The Friday Political Thread: Remember, Remember the Thread of November

Posted on November 9, 2007, 7:33pm | David Weigel

Not much to thread about today, as Guy Fawkes day was covered to death all week and I'll be joining Ron Paul supporters in Philadelphia tomorrow, with a full report (and some video) to follow.

The week in brief...

- Voters across the country (possibly not your part of the country) went to the polls, and with a few exceptions the Democrats came out looking good.

- Bush's attorney general nominee was confirmed, and for the first time one of his vetoes was overidden. Enjoy your water! Or, more accurately, enjoy your congressman's pet project!

- Hillary (and Bill) Clinton struggled to recover from attacks in the last Democratic debate, and the frontrunner fell in the polls for the first time since the spring. It got less notice, but Fred "the Energizer" Thompson sagged into a tie for second with John McCain. (Ron Paul is still running third in Intrade, though.)

- Bernie Kerik got indicted, and future President Giuliani might pardon him.

- Wyoming Rep. Barbara Cubin (R), who threatened to slap Libertarian candidate Thomas Rankin last year, is calling it quits.

Below the fold...

- The Prowler asks some good questions about Mike Huckabee's aw-shucks brand of secrecy.

- Brainy populist David Sirota labels Mike Huckabee and John Edwards the "Huey Longs of Iowa." He means this in a positive way, although when he points out that the last populist winner on the Democratic side was Dynamite Dick Gephardt, his thesis gets a little creaky. (He's stronger on the GOP side: the state where Pats Robertson and Buchanan pulled close seconds are clealy not wedded to Mitt Romney right now.)

- Parents magazine asks which future leader you'd want to babysit your kids. What the hell does Mitt Romney have to do to win this?

This week's installment of Politics 'n' Prog is an inevitable visit from Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett with the first track from his first solo album: "Ace of Wands."

I Am Superman, And I Can Do Anything

Posted on November 9, 2007, 4:23pm | David Weigel

Reason Contributing Editor Julian Sanchez commands the cover of The American Prospect this month with a compact-but-informative piece on comic books in the War on Terror. For all the hand-wringing (especially this year) about movies that deal with rendition or Iraq or leaders of the free world who don't always exhibit veracity and wisdom, comics have been attacking these themes since right after the attacks. And they got cynical way before Hollywood did. (I haven't heard of any movies save Death of a President which show George W. Bush taking one to the temple, but I've seen Bush stripped naked and forced to kiss a supervillain's feet in Ultimate X-Men, and I've seen a Bush surrogate in The Authority dumped out of a portal into the streets of Baghdad, ostensibly to be murdered by a mob.)

Still, Sanchez argues that they're still pretty superficial:

Perhaps the most interesting thing about these stories is why they fail. For as much as they seek to tease out the complexity and moral ambiguity of their themes, the authors of most of these tales clearly mean to convey a liberal or civil libertarian message. So much so that in 2003, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies released a screed titled "The Betrayal of Captain America," by right-wing pundit Michael Medved, decrying leftist infiltration of comics; that same year, professional bluenose Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center condemned Superman as a Ba'athist sympathizer. Yet when these stories go beyond leftish imitations of a previous generation's simplistic propaganda comics, the allegories tend to collapse under the weight of their own internal contradictions. There are, of course, openly conservative comics -- ranging from the ludicrous Liberality for All (starring a cyborg Sean Hannity!) to Bill Willingham's brilliantly layered Fables. But there is often a strong (if unintended) neoconservative subtext even in stories by left-leaning authors.

Last year I barely survived a marathon read of right-wing science fiction about the WoT.

Doggies and Demerol

Posted on November 9, 2007, 3:16pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

PETA's Ingrid Newkirk broke her arm and told the sad tale of her injury thusly:

"Just as I was setting out to launch my new book, Let’s Have a Dog Party!, I met a wet floor and went splat, neatly snapping the bones in my wrist. Ooh, the pain! Thank goodness for IV drips."

The hypocrisy squad at The Center for Consumer Freedom is on Newkirk like white on rice:

The kicker:

Ingrid Newkirk, you may recall, once told a reporter that “even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it.” Fair enough. But there’s a big difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.

Ron Bailey-style disclosure: My husband used to work for the Center for Consumer Freedom.

Addition disclosure: I, too, love IV Demerol.

New at Reason

Posted on November 9, 2007, 3:04pm

Eve Tushnet discovers the downside of cops going online and "getting real." (Headline reference explained here.)

The "Lyrical Terrorist's" Debut Delayed by Prison Term

Posted on November 9, 2007, 2:42pm | Michael C. Moynihan

A few stories across the wire today on the legal limits of speech, both here and in Europe. First, from the good ol' USA, the case of anti-abortion extremist John Dunkle, a Reading, Pennsylvania "activist" who stands accused of suborning the murder of a local abortion provider on his blog. The AP reports on the verdict:

A federal judge ordered an anti-abortion activist to remove Web site postings that authorities said exhorted readers to kill an abortion provider by shooting her in the head. District Court Judge Thomas Golden granted an injunction Thursday seeking the removal of postings on Web pages maintained by John Dunkle. The injunction, sought by prosecutors in August, also bans him from publishing similar messages containing names, addresses or photographs of health clinic staff members.

Prosecutors said one posting targeted a former clinician for the Philadelphia Women's Center, and that she later stopped providing reproductive health services because she feared for her life. Dunkle, of Reading, said Thursday that the postings had been removed.

"They're down now," said Dunkle, who represented himself. "I won't put up language that (the judge) has told me not to put up." Authorities said the postings violate the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

In Dear Old Blighty, a court convicted Ms. Samina Malik, the Walt Whitman of al-Mujahiroun, for writing mellifluous poetry on the beheading of infidels. Malik, who worked at Heathrow (!), listed her favorite TV shows on a social networking site as"videos by my Muslim brothers in Iraq, yep the beheading ones, watching video messages by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri [his deputy] and other videos which show massacres of the kaffirs." The always reliable Daily Mail reports:

An airport worker who wrote poems about beheadings is the first woman to be found guilty under new terror laws. Samina Malik, who liked to call herself a "lyrical terrorist", called for attacks on the West and described "poisoned bullets" capable of killing an entire street in her poetry. The 23-year-old Muslim wrote of her desire to become a martyr and listed her favourite videos as the "beheading ones."

In another, How To Behead, she warned that the victim should be bound and blindfolded. Malik, who worked as a shop assistant airside in a branch of WHSmith at the airport, also owned an Al Qaeda encyclopaedia of Jihad, a Mujahideen poison handbook and a 'terrorist handbook' which explained how to make bombs. On the hard drive of her computer police found a copy of a sniper rifle manual, a firearms manual, anti-tank weaponry, a document entitled How To Win Hand To Hand Fighting, and pictures of weapons.

Outside the court, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said: "Malik held violent extremist views which she shared with other like-minded people over the internet. "She also tried to donate money to a terrorist group. She had the ideology, ability and determination to access and download material which could have been useful to terrorists.

"Merely possessing this material is a serious criminal offence."

The Telegraph has more on the Malik verdict.

Feel the Pajamamentum!

Posted on November 9, 2007, 2:07pm | David Weigel

It's a little-known fact that Pajamas Media—the ambitious blog news site launched by Roger Simon and Charles Johnson—still exists. In one week it'll celebrate its second anniversary, actually. I was reminded of this when I clicked an Instapundit blog ad promising me "the deepest of presidential dish" from David Corn and Richard Miniter and got sent to the PJM splash page. A click on the "videos" menu connects you to the Corn and Miniter page, which does look extinct, so I cast my eyes southward to PajamasXpress, an odd name for the site's celebrity blogs. And there was a new one:

Timecop's Senator Aaron McComb found a way to overcome the media's blacklist on celebrity opinions! Here he is, unleashed.

