Reason Magazine - Staff > Brian Doherty > Hit & Run Posts

It's Official: The Greatest Multi-Trillion Dollar Economic Crisis in the History of Creation Has Led to a Recession

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:17:00 EST

So saith the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Many (though not all) significant macro measures of economic growth have been on the downhill slide since the last quarter of 2007. The heart of the matter:

The committee determined that the decline in economic activity in 2008 met the standard for a recession..... All evidence other than the ambiguous movements of the quarterly product-side measure of domestic production confirmed that conclusion. Many of these indicators, including monthly data on the largest component of GDP, consumption, have declined sharply in recent months.

And some specifics:

The committee identified December 2007 as the peak month, after determining that the subsequent decline in economic activity was large enough to qualify as a recession.
Payroll employment, the number of filled jobs in the economy based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ large survey of employers, reached a peak in December 2007 and has declined in every month since then. An alternative measure of employment, measured by the BLS’s household survey, reached a peak in November 2007, declined early in 2008, expanded temporarily in April to a level below its November 2007 peak, and has declined in every month since April 2008.
.............
Our measure of real personal income less transfers peaked in December 2007, displayed a zig-zag pattern from then until June 2008 at levels slightly below the December 2007 peak, and has generally declined since June.
..........
The last monthly measure of production is the Federal Reserve Board’s index of industrial production. This measure has quite restricted coverage—it includes manufacturing, mining, and utilities but excludes all services and government. Industrial production peaked in January 2008, fell through May 2008, rose slightly in June and July, and then fell substantially from July to September. It rose somewhat in October with the resumption of oil production disturbed by hurricanes in the previous month. The October value of the industrial production index remained
a substantial 4.7 percent below its value in January 2008.
The committee noted that the behavior of the quarterly estimates of aggregate production was not inconsistent with a peak in late 2007. The income-side estimate of output reached its peak in the third quarter of 2007. The product-side estimate reached a temporary peak in the same quarter, but rose to a higher level in the second quarter of 2008.

Link via Marginal Revolution.

A Lesson From Mumbai on The Occasional Futility of Common Terror Countermeasures

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:30:00 EST

Some observations, which seem spot on to me, from security maven Bruce Schneier:

If a bunch of men with guns and grenades is all they really need, then why isn't this sort of terrorism more common? Why not in the U.S., where it's easy to get hold of weapons? It's because terrorism is very, very rare.
Specific countermeasures don't help against these attacks. None of the high-priced countermeasures that defend against specific tactics and specific targets made, or would have made, any difference: photo ID checks, confiscating liquids at airports, fingerprinting foreigners at the border, bag screening on public transportation, anything.....
If there's any lesson in these attacks, it's not to focus too much on the specifics of the attacks. Of course, that's not the way we're programmed to think. We respond to stories, not analysis. I don't mean to be unsympathetic; this tendency is human and these deaths are really tragic. But 18 armed people intent on killing lots of innocents will be able to do just that, and last-line-of-defense countermeasures won't be able to stop them.

Another salutary thing we can learn from Mumbai, given that the resources and openings to commit horrible crimes like this are quite common, is that it seems there just aren't that many people inclined to commit acts like this, even if they can't really be prevented from doing so.

Instapundit w/links on gun control, and a lack of inclination on the part of even the legally armed to shoot, in India.

Schneier's name is oft-dropped here at reason.

Link via Unqualified Offerings.

Why Do Radical Voters Go Out With Centrist Candidates?, or, More on Progressives' Obama Buyer's Remorse

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:09:00 EST

Following on to Michael Moynihan and Damon Root's blogging yesterday on some left-wing Obama regrets, Daniel Larison at American Conservative, spinning off of Glenn Greenwald's commentary on progressive laments about the mainstream nature of Obama's appointments, offers some reasons why non-centrist voters will inevitably live to be disappointed by supporting centrist candidates:

At every stage, the “impractical” purist hears that he should not withhold his support from the marginally preferable candidate under any circumstances. He is urged to be realistic, and so he and those like him do not insist that the candidate make strong commitments on policy positions that are deemed by someone to be out of the mainstream. The candidate pays some minimal lip service to the purist’s “values,” and this is supposed to count for something. In the name of pragmatism, the purist decides that he has to support the candidate, because the candidate represents the best chance of advancing his views, but even before the election is held the purist has already given so much away in the name of pragmatism and realism that he and those like him have no leverage at all. Having yielded and given away their support in exchange for nothing more than lip service, the purists are scarcely in a much better position than before. They can take satisfaction in being on the winning side, but for the most part this means that they will bear the burden if the public turns against the candidate after he is elected and otherwise they will scarcely get much of anything. The purists-turned-pragmatists will receive the blame for enabling the administration in whatever it does, but they will receive no credit or acknowledgement that their support was important enough to merit meaningful concessions to their concens. Having refused in the first place to exact a price for their support, they have made their support worthless and ensured that they will have no influence.

This applies to libertarian support of most Republican candidates as well.

In a Free Greenland

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:37:00 EST

Secession fans rejoice: Greenland takes another step away from the bloody repressive colonial grip of Denmark. As Agence France-Presse reports:

Greenland voted massively in favour of self-rule in a referendum that paves the way for independence from Denmark and gives it rights to lucrative Arctic resources, final results showed.
A total of 75.54 percent voted "yes" to greater autonomy, while 23.57 percent said "no."
A self-rule proposal hammered out with Denmark earlier this year gives Greenland, which was granted semi-autonomy from Copenhagen in 1979, rights to potentially lucrative Arctic resources, