large chunk of North Florida's Bible-beating hillbillies decided they were fine with letting Barack Obama a black man write off the mortgages on their trailers and give them free health care, but not with allowing their neighbors the queers in the rest of the state to marry—or form legal domestic partnerships with—the people they love other queers.

It's amazing to see which of their prejudices people are able to ignore when their own self-interests are at stake. Gay rights were so close...

UPDATE: The amendment to ban gay adoption in Arkansas is going like gang busters. McCain could have made this election about social issues and done much, much, better. Thank Spaghetti Monster, he didn't.

UPDATE: I'm looking at the county-by-county breakdown for Florida, and it seems I owe all the Bible-beating hillbillies an apology; Miami-Dade, Orange, and Broward (aka, the Gay Trifecta) are all reporting big support for Prop. 2.

UPDATE: In a bitter twist to the broader story, an evangelical family member who lives in Missouri is celebrating news that Grey's Anatomy axed its most prominent gay character. What a night.

(Final) UPDATE: Ben Smith on the likelihood that Prop 8 in California won't do much better than Prop 2 in Fla.:

California Democrats want Obama to win, but they're growing nervous tonight that a landslide back east could, perversely, help the state's conservatives pass an amendment barring same-sex marriage.

Their problem: If the presidential election appears over, it will likely depress the turnout, except among three groups: The social conservatives, and committed gay rights voters, going out to vote on Proposition Eight; and African-Americans, who are expected to come out to vote for the first black president even if his victory is all but assured.

And California polling suggests that black voters will back Proposition Eight. The last Field Poll had it at 49 to 43 percent in that community.

Some Democrats remember Jimmy Carter's early concession in 1980, which was devastating for local races in the West. So they may be hoping McCain pulls out a state or two back East.

UPDATE: There are indications of a robocall aiming to deliver this message, and suppress California votes. Jonathan Martin has four readers reporting it.

Poll Closings at 8 p.m.: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee

Posted on November 4, 2008, 8:00pm | David Weigel

The Barr partygoers I'm talking to are really hoping for a McCain loss, but I should probably check my sample size.

CNN is playing at the Barr party, and it's infuriatingly wimpy at calling races. Their exit poll shows Obama clobbering McCain by better than 10 points in New Hampshire, and no one at the party (who's not on the phone) realizes it.

I told Barr campaign manager Russ Verney about MSNBC's and ABC's Pennsylvania calls. "That's not a surprise, is it?" he said. I pointed out that McCain had spent much of the past two weeks there. "Like I said, it's not a surprise."

I'm hearing that John Sununu lost in New Hampshire, so I tell Barr blogger Jason Pye. "His comment a few years ago about the Military Commissions Act, that the Constitution is not a suicide pact? I lost all respect for him on that. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Our foreign policy is."

I can't hear CNN in here, but at some point people are going to notice that the Bradley Effect did not exist. It simply didn't. Obama's on track to win the biggest Democratic victory in Pennsylvania since 1964. And whoever you're rooting for, that's fantastic - white voters did not lie to the pollsters to cover up their racism.

Florida Republican Rep. Ric Keller, one of the only Republicans to vote against the Iraq surge, has been defeated.

And... Elizabeth Dole. Bestower of the 21-year old drinking age. Creator of a TV ad that attacked her opponent for being friends with atheists. She's lost her Senate seat, and that's the last we'll ever hear of her.

The 7 p.m. Poll Closings: Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia

Posted on November 4, 2008, 6:20pm | David Weigel

ATLANTA - I'm en route to Bob Barr's election party, which won't kick off officially until after the polls close, which gave me time to grab a burger at the Varsity restaurant. A family next to me is talking about... Bob Barr. They didn't vote for him, they were just trying to remember who the LP candidate was.

The first wave of exit polls, which are being broadcast on the cable channels (Fox News in the Varsity), look ridiculously good for Obama. Not the state-by-states, which are bunk, but the fact that more voters would be "scared" of a McCain win than an Obama win, that only 10 percent more of the electorate thinks McCain has more relevant experience than Obama, and so on. Sometimes that data falls apart. If it's at all right, the electorate is basically where Obama wanted it.

I'll start checking it here at 7.

UPDATE: I'm at Barr HQ, and the exits are coming in. The borig guys first: The earliest exit polls have Obama taking Virginia, but the biggest problem for McCain is that people who decided today broke for Obama. Remember: the polls showed Obama leading but under 50 percent. McCain was going to win it if undecideds broke his way. Unless they're lying, they will provide Obama his margin of victory. "We moved the ball forward and everybody know that we did," says Barr campaign guru Stewart Flood.

I talked to Barr foreign policy advisor Doug Bandow, who'd voted for his candidate but was rooting for an Obama "rout." "Obama's foreign policy will be no less aggressive than Bush's, but McCain's will be much worse."

The band at the Barr party plays "Sin City" as a number of Libertarians come over to ask us to ask if we have more detailed numbers. We kind of don't: Between the paucity of stuff that's in and the buggy state sites, we're sort of in a holding pattern.

The Reason.tv Talk Show featuring Nick Gillespie, Michael C. Moynihan, Mary Katherine Ham, & Robert Corn-Revere

Posted on November 4, 2008, 6:00pm | Nick Gillespie

The latest installment of the reason.tv Talk Show with Michael C. Moynihan and Nick Gillespie features blogger and O'Reilly Factor regular Mary Katherine Ham, First Amendment lawyer Robert Corn-Revere in a freewheeling conversation about politics, censorship, and more.

Approximately 20 minutes.

For an audio podcast, go here.

For embed code, go here.

Will We Wake Up in 1933?

Posted on November 4, 2008, 4:52pm | Michael C. Moynihan

Obama's "restraint," says this blogger, is to be admired. He is in possession of "both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament," said conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, paraphrasing Oliver Wendell Holmes's judgment of FDR. Christopher Buckley cribbed the same line, declaring that Obama "has exhibited throughout a 'first-class temperament.'"  I can't disagree with any of these assessments, and I'm all for leaders with a Rooseveltian temperament. But shouldn't we be slightly more skeptical of those in possession of a Rooseveltian vision of domestic policy? And with the McCain issue will likely off the table by tomorrow morning, with the curtain soon to be drawn on the era of Bush's big government conservatism, with no dreaded Republican to do battle with, are we ready for a president with an expansive view of government intervention into the economy? (And yes, Bush was the worst of the worst on spending, but we soon won't have Mr. Bush to kick around anmore.) Will Obama, in this time of crisis, heed the advice of those members of the liberal commentariat agitating for radical economic change; will he push for some kind of New New Deal? According to this John Heilemann story in New York magazine, some of Obama's adviser's are already looking to the ghost of FDR to guide them:

"A lot of people around Barack are reading books about FDR's first hundred days," says a member of Obama's kitchen cabinet. "It's a sign of the shift that's going on emotionally: from being on this improbable mission to believing, Hey, we're going to win."

