Reason's Weekly Dispatch
By Jeff A. Taylor and the
Reason staff
Back
Issues
Subscribe
Send Feedback
Visit http://www.reason.com/re/rextext.txt
for the plain text version of Reason Express.
Visit http://www.reason.com/re/current.shtml
for the html version.
June 15, 2004
Vol. 7 No. 24
In this
issue:
1. Tortured Logic
2. Hybrid Hoopla
3. Divorced from Reality
4. Quick Hits
5. New at Reason Online -
Bringing the War Back Home
6. Reason's print
edition
7. News and
Events
The Department of Justice's torture memo, despite its length and finely honed language, is a rather simple document that sets out to achieve two ends. First, it makes the case that when the president wears his commander-in-chief hat, he may do as he pleases to anyone, anywhere. Second, the memo functions as a defense lawyer's brief for any government official charged with committing torture.
Of the two goals, the second seems by far the more insidious and potentially dangerous. After all, the notion of executive supremacy can be rejected on its face. But if a definition of torture were to become enshrined that recognized torture as torture only when the accused knew he or she was committing torture (which is what the memo argues), that definition might become difficult to dislodge.
Moreover, such a definition of torture is an almost perfect roadmap to dehumanizing prisoners and adopting a "they're used to it" defense of harsh treatment. Bang them around and rough them up? It's OK, they're used to it. Strip them and turn the dogs on them? It's OK, they'll get over it.
A legal definition of torture that holds that only the intent to cause severe pain and possible permanent injury is torture actually encourages abusers to regard captives as persons able to withstand rough treatment. In short, it behooves the torturer to view his captives as more animal than human. Doing so removes the needed intent the Justice Department says must be present to show that torture, in fact, occurred.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/dojinterrogationmemo20020801.pdf
Hybrid cars have been on the roads for several years now. The combination electric-gasoline powered compacts from Toyota and Honda are nice little runabouts that, for a premium sticker price over standard powertrains, give owners great fuel mileage and impart a warm, do-good feeling. Kinda like recycling does, only with wheels. But so far the hybirds have remained niche vehicles rather than replacements for gasoline-only cars.
Comes now the Ford Escape hybrid, a compact SUV that might just be the first hybrid to find mass-market success. The Escape uses a battery-powered electric motor at low speeds, typically for around-town driving. The gasoline motor kicks in for highway use and then it also helps to recharge the batteries. It is a nice closed system that requires no "plug-in" time.
The Escape also uses a host of tricks to take advantage of an on-board electric motor, like a special transmission and regenerative braking, which takes energy from the act of slowing the vehicle and stuffs it back into the batteries. These are technologies that have been on the drawing boards or in limited use for decades. When you mate them with today's cheap but powerful computers, however, you can achieve a seamless integration of the parts.
Most of all, the hybrid Escape presents consumers with a body and features they like. The standard Escape is the best seller in the compact SUV class. Going hybrid does not mean giving up other creature comforts or looks, which probably is a turn off for environmental activists who preach sacrifice from the less-is-more hymnal.
However, there is simply no denying that the road to greener vehicles goes through the happy hearts of consumers..
The headline CNN puts on the story says it all: "Limbaugh announces third divorce." It might be a logical fallacy and slightly juvenile to boot, but when a prominent conservative bails out on a marriage, liberals will usually point to it as a hypocritical failure to live up to all the "sanctity of marriage" rhetoric.
In fact, the hypocrisy comes not from any personal failing to live up to a high standard, but from the conservatives reflex of framing such divorces as purely personal matters that deserve some respite from scrutiny. It would be fair for liberals to ask why it is that divorce is such a personal matter, but marriage is not. Why is great cultural and political weight given to marriage but not to divorce?
To be sure, there are conservatives have tried to span that gap by arguing that divorce is often far too easy an out, and that no-fault divorces are not, in fact, faultless. Those views will no doubt come to the fore again in response to another high profile, conservative divorce.
But liberal advocates of expanding the definition of marriage to include gay unions will not advance their cause if their response to Limbaugh's personal problems is mere mockery and unseemly glee.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/06/11/limbaugh.divorce.ap/
Quote of the Week
"I hid it in the refrigerator in the little M&M bottles." - - Wardell Ross, Sr. explaining that his sister knew nothing about the crack cocaine found at her Taking Time Out for Kids daycare center.
http://www.wivb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1896314&nav=0RapNQQ0
Terrorized by the Numbers
TIt is not clear how, but the annual State Department report on terrorism mistakenly said terror attacks went down in 2003.
The Return of the Son of the Patriot Act
Legislation is before Congress that would stiffen penalties for disclosing that the FBI even requested information on a customer or patron. If adopted, letting a target of a federal "national security letter" know the feds are snooping around could net you five years in prison.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,63800,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
Radio Flyer
The music industry fears that the introduction of digital, over-air-radio will destroy music for all time. Hence a new law is needed to make it impossible to record individual songs off the broadcasts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34516-2004Jun11.html
Get your personal copy of the latest issue of Reason's print edition each month -- before it hits the newsstands and before it's posted on the Web! Subscribe Today!
Buy Reason T-shirts and coffee mugs!
Click here for the latest on media appearances by Reason writers.
Want even more Reason? Sign up for Reason Alert to get regular news from Reason Magazine and Reason Public Policy Instiute, as well as advance notice about media appearances and events.
We encourage you to forward Reason Express. If you received this issue from a forward, please subscribe. It's Free!