Reason Magazine - Staff

Runaway Train Debt

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 00:00:00 EST

While many American subway systems have a hard time attracting riders, the D.C. Metro has a different problem: excessive popularity. With 700,000 daily riders, Metrorail is both overcrowded and, thanks to years of mismanagement, short on cash.

The 10 local governments that control Metro's funds are resisting the idea of rewarding poor management with more cash, but the feds may be swooping in to help. In August, Congress considered providing $1.5 billion to keep the system running, just weeks after The Washington Post revealed that officials had squandered about $1 billion in recent rail car and escalator contracts.

The system is literally falling apart: $383 million spent on new trains has produced cars that need repairs about as frequently as the old ones; escalators serviced for $93 million need fixing more often than the escalators that were left alone. Metro ignored the advice of an independent task force that concluded private businesses repaired the escalators faster and at a lower cost than agency employees, and the system's own safety specialists have regularly complained their warnings went unheeded in cases where they could have prevented derailments, fires, split tracks, and injured passengers.�

An Open Bottle

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 16:50:24 EDT

Of all the bright ideas that spring to mind when sitting up late and talking with your friends in college, this is an rare gem: A group of Danish students at Information Technology University in Copenhagen have created an open-source beer under a Creative Commons License called Vores Øl, or Our Beer:

Version 1.0 is a medium strong beer (6% vol) with a deep golden red color and an original but familiar taste.

So why beer? Aside from aspirations of becoming the Linux of Beers (eat your heart out Budweiser), they like the twist it gives to this famous definition of Free Software:

"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer."

Ah, but does it hit the spot? Wait for the CC-license people's DIY review, or brew your own.

Link via Unshackling Isaac Newton.

Bare Barmaids Shaded from Brussels Ban

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 13:36:52 EDT

Just when you thought you'd seen everything under the sun from EU regulators, there's a scare that a favorite Bavarian eyeful would be curtained behind EU screens. After the EU Optical Radiation Directive recommended legislation to prohibit sun exposure endangering workers' health, beer garden enthusiasts and their barmaids feared that the traditional Bavarian dirndl dress and its signature plunging neckline would be banned. In response, dirndl devotees and beer garden denizens threatened to boycott Oktoberfest. A German newspaper reports:

[T]he mayor of Munich, Christian Ude, warned of "European legal perfectionism" and threatened never to enter a beer garden again if he were not to be greeted by plunging necklines.

Yesterday, however, EU regulators assured the Bavarians and their international fans that the proposed "protective" legislation would not outlaw the famed dirndls. The EU will vote on the Radiation Directive legislation for "high-risk workers" in September.

Keep It Under Raps

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 13:44:44 EDT

The ACLU has just filed a lawsuit (Latour v. Riverside Beaver School District) to defend grade school student Anthony Latour's First Amendment right to compose music in the privacy of his own home.

Last April, the Riverside Beaver School District in Pennsylvania ordered Latour expelled because he had posted online rap lyrics using expletives and including "terroristic threats" (sic) that sounded violent. In addition to expulsion, court charges are pending from juvenile hall.

"School officials are not parents, and the First Amendment limits their authority to control what students read, write, rap or listen to in their own homes," said Witold Walczak, ACLU of Pennsylvania Legal Director and one of the lawyers in this case. "If this expulsion is upheld then it will effectively be illegal for Riverside Beaver District students to compose rap music, even in their own homes." Walczak noted that the student wrote and recorded the music at home, did not bring it into school, and that the principal admitted that the songs did not cause any disruption in the classroom.

Don't parents have the right to set ethical standards and regulate their kids' behavior in the home, so long as it doesn't interfere with anyone's safety or well-being? Latour's father, John, apparently agrees:

My grandparents didn't like Elvis; my parents didn't like Pink Floyd; and even though rap music may not be my taste, as parents my wife and I support Anthony's artistry and passion for rap music. And it is our job, not that of school officials, to decide what music Anthony can compose and listen to in our home.