Obama might show "restraint" (whatever that means) and be an astoundingly clever guy, but perhaps it is time for the Obamacons and the Obamatarians to face the prospect of four years of big government liberalism, to accept that American foreign policy probably won't be any less interventionist (just fronted by people lacking that Rumsfeldian bombast). Perhaps we should start thinking about a big, messy healthcare bureaucracy, the victory of card check, an attempt to reintroduce the fairness doctrine, or the establishment of a "fair" (read: protectionist) trade policy. 

Oh, and be prepared for more stuff like this bizarre rant from half-witted actor John Cusack, star of the Hitler buddy pic Max ("C'mon Hitler, I'll buy you a glass of lemonade"), who declares in the Huffington Post that "the modern free market system is false but a new revelation shall come." Deep, man. After all, sayth Cusack, we have reached "the end of Milton Friedman, Reaganomics and supply-side theory" and we, as conscripted members of the new CCC, must "help Obama try to implement another New Deal..."

New at Reason: Ron Bailey Explains Why Eating Local Won't Save the Planet

Posted on November 4, 2008, 4:30pm

For some activists, eating local foods is no longer just a pleasure—it is a moral obligation. Why? Because locally produced foods are supposed to be better for the planet than foods shipped thousands of miles. But as Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey reports, the numbers show that all the hype about food miles fails to add up.

Read all about it here. 

The Bars Weren't Open This Morning

Posted on November 4, 2008, 3:43pm | Jesse Walker

Ann Arbor, home of the Michigan Wolverines, is the most left-wing town in the state, arguably in the entire Midwest. Still, when I was an undergrad here in the election of '88 and a newly-minted alum in the election of '92, there were at least a few indications around campus that the vote was being contested. (And not just by the Republicans. If you wanted to meet Helen Halyard, nominee of the Workers League, she was right there outside the library, passing out her own literature.)

Today you can see a few McCain signs in the townie parts of the city, though the Obama signs overwhelmingly outnumber them. But on campus, the only indication I could find that the GOP even exists was one curly-haired kid in a McCain-Palin T-shirt, deep in what appeared to be an entirely apolitical conversation. I realize that I'm an outsider now, no longer plugged in to college activism, and that there's surely a student right-wing underground. But even taking that into account, the visible support for Obama seems much more uniform than the support for Clinton and Dukakis 16 and 20 years ago. The College Democrats were out in force on the Diag, the center of campus, handing out literature (one volunteer's pitch to passers-by: "Free Obama stuff?") and singing what I gathered were Obama carols. Rock the Vote, nominally nonpartisan but in practice an extension of the Democratic Party, had a booth there as well. So, happily, did Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, who are campaigning for a Michigan medical marijuana initiative.

The polls were open at the student union. There was a blood drive in progress there as well, in case anyone wanted to contribute something useful to the community. Both attractions seemed to be doing brisk business. A nice young woman offered me an I Voted sticker as I exited the area, even though I had not, in fact, just cast a vote. If I were less honest, I would have taken the opportunity to con Starbucks out of a cup of coffee.

An Election Night Guide

Posted on November 4, 2008, 3:30pm | David Weigel

Unless the polls are off like they haven’t been since 1948, tonight should bring America’s first relatively early election night in 12 years. What we might not know early: the makeup of the new Senate, the fate of California’s gay marriage initiative, and whether the Libertarian Party reaches an all-time record vote total.

There are plenty of ways to watch the election as a horse race. Jonathan Martin lists the most important counties in the swing states. John Tabin points out the close races and the signals that would hint at an Obama landslide or a McCain upset. Here’s a relatively brief rundown on what will close when, and what tea leaves to read, as well as a list of notable ballot measures. To my mind CNN has the best and most quickly-updated information, but expect lots of news sites to freeze up, and to move on to others.

Election Day Freebie Watch: Part 4

Posted on November 4, 2008, 3:26pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

An informal canvass of three D.C. Starbucks suggests that people are taking their free coffee black and sweet—appropriately enough in this season of impending Obama victory.

• Down at the Farragut Park Starbucks, where people wear frumpy suits and look tired, the cashier simply converted every order for a tall coffee into a freebie, regardless of whether the customers knew about the promotion. Asked how many cups she had given away, she sighed and said "hundreds."

• Up in Dupont Circle, people with cool jeans and Obama buttons inquired politely after their free coffee. Many people took their coffee from the counter and looked around as if they were waiting for security to pounce. Unsurprising really, that people who are used to paying $4 a pop feel like a free cup is too good to be true. One older woman asked for two cups, and she got them. The barista, obviously not confident of a speedy Obama victory, said: "Ma'am, it might be a long night, so sure."

Former reason intern Jonathan Blanks partook, and had this to say: "I just spat on the party of my youth, and all I got was this lousy coffee. Thanks, Starbucks.”

Lots of people are doubling up on the freebies—getting a solid two and a half dollars worth from their stickers—clutching their Krispy Kreme bag while standing in line waiting their free coffee. Sounds a little like an Election Day version of the Recession Special (two hot dogs and a drink), made famous by Gray's Papaya, where allegiances are clear:

Of course, Gray's raised the prices of the Recession Special last month, from $3.50 to $4.45. Not clear whether this means Gray's believes demand is going to be huge because the recession is going to be really bad, or whether Gray's thinks it won't be so bad that people can't afford an extra buck.

Either way, we're not quite at the bread lines stage, so perhaps we can hold off a little longer on the New New Deal?

New at Reason: Dave Weigel on the Final Hours of Bob Barr's Campaign

Posted on November 4, 2008, 3:00pm

Reporting from Georgia, Associate Editor David Weigel talks to the Barr campaign in the final run-up to election 2008.

Read all about it here.

Can't John Roberts Afford Cable?

Posted on November 4, 2008, 2:57pm | Jacob Sullum

Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case involving the Federal Communications Commission's policy regarding shit and fucking on broadcast TV. Last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said the FCC violated the Administration Procedure Act when, in response to comments by Bono, Cher, and Nicole Ritchie on live award show broadcasts, it abruptly decided to start fining broadcasters for the sort of fleeting profanity it had long tolerated. The FCC is asking the Supreme Court to reverse the appeals court's decision. According to the Los Angeles Times, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia both indicated during questioning that they were inclined to side with the FCC. "Broadcast TV is the one place where Americans can turn on the TV at 8 o'clock and not expect to be bombarded by indecent language," Robert claimed.

