Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 17:08:04 -0500
From: reason@free-market.net ("Jeff Taylor")
Subject: Reason-Express: REx43, v3
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
October 23, 2000
Vol. 3 No. 43
1) Feds Want to Throw Bath Seats Out with Bath Water
2) Clueless Web Sites Haven't Cut Cookies
3) Colombia Loses US-Made Helicopter
4) Quick Hits
- - Ring of Power - -
Suppose there was a device that, when used during a dangerous procedure, seems
to significantly reduce the risk of a fatality. Further, suppose that same
device helped to make a difficult thing much easier. What would you think of
such a thing?
If you are a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission you might
conclude such a device should be banned.
Such is the case with baby bath seats or rings. Some 2 million of the seats
are now in use.
Some CPSC commissioners are being swayed by campaign of the Consumer
Federation of America to ban the bath seats, which says the devices give
parents a false sense of security.
"Baby bath seats are an invitation to danger," claims Mary Ellen Fise, general
counsel of the CFA.
But the numbers don't back this up. About 50 kids drown in bathtubs every year
and only about nine of those involve the use of a bath seat.
Significantly, in almost all of the deaths reported, the child was left
unattended. Blaming the bath seats for this huge lapse in parental judgment
seems more than a little misplaced.
But not for CPSC Chairman Ann Brown, who seems to think that making life
difficult for parents will keep kids safe.
"Imagine a parent holding a soapy, squiggling baby," Brown said. "A parent
would never leave that baby alone for a second. But even the best parent can
be seduced into bad behavior if they see a child sitting upright in a little
seat."
That is one powerful piece of plastic, able to "seduce" even "best parents"
into a "bad" choice.
If that is the operating standard for safety--that no labor-saving device that
might be misused by morons should be available to the public--then we might as
well go back to mud huts and be really safe.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26922-2000Oct17.html
The CPSC previously worried about whether children slept with their parents
(http://reason.com/re/100499.html) and Jacob Sullum noted that the CPSC
insists on calling kids pajamas everything but PJs
(http://reason.com/sullum/060398.html.)
- - Cookiegate - -
The White House banned it, said it wouldn't happen again, but Congress
investigated and found more of it. Sex with interns? Nah, just cookie crumbs
left by federal Web sites.
The General Accounting Office found that 13 government agencies still use
cookies to track the surfing of visitors to government Web sties. But far from
being an instance of "big brother" keeping "secret" tabs on citizens, this is
yet another example of technological illiteracy on the part of government.
A White House directive several months ago said that if cookies were used,
surfers had to be told about it. None of the sites did that.
The U.S. Forest Service didn't even know it was using cookies until a reporter
told a spokesman about it. This does not sound like a secret plot to track Web
surfers.
What it does look like is a mish-mash of efforts to get agencies on the Web
without any real thought given to why they need an online presence. A few
minutes surfing most government sites makes clear that what should be a top
goal--usability for the citizenry--is routinely subordinated to PR puffery and
agency aggrandizement.
Whether or not a site deposits a cookie--something that can be easily deleted,
in any event--is not the biggest problem with government sites. Indeed,
worrying about what information the government can get from users has the
issue exactly backward.
Stale, sparse information, poor design, and lack of robust search engines make
it much too difficult for the bill-paying public to keep up with what their
technocapped government is up to.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/tracking001021.html
- - Black Hawk Down - -
Something is happening there, what it is ain't exactly clear.
A Colombian army Black Hawk helicopter went down after taking hits from the
leftist guerillas in the northwest corner of the country. The chopper was not
part of the $1.3 billion Plan Colombia anti-drug task force. Those US-built
Black Hawks have yet to be delivered.
But the aircraft was used to ferry troops into contested jungle, the same role
that the anti-drug choppers will have. The Black Hawks will be expected to
supply their own air support, doubling as gunships, a role that the US
reserves for purpose-built craft.