Liberty Immortal

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 17:26:52 EDT

This Tuesday, President Bush pledged to veto the Castle Bill, which would expand public financing of stem cell research, recently passed in the House and now vocally endorsed by Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist. While the nation waits for the federal government to determine the ethics of medical research for the American people, check out William Saletan's five-part series The Organ Factory.

Saletan metes out the facts and physics of stem cell research while advocating for the extension of an arbitrary 14-day time limit on embryonic stem cell research projects, thus allowing further research on growing replacement organ tissue. According to the studies he discusses, growing most in demand organ tissues from cultivated clones would require only six to seven weeks, two weeks before the prerequisite nervous system needed for brain functioning.

Of course, when it comes to the ethical and existential questions that arise around cloning, people look to artistic imagination no less than scientific investigation. The newly-released The Island—a sci-fi action film about clones produced for spare parts so socialites can cheat death with the ultimate insurance policy—may be the latest would-be summer blockbuster to flop hard, but it's still an ideological crowd-pleaser for stem cell antagonists. I enjoyed the film for other reasons. Although the sci-fi takes liberties with the realities of biology and technology, its gloriously rebellious tale of cloned "insurance policies" pressing for rights to their own individuality and freedom will grip those with a soft-spot for liberation stories. They want the bacon when health experts serve them oatmeal, a blue suit when they get a gray. And their escape from that island is a cathartic journey we can join in on, even if the film's larger critique of cloning for organs doesn't address the scientific technology that would almost certainly provide such benefits without requiring the growth of a sentient being, or even one endowed with a nervous system.

Reason has made serious forays into the debate over stem-cell research and its possible benefits since it began, and you can check out a compendium of Reason coverage of stem-cell research and cloning; or just buy Ron Bailey's new book Liberation Biology.

Protectionist Capitalists vs. Capitalist Communists

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 00:00:00 EDT

It's a little ridiculous when the Chinese Foreign Ministry lectures the U.S. Senate on the principles of free-market capitalism. But that's what happens when the Senate steps in to block an international oil trade, providing the lower bidder with the advantage.

Last month, Unocal board members chose Chevron's $17.1 billion bid as its recommendation to shareholders (voting later this August) over the higher $18.5 billion offer from China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC). Though Chevron did up the ante by $1.1 billion in the final hour, for months beforehand it remained the sweetheart bidder over a company whose ties to the Chinese government raised concerns about "our national interest."

With troops fighting abroad and oil prices rising at home, CNOOC's bid piqued considerable Congressional anxiety about national energy security, prompting a resolution to block the deal and press the president to exercise his statutory veto power over the sale on national security grounds. The Chinese Foreign ministry threw a curve ball back in a high-handed fax:

We demand that the U.S. Congress correct its mistaken ways of politicizing economic and trade issues and stop interfering in the normal exchanges between enterprises of the two countries.

The Senate's melee with CNOOC's bid for Unocal was based on "concerns about US jobs, energy, production and energy security." But the reasoning hasn't hit bedrock yet. Unocal's piddling oil production is hardly vital to U.S. energy security. Further, CNOOC pledged in advance to keep its products as a resource within U.S. borders and markets. As for those concerned with outsourcing, it is CNOOC that intends to retain jobs while Chevron plans to downsize. And what of the "unfair advantages" CNOOC accrued under the wings of the PRC? The terms of the loan CNOOC acquired to bid for Unocal require the capital to be paid within two years by selling Unocal stock, with interest. Its parent firm has never been subsidized by the PRC.

Senators wondered "whether a CNOOC purchase of Unocal would enable the Chinese government to influence or manipulate oil prices and supplies." But as Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute told the U.S. House of Representatives in his testimony on CNOOC's capacity to endanger U.S. security, "America's vulnerability to oil supply disruptions is primarily related to how much oil we consume, not where the oil we consume happens to originate."

The Senate's paranoid reaction is likely only the first of a series in a diplomatic war between protectionist capitalists and capitalist communists. The quest for energy security is just getting underway, and statistics on international oil resources can be unnerving. Production is already peaking or declining in most non-OPEC countries. Exxon expects production to peak in the next five years, even recommending that the U.S. being increasing conservation of its oil supplies. And the Department of Energy's 2004 analysis states that the U.S. is using oil three times faster than it can establish new sources. But even given these fears, working feverishly to retain a small domestic oil producer is not going to stop the drain on supply.

When oil imports constitute half of U.S. trade deficits, it would seem halting policies that encourage dependence, accelerate fuel-consumption, and retard the evolution of market-driven solutions might be a first step. The government currently insists on trying to stimulate economic growth by coddling large U.S. oil companies and obfuscating high gas prices from consumers.

Tax breaks to the oil industry are consciously designed to make domestic oil companies appear more competitive. Oil companies typically pay an income tax of 11 percent, well below the 18 percent non–oil industry standard. Federal and local governments both spend millions in building infrastructure, and harnessing research and development knowledge used by the oil industry.

All this manipulation has the happy result that U.S. consumers pay less than half as much at the pump as consumers in other developed countries. But we end up with an energy economy that actively discourages innovation. The low hanging fruit here, to borrow Richard A. Epstein's analogy, is to stop distorting the market to encourage overconsumption, and start passively encouraging the market for alternatives.

The hullabaloo about CNOOC and Unocal only highlights the irony of U.S.-China foreign policy. We encourage a mutually-beneficial market-orientated PRC, but worry they may surpass us. An open door to Chinese markets has long filled the dreams of U.S. business, but we'd prefer if their 1.3 billion citizens didn't compete with our labor market.

If we're really interested in addressing these "national security" issues, we should re-examine oil subsidies, and encourage the world's budding capitalists.

Headed for Resistance

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 16:30:49 EDT

While Michael Fleming waits on the status of his patent application for the kids' Automobile Helmet, a Chicago Tribune columnist puts down the brakes and reminds us "being produced and being worn are two things."

But even if you smirk at the vision of a small child buckled down, helmeted, and sedated in the back seat behind the safety-glass, Fleming at least has the concept of incentives down:

And how do parents who refuse to use seats belts convince kids to not only belt up but helmet up as well?

Fleming thinks he has the answer: Loading the helmet with electronics.
"By building a helmet that allows a child to listen to music, watch a DVD movie or play a hand-held game, I'm hoping they'll want to wear a helmet without complaint," Fleming said.

So Popular, It's Running in the Red

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 16:20:49 EDT

Billed as "America's Metro" when the federal government cut the red tape (of one sort, anyway) almost 30 years ago, D.C. Metro isn't the American sweetheart it used to be.

Somehow, while other public transportation systems are pining for an increase in riders to lift revenue, fares from the crowds piling into D.C. Metro's packed cars are breaking its budget.

Though the ten local governments that control D.C. Metro's funds are resisting the idea of rewarding a flurry of fiscal and safety mismanagement scandals with the promise of dedicated funding, Big Brother may be swooping in to help. Born as a federal pet project, a Congressional hearing yesterday considered providing $1.5 billion to D.C. Metro contingent upon "dedicated funding, two additional seats on the 12-member board of directors and the creation of an inspector general."

Rough Trademark

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 16:38:22 EDT

For a second year in a row, Dykes-on-Bikes, the famed group of lesbian motorcycle dynamos who lead the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, was refused property rights to their name.

Though they use their name as a self-empowering upending of the derogatory usage of dyke, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office deems the term offensive, insulting, and scandalous. Jessie Roberts, a trademark administrator, told the SF Chonicle that the U.S. PTO is "looking out for the sensitivities of the general public more than that of a specific applicant." The article continues:

"I cannot imagine a more ironic twist of thinking than to judge this reclaimed badge of honor as insulting to the very community who has created its power," Joan Nestle, co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, wrote in a declaration supporting the Dykes on Bikes' trademark request. "Lesbians do not need to be protected from their own cultural creations, their own transformations of stigmas."