It's weird that the father of two young children apparently has never encountered Noggin, Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, TV Land, or any of the other family-friendly cable channels. The justification for continuing to censor over-the-air channels while leaving their nonbroadcast competitors free to provide what they think their viewers want has never been thinner, given that the two kinds of channels are indistinguishable to the typical TV watcher, who gets all programming by cable, satellite, or phone line. Both kinds of channels are equally "pervasive," equally accessible, and equally blockable by disapproving parents. Furthermore, although the FCC clings to its antiquated notions of family hours and safe harbors, the time when shows are transmitted is increasingly irrelevant in the age of DVRs. According to the Times, Roberts "said that 'all sorts of other media are available' for for those who are not bothered by more open use of profanity, sex or violence." Likewise, all sorts of options are available to those who are. 

If most of the justices agree that the special treatment of over-the-air channels no longer makes sense, it seems likely that they will remedy the disparity by extending the First Amendment's full protection to broadcasters, as opposed to authorizing censorship of cable (though not necessarily in this case, which can be decided on statutory grounds). Broadcasting & Cable notes that "all five of the Justices that overturned a cable-related FCC content regulation [Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg] are still on the court." In that case, the Court said "the Government cannot ban speech if targeted blocking is a feasible and effective means of furthering its compelling interests."  

I discussed the fleeting-profanity case earlier this year, when the Supreme Court agreed to hear it.

Addendum: A transcript of the oral arguments is available here (PDF). Contrary to Damon Root's hope, the words at issue make nary an appearance.

Election Day Freebie Watch: Part 3

Posted on November 4, 2008, 1:53pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

The Krispy Kreme in D.C.'s Dupont Circle was hopping this afternoon, with a line of office workers basking in that "I Voted" glow and the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with an impending free donut.

The two harried Latinas behind the counter looked like they were rethinking their decision to come to America.

Despite a last minute change of plans which required Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, and others to give free stuff to all comers, not just voters, the Dupont Kripsy was checking for stickers. 

In an almost-too-good-to-be-true foreshadowing of the Obama presidency, the donutistas said that they were concerned about running out of the free election-themed donuts. Apparently, when you give something away for free, it's hard to know how much of it to make. They'd resorted to (semi-illegally) demanding to see "I Voted" stickers for the special donuts in order to stretch out the supply. They also said customers weren't as polite as usual. Go figure—when people feel entitled to something, they act as if they value it less. Who could have foreseen such a thing? Oh, wait. 

Balko on the Radio

Posted on November 4, 2008, 1:45pm | Radley Balko

I'll be on WBAL in Baltimore at 2pm ET to discuss my latest Fox column on the dominance of the two major parties.

An Early Scalp for Drug Reformers?

Posted on November 4, 2008, 12:59pm | Radley Balko

My native state Indiana closes its polls at 6 pm.  In the past, that and the state's reliably Republican electorate have made it the first state the networks call—generally around 6:01.

This year, the Hoosier state is a toss-up.  But drug war opponents should keep an eye on the state's third district, where incumbent GOP Rep. Mark Souder looks to be in trouble.  Souder is the ranking Republican on the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, which oversees federal drug policy.  He has made continuing the drug war with Nixon-Reagan vigor one of his pet issues.  

Souder once compared the use of medical marijuana to rape and child abuse.  He added a provision to the Higher Ed act that would bar students convicted of any drug crime from receiving federal student loans.  He has mocked medical marijuana patients, and cheered the DEA's war on prescription painkillers.  Oh, and he had his butt handed to him a while back while defending those awful ONDCP ads on Tucker Carlson's MNSBC show.

Challenger Michael Montagno appears to be closing.  Might be the makings of an early gift for drug reformers tonight.

New at Reason: Matt Welch on Why McCain Put Politics Before Principle

Posted on November 4, 2008, 12:00pm

Should we be shocked that John McCain has so profoundly changed his positions and tactics in an effort to win? Not necessarily, writes Editor in Chief Matt Welch, who notes that McCain warned us six years ago about how he might change if he ever got close to the White House.

Read all about it here.

You Know, My Grandparents Used to Vote for Whoever Would Give Them a Ride to the Polls and a Turkey

Posted on November 4, 2008, 11:58am | Nick Gillespie

reason's Katherine Mangu-Ward is all over the voter-freebie beat in the empire's nation's capital, but the state of (U.S.) Georgia has expressly banned such patriotical giveaways:

State officials have ruled that giving free items to folks who voted—no matter the altruism involved—is illegal. Several businesses, like Starbucks, Ben and Jerry's, Krispy Kreme and even Zoo Atlanta had offered freebies or half-priced items to those sporting their "I voted" stickers.

But many now were backing off the original offer by expanding their election-day largesse to all.

"Businesses are free to offer election day sales to all its customers; but special offers just for voters is prohibited," said Matt Carrothers, spokesman for the Georgia Secretary of State's office.

More here.

Here's a strange-but-true-tale of American democracy back in the good old days (i.e., the [first] Great Depression): My mother once told me that my Italian grandparents, who probably weren't registered to vote in the first place, used to vote for whoever would show up first on election day with food and transportation.

As we ponder a day that will almost certainly end in an Obama victory (helped along by an unprecedented $600 million in private funds and a rejection of the public financing that would have lowered the total amount of loot), take a few minutes to listen to former Federal Election Commission head Brad Smith talk about the turkey that is campaign-finance reform:

Election Day Freebie Watch: Part 2

Posted on November 4, 2008, 11:31am | Katherine Mangu-Ward

Poor Starbucks can't seem to do anything right lately. After hyping free coffee for those who "care enough to vote," the chain has been forced to revise its promotion by federal election law. Now they're giving a free cup of coffee to any one who cares enough to ask for a free cup of coffee. That's civic participation.

"Federal law makes no distinction between cups of coffee or a raffle ticket versus a buy-the-vote kind of thing on the other end of the spectrum. We just told Starbucks, essentially, no good deed goes unpunished. We appreciate the gesture, but it's forbidden" according to the office of Washington's secretary of state.

Looks like there's a chance for my objectivity to be tainted after all. I'm headed out now to watch federal election law get broken by baristas who didn't get the memo...

