Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 08:14:44 -0500
From: reason@free-market.net ("Jeff Taylor")
Subject: Reason-Express: REx33, v4
To: ReasonExpress@free-market.net (Reason Express List Member)
Welcome to REASON Express, the weekly e-newsletter from REASON magazine.
REASON Express is written by Washington-based journalist Jeff A. Taylor and
draws on the ideas and resources of the REASON editorial staff. For more
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REASON Express
August 14, 2001
Vol. 4 No. 33
- - Cell Blocks - -
President Bush's decision to curtail but not end federally financed embryonic
stem cell research shows his tendency to take the middle ground on every
issue. Whether this one holds is anyone's guess.
An important indicator will be what his newly named advisory committee on the
issue does. Much more important than te relatively small amount of money the
feds spend on the research is the overall atmosphere--not to mention potential
prohibitions--for private genetic work. With medievalist philosopher Leon Kass
heading up Bush's panel, things might not end well.
One certain thing is that the cadre of researchers who seem to crave a sort of
government Ministry of Stem Cell Research are bound to be disappointed. There
is no good reason for the feds to be so deeply involved in this line of
inquiry that anyone with a lab cot and petri dish gets guaranteed work for
life.
Other countries can pursue that brute force kind of research--like computer
chips for the new millennium--and likely wind up with the equivalent of stacks
and stacks of worthless silicon.
http://www.nandotimes.com/nation/story/59640p-865342c.html
REASON science correspondent Ronald Bailey explains what Bush's compromise on
stem cells means for medical progress at
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb081001.html
- - Voice to the Voiceless - -
The $47 billion Wisconsin state budget includes $40,000 to help set up voice
mail for the homeless. The state's $7 million Universal Service Fund, funded
by phone users, would supply the cash.
"It is unbelievable that we're providing voice mail for the homeless when
working families can't afford voice mail," said state Rep. Tim Hoven (R-Port
Washington).
Except that it isn't unbelievable at all. It is just standard operating
procedure for the past 60 years of telecom policy. Those crazy bureaucrats
aren't crazy. They know exactly what they are doing.
This little Wisconsin hiccup shows just how badly the nation needs telecom
rules that bear some relationship to today's reality. The bewildering array of
subsidies that infest the current system, that produce things like a $7
million Universal Service Fund for a state to dip into, are products of
state-of-the-art thinking circa 1934.
The iron rules that urban telecom services must subsidize rural, long-distance
must subsidize local, and business service must subsidize residential have not
changed one iota since the Great Depression. Partisan power waxes and wanes in
Washington, reformers come and go at the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC), billion-dollar industries bloom and die, and nothing changes.
At most, the 1996 telecom reform opened up some of the positions for
competition. The telecom guys could go after the cable guys, and vice versa,
or they could team up. What didn't change were the rules of the game
Regulators in Washington and in 50 state capitols would decide what fair
telecom markets look like.
Real reform would be something like an end to all cross-subsidies, geographic
toll-rate averaging, long distance access fees, universal service fees,
universal service mandates, must-carry rules, and bans on offering certain
services to certain people in certain places.
In its place, hand out $30 worth of phone stamps to current food stamp
recipients that all providers of telecom services must accept for basic
service. Shutter the FCC and hire more prosecutors to bring fraud charges
against any entity that tries to game the new system or violates the letter of
any service contract. Penalties would be prison time, not fines as doled out
by once-and-future colleagues at the FCC.
But that will never happen--which is why the homeless will have voice mail
before you have reliable, affordable broadband.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/aug01/voice11081001a.asp
- - Just Enough for the City - -
Civic do-gooders in Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta insist their aesthetic sense
must rule.
A new $800,000 musical fountain in downtown Lauderdale has neighboring office
workers begging for relief.
"I beseech you to please use an ounce of decency and a modicum of pity and put
an end to the music ... between the times of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.," one worker
wrote to the city.
But the "Spirit of Fort Lauderdale" fountain was actually built by the
Downtown Development Authority, one of those public-private partnerships
answerable to no one.