Libertarians may not always rise the flag for intellectual property rights and trademarks, but all can get a laugh out of the hypocritical prudishness of the US PTO—the office earlier approved a trademark for the television show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," which also involves a once-pejorative term reappropriated by gays—and its irrelevant, bureaucratic crusade to protect the public from what is already thoroughly propagated in popular culture.

Uprooting the Turd Blossom

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 17:09:44 EDT

Newspapers around the country are pulling the new Doonsbury off their pages, for the children. In today's strip, the legendary political cartoon employs the nickname "Turd Blossom"—reputedly one of President Bush's monikers for Karl Rove.

Against the tide of approximately a dozen papers, the Providence Journal editors in Rhode Island prefer to censor by marking out the "profanity." Is turd even an expletive? Or blossom, for that matter? In any case, a search on Wikipedia redirects one not to a definition of the term but to the "Boy Genius". Jesse Walker saw this blandification, if not bowdlerization, coming for a cartoon he says has "lost its cultural cachet."

Sex, Lies, and Zoning Laws

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 15:00:34 EDT

We may have used them from time immemorial, and sophisticated modern repackaging may allow them to go where they've never gone before, but after all these years of cultural and biological evolution, the humble dildo is still taboo. It's still a risky business, despite millennia of market demand.

But forget the Rabbit and its progeny; the hot part of this story is zoning laws. In the Twin Cities, Tim Holden is opening a sex toy shop across the street from a playground and recreational center in defiance of flip-flopping city zoning governance.

Originally he intended to open his plot on St. Paul's East Side as a bland Dollar Store. But then the city claimed, post-purchase, that the property wasn't zoned for commercial use, that the documents they'd sent while the sale was pending were outdated, and that though a beauty parlor and a video store were previously operated there, the city intended to quietly rezone the area according to its own caprice. Ever the bold entrepreneur, Holden responded by opening Risky Business Adult Outlet in June.

Though a judge issued a temporary injunction in early July, all the documents seem to back up Holden. However, according to Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Holden also owns a building on University Avenue where another adult novelty shop, The Love Doctor, opened last summer just blocks from a similar store. The Love Doctor's arrival in the Midway area prompted a yearlong moratorium on new adult businesses in St. Paul. The City Council passed a revised ordinance governing adult enterprises in May.

Looks like it'll take a powerful new thrust to save the mom-and-pop porn shops.

Tanks to Artistic Expression!

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 17:32:16 EDT

Art is often political, deriding leaders, subversively displaying the costs of failed policies, and inflaming critics all around. But when a painting featuring an Old Glory–stained U.S. map slipping into a toilet bowl beside the phrase "T'anks to Bush!" gets displayed on government property, well, it's not just the artist who will struggle.

The piece roundly roused the ire of conservatives in Northern California but Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who has an anti-censorship poster hanging in his office, has no plans of bowing to the protests. The exhibit at the Department of Justice that includes the piece is sponsored by a private group called California Lawyers for the Arts, which includes the artist Stephen Pearcy, Esq.

"What upsets me is the thought that a group of people thinks that only certain kinds of art should be allowed and some kind of art should be suppressed," the curator of the show told SacUnion, asserting that works expressing a conservative view would have been included had any been submitted.

The same artist earlier created an effigy of the American soldier with a sign reading "Bush Lied, I Died" and hung it from a noose outside his home. "Angry residents in his community tore down that effigy," MSNBC's Monica Crowley said, "and rightly so." Of course, absent all the outrage, the artist probably wouldn't be getting his work broadcast to national television audiences either. Yet another example of censorship backfiring.