The new real democracy is online. Forget the pollsters. Hearing what individuals who do not make a living from pandering to one team or another, who do not need the assurance that their thinking is in accord with their colleagues of whom they’re either afraid of or need reassurance from.

Hence Bloggo ergo sum – first offering.

That was on October 29. Silver hasn't clicked "post" since then.

This is sort of interesting to observe in the wake of Ron Paul's 11/5 "Guy Fawkes" fundraiser. The last time webbies (on this site, anyway) paid attention to PJM was when the site juggled its guidelines to boost Ron Paul out of its presidential poll. What happened after that? No one voted in the straw poll. Anyone who wanted to predict that could have: The political blogosphere is littered with the decomposing corpses of top-down sites that buy a warehouse full of bottles and try, vainly, to generate some lightning to fill them with. Remember HotSoup? Of course you don't. Has anyone chased down you down, grabbed you by the lapels, and shouted "Brother, hear the gospel of Unity08"? Here is my guess: No.

I don't think there's a hard-and-fast rule for bloggy success, but the bottom-up phenomena have this way of overcoming their lack of structure and outperforming the stuff designed by the smart guys. More people are online than were in 2003, but the smooth personalized communities of the Barack Obama site and the John McCain site aren't generating nearly as much energy for those campaigns as the Howard Dean sites did or the sprawling RonPauloverse is for its candidate. (It doesn't help that McCain's page looks like he's running for shadowy world dictator.)

Those Damned Smokers Are Preventing Us From Meeting National Health Objectives

Posted on November 9, 2007, 1:23pm | Jacob Sullum

The government's latest survey data indicate that the prevalence of smoking among American adults has leveled off at around 21 percent. "This prevalence had not changed significantly since 2004," says the CDC, "suggesting a stall in the previous 7-year (1997--2004) decline in cigarette smoking among adults in the United States." The CDC worries that at this rate the "national health objective" of reducing smoking prevalence to less than 12 percent by 2010 may not be met.

Over the longer term, however, the decline in the smoking rate is remarkable: It has been cut in half since its peak of 43 percent in the mid-1960s. Per capita cigarette consumption, which peaked at 4,345 in 1963, is now under 2,000. Notably, the rate of decline was fastest in the first couple of decades after the 1964 surgeon general's report linking smoking to lung cancer and other diseases. Three-quarters of the drop in prevalence had occurred by 1990. Since then, not coincidentally, anti-smoking measures have become increasingly coercive, focusing on heavy taxes and smoking bans rather than education and persuasion. The people who continue to smoke clearly are less susceptible to appeals based on health concerns than the people who have quit or chosen not to take up the habit in the last few decades, so achieving "national health objectives" will require sterner measures than the "countermarketing" recommended by the CDC. Proliferating and increasingly stringent smoking bans, coupled with punitive taxes along the lines of New York City's $3-a-pack levy, might do the trick. I have a feeling we're going to find out.

It's All About the Parking

Posted on November 9, 2007, 12:05pm | Jacob Sullum

For years neighbors have been complaining about the swinger parties at a house near the intersection of Cedar Ridge Drive and Interstate 20 in Duncanville, Texas, a Dallas suburb. City officials didn't like the parties either, but they were powerless to do anything about them. "Although the city has regulations pertaining to sexually oriented businesses," The Dallas Morning News reports, "it has not been able to document business activities at the home." So this week the Duncanville City Council passed an ordinance banning "sex clubs" in residences. The ordinance defines sex club as "any premises, person or organization that is presented, advertised, held out or styled as, or which provides notification to the public that it is a swinger's club; an adult encounter group or center; a sexual encounter group or center; party house or home; wife, spouse or partner-swapping club; or that it provides permission, an opportunity or an invitation to engage in or to view sexual activity, stimulation or gratification, whether for consideration or not."

Although the ordinance is all about sex, city officials insist that it isn't:

"We are not addressing what activities are going on," [Councilmember Johnette Jameson] said. "We're addressing the traffic. We have to be good neighbors to each other."

Mayor David Green agreed that nearby residents have been bothered by the influx of cars coming to the home.

"People can't find parking," he said. "It's really detracting from the neighborhood."

If parking is the issue, shouldn't the ordinance apply to any regular activity that attracts a lot of people? What about cookouts, book clubs, and Tupperware parties? I guess the assumption is that only sex can attract the sort of crowds that create parking problems.

[Thanks to lunchstealer for the tip.]

Teaching Kids How City Hall Really Works

Posted on November 9, 2007, 11:16am | Nick Gillespie

Eric Dondero hips us to a pretty funny ad for Travis Irvine, who ran for mayor of Bexley, Ohio, and actually pulled in the mid-single digits in this week's elections.

Click below to view the commerical at Reason.tv:

Psychiatrists for Medical Marijuana

Posted on November 9, 2007, 11:07am | Jacob Sullum

The Assembly of the American Psychiatric Association, a legislative body composed of representatives from APA districts throughout the country, has unanimously approved an action paper that urges the federal government to stop interfering with the medical use of marijuana in states where it's legal. The paper, which won't be official until it receives approval from the APA's Board of Trustees in December, notes that 12 states allow patients to use marijuana for symptom relief with a doctor's recommendation, but there's a catch:

The threat of arrest by federal agents, however, still exists. Seriously ill patients living in these states with medical marijuana recommendations from their doctors should not be subjected to the treat of punitive federal prosecution for merely attempting to alleviate the chronic pain, side effects, or symptoms associated with their conditions or resulting from their overall treatment regimens...[We] support protection for patients and physicians participating in state approved medical marijuana programs.

Abraham L. Halpern, professor emeritus of psychiatry at New York Medical College and past president of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, called the vote "a landmark," adding, "As physicians, we cannot abide our patients being subject to arrest and jail for using a physician-recommended treatment that clearly relieves suffering for many who are not helped by conventional treatments." Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, says the action paper's unanimous approval "shows the growing acceptance of medical marijuana by organized medicine."

Other medical organizations that support the therapeutic use of marijuana include the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Preventive Medical Association, and various state medical societies. (Medical marijuana also has been endorsed by groups such as the American Public Health Association, the Federation of American Scientists, and the Lymphoma Foundation of America.) The American Medical Association, like the APA in earlier votes, has called for more research on the medical utility of cannabis and has said that doctors and patients should be free to discuss all "treatment alternatives" without fear of "criminal sanctions." But it has not gone as far as the new APA action paper.

If you haven't yet, check out Drew Carey's medical marijuana video at reason.tv.

A Penny for the Old Guy

Posted on November 9, 2007, 10:05am | Jesse Walker

Daniel McCarthy on Barry Goldwater's contested legacy:

[T]he sharpest division that split the Goldwater movement of the '60s...wasn't the division between libertarians and traditionalists, it was the division that separated idealistic libertarians and traditionalists alike, the campaign amateurs, from the campaign professionals. The conservative movement still pays lip service to economic liberty, social order, and military strength -- but on all three points, Republicans have become hollow men who have preserved the rites of Goldwaterism but who long ago lost its spirit. That was an amateur spirit -- in both the best and worst senses of the word -- and it drew together in common cause traditionalists and libertarians as different as Brent Bozell and Goldwater speechwriter Karl Hess....

Today, nation-building and empire, together with K Street politics, is about all that animates the Republicans who claim to be following in Goldwater's footsteps. They've lost what the 1960 and 1964 Goldwater movements were really all about, and they won't rediscover what they've lost by furrowing their brows wondering if Goldwaterism was really purely libertarian or fusionist. Goldwater himself was a man of the American West, and his legacy can be claimed by either libertarians or traditionalists -- if they can put the principled spirit of the old movement before the emoluments of politics.