The fountain blares out a CD of bland cover tunes by development authority
board member Gale Butler, demonstrating another crucial element of civic
goodness--cronyism.
"We don't pick heavy metal, we don't pick anything that I would think would be
too jarring. We pick middle of the road," Butler explained.
And that is the problem. A single person's idea of good music has invaded
public--and private--spaces. What authority has that kind of authority?
But pols in Atlanta are not even stopping to ask that kind of question when
confronted with something that offends their tastes. They want to bulldoze the
infamous Gold Club strip club and turn it into a park.
The feds seized and closed the club as part of a plea agreement with its
owner, who pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering.
"If the price is reasonable and there is community interest...we will move
ahead with purchasing the property," said City Council member Clair Muller. As
the feds have already made a $5 million fine in the case, they might be
willing to let it go cheap.
But one less strip club in Atlanta will hardly make a dent in what the public
likes to do and see in private.
http://news.excite.com/news/r/010808/09/odd-goldclub-dc
http://espn.go.com/page2/s/simmons/010810.html
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-cmusic807.story?coll=sfla%2
Dnews%2Dfront
- - Taxing Times - -
Sometimes bad ideas just get a life of their own. So it is with "tax amnesty"
days that states promote to convince residents that they are getting a break
from taxes.
Maryland has kicked off its first tax-free week, driven in large part by the
fear that its five-percent levy sends shoppers across the border to
zero-sales-tax Delaware.
Ostensibly the idea is that the tax-free weeks make back-to-school shopping a
little more affordable. But shoppers had better read the fine print.
That back-to-school staple, the book bag, is taxable. Ditto fanny packs,
duffel bags, and just about anything you can use to carry something in.
Baby diapers are tax-free and baby bibs taxed. Scarves are taxable, but not
tuxedoes. (Bow ties are taxed, though.)
Life jackets and vests are taxed, but not hunting jackets or vests. This
suggests there is money to be made with a hunting vest that floats.
Rented skates are taxed, but not rented shoes, part of an apparent coup by
some bowling lobbyist in Annapolis. Bowling shirts are also tax-free.
A strange regressivity also finds the golf and ski attire of the wealthy
jet-setter tax free while the jock straps, knee pads, and cleats of the
blue-collar oaf are taxed.
And for some reason corset and corset laces are tax-free. Must be the glut of
whalebone.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64423-2001Aug11.html
http://www.comp.state.md.us/initiatives/shopmd/taxpurch.asp
QUICK HITS
- - Quote of the Week - -
"If there is a real Joe Montana who is famous, if they ask for it, and pay the
registration fee, they can have it.'' Emil Lazarian, the registered owner of
the site joemontanafanclub.com, a collection of links to X-rated sites.
Lazarian, an 18-year-old student visiting the United States from Armenia, was
sued in Santa Clara County Superior Court by the former pro football great for
$5 million in damages and an injunction against use of the domain name.
Lazarian registered the site for $10.
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/montan080801.htm
- - Problem Solvers - -
Between now and 2004, the state of California could lose millions on the
electricity it bought to stem this spring's "crisis." In July alone it lost
$46 million by selling surplus power for less than it paid. To avert a huge
hole in the state budget, officials may have to start encouraging more energy
use.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-081101glut.story
- - Moto Photo - -
Motorists are fighting back against photo radar and other new police
surveillance gadgets. Radar and laser detectors and plastic shields for
license plates may be illegal in some states, but are proving popular.
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20010809-49936368.htm
- - Bubble Trouble - -
Disney's "Bubble Boy" film has the Immune Deficiency Foundation fuming. The
"feature-length joke mocking people without immunities" should be boycotted,
it says.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/bpihw/20010809/en/mother_of_bubble_boy_blasts_d
isney_over_film_1.html
- - Corn Pone --
A Cornell University scientist finds that ethanol is a great way to waste
energy. About 131,000 BTUs are needed to make a gallon of ethanol. One gallon
of ethanol only makes 77,000 BTU.
http://unisci.com/stories/20013/0813012.htm
REASON NEWS
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