Guam, Birthplace of American Democracy

Posted on November 4, 2008, 10:53am | David Weigel

Richard Winger of Ballot Access News has the initial results from Guam, where voters cast utterly meaningless (to the outcome, not to democracy!) presidential ballots.

Barack Obama (D) - 8796
John McCain (R) - 5355
Bob Barr (L) - 97

As Winger notes, this represents a mini-surge in Libertarian support from 2004: Barr's 0.7 percent of the vote is much better than Michael Badnarik's 0.2 percent. Obama is leading McCain 61.7 percent to 37.6 percent, a big improvement for the Democrats, who lost nearly 2-1 here in 2004. I think Wolf Blitzer can take the rest of the day off.

Yma Sumac, RIP

Posted on November 4, 2008, 10:29am | Jesse Walker

Yma Sumac died Saturday at age 86. There may have been, at some point in human history, a singer with a wider vocal range than this woman. But that singer never entered a recording studio.



From the L.A. Times obituary:

With her exotic beauty, elaborate costumes and singing voice that could imitate the cries of birds and wild animals, the woman who claimed to be a descendant of an ancient Incan emperor offered Eisenhower-era audiences something unique.

If all the political coverage starts getting oppressive today, go over to YouTube and click through a bunch of Sumac's performances, which should prove that those "Eisenhower-era audiences" had a taste for stranger fare than many potted cultural histories would lead you to expect. If you want to begin with a familiar tune, start here.

Election Day Freebie Watch: Part 1

Posted on November 4, 2008, 9:54am | Katherine Mangu-Ward

In an effort to take the pulse of the American electorate, yours truly will be blogging live all day from the places where democracy really matters: Stores where an "I Voted" sticker entitles customers to free stuff.

Since I never vote, reason readers can rest assured that my objectivity will remain untainted by conflicts of interest.

I probably won't make it up to NYC today, so before I hit the mean streets of Washington, D.C., I'm going to kick things off with a news report. Toys in Babeland, a "woman-positive sex shop," is giving away freebies to those who present their ballot stubs, registration cards, or "word of honor" that they voted. The prize?:

For men, it’s the “Maverick,” a "sleeve" for self-pleasuring. According to a press release, “He’s always there to lend a hand, he works for every man, and he bucks the status quo.” Women can choose the “Silver Bullet” mini-vibrator, which is “a magical solution to difficult problems” and “a great stress-reliever during these troubled economic times!”

In related news, freebies may also be available from disconsolate young ladies sporting McCain buttons in D.C. bars tonight.

Stay tuned for more from Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Ben and Jerry's, and more.

How Ya Votin', Libertarian?

Posted on November 4, 2008, 9:52am | Matt Welch

Esteemed Reason Foundation trustee Manuel S. Klausner says Barr in uncontested states (such as his native California), but McCain in battleground states as "the lesser of two evils." The kicker: "No doubt we all agree that these are horrendous times for libertarians." Actually, I feel a Righteous Wind behind the intellectual argument for free minds and free markets, being a firm believer in both the Plexiglass Principle and the anecdotal/polling data that Americans detest the bailout that their two major parties foisted upon them. Whole Klausner argument here.

Want to see who Canadian libertarians and conservatives would vote for, if they had the chance? Check out the Western Standard, here and here. Last week we polled our staff and the broader reason universe; results here (and a Reader's Digest condensed version of regular reason contributors here).

Predictions '08

Posted on November 4, 2008, 8:00am | Jesse Walker

At this point Joe Biden has a better shot than John McCain of becoming the next president of the United States, so I'll skip the race for first place and offer some educated guesses about how the more interesting candidates might fare:

Third Place: Ralph Nader's name recognition surpasses Bob Barr's, and he's currently outpolling the LP's man by about 2 percentage points. And no one ever went broke underestimating the electoral performance of the Libertarian Party. Nonetheless, if Barr draws mostly from the right and Nader draws mostly from the left -- which seems like a reasonable outcome to expect, though there are surveys showing Nader making inroads among right-wing populists -- then the Libertarian could come out on top. This time around, there are simply more disaffected conservatives than disaffected liberals out there.

Fifth Place: Chuck Baldwin should top Cynthia McKinney easily. You might at least expect her to do well in Georgia, the state that used to send her to Congress, but the Greens aren't on the ballot there.

Seventh Place: A month ago this would have been an easy call for Alan Keyes. But with Ron Paul's non-campaign polling 4 percent in Montana, he has a shot at it. If McKinney flops badly, he might even make it to sixth.

Last Place: Write-ins aside, I'm expecting Gene Amondson of the Prohibition Party to bring up the rear, despite his catchy campaign slogan: "Vote tradition, vote prohibition!"

Ron Paul at Four Percent and Holding...

Posted on November 4, 2008, 7:46am | David Weigel

Fifty votes have been counted so far in Election 2008, and Ron Paul won two of them.

Democrat Obama defeated Republican John McCain by a count of 15 to 6 in Dixville Notch, where a loud whoop accompanied the announcement in Tuesday's first minutes. The town of Hart's Location reported 17 votes for Obama, 10 for McCain and two for write-in Ron Paul.

This is bad news for McCain and slightly less bad news for Bob Barr, if only because the man from Georgia doesn't  actually expect to win today. He wants, as he said when he declined to appear at Ron Paul's multi-party endorsementpalooza, to maximize the Libertarian Party's vote totals. Barr communications director Shane Cory told me yesterday that he expects to crack one milion votes. But here's the first anecdote of Paul voters who found no solace in any other candidate. It's a step down from 1992, when LP nominee Andre Marrou won five early votes in Dixville Notch, but it's no change from the past three elections.

Again, though: Worse news for John McCain. No Democrat's won Dixville Notch since 1968. The ray of hope is that the Democrat in question lost to Richard Nixon. In the primary Dixville Notch split 10-7 between Democratic and Republican primary ballots, but Nate Silver can explain why none of this matters.

New at Reason: Tim Cavanaugh on the Sorry State of the American Newspaper

Posted on November 4, 2008, 7:00am

If there's any reason to be saddened by the long, humiliating death of the great American newspaper, writes Tim Cavanaugh, it may be that we'll no longer have a treasure trove of tough-sounding catch phrases about the news biz. What medium but a pulp paper could spin a straight-faced tautology—"All the news that's fit to print"—into a deathless slogan?

Read all about it here. 

Japanese Scientists Clone Mice Frozen for 16 Years -- Mammoths Next?