These days the amateurs are holding Guy Fawkes fundraisers for Ron Paul, and the hollow men are sneering at their efforts. This is the way the week sounds: First came a bang, then the whimpers.

Bonus links: More McCarthy on Goldwater here. Reason on Goldwater here.

New at Reason

Posted on November 9, 2007, 9:56am

Marty Beckerman interviews Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone's chief political reporter.

The War on Terror, and the Terror in Response to War

Posted on November 9, 2007, 9:23am | Brian Doherty

Been following Ron Paul around a bit lately, and noting his eminently sensible reliance on basic golden rule thinking when applied to foreign policy: how might we feel if the rest of the world treated us as we treat them?

Well, we know how we feel, as subtly revealed in this Associated Press piece up at military.com, a mostly unremarkable roundup of some of the possibilities and plans for a war with Iran (though I am relieved to hear we're back to only one aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf right now). But note this interesting language in the last sentence after a long discussion about the hows and whats and maybes of us beginning a military assault on Iran, something that is often referred to, I believe, as "war":

The possibility of U.S. military action raises many tough questions, beginning perhaps with the practical issue of whether the United States knows enough about Iran's network of nuclear sites - declared sites as well as possible clandestine ones - to sufficiently set back or destroy their program.

Among other unknowns: Iran's capacity to retaliate by unleashing terrorist strikes against U.S. targets.

You say war, we say terror. You say war, we say terror. Any chance of calling the whole thing off? We'll see.

Our Ally Pakistan Marches Toward Democracy By Arresting Benazir Bhutto

Posted on November 9, 2007, 9:18am | Nick Gillespie

From AP, via Cincy Enquirer:

Pakistani police placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest Friday, uncoiling barbed wire in front of her Islamabad villa, and reportedly rounded up thousands of her supporters to block a mass protest against emergency rule.

Bhutto twice tried to leave in her car, telling police: "Do not raise hands on women. You are Muslims. This is un-Islamic." They responded by blocking her way with an armored vehicle.

The former prime minister had planned to defy a ban on public gatherings and address a rally in nearby Rawalpindi, where police used tear gas and batons to chase off hundreds of supporters who staged wildcat protests and hurled stones. Dozens were arrested.

Further afield, a suicide bombing at the home of a government minister in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed four people. Minister for Political Affairs Amir Muqam was unhurt.

More here.

reason on Pakistan here.

Attention Portland Area Reasoners: Brian Doherty and James Bovard at Freedom Seminars Saturday Nov. 10

Posted on November 9, 2007, 8:59am | Brian Doherty

I'll be appearing, along with occasional reason contributor and libertarian journalist and gadfly James Bovard (author of many great books, most recently Attention Deficit Democracy), at a Freedom Seminar tomorrow (Saturday Nov. 10) in the Portland, Oregon area.

"Freedom's Fate: Bearish or Bullish" is the name of the overall event. My two talks are "The Libertarian/Right-Wing Split" (at 9:30 a.m.) and "Why Studying the Libertarian Movement's History Made Me Optimistic About Its Future" (at 1:30 p.m.)

James Bovard's blog and his reason contributions.

My talks will draw from, wouldn't you know it, my recent book Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement, whose dedicated site is here.

Full information, address and agenda for the event at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at 14811 Kruse Oaks Blvd (technically in Lake Oswego OR) here. The cost is $45 at the door including lunch.

Gillespie on Radio 8AM-9AM ET, Talking Ron Paul and More

Posted on November 9, 2007, 7:50am | Nick Gillespie

I'm on Wisconsin Public Radio's excellent Joy Cardin show this morning, from 8AM to 9AM ET. The topics include Ron Paul, the love for libertarians so far, and probably some stuff about cheese.

For more info and a live stream, go here.

New at Reason

Posted on November 9, 2007, 7:05am

Chip Bok is on location in Pakistan for the latest Friday Funnies.

Once More, With Feeling: Leave Pot Smokers Alone!

Posted on November 8, 2007, 6:21pm | Jacob Sullum

By 57-to-43-percent margin, Denver voters have approved a ballot initiative that instructs police to make possession of marijuana in small quantities (less than an ounce) their lowest law enforcement priority. Denverites already had voted to repeal local penalties for possession of less than an ounce, with no noticeable effect on arrests; police just charged pot smokers under state law instead. Citing this history, the Rocky Mountain News says, "once again, the vote likely means nothing." But Mayor John Hickenlooper has promised to appoint a Marijuana Policy Review Panel to decide how the new ordinance should be implemented. Initiative organizer Mason Tvert says:

Although these officials say adult marijuana possession is already a low priority, it could undoubtedly be lower. For example, the City of Seattle, which adopted a very similar lowest law enforcement priority measure in 2003, handled just 125 cases of adult marijuana possession in 2006, whereas Denver -- a city with fewer residents -- handled nearly 1,400.

Tvert also notes that a similar initivative has had a significant impact in Missoula County, Montana, where the local prosecutor has told police to lay off pot smokers. 

Hoosier Daddy?

Posted on November 8, 2007, 5:06pm | David Weigel

The Republican takeover of Indianapolis—America's 13th largest city, right between Jacksonville and San Francisco—has gotten next to no national attention. That's probably because Republicans have always been unusually strong here. Like Oklahoma City and San Diego it lacks a truly massive urban black population and it's zoned to include some conservative suburbs. It elects Republican mayors from time to time, like the legendary Steve Goldsmith. But everyone bet on Democrat Bart Peterson surviving into a third term, and he out-fundraised first-time candidate Greg Ballard by $3 million to $300,000. That makes the Indianapolis Star optimistic:

Greg Ballard will owe few political debts when he assumes office as mayor. Political powerbrokers didn't line up behind him during the campaign. Donations were scarce. Republican insiders for the most part stayed away... Ballard should search carefully through the ranks of Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and independents in filling posts within his administration.

That'd be nice. Click through the Star's pages and you'll see that the Republicans won on property tax anger and fear about crime while Virginia Republicans were running on immigration and losing. Columnist Matthew Tully got a revealing interview with local GOP chairman Tom John.

The Republicans haven't had the best relationship with the local business community of late. After Tuesday's results came in, John turned to a chamber lobbyist at an event and shared a message: "You've got a lot of making up to do."

I don't want lobbyists to have doors slammed in their faces, but there's something too... Willie Stark about rushing to bring them back to the team so fast. Still, you've got to like Ballard for this:

If I feel that I’m not fulfilling my goals for the city, then I will not run for re-election. Specifically, I have committed to not running for re-election if I can’t cut the non-public safety budget by 10%; and I mean it. There are other measures that I will be addressing as Mayor (crime, accountability, etc.) where, if I feel that I’m not holding to my own standards, I will pass on a re-election bid.

Let's see if he sticks to that.

The Cabal Reveals Itself

Posted on November 8, 2007, 5:02pm | Michael C. Moynihan

Our friends over at Jewcy, the magazine for "new Jews and other riffraff," have started a brand new blog devoted exclusively to politics. So in addition to the always insightful and amusing "Daily Shvitz" blog (which today features a vital debate between contributors Izzy Grinspan and Andy Selsberg on the advisability of the hipster beard), Jewcy launches The Cabal, where the Learned Elders of Zion will plot against America in the open, after having been cruelly unmasked by Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer.

Scrolling through The Cabal's stable of contributors, one notices Jewcy Associate Editor Michael Weiss, who described Russia's cyber war against Estonia for us back in August, and Daniel Koffler, who has also contributed to these pages.