Driving Under the Influence of Tobacco

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:17:46 EDT

Those unhappy DCists who are battling a proposed prohibition on cigarettes in restaurants and taverns better not hit the high road for New Jersey unless they plan to pack picket signs. The "Liberty and Prosperity" state is considering a ban on smoking while driving.

As New Jersey resident John Cito put it:

The day a politician wants to tell me I can't smoke in my car, that's the day he takes over my lease payments.

Even police chiefs in New Jersey are questioning the efficacy of such a law in preventing vehicular smoking, as the one-year-old ban against handheld cell phones hasn't deterred many drivers. Not to fear, New Jerseyites already seem at least as prepared as D.C. denizens to blow smoke back at the banners.

Blogs for an Alien Audience

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 12:18:26 EDT

Ever wish your blog got more traffic? Now, thanks to MindComet's new gratis commercial satellite service, you can beam your ordinary earthling online diary directly into space!

Sorry, though, Reason fans: If you're considering a ride on the X Prize winner don't get your hopes up on keeping up in touch. Hit & Run is unlikely to meet MindComet's diction decency standards. According to MindComet CEO Ted Murphy:

We strongly urge our users to refrain from language or content designed to provoke our alien neighbors. We hope that our bloggers understand the importance of keeping our message positive.

The free service is meant to give a glimpse of ordinary life on Earth to alien audiences but, as The Inquirer points out, all our blog beams won't attract any extraterrestrial tourists if we seem boring.

Try your luck at livening up the ether at BloginSpace.com. Never mind that, assuming that there's intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy, even at the speed of light it would take 25 thousand years (an optimistic estimate) for your blog to reach an ET.

Felonious Cat

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 12:51:02 EDT

Slate reports:

A Virginia judge declared on Monday that 82-year-old Ruth Knueven is unfit to own pets, after animal-control officers seized her 488 cats. Local law enforcement and animal-control officials say they found 120 cats in her house in 2001 and that they've discovered several other cat hoarders in the area over the past year.

Not, perhaps, as worrisome as the Kelo verdict, but in cases where no animals are harmed, I wonder, what is the libertarian response to the government prohibiting even unsanitary, claustrophobic private cat-keeping?

Perhaps, insofar as "animal hoarding has also been viewed as an addiction, like compulsive gambling or alcoholism, or as a form of dementia," it should be protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Post article here. And did you know there was a Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium?

A Strange Hybrid

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 11:00:56 EDT

A champion for federal environmental regulation, the Sierra Club, is making a decidedly market-based liaison with Ford Motor Company to publicize the automaker's new Mariner Hybrid. The Sierra Club's new romance with Ford, however, extends only as far as Mariner Hybrid's tank will carry: 75 percent farther than conventional pollutatant-mobiles.

Ford and the Sierra Club are usually at arms, but Sierra is taking a pragmatic approach: Help generate a market for hybrids, and reward proactive auto-makers along the way, while Rainforest Action Network and Global Exchange flambé Ford in attack ads at the side of the road.

If the Mariner Hybrid campaign is successful, it may open the doors for future partnerships, perhaps just the sort of thing an environmental economist would like to see. But the real test is whether the Mariner would win the coveted Best Gaseous Emissions award.

Economy Meets Ecology

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 12:07:17 EDT

The new blog Environmental Economics brings together a band of professors to weigh in on topics ranging from the Chicago Climate Exchange and trading carbon credits to whether boycotts really work.

"Is it worth a Dam?" The blog is.

In the Dark in the Golden State

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 17:00:47 EDT

Regulators in Southern California, home to one of the most inefficient energy markets in the country, invite citizens to "Flex your power now!" by conserving energy in response to periodic alerts instead of facing the real price of energy in a heat wave. With consumers left in the dark about prices, it's no surprise more black-outs are expected this summer, along with very low traffic at the Conserve-O-Meter.