Posted on November 3, 2008, 5:15pm | Ronald Bailey

Teruhiko Wakayama and his colleagues at the Institution Laboratory for Genomic Reprogramming in Japan have reported that they were able to create clones of mice that had been frozen for 16 years. According to U.S. News & World Report:

Wakayama...and his colleagues took brain tissue from a mouse strain frozen at minus 20 degrees Celsius for up to 16 years and transferred the nuclei (containing the genetic material) to empty egg cells.

These two-cell embryos were used to generate embryonic stem cell lines that resulted in 12 healthy cloned mice, which grew into normal adults.

The technique did not require nuclei from an intact donor cell. The cloning efficiency was about the same as using conventional cloning methods, the study authors stated....

Until now, researchers had believed that ice crystals formed in frozen cells would cause irreparable damage to the DNA, making cloning of long-dead animals impossible.

Wakayama told U.S. News that cloning a wooly mammoth from frozen remains from the Arctic tundra is "probably impossible."

Wakayama was apparently a bit more hopeful when he talked with The New Scientist:

The finding also raises hopes of one day being able to resurrect extinct animals frozen in permafrost, such as the woolly mammoth, says Teruhiko Wakayama of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, who led the research. "It would be very difficult, but our work suggests that it is no longer science fiction," he says....

Resurrecting extinct animals would be far trickier. Woolly mammoth carcasses would most likely have frozen and thawed several times over the aeons, which would cause far more damage to the nucleus than a one-off freezing.

Potentially easier would be cloning cryogenically frozen humans, though the consensus among cloning experts is that it would be unethical and dangerous to clone a human. In any case, people who sign up to be cryogenically preserved usually hope to be resuscitated rather than cloned.

The U.S. News report can be found here and The New Scientist report is here. 

"I Am Not and Have Never Been a Vegetarian"

Posted on November 3, 2008, 5:09pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

I've blogged in the past about how this campaign season hasn't been especially nasty or negative, despite hype to the contrary.

I take it all back. This smear campaign against Republican gubernatorial candidate Roy Brown in the meat-loving state of Montana is unconscionable:

"I am not and have never been a vegetarian," Brown said. "I am disgusted by the baseless allegation that I am a vegetarian and that my personal eating habits should somehow be construed as opposed to the economic interests of Montana's livestock industry."

Brown explains the source of the rumor to the Billings Gazette: "Brown did say that he and his family temporarily cut back on their consumption of meat and dairy products 25 years ago when they were caring for a dying loved one who couldn't eat those products."

Via CCF.

The New South In the Shell of the Old

Posted on November 3, 2008, 5:02pm | Jesse Walker

Spotted on Ben Smith's blog: a Confederate flag and an Obama sign share a yard.


Reminds me of something the great southern sociologist John Shelton Reed once wrote:

...last year I was startled, then amused, then heartened to see the battle flag flying from a student residence at the College of Charleston -- right next to the green, red, and black banner of black nationalism. I have no idea who flew those flags together, or why, but that sort of juxtaposition can make people stop and think, and I'm optimist enough to believe that's not usually a bad thing.

These examples make me wonder whether there's some way to universalize the Confederate symbols after all, some way to accept the past for what it was, not deny it or forget it, but transform it for our common use....Consider, for instance, the T-shirt designed by Southern Reader, a quirky, neo-secessionist, "eco-regionalist" bimonthly out of Oxford, Mississippi. It bears a battle flag, transformed: black and white on a field of green. And a motto from James Brown: "Keep It Funky."

Elsewhere in Reason: In 1999 I wrote about a similar shirt.

Australian Web Crawl

Posted on November 3, 2008, 4:59pm | Jacob Sullum

Taking its cue from enlightened regimes such as China, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, the Australian government wants to stop its citizens from seeing "illegal material" on their computer screens. Originally justified as a way of fighting child pornography, the mandatory Internet filter also might be used to block access to "illegal hard-core material" (whatever that is) and sites discussing controversial subjects such as anorexia and euthanasia. The plan has provoked criticism from the Green Party, ISPs, and business groups, which complain that it will unfairly limit Australians' access to information, further slow their already poky Internet service, and impede online commerce. The rejoinder from Communications Minister Stephen Conroy:

I will accept some debate around what should and should not be on the Internet. I am not a wowser.

I'm not sure that a willingness to discuss the details of Internet censorship disqualifies one for wowser status, but I admit I only just learned the word.

Last year Jeff Taylor noted an earlier version of the filtering plan, which would have allowed especially curious Australians to opt out. 

[Thanks to John Kluge for the tip.]

New at Reason: Dave Weigel on Libertarian Senatorial Candidate Allen Buckley

Posted on November 3, 2008, 4:30pm

Reporting from Atlanta, Associate Editor David Weigel explains how Libertarian Allen Buckley may help decide a race for the U.S. Senate.

Read all about it here. 

Arizona and Health Care Reform

Posted on November 3, 2008, 3:29pm | Nick Gillespie

From the Wall Street Journal's coverage of the fascinating Proposition 101 in Arizona:

Proposition 101, the Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, has set off a storm of opposition, though its language hardly seems controversial. It reads that "no law shall be passed that restricts a person's freedom of choice of private heath care systems or private plans of any type." Also: "No law shall interfere with a person's right to pay directly for lawful medical services . . ."

Who could be against an initiative that protects the right of patients to choose and pay for a doctor or a health plan? The answer is proponents of a health-care system run by the government. For them, enshrining into law protections for private health plans is anathema. Believe it or not, the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce also opposes the initiative. Its big health-insurance members want to protect their interests as contractors to the state's Medicaid plan.

Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano argues that Proposition 101 would limit future health-care reform options. Eric Novack, a physician and the chairman of Proposition 101, responds, "The only option that our initiative rules out is a mandatory single-payer system." Single-payer health-care systems, as in Canada, make it illegal in most cases for people to go outside the government's system and contract for their own medical services. Arizona's proposition forbids those kinds of restrictions.

More here.

Penn Jillette on Election 2008

Posted on November 3, 2008, 3:16pm | David Weigel

A little while ago, I spoke with Penn "Bullshit!" Jillette about election 2008, not too long after he cut a video endorsing Bob Barr for president. Before the polls open (well, in that diminishing part of the country that doesn't do early voting), here are his thoughts on the Most Important Election in the Universe.

reason: You said in 2007 that [1996 and 2000] Libertarian candidate Harry Browne was "as crazy" as you were, and thus was the perfect candidate. What did you mean?

Penn Jillette: Bob Barr is not crazy enough for my taste. Harry Browne had a kind of purity to his craziness. I couldn’t find anything in Harry Browne’s platform or his books that I disagreed, which didn’t seem exactly right in a presidential candidate.