A few samples from the inaugural day of The Protocols of the Elders of Jewcy. Koffler on the "National Review's stupid defense of torture":

Thirdly, any discussion of torture for the sake of the GWOT is bound to be misleading if it does not take account of the hyperbolic, wolf-crying tropes that government officials employ every time a suspected terrorist is apprehended or a plot foiled. (Gregory Djerejian has a good summary with commentary of one instance of the sort of thin gruel we're talking about.) Whether it's a small group of Cherry Hill, NJ poseurs diabolically scheming to attack a heavily armed and armored US military base with weapons they didn't have, or a lunatic who hoped to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch, or UK-based terrorist scoundrels who might have succeeded in hijacking planes to the US if wishes were ponies, or that weirdo who packed his shoes with C4 but didn't have the means to detonate it, the US (and UK) government(s) have consistently, deliberately, shamefacedly overhyped, oversold, and outright lied about all these and many other purported existential crises. (DHS might admit, sotto voce, that a particular plot "was not technically feasible," but why should nuances such as these stop a hack like Murdock when he's on a roll.)

The New Republic's Jamie Kirchick wonders why the American Prospect employs one Robert Dreyfuss, former "Middle East Intelligence Director" for Lyndon LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review:

Finally, neither Boyd, Yglesias, or anyone at the Prospect has responded to my queries about Robert Dreyfuss, the magazine's "Senior Correspondent" on national security and foreign policy, who is a disciple of Lyndon LaRouche, or about their magazine's hawking his LaRouche-published book on its website. This reticence is understandable, considering how embarrassing it must be to have such an individual as a colleague at your place of employment. But that won't stop me from bringing it up.

Interesting stuff all around. Catch up on the day's blogging here.

reason Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie and former reasonoid Tim Cavanaugh had a mini-Suck Magazine reunion at Jewcy last spring.

The Big, Fat Line Between Simplification and Lying

Posted on November 8, 2007, 4:44pm | Jacob Sullum

The November 10 issue of the British magazine New Scientist calls attention to the prevarications of anti-tobacco activists pushing ever-more-stringent smoking bans. A report and editorial highlight maverick anti-smoking activist Michael Siegel's debunking of claims that brief exposure to secondhand smoke has potentially deadly effects on the cardiovascular system. "It is certainly not correct to claim that a single 30-minute exposure to secondhand smoke causes hardening of the arteries, heart disease, heart attacks, or strokes," Siegel tells New Scientist. "The anti-smoking movement has gone overboard." The response from the prevaricators is telling:

"When you take the science and put it in the public domain you can't include all the caveats," says Stanton Glantz, a tobacco researcher at the University of California in San Francisco. "The messages have to be simplified so people can understand them."

Glantz is right, of course. If anti-smoking groups said regular exposure to secondhand smoke, continued for decades, might slightly increase your risk of heart disease (assuming that the weak associations found in epidemiological studies signify a causal relationship), that would be hard to understand. When they say the slightest whiff of secondhand smoke could kill you, that's easy to understand. The only problem is that it's not true.

But if people panic based on lies told by anti-smoking activists, whose fault is that? It's certainly not the liars' fault:

John Banzhaf, executive director of ASH (US), says their statement [that 30 minutes of exposure to secondhand smoke can raise a "non-smoker's risk of suffering a fatal heart attack to that of a smoker"] was lifted from a report by the US Centers for Disease Control, and though he admits the risk to the heart is transitory, he does not believe you have to spell this out explicitly. "It is such an obvious thing," he says.

I wish it were obvious to more people that activists like Glantz and Banzhaf cannot be trusted when they make pronouncements about the hazards of secondhand smoke. But it's clear that policy makers take their assertions at face value. Belmont, California, has banned smoking in apartments, condominiums, and most outdoor spaces based on a belief that secondhand smoke is akin to polonium-210, "extremely dangerous" even in tiny doses. State legislators pushing new bans blithely assert that exposure to secondhand smoke is just as dangerous as smoking and that smoking around your child is worse than beating him.

The New Scientist is not buying Glantz and Banzhaf's rationalizations:

Using bad science can never be justified, even in pursuit of noble causes. It only gives ammunition to those seeking to undermine your case. When anti-smoking groups want to make their point they should stick to the solid facts. 

The New Scientist articles are not available in their entirety for free, but The Wall Street Journal has a summary, as does Siegel on his tobacco policy blog. As I noted last month, Siegel discussed this subject in a recent journal article, which apparently prompted the New Scientist coverage. His article cites specific examples of inaccurate warnings about secondhand smoke, some of which I quoted in my post.  

Are Bacteria the Cause of Global Warming?*

Posted on November 8, 2007, 4:11pm | Ronald Bailey

*hoaxed see below.

A new report in the Journal of Geoclimatic Studies by researchers from the University of Arizona and the University of Goteborg in Sweden argues that benthic bacteria are responsible for increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. According to the abstract:

It is now well-established that rising global temperatures are largely the result of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The "consensus" position attributes the increase in atmospheric CO₂ to the combustion of fossil fuels by industrial processes. This is the mechanism which underpins the theory of manmade global warming.

Our data demonstrate that those who subscribe to the consensus theory have overlooked the primary source of carbon dioxide emissions. While a small part of the rise in emissions is attributable to industrial activity, it is greatly outweighed (by >300 times) by rising volumes of CO₂ produced by saprotrophic eubacteria living in the sediments of the continental shelves fringing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Moreover, the bacterial emissions, unlike industrial CO₂, precisely match the fluctuations in global temperature over the past 140 years.

This paper also posits a mechanism for the increase in bacterial CO₂ emissions. A series of natural algal blooms, beginning in the late 19^th Century, have caused mass mortality among the bacteria's major predators: brachiopod molluscs of the genus Tetrarhynchia. These periods of algal bloom, as the palaeontological record shows, have been occurring for over three million years, and are always accompanied by a major increase in carbon dioxide emissions, as a result of the multiplication of bacteria when predator pressure is reduced. They generally last for 150-200 years. If the current episode is consistent with this record, we should expect carbon dioxide emissions to peak between now and mid-century, then return to background levels. Our data suggest that current concerns about manmade global warming are unfounded.

This is a rather sweeping conclusion from research published in a minor journal and will likely produce howls of outrage from defenders of the consensus. Only further research and time will tell if these guys are on to something significant or if they have somehow misinterpreted what they believe they have discovered.

Disturbingly, the article suggests that efforts were made to suppress their findings. Of course, what they are interpreting as suppression might be well-intended advice by colleagues telling them not to make fools of themselves. Or it might be something worse? Here is what they have to say:

It was not our intention in researching this issue to disprove manmade global warming theory. We have received no funds, directly or indirectly, from fossil fuel companies and have no personal interest in the outcome of the debate. We simply noticed an anomaly in the figures used by those who accept the "consensus" position on climate change and sought to investigate it. But the findings presented in this paper could not be more damaging to manmade global warming theory or to the thousands of climate scientists who have overlooked - sometimes, we fear, deliberately - the anomaly. We have found a near-perfect match between the levels of carbon dioxide produced by benthic eubacteria and recent global temperature records. By contrast we note what must be obvious to all those who have studied the figures with an open mind: a very poor match between carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels and recent global temperature records.

Moreover we note that there is no possible mechanism by which industrial emissions could have caused the recent temperature increase, as they are two orders of magnitude too small to have exerted an effect of this size. We have no choice but to conclude that the recent increase in global temperatures, which has caused so much disquiet among policy makers, bears no relation to industrial emissions, but is in fact a natural phenomenom.

These findings place us in a difficult position. We feel an obligation to publish, both in the cause of scientific objectivity and to prevent a terrible mistake - with extremely costly implications - from being made by the world's governments. But we recognise that in doing so, we lay our careers on the line. As we have found in seeking to broach this issue gently with colleagues, and in attempting to publish these findings in other peer-reviewed journals, the "consensus" on climate change is enforced not by fact but by fear. We have been warned, collectively and individually, that in bringing our findings to public attention we are not only likely to be deprived of all future sources of funding, but that we also jeopardise the funding of the departments for which we work.