Thus it is easy to foresee a ready-made escalation path should more Black
Hawks go down. At a minimum, attempts to further up-gun the Black Hawks could
be made.
And given Washington's love of seemingly safe and sanitized air wars, how many
downed choppers would it take to make a more direct US role an option?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44407-2000Oct19.html
QUICK HITS
- - Quote of the Week - -
"If it only takes one or two records from a bookstore to help us eliminate
drugs on the street, then so be it," Lt. Lori Moriarty, commander of the
Denver North Metro Drug Task Force, after a judge upheld police demands for
records from the Tattered Cover bookstore. A March 14 raid on a
methamphetamine lab found two how-to books purchased from the store.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/news1021b.htm
- - Quote of the Week, Unintended Consequences Division - -
"This is going to cost me getting a scholarship. Now no coach is going to want
me, because they're going to think if I don't do well on the team, I'll turn
around and sue them," Tonya Butler, placekicker for the Middle Georgia Junior
College football team, on would-be placekicker Heather Sue Mercer's $2 million
sex-discrimination verdict against Duke University's football program. Butler,
20, is currently on a football scholarship and had received queries from
four-year schools, but none since the Mercer trial.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55071-2000Oct21.html
- - MS Calls BS --
Microsoft honcho Bill Gates drops one in the punchbowl at the Creating Digital
Dividends conference, noting that technology investments in developing
countries might be useless if the population isn't healthy or literate. "Do
people have a clear idea of what it means to make $1 a day?" Gates said.
"There is no electricity. No power systems. These people are trying to stay
alive. There is no need for a PC."
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20001018S0015
- - All Things Lobbied - -
The head of the FCC smacks broadcasters for running to Congress to try and
kill low-power radio--with the help of National Public Radio.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58803-2000Oct22.html
- - Hope Over Experience - -
The Pentagon announced that in order to improve morale, black berets--now
reserved for elite Ranger units--will be standard headgear for all soldiers
next year. Further, jump wings will go to any solider who has been on a plane,
purple hearts to vets with hang nails, and green berets to anyone with a
snazzy outfit too casual for black.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26870-2000Oct17.html
- - De-Linked - -
The largest ever study on breast cancer deaths and second-hand smoke found
that smokers' wives are no more likely to become victims of breast cancer than
are the wives of nonsmokers. The study of more than 146,000 women contradicts
the findings of smaller studies that implied a link between environmental
tobacco smoke and breast cancer deaths.
http://www.nando.net/healthscience/story/0,1080,500270514-500421413-502620351-
0,00.html
- - God Bless America - -
Germany's Finance Ministry is working to make the private use of work
computers tax-free. Such a decision would reverse an earlier directive saying
private Web surfing at the office amounted to an extra benefit that should be
taxed.
http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/00/156904.html
- - School Beef - -
New Trier (Illinois) High School has a Carnivorous Club with more than 70
members. The group is a reaction to vegetarians who had their own club.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/meat18.html
- - Who Goes There? - -
The Maryland Mass Transit Authority used video cameras to conduct a "survey"
of 48,000 motorists. Sample questions drivers received via mail: "Your vehicle
was seen traveling on southbound I-95 near I-195 on Wednesday, September 27.
Please provide the following information: Where were you going? Who was with
you? What was the purpose of your trip?" MTA thinks the survey will help win
federal money for high-speed rail.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44470-2000Oct19.html
REASON NEWS
Attention Bay Area Subscribers:
PUBLIC HEALTH vs. THE NANNY STATE?
Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum, author of For Your Own Good: The
Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health, will be speaking at an
Independent Institute Policy Forum in Oakland, CA on October 26th. For more
details and registration information, visit
http://www.independent.org/tii/forums/001026ipf.html
For the latest on media appearances by Reason writers, visit
http://www.reason.com/press.html.
Reason Express is made possible by a grant from The DBT Group
(http://www.dbtgroup.com), manufacturers of affordable, high-performance
mainframe systems and productivity software.
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