Bob Barr is good guy. His conversion, I believe, is sincere. I believe all of that. But once in a while you want that Obama factor, of a guy who grabs your heart, like a rock star. Barr doesn’t do that for me like Browne did. Still, you know, there’s no trait we should celebrate more than changing one’s mind.

I do wish Barr had been more in agreement with me on sex and drugs. That always bothered me a bit. I’m for gay rights, boring monogamous rights, but I’m also for two guys fucking on the floor of my office. I don’t think Barr is. Although I don’t do drugs I’m ok with shooting heroin, and I don’t think he is. Someone smarter than me—I want to say it was P.J. O’Rourke—said if you’re going to go with a Republican or a Democrat, the person isn’t important. If you go with a Libertarian, you go with a nut, because if we do win somehow the first 16 years of Libertarian rule will be spent at the barricades, just rolling back stuff.

reason: LP Vice Presidential candidate Wayne Allyn Root has a theory that America's gamblers are natural libertarians. You work out of a casino. What do you think?

Jillette: I don’t like poker but, intellectually, poker is a really good way to talk about libertarianism. Do you think people have the right to bet on card games with their own money? If you say yes, you are a libertarian. Poker is a better example for people, to me, than drugs or sex: it’s a pure intellectual argument. It’s a really good entry point. My mom, if you asked her if she was interested in whether or not people gambled, would say no.

Every poker player is smarter than me. I’m not sure if that’s true of every serious drug user. Poker is one of the smaller issues, and it doesn’t really matter like the drug war matters, but symbolically you have to ask: Does somebody have the right to go into room and win or lose money with a group of like-minded people? It’s a really good test. It’s a real easy one.

reason: You were critical of the old newsletters that were revealed during the primaries, but on balance was Ron Paul good for libertarians?

Jillette: The basic underlying premise of that question I disagree with. I believe in individual rights so much that I don’t like any sort of “what’s good for the cause”-type question. A little while ago I was at skeptics, atheists conference and a question like that came up. How do we best win people over? As soon as we ask that question, we’re pigs. We have to leave open possibility that other side is right. Even as we call them assholes!

A lot of people listened to Ron Paul and a lot rang true to them. A lot of what he said, I agreed with. But my job professionally, my job as human, my job as an American citizen is not to do what I can to further the libertarian cause. If Obama came out and said “when I’m elected I’d make government as small as I can” I’d really get behind him. I’m not trying to get Libertarians elected. I’m even uncomfortable telling people who to vote for.

reason: But you'd enjoyed the Paul movement (or moment)?

Jillette: I was just thrilled! I love it when people are seeing a point of view that they’ve never seen before. I had people coming to me and explaining RP’s positions in a way that I couldn’t explain them. I loved that! I love listening to somebody talk about liberty so much better than I ever had. I am such a believer in marketplace of ideas. What troubles me most about politics is this feeling that you shouldn’t waste time with anyone but the frontrunners. The fact that we had this little glitch in the system, that people might listen to somebody else who wasn’t at the top of the polls, it just fills me with such incredible joy to think about it. There were people who considered me a nut for not going with one of the two major party candidates who were, all of a sudden, supporting Ron Paul.

The thing is, I don’t think any of libertarian ideas are very far out of actual spirit of our culture. The reason I use the word “nut” positively is that I think a lot of people really do believe in libertarianism, and small government, and they just need to be told that it’s OK. Paul found ways to say talk about it. I don’t think winning or even running a good race was that important. I don’t even think the million-dollar fundraising days were important. What was important was people being able to say in their own words stuff I agree with about individual rights. I think we need somebody that has charisma and clarity to make people think that’s ok. I have always, like the singers and songwriters of country western music, identified with the losers. A lot of people are not like that. A lot of people watch the Olympics to see people pick up medals.

reason: Why did you declare that you'd vote for Barr, then?

Jillette: The truth is I will vote for him, and the truth is I am talking to him, but that doesn’t mean I will be spokesperson for him or a leader for his campaign. He can say I support him. Obama wants Oprah on his side not only because Oprah is a million times more powerful than me, but because she’ll say “Yippee! Yee-haw! This is the one!” You don’t want me as your spokesman, because, sure, I’ll say government should be smaller, but I’ll say something weird on immigration or on all the sex stuff. That’s not what you want if you’re running for office.

reason: Both Barr and Paul ran on the premise that our liberties were disappearing, fast. Do you agree with that?

Jillette: I am the most optimistic person alive who says “motherfucker” on a professional basis. There are more optimistic people out there, sure, but they don’t do that. I think the individual American culture of freedom and rights is very, very strong. There’s no doubt it’s being eroded by the people in charge right now. Our vigilance is always required. But our culture still includes basic lip service to individual liberties.

I don’t worry too much about this because I don’t want to live a life based on fear. I will not counter the insanity of the PATRIOT Act with an overblown fear of my rights being taken away. Bush had more power than he should have had, but I won’t go through the hate thing that Kerry and Gore used to rev us up against him. Browne was just perfect to me—able to make the case against this stuff very strongly, yet he did not seem to be using tactics of hate and fear.

reason: If a Libertarian actually won the presidency, what would you want from him?

Jillette: George Washington, after fighting an impossible war and giving up all that time in his life, after becoming one of the richest people around—when he had a chance to take power, he asked to be Mr. president. Everyone else–would have asked to be called “your excellency.” If and when we get a Libertarian president, the first act has to be bold as that. We just need a few lucky breaks. Imagine if Barr or Paul fought and worked hard enough to be standing up there with Obama and McCain, if someone was using that platform to talk about giving back power and control to the people. It’d be the coolest thing. It can happen again!

Now Playing at Reason.tv: Roger Stone on Obama, McCain, and More

Posted on November 3, 2008, 3:00pm | Nick Gillespie

In conjunction with The Interactive Media Studies Program at Miami University of Ohio, reason's Nick Gillespie is co-teaching a class called "Poltics, Culture, and New Media."

The course explores the theory and practice of new media, especially as it relates to cultural and political journalistic outlets. In alternating weeks, the course takes place in classroom spaces on the Miami University campus in Reason's DC-based offices, where Gillespie, a Ph.D. in literature and a 20-year veteran of journalism, leads Web-based videoconferences with journalists, authors, policy analysts.

On September 17, the class talked with legendary and notorious political operative, Roger Stone.

Click above to watch the hour-long conversation, which was filmed and edited by reason's Dan Hayes. To embed this video on your website and for more video and text links, go here.

For an audio podcast version of this conversation, go here.