We believe that academic intimidation of this kind contradicts the spirit of open enquiry in which scientific investigations should be conducted. We deplore the aggressive responses we encountered before our findings were published, and fear the reaction this paper might provoke. But dangerous as these findings are, we feel we have no choice but to publish.

Unfortunately, a good case can be made that moden academia is all about enforcing intellectual conformity rather than nurturing originality, but I will not attempt to make that case in this blogpost.

Whole article here.

*Yesterday I was hoaxed for about ten minutes by the above "study" on bacteria and global warming. I am on a listserv run by a prominent global warming skeptic who is generally a reliable source for the latest news and studies on the subject. This skeptic sent around the "study" as an extra yesterday. Another blogosphere friend also sent it along as well.

So I decided to write a quick post with the caveats you see above. About two minutes after I posted it, I received more information that it was hoax. Since it had been up a very short while I decided to take the post down immediately rather than mislead readers. Also, because it's embarassing to be hoaxed.

Well, the hoaxers were alert to identifying people whom they had successfully hoaxed (that would be me with the bright red face) and are now spreading the word that I fell for it (albeit for about ten minutes). Alas blogging can be a treacherous activity. Thus, I replace the original blogpost for all to enjoy at my all too well-deserved expense. The incident is entirely my fault.

Finally, regular reason readers know that I have not been in the skeptics camp for some time. For some examples, see my recent articles, "Carbon Taxes versus Carbon Markets," and "Confessions of an Alleged ExxonMobil Whore."

Giuliani Was Right: It Does Depend on Who Does It

Posted on November 8, 2007, 3:30pm | Jacob Sullum

Many of the readers who responded to my column about waterboarding, both in Hit & Run comments and in email via Townhall, have noted that American servicemen are subjected to the technique as part of their training to resist interrogation. How bad can it be, these readers asked, if we do it to our own men? For a rebuttal, I turn to Rudy Giuliani, who had this to say when asked whether waterboarding is torture:

It depends on how it's done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it.

Giuliani's comments were widely ridiculed by critics of the Bush administration's interrogation methods, who (probably correctly) interpreted him as saying that torture is not torture when it's done by the good guys. But in a sense Giuliani was right: If you are waterboarded as part of your military training, you know you will survive and won't be permanently harmed. If you are waterboarded by captors, you can never be sure you won't actually be drowned to death, either intentionally or by accident. That fear is a big component of the technique's persuasive power. As I noted in my column, the statutory definition of torture covers methods aimed at causing "severe mental pain or suffering" through "the threat of imminent death."

Giuliani's military adviser, Adm. Robert J. Natter, ignores this distinction when he says:

Is waterboarding torture? I don't know. I was waterboarded as part of my military training, and I would say that it falls into a gray area.

That "gray area" surely does not extend to a context in which you're being held against your will by people who view you as a mortal enemy.

Sex and the City: Not an Economics Textbook!

Posted on November 8, 2007, 3:25pm | Kerry Howley

Kay Hymowitz has a very entertaining, if extremely silly, City Journal piece on how self-indulgent, childless women portend the economic collapse of the world. Buy your it-bags now, ladies, because you'll die poor and your single child will hate you:

...you can find her in cities across Europe, Asia, and North America. Seek out the trendy shoe stores in Shanghai, Berlin, Singapore, Seoul, and Dublin, and you’ll see crowds of single young females (SYFs) in their twenties and thirties, who spend their hours working their abs and their careers, sipping cocktails, dancing at clubs, and (yawn) talking about relationships. Sex and the City has gone global; the SYF world is now flat...

With fewer children, the labor force shrinks, and so do tax receipts. Europe today has 35 pensioners for every 100 workers, Longman points out. By 2050, those 100 will be responsible for 75 pensioners; in Spain and Italy, the ratio of workers to pensioners will be a disastrous one-to-one. Adding to the economic threat, seniors with few or no children are more likely to look to the state for support than are elderly people with more children. The final irony is that the ambitious, hardworking SYF will have created a world where her children, should she have them, will need to work even harder in order to support her in her golden years.

Yes, demographic changes are hurtling us toward an economically unstable situation. But the constraints on that situation are not natural and God given; they're institutional and malleable. Hymowitz wants to blame empty wombs, but she really ought to blame the policies that render declining fertility rates problematic: paygo entitlement programs and draconian immigration restrictions. Europe has put itself in a difficult position, but the blame doesn't rest with the "SYF"s; it rests with the architects of unsustainable welfare schemes.

Even barring increased levels of immigration, there is nothing about a declining population in itself that entails a decline of average incomes. If workers continue to become more productive, average incomes will rise even if the GDP falls. Yes, the economic pie may shrink, but individual slices will continue to grow.

Also, having fewer people leads to declining markets, and thus less business investment and formation. Where would you want to expand your cosmetics business: Ireland, where the population continues to renew itself, or Japan, where it is imploding?

Good question! Here's another one: Population is growing faster in Nigeria than in South Korea, so where will you expand your cosmetics business? Nigeria is undergoing a population explosion, but, as it turns out, Nigerians are not projected to be leading the world in terms of facial cream consumption. Increases in demand are tied to rising incomes at least as closely as they are to rising population; there are three times as many Indians as Americans, yet Americans consume more than twice as much.

There's a lot of other weirdness going on here, such as Hymowitz's assumption that the Single Young Female is an inherently American phenomenon being reproduced around the world. Hymowitz's stereotype probably best fits young single Japanese women, who spend far more on luxury goods and have fewer children than American women. And indeed, she does a bang-up job of explaining the Japanese disaffection with family formation:

Peggy Orenstein, writing in the New York Times Magazine in 2001, noted that Japanese women find American-style sentimentality about marriage puzzling. Yoko Harruka, a television personality and author of a book called I Won’t Get Married—written after she realized that her then-fiancé expected her to quit her career and serve him tea—says that her countrymen propose with lines like, “I want you to cook miso soup for me for the rest of my life.”

Surprise! Most Japanese women between 25 and 54 don't want to tie the knot.

Ron Paul on Privacy

Posted on November 8, 2007, 2:52pm | David Weigel

Ron Paul's third New Hampshire TV ad is up at Reason.tv. This one addresses an issue I don't think any candidate has in his/her commercials yet: Privacy and the war on terror.

I'm Ron Paul and I'm the only presidential candidate who'll bring our troops home from Iraq immediately and stop wasteful government spending. But here's something else I care about, and I hope you do too. The war on terror and the growth of big government have had a dangerous side effect: The loss of privacy rights for the American people. Both parties have put their pet schemes ahead of our rights. Not me. As president, I won't stand for it. No national ID card, no invasion of privacy. I'm Ron Paul and I approve this message.

If Paul's going to make a surprise showing in New Hampshire, this is the talk (if not the production quality--this is direct but dark) that'll do it. Let the rest of the field thrash about debating Iraq and making fun of Hillary's ankles while he talks to Free Staters about REAL ID. The Youtube thread has gotten more civil and contented, too.

More reason on Paul here.

UPDATE: Pig Mannix points out that Paul's hit 5 percent in the tricky Rasmussen tracking poll (which doesn't mention Paul's name when asking for preference).* That's important, as we're running into the late debate season when candidates will need to hit poll thresholds in order to keep getting invited.

*I made a mistake here: Rasmussen DOES include Paul's name in its survey. I was passing on rumors to the contrary, so my apologies.

Reason Writers Around Town

Posted on November 8, 2007, 1:38pm

In his column for FoxNews.com, Radley Balko scolds Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for vetoing three modest but important criminal justice reforms.