New technology is already here to help. If California energy prices did move with with consumer demand, users could cut costs with new price-tied meters that automatically adjust energy use based on information about price changes or peak hours.

Legally Balloted

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 15:48:55 EDT

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack played Santa Claus this 4th of July, handing voting rights back to 50,000 ex-felons and pulling the Hawkeye State out of a small group of states that do not automatically reinstate voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences. Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi and Virginia maintain blanket felon-disenfranchisement laws.

Stats on ex-convict non-voters, based on research from the Sentencing Project:

• 4.7 million Americans can't vote because of felony convictions
• 500,000 of those 4.7 million are war veterans
• 1.4 million of the 4.7 million are black men

Though crime rates have fallen, the prison population soared to 2.1 million by June 2004, according to figures compiled by the U.S. Justice Department. In 1970, that number was about 200,000.

In 2003, associate editor/criminal supergenius Matt Welch cast a provisional ballot for felon re-enfranchisement, arguing that Democrats have a built-in incentive to get behind this issue. Vilsack, a Democrat who is not seeking re-election, is being criticized by some (though not all) Republicans in his state. "Are we going to let baby rapers and meth producers vote?'' wonders Rep. Clel Baudler (R-Greenfield).

And what about the praying mantis killers, Clel, what about them?

Deprivatizing Social Security

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 17:50:41 EDT

If you're a terror suspect, you'd better have paid your taxes. The Social Security Administration and the IRS released private information--ranging from SSNs to occupations--on an ad hoc basis to the FBI for 9/11 investigations.

The Open Government Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained internal memorandums and records from the agencies through a Freedom of Information Act request. The SSA and IRS insist that there were no abuses of information.

Writing about "Real I.D." in January, Brian Doherty wore shades and a scarf to cover his bruises and lamented, "how little our 'partners' in D.C.--supposedly our agents, in fact, representing our own interests and using only powers we've ceded them--really respect us." Just imagine what the FBI would do with national ID cards, on an ad hoc basis only, of course.

Preventing Crime, or Terrorizing Tots?

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 07:09:10 EDT

In Britain, the government wants to get tough on crime by identifying potential criminals while they are still mere terrorizing tots. The Crime Reduction Review, a leaked study commissioned by Prime Minister Tony Blair, suggests that wayward children as young as three should be singled out in the nursery and attend programs intended to curb their behavior, or even be removed to foster-care.

Quite a different strategy on "child-proofing the world": The British government suggests protecting society from the diapered ruffians based on the unscientific impressions of child-care workers.

Research cited in the 250-page CRR states that 85 percent of juvenile delinquents in detention facilities were bullies in school; and that 43 percent of imprisoned adults have children who are also criminals. Although science can't point to a primary origin of criminal behavior, the study is right in concluding that environment plays a significant role in shaping young minds.

Which begs the question, how exactly would a seven year-old respond to learning that she has been classified as a potential criminal as a toddler and that nanny was actually a rehab counselor?

For years, the good people at Reason have been protecting you from the menace of juvenile delinquency. Chris Lehmann lifted the "siege" against parents a few years back, and Carl F. Horowitz fought against a mall-full of consumerized teenaged zombies. Nick Gillespie gave the old in-out to the bogus boom in "middle-class teen prostitutes" a few years back.

We Must Act Now to End the $646-Toilet-Seat Tax!

info@reason.com (Melanie Colburn) — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:17:40 EDT

Federal contractors owe more than $3 billion in taxes. The Government Accountability Office cites "abusive and potentially criminal activity" among approximately 33,000 federal contractors who have already cashed their checks.

According to The Washington Post the GAO found:

One contractor that furnishes temporary workers to the Department of Housing and Urban Development has owed back taxes for nearly two decades, simply closing businesses and starting new ones when the bills get too high.

The Senate Governmental Affairs' permanent subcommittee on investigations will review the data today. On Thursday some senators urged the federal government to avoid doing business with tax-deadbeat contractors.