The Nader Effect, 2008

Posted on November 3, 2008, 2:20pm | Nick Gillespie

From Newsweek:

According to recent CNN/Opinion Research polls, Barack Obama leads John McCain by four points in a two-way choice among likely Florida voters. That gap grows to eight points with Nader in the mix, along with other minor-party candidates such as Libertarian Bob Barr.

Another sign the Nader effect may have reversed course is how the Democrats are dealing with him this time. In 2004, John Kerry met with Nader to try to dissuade him from running, and party lawyers contested his place on the ballot. This time, the Obama campaign has made no similar effort to obstruct Nader.

Who are the voters whom Nader siphons from McCain? Kevin Hill, an associate professor of political science at Florida International University, says Nader's populist rhetoric appeals to white working-class voters who lean conservative. "It's probably more of a protest than anything else," he says. McCain aides argue that Nader's poll ratings are too low to be significant. But at Nader's HQ, the lack of attention is welcome: instead of fighting ballot challenges, Nader is now contesting 45 states, and his campaign suggests he'll far exceed his dismal total of about 400,000 votes in 2004.

More here.

Recently at Reason.tv: Saving Social Security; Russell Roberts on The Price of Everything; Where's My Bailout?

Posted on November 3, 2008, 2:08pm

Saving Social Security, Episode Five. Go here for more.

Economist Russell Roberts on his new novel, The Price of Everything.

Where's My Bailout?: A rescue plan for the rest of us.

Obama's Cabinet?

Posted on November 3, 2008, 12:24pm | Radley Balko

The Politico polls Obama insiders and comes up with a list of possible nominees for cabinet secretaries and top-level advisors.

What's interesting is that despite Obama's campaign talk of revolutionary change, with few exceptions, the Politico list looks like a markedly un-radical list of establishment Democrats and moderate Republicans.

"Broken Windows" guru William Bratton for Drug Czar isn't particularly encouraging.  But then, I'm probably not going to like the nominee of any president who wants to continue with that ridiculous position.

Putting the F-Word on Trial

Posted on November 3, 2008, 12:18pm | Damon W. Root

Adam Liptak had an amusing article in The New York Times this weekend setting the stage for tomorrow's Supreme Court oral arguments in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations. At issue in the case is whether the accidental live broadcast of such unspeakable words as fuck and shit violates federal indecency laws prohibiting material that "depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs." Here's Liptak:

Thus, when the pop star Bono emphasized his glee at receiving a Golden Globe award in 2003 by saying his victory was "really, really"—insert a form of the word here—"brilliant," the commission contended there was a sexual element. So too when Cher, on another awards show, used the word to propose something that ought to be done to her critics.

And there was sex in the air, the commission said, when Nicole Richie, at a third awards show, veered from these scripted comments: "Have you ever tried to get cow manure out of a Prada purse? It's not so freaking simple." Ms. Richie did not say "manure," and she did not say "freaking."

Bono, Cher and Ms. Richie all made sexual references, and all were indecent, the commission says. "It hardly seems debatable," the commission wrote in 2006, "that the word's power to ‘intensify' and offend derives from its implicit sexual meaning" as "one of the most vulgar, graphic and explicit words for sexual activity in the English language."

Sadly, as Liptak notes, the Court rejected C-Span's request for immediate access to the audiofile of the arguments. This means we'll have to wait until sometime next year for the chance of hearing one or more of the justices curse.

Whole thing here.

New at Reason: Dave Weigel on North Carolina Republican B.J. Lawson

Posted on November 3, 2008, 12:00pm

Reporting from North Carolina, Associate Editor David Weigel evaluates libertarian Republican B.J. Lawson's chances at getting elected to Congress.

Read all about it here.

Not About the Election

Posted on November 3, 2008, 11:54am | Radley Balko

Fascinating story in the California Bay Area, where Piedmont High School football coach Kurt Bryan has exploited a loophole in the rulebook to develop an entirely new offensive scheme, which he has dubbed the "A-11."  The wide-open formation features two quarterbacks, and makes every offensive player on the field receiver-eligible (they all wear uniform numbers in the receiver-eligible range).

Because both quarterbacks stand seven yards behind the line of scrimmage, and because there's no one under center, the formation is under the rules a legal kicking formation.  But you don't have to actually kick the ball when you line up in a kicking formation (otherwise, fake kicks would be prohibited).

The offense has befuddled both defenses and referees, and has allowed tiny Piedmont to stay competitive with much larger high schools.  The genius of the offense lies in the number of options it opens up for the offense, which makes it much more difficult to defend.  From the New York Times:

According to Scientific American magazine, a standard football formation permits 36 possible scenarios for taking the snap and advancing the ball; with the A-11, the possibilities multiply to 16,632, providing a controlled randomness to the offense and potentially devastating chaos to the defense. Even the center becomes eligible to catch a pass if he is at the end of the line of scrimmage.

Detractors say the offense is gimmicky, and not real football.  Of course, detractors once said the same thing about the forward pass.  One critic calls the A-11 "deceptive and unsporting."  But misdirection and trick plays have always been part of football.  Witness the gimmickry in the Boise State-Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl from a couple of years ago—arguably the greatest college football game of all time.  Or the resurgence of the Wildcat formation in the NFL this year.

It's not yet even clear if the A-11 will give offenses a lasting advantage, or if coaches will eventually figure out how to defend it.  Seems a little early to talk about banning it.

But so far, ten states have done exactly that.  And more may follow next year, when the National Federation of State High School Associations may address the issue.

Here are some clips of the A-11 in action:

Todd Is My Favorite Palin

Posted on November 3, 2008, 10:38am | Jesse Walker

For those who prefer history to hysteria, Bill Kauffman tells the tale of the Alaskan Independence Party.

Your Personality and Your Vote

Posted on November 3, 2008, 9:45am | Ronald Bailey

ScienceDaily is running a press release featuring the insights of New Hampshire University psychologist John Mayer who details the personality traits that incline voters in either liberal or conservative directions:

Liberals:

• View social inequities and preferred groups as unjust and requiring reform.
• Prefer atheists, tattoos, foreign films and poetry.
• Endorse gay unions, welfare, universal health care, feminism and environmentalism.
• Exhibit creativity, which entails the capacity to see solutions to problems, and empathy toward others.
• Tolerate complexity and ambiguity.
• Are influenced by their work as judges, social workers, professors and other careers for which an appreciation of opposing points of view is required.