The Homosexual Roots of Antiwar Sentiment: Podhoretz Schools the Ignorant

Posted on November 8, 2007, 12:47pm | Brian Doherty

Nice piece in the American Prospect from Justin Logan on the silliness of pro-warriors' endless Hitler analogies and all, worth a read, but I really wanted to just single out this one somewhat extraordinary bit, news to me though perhaps not to longterm careful Norman Podhoretz watchers:

Podhoretz penned a meandering essay in Harper's in 1977 titled "The Culture of Appeasement" which likened antiwar sentiment in post-Vietnam America to the wariness of war in Britain after World War I, and then linked the latter to a homosexual yearning for relations with all the young men who perished in the Great War. In Podhoretz's view, "the best people looked to other men for sex and romance," and as a result, didn't much like them being killed by the score on the Continent. "Anyone familiar with homosexual apologetics today will recognize these attitudes."

Tying things back into the 1970s, Podhoretz pointed to the "parallels with England in 1937" and warned that "this revival of the culture of appeasement ought to be troubling our sleep." (A correspondent in a subsequent issue of Harper's would admit that he "had not previously realized that Winston Churchill fought the Battle of Britain almost singlehandedly while England's ubiquitous faggotry sneered and jeered from below.")

I haven't felt more like backing out of a room saying, "Uh, yeah, interesting, gotta go" while reading anything in a long time.

Claim: Despite Government Spending, Teens Still Having Sex

Posted on November 8, 2007, 12:32pm | Michael C. Moynihan

Via the Associated Press, a chilling report suggests that, despite the best efforts of the moral scolds in the Bush administration, teens are still going at it, despite a massive increase in spending on "abstinence education" programs. Why one needs to waste even more money studying the blindingly obvious is unclear, but the AP has all the sordid details:

Programs that focus exclusively on abstinence have not been shown to affect teenager sexual behavior, although they are eligible for tens of mil lions of dollars in federal grants, according to a study released by a nonpartisan group that seeks to reduce teen pregnancies.

"At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners" among teenagers, the study concluded.

The report, which was based on a review of research into teenager sexual behavior, was being released Wednesday by the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Over at the Huffington Post, James Wagoner attacks the Democrats for endorsing a "record $141 million dollar budget for community-based abstinence-only-until-marriage programs which prohibit information about condoms and birth control," and is shocked to learn "that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) signed off on the funding increase." Yes, shocking.

Men Are to Blame for Global Warming

Posted on November 8, 2007, 12:23pm | Ronald Bailey

The New Scientist is reporting new Swedish research entitled, "A study on gender equality as a prerequisite for sustainable development." According to the New Scientist, the researcher behind the report, Gerd Johnsson-Latham of the Swedish Ministry of Sustainable Development, concludes:

"The fact that women travel less than men, measured in person-kilometres per car, plane, boat and motorcycle - means that women cause considerably fewer carbon dioxide emissions than men, and thus considerably less climate change." She notes that 60 per cent of car emissions are created by the 10 per cent of drivers who use roads the most, and that men account for three-quarters of car driving in Sweden.

Women do not escape censure, however. The report notes that in Sweden, women spend four times as much as men on consumer goods and - in a further dig at men, albeit unintended - 20 times as much on hygiene products.

Banned in Boston

Posted on November 8, 2007, 12:11pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

How far can a movie poster go? A risque movie poster had Slate's Explainer wondering who has the final say. Here's the answer:

Before the good people of the [MPAA's] advertising administration approve a poster, they make sure it's suitable for all viewers. Ads can't depict nudity or sexual activity, violence toward women, cruelty to animals, or rape. Other no-nos include sacrilege, cadavers, people or animals on fire, blood, offensive gestures, and references to drugs.

Filmmakers can always opt out of the whole shebang with the "not rated" option. But this last rule was a shocker for me:

It's also not OK to capitalize on the film's MPAA rating—i.e., "R has never gone this far," or "Banned in Boston."

If reason ever winds up "Banned in Boston"--something I'd have a particular interest in, since I'm the magazine's "Boston bureau"-- we'd have good company. Previous Boston decency scofflaws include H.L. Mencken, who was arrested in 1926 for selling verboten copies of his magazine, The American Mercury. According to the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities:

A fierce defender of free speech, Mencken had traveled to Boston with the express intention of getting himself arrested. The minute he sold a copy of the magazine, the vice squad took him into custody. Not everyone in Boston agreed with the Watch and Ward Society, and the next day a judge ruled in Mencken's favor. He was acquitted on all charges. The victory was short-lived, however. Boston continued to lead the nation in the banning of books for another 30 years.

More on banned books here and here, movies here and here, and video games here.

Prosecutor Who Sent Parents to Jail for Serving Alcohol to Minors Defeated--Hooray for Good Sense!

Posted on November 8, 2007, 11:50am | Ronald Bailey

Jim Camblos, the Republican incumbent Commonwealth's Attorney for Albemarle County in Virginia, lost his bid for re-election on Tuesday. Camblos despicably prosecuted parents for serving beer and wine to minors at their son's 16th birthday party. Originally, both parents were sentenced to 8 years in jail for the offense. Their sentences were later reduced to 27 months and they are now serving time.

When the police broke up the party on an anonymous tip, they found that seven of the partygoers had no alcohol in their systems and the remaining nine were below the legal limit for intoxication. By the way, the parents had insured that none of the partygoers were driving that evening.

Now here's where I'm supposed to kowtow to the moral bullies and signal my agreement that underage drinking is some kind of horrible offense. Well, forget it. I'm not recommending excessive drinking (though I confess to doing it, shall we just say, on more than one occasion) for anybody. However, the United States is the only country that imposes alcohol prohibition on people until age 21. Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, among others, put that limit at age 16 and they don't seem to be falling apart as societies. I think it's high time to lower the U.S. drinking age. 

In any case, Camblos' attempt at moral grandstanding turned out to be bad politics. Good riddance to him.

Disclosure: My wife and I live in the county seat of Albemarle County, Charlottesville, Va. Unfortunately, Charlottesville residents do not vote in Albemarle County elections, so I can't claim any credit for Camblos' ouster.  

Octogenarian Gamblers: The New Menace!

Posted on November 8, 2007, 11:36am | Radley Balko

Police in Tennessee broke up a local poker came they say was run by 82-year-old World Series of Poker vet Phil McKinney. McKinney and 15 others were arrested (one on a charge of possessing moonshine). Scary photo of police-seized contraband poker chips here.

Meanwhile, 87-year-old WWII vet Bill Meserve won't get to play $5 cribbage at the VFW anymore. Police in Gariner, Maine have shut the games down.

The American Legion post in Gardiner was told it could purchase a special license for just $7.50 a year, provided it charged no more than $1 per person and players did not gamble.

"But they want to do it their way," [Police Sgt. William] Gomane said.

Those bastard war veterans, arrogantly assuming that the liberty they risked their lives fighting for includes the right to participate in $5 cribbage games.

Caught With the Meat in Your Mouth

Posted on November 8, 2007, 11:05am | David Weigel

Jayson Whitehead has a long, good read in C-Ville (the Charlottesville, Virginia weekly) about independent farmers struggling to sell their meat under onerous federal regulations. Whitehead quotes farmer Elizabeth Van Deventer:

"The question all consumers should be asking is this: Why is it legal for corporate factory farms to sell meat from livestock that have been fed arsenic as an appetite stimulant, the remains of other animals, urea from natural gas, chicken feathers, hormones and daily doses of antibiotics to keep the animals from dying from their sick surroundings? This factory farmed meat, where animals are packed together by the tens of thousands in disease-ridden environments, is given the stamp of approval by the USDA to appease their powerful corporate clients. Double H's pigs, by contrast, live their lives roaming outside in fresh air, they are given natural, locally produced grains, and are processed by Richard himself, a lifelong butcher.

"We are fooled by the 'assurance' of a USDA inspector when the meat itself is unhealthy to eat in the first place. E. coli contamination and Mad Cow disease are the result of intensive, confined cattle practices and no USDA inspection could prevent that. It's time to change the laws. If I want to buy healthy pork from Double H and not from a corporate farm's mistreated, unhealthy, factory pigs, that should be my right."

There's a happy ending, though: Joel Salatin, a farmer discovered by Chipotle owner Steve Ellis after his inclusion in The Omnivore's Dilemma, cuts a deal to sell his pork to local branches of the megachain. "I can go down and see these animals, two weeks later they are slaughtered and three days later being marinated so that you can go over and have a Carnitas burrito four days later."

Salatin's own book here. Headline reference here.

Who Is Headlining Headlined Hillary Clinton's 60th Birthday Party To Help Make It "Younger, Hipper, More Fun"?

Posted on November 8, 2007, 10:55am | Nick Gillespie

A: Elvis Costello.

Costello, who took his stage name by merging that of his musical hero with his mother's maiden name, won an army of fans with his often-political songs from the Seventies....

Costello got his first record deal with Stiff Records in 1977 after adopting his stage name and has been credited with creating the Eighties sound broadly described as New Wave, fusing punk with electronica, ska and funk sounds....

After spending increasingly more time in America since 1982, it seems Costello's popularity in his adopted homeland has been sealed with the news he is headlining at Hillary Clinton's 60th birthday party to help make it "younger, hipper, more fun".

Aye yi-yi. Was Fleetwood Mac unavailable?

More here.

Clinton's censorious impulse discussed here.

Gratuitous insult time: Elvis Costello is a member of a rock fraternity that includes David Bowie, Elton John, Eric Clapton, and [insert name here]: A guy who has totally sucked for much, much longer than he was ever once (undeniably) great.

Duh time correcton: Yes, this birthday took place the last week of October and here's a link to video of Elvis C croaking "Happy Birthday" to her.

An invite is here. Co-headlining with Elvis C were the Wallflowers (bringing back that '90s vibe...)

A Bad Year for the Roses

Posted on November 8, 2007, 10:51am | Jesse Walker

People power: It's a nice way to bring down a government, but it gets annoying once you've established a regime of your own. I assume that's the thought process at work in the Republic of Georgia, where the president installed by 2003's Rose Revolution has declared a state of emergency, closed down TV stations, and violently repressed demonstrations. He says the opposition is all a Russian plot, but while Russia has certainly tried to influence events within its neighbor's borders, there's a lot more at work here than that. Radio Netherlands reports:

Former defence minister Irakli Okruashvili has accused the president of corruption and of being behind a number of political killings. A number of other prominent opposition leaders previously served in government - they resigned after clashing with the president - which makes it hard to accuse them of pro-Russian sympathies. Former foreign minister Salome Zurabishvili even went to Paris to assure French President Nikolas Sarkozy that the Georgian opposition supports President Saakashvili's foreign policy platform of developing closer ties with Europe and becoming a NATO member. Moscow is certainly not in favour of its former satellite state joining the NATO alliance.

Even if they were all secretly working for the Kremlin, of course, that wouldn't justify the general restrictions on civil liberties.

Speaking of states of emergency: If you missed the Center for Public Integrity's report this past May on U.S. aid to Pakistan, now would be a good time to review it.

Sleeping Man Tasered in His Own Home

Posted on November 8, 2007, 9:22am | Radley Balko

Earlier this year, North Braddock, Penn. resident Shawn Hicks came back from a night out and plopped down on his own couch in his own home. Unfortunately, he failed to deactivate the silent alarm on his home security system. According to Hicks, two police officers responded to the alarm, entered his home, and woke him with a taser between the shoulder blades. When Hicks tried to explain that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and that the officers were in his own home, they tasered him again. They next checked his wallet and ID, which confirmed his name and address. Then they tasered him again. The police then removed the taser pellets from Hicks' bloody back, refused to get him medical treatment, and arrested him for "being belligerent." They threw him in a holding cell until 5 am the next morning, when they released him without filing any charges.

You know what happened next. The police department suspended the officers who tasered Hicks without pay while they conducted a thorough investigation. The chief then had them arrested for assaulting Hicks with their tasers, falsely arresting him, and violating his civil rights. The two officers were fired from the police force, then charged, convicted, and given lengthy prison terms.

Just kidding. They were cleared of any wrongdoing.

Atlas Hugged

Posted on November 8, 2007, 8:46am | Nick Gillespie

An apparently true tale of overzealous idiotic school administrators (imagine!) putting an 8th-grade girl in middle-school Gitmo for the dread act of hugging a friend:

Two hugs equals two days of detention for 13-year-old Megan Coulter. The eighth-grader was punished for violating a school policy banning public displays of affection when she hugged two friends Friday.

"I feel it is crazy," said Megan, who was to serve her second detention Tuesday after classes at Mascoutah Middle School [in Illinois].

"I was just giving them a hug goodbye for the weekend," she said.

Megan's mother, Melissa Coulter, said the embraces weren't even real hugs - just an arm around the shoulder and slight squeeze.

"It's hilarious to the point of ridicule," Coulter said. "I'm still dumbfounded that she's having to do this."

I'd say that it's horrendous to the point of ridicule, but I'm heartened to see the girl is refusing to go gentle into that detention room, like some kind of teen John Galt (really bad headline allusion). Indeed, the girl and her mother were all over cable this morning, even pulling more camera time on Fox & Friends than Benazir Bhutto (imagine!).

More here.

I predict a minor uptick in downloads of The Wall in and around Illinois. Or at least a rash of dark sarcasm in the classroom. And am I the only who fears this will reverse years of "Hugs, not drugs" brainwashing?

Peter Bagge checks out insane school admins here.

Ron Bailey grades a dumb school's zero tolerance for silly pictures here.

A depressing look at Nanny State 911!

More reason stuff of zero tolerance.

Where Church vs. State Goes To Die

Posted on November 8, 2007, 8:11am | Nick Gillespie

Via Drudge comes news from Georgia that will likely produce not precipitation but a new round of inbred-idiot jokes:

What to do when the rain won't come? If you're Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, you pray.

The governor will host a prayer service next week to ask for relief from the drought gripping the Southeast.

"The only solution is rain, and the only place we get that is from a higher power," Perdue spokesman Bert Brantley said on Wednesday.

Perdue's office has sent out invitations to leaders from several faiths for the service, set for Tuesday.

Perdue has several times mentioned the need for prayer - along with water conservation - as the state's drought crisis has worsened. Over the summer, he participated in day of prayer for agriculture at a gathering of the Georgia Farm Bureau in Macon, Ga.

More here.

How long until they call in Reichian cloudbusters? But for god's sake, keep pols clear out of the Orgone Boxes.

Reason Writers Around Town

Posted on November 8, 2007, 8:00am

In the Wall Street Journal, Robert Poole explains how the country would be better off if he took some sledgehammers to the tool booths.

Hank Thompson, RIP

Posted on November 7, 2007, 9:20pm | Jesse Walker

First Porter Wagoner, now Hank Thompson -- it hasn't been a happy fall for fans of classic country music. Here's something to ease the pain:
Hope they managed to fill his order before he left.