Conservatives:

• Willing to defend current social inequities and preferred groups as justifiable or necessary.
• Prefer prayer, religious people and SUVs.
• Endorse the U.S. government, the military, the state they live in, big corporations and most Americans.
• Are more likely to be a first-born, who identify more with their parents, predisposing them to a greater investment in authority and a preference for conservatism.
• Have a fear of death, reflecting an enhanced need for security.
• Are conscientious – the ability to exert personal self-control to the effect of meeting one’s own and others’ demands, and maintaining personal coherence.
• Need simplicity, clarity and certainty.

So are you an empathetic and creative Obama voter or a fearful and simplicity-craving McCain supporter? Or do some psychologists have a certain unacknowledged preference for simplicity and clarity when it comes to politics? 

Some of my other reporting on pathologizing conversatives here.

Ralph Nader, Performance Artist

Posted on November 3, 2008, 9:01am | Jesse Walker

From a press release I received this morning:

Special One-hour Press Conference. For the first half of the Press Conference, Mr. Nader will answer all questions with just a one-word response. For the second half of the press conference, foreign press credentialed media will be given priority.

Update from an Accidental Swing State

Posted on November 3, 2008, 8:32am | David Weigel

ATLANTA - I arrived here yesterday to cover the U.S. Senate campaign of Libertarian Alan Buckley and the final campaign jaunt of Bob Barr, who'll be heading down to Savannah to close out the election. That's the presidential campaign I've been closest to, so I can report that the bulk of its effort right now is on getting votes in this, his home state. Months ago they purchased contact lists from his old suburban Atlanta district, and a web-based call center has been working them to the point where the campaign thinks it's pulling 5 percent of Republicans there—and who knows how many independents and Democrats. But local party chair Daniel Adams fretted that the fast tightening of Georgia polls (Obama is closer to McCain here than McCain is close to Obama in Pennsylvania) is convincing conservatives not to "waste" their ballot.

Adams is incredibly bearish about McCain's chances overall. Last night, en route to the final three-way Senate debate that included Libertarian Alan Buckley, he pointed out the Obama stickers on Honda Elements and other nice, suburban cars driven by white people in Cobb County (Bush 25 points over Kerry) and discoursed on all the neighborhoods that were thick with Bush signs in 2004, and bare today. "You've got the people who got their signs right after the primaries ended and nothing since then," Adams said. "This election ended when McCain voted for the bailout."

A pro-bailout vote has rattled the Senate race, too. At the debate Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who'd been coasting to re-election last month, struggled to convince reporters that "we'll win without a runoff" on Tuesday. (In Georgia an election that doesn't see the winner get more than 50 percent of the vote goes to a runoff four weeks later.)

Whether or not the bailout anger is directed at the right people, I'm pleased that the election is closing on something sort of important. TV ads here are a barrage of bailout and tax talk (I saw two Obama ads on McCain's tax policies in one hour of local TV news). Unlike apparently everyone else in America I haven't seen the 11th hour (11th hour and 59th minute, really) 527 hit on Jeremiah Wright. The Politico's Jonathan Martin asks if conservatives should have "played the Wright card" earlier. If McCain suddenly surges to victory because swarms of independents heard about Wright the first time this weekend, I think we'll say he should have. It seems like a truly distant possibility down here.

Only $25 Billion-plus for GM and Chrysler and Ford?

Posted on November 3, 2008, 7:29am | Nick Gillespie

Struggling carmaker GM is getting a cold response to its demand for another $10 billion from the feds (this comes after a $25 billion plan for the Big 2.5 was passed not so long ago).

Treasury officials were said to be reluctant to broaden the $700 billion financial rescue program to include industrial companies or to play a part in a GM-Chrysler merger that could cost tens of thousands of jobs.

But it remained unclear whether the officials were also seeking to avoid making any decision that would conflict with the goals of a new presidential administration. The Democratic candidate, Senator Barack Obama, has said in recent days that he supports increasing aid to the troubled auto companies, while Senator John McCain has not said whether he would support aid beyond the $25 billion.

More here.

My sympathies are with the owners of GM and Chrysler cars, not those products' makers (and goddamn it, I drive a 1999 Buick—where's my bailout?). While I'm glad to see the Treasury say no to anyone these days, even for a nanosecond, there's still too much bailout money being lobbed in every possible direction.

Prediction: The next big bailout to the auto industry will be taking on some or all or most of the companies' massively underfunded pension liability via the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

Atlas Mugged

Posted on November 3, 2008, 7:20am | Nick Gillespie

Columnist Ron Hart looks forward to an Obama administration and writes:

I want to appease the new administration and not be too productive. So, upon Obama's passing his new redistribution plan, I will slow my work schedule, lay off a few people (Obama's got their back) and let someone else bust his tail since I will now be able to get "redistributed wealth" from those poor fools who are ambitious, energetic, work hard and have made good decisions.

I cannot wait, as I need a break. And it will be nice to not be vilified by politicians. It will feel good to be liked again.

Wish me luck for the next few years. I am looking forward to a respite from hard work, taxes and creating jobs. It is a lot of responsibility that I will be able to "shrug." It is just as well, as I am tired of following my dreams anyway. It involves so much effort. I will see where those dreams are in four or eight years and catch back up with them then.

He also has a bead on McCain's next gig: "John McCain has probably all but signed a deal to become the next Viagra spokesman. He can soon spend time trying to locate all 12 of his homes."

More here.

New at Reason: Steve Chapman on the End of the Bush Era

Posted on November 3, 2008, 7:00am

No matter who wins on Tuesday, writes Steve Chapman, one man is certain to lose: George W. Bush. If this contest proves anything, it's that the electorate is sick of him and eager for someone very different.

Read all about it here.

Support the Stache

Posted on November 2, 2008, 8:30am | Jesse Walker

Alexander Cockburn on voting:

Listening to my complaints about Obama, a friend of mine in New York asked what alternative I had to recommend her. Since in New York the split for Obama-Biden is roughly 65-29 I told her it didn't matter. She could write in the straight Wiccan ticket if she felt so inclined. (Not a bad platform either, as she duly reminded me: "Do as you will, as long as it harms none.") It wouldn't make any difference, any more than it would in California, where you can vote for Nader or Barr or McKinney and Obama is going to win regardless. In most states in the Union you can write in the Bertie Wooster/Jeeves ticket, and even without your vote Obama-Biden will canter home. So get out there and have fun and don't feel excessively burdened by responsibility to History -- always a left-wing failing.

And wouldn't Barr be the first mustachioed occupant of the White House since Teddy Roosevelt? Even if you don't like the man, vote the mustache! This would be change we can see.