The Health Risks of Not Drinking

Posted on November 7, 2007, 7:00pm | Jacob Sullum

Earlier today Radley Balko noted that "the map showing the places where people are most likely to drink alcohol looks a lot like the map showing the healthiest counties," while "the map showing the places were people were least likely to drink looks a lot like the map showing the least healthy counties." In the same vein, addiction psychologist Stanton Peele looks at America's Health Rankings and finds:

In all of the healthiest five states, a majority drinks. In all the unhealthiest states, a minority drinks. The United Health Foundation's health ranking of the states is subtitled, "A Call to Action for People & Their Communities." Should they call for more people to drink?

Since moderate drinking is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, a causal connection is not out of the question. It may also be that teetotaling correlates with income or other demographic variables that are independently related to health.

South Park Open Thread

Posted on November 7, 2007, 6:17pm

Tonight's the season finale of South Park, and the episode: "Guitar Queer-o."

Obsessed with the Guitar Hero video game, Stan and Kyle make a great team and score record points when they play. Stan realizes he has the potential for enormous success if he plays with another partner. He and Kyle break up, but without his friend, Stan quickly folds under the pressure of being a rock star.

In related news, the "Imaginationland/Kyle Sucks Cartman's Balls" trilogy was a ratings smash, and Comedy Central plans to release it by itself on DVD. (They'll probably include it in an eventual season box, too.)

The Libertarian Party in Election '07

Posted on November 7, 2007, 5:43pm | Brian Doherty

The Libertarian Party is crowing about its 14 victories yesterday, which amounts to winning in 17 percent of the elections nationwide in which it had a candidate running. From the party's press release:

Libertarians were elected in Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania—54 percent of the states in which Libertarians ran. Libertarians in Michigan won four of the five known races in that state where Libertarians were involved—a stunning 80 percent rate of victory.

Complete list of every election with a Libertarian candidate nationwide, and the results.

More Election 07 roundup chatter from Hit and Run.

G(roundhog)z And Hustlas

Posted on November 7, 2007, 4:52pm | David Weigel

Over at Reason.tv you can meet G-Hog, the bullet-survivin', cop-hatin', scrubs-donnin' hip-hop hero of this ad paid for by the people of Pennsylvania.

Chances for advancement, you'll never be a zero!
Choose a job in health care, you'll be a health care hero!

Gov. Ed Rendell (who appears in the video as a talking cardboard cutout) fully endorses the opus:

Who's better than a giant rapping groundhog to get the attention of young people?

I don't know. A Geddy Lee sex tape? A George W. Bush endorsement? Almost anything else?

Via Wonkette, which collected some priceless comments:

This is what happens when writers go on strike.

More lessons we can learn from animals here.

The New Right, RIP

Posted on November 7, 2007, 3:30pm | Jesse Walker

Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy Giuliani.

Good as Gold

Posted on November 7, 2007, 3:05pm | David Weigel

Kevin Drum calls Ron Paul a "fruitcake" and demands that you--yes, you!--stop taking him so damn seriously.

In the last Republican debate I saw, this noted truth-teller gave a strange and convoluted answer about his economic policies that the audience plainly didn't understand. Next time I expect to see some straight talk about how we should return to the gold standard and get rid of the Fed. This should be followed by a question about whether he supports the free coinage of silver at 16:1. Then some questions about the tin trust.

Dean Barnett trods some of the same territory, arguing that Paul is a crazy candidate for crazy people who won't run on sensible ideas like doubling Gitmo and moving "In God We Trust" to the front of dollar coins. I guess I've got to break the news: If Paul's anachronistic gold-and-silder obsession is enough to call him "crazy," conservatives had better be ready to ditch one of their heroes. From page 421 of Robert Novak's autobiography The Prince of Darkness:

I asked Reagan: "What ever happened to the gold standard? I thought you supported it."

"Well," the president began and then paused (a ploy he frequently used to collect his thoughts), "I still do support the gold standard, but--"

At that point, Reagan was interrupted by his chief of staff. "Now, Mr. President," said Don Regan, "we don't want to get bogged down talking about the gold standard."

"You see?" the president said to me, with palms uplifted in mock futility. "They just won't let me have my way."

Reason's 1975 interview with Reagan is here. A theory for why the GOP base doesn't think Paul's economics are so odd is here.

Now Playing at Reason.tv: Brian Doherty on Ayn Rand's Legacy

Posted on November 7, 2007, 2:03pm | Nick Gillespie

reason Senior Editor and Radicals for Capitalism author Brian Doherty takes the modernist measure of novelist, philosopher, and cult figure Ayn Rand.

Click below for the full video:

New at Reason

Posted on November 7, 2007, 1:10pm

Paul Karl Lukacs salutes the Goofuses and Gallants of the World Bank's latest report on doing business.

YouTube Tests Honor Among Thieves

Posted on November 7, 2007, 12:59pm | Katherine Mangu-Ward

After a pair of thieves took two wristwatches right from under the noses of the employees of Big Sticks Fine Cigars in Mesa, Arizona, the store owner decided to take the usual Wanted poster a little farther. He posted footage from his security cameras on YouTube and offered a reward for anyone who identifies the crooks.

"I wanted to make them famous," [store owner Bob] Guertin said. "There's no honor among thieves, and his best friend today might be the one turning on him for a thousand bucks tomorrow."

More benefits of living in Surveillance Nation: Crowdsourcing your detective work instead of waiting for police to track down a couple of guys who stole a couple of watches.

Do your part to fight crime, check out the video here.

Read more about the upsides (and a few downsides) of zero privacy here and here.

Via Fark.com

Overweight: The New Healthy

Posted on November 7, 2007, 12:35pm | Jacob Sullum

A couple of years ago, a team of researchers led by Katherine Flegal of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at data from the the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and discovered that the mortality rate for people the government considers "overweight" was lower than the mortality rate for people with weights the government deems "normal," "healthy," or "optimal." The study did find a higher death rate among people fat enough to be considered "obese" (and among the "underweight"), but it implied a much lower annual death toll associated with excess weight than the CDC had been claiming: about 100,000, as opposed to 400,000 or so. (If you take into account the lower mortality rate among the merely "overweight," the net number of "excess deaths" among those who weigh more than the governnment thinks they should is about 26,000.) Just as important, the study cast doubt on the meaning of the "overweight" label, since it showed that the government-preferred range is not only not "normal" (since most people exceed it); it may not even be "optimal" in terms of health. Now (as Ron Bailey notes below) Flegal and several other government-employed scientists are back with a detailed look at causes of death in various weight ranges.

The new study—published, like the earlier one, in The Journal of the American Medical Association—finds that the excess deaths among the obese are overwhelmingly due to cardiovascular disease. The category "diabetes and kidney disease" comes in second. While the overall cancer death rate was not higher than in the "normal" weight group, certain cancers (colon, breast, esophagus, uterus, ovary, kidney, and pancreas) were slightly more common. By contrast, compared to people of "normal" weight, those who were merely "overweight" (but not "obese") had lower rates of death from a variety of causes, including respiratory disease, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. Flegal et al. say the differences remained after they controlled for smoking and pre-existing disease, both of which are associated with lower weight.

Standing alone, these data do not prove that plumpness is healthy or that thinness kills. But they do cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that everyone should strive for a government-approved weight. In response to Flegal et al.'s research, JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, tells The New York Times "health extends far beyond mortality rates," which is true enough. In particular, Manson notes that "excess weight makes it more difficult to move about and impairs the quality of life." But that sort of day-to-day impairment is much more obvious than the lurking, lethal risk of a few extra pounds that Manson has been warning people about for years. A 1995 New York Times headline inspired by one of Manson's studies warned that "Even Moderate Weight Gains Can Be Deadly." The story quoted Manson's prediction that "it won't be long before obesity surpasses cigarette smoking as a cause of death in this country." It looks like both of those claims were wrong, which is good news not only for "overweight" people but for anyone worried about the social engineers with plans for making us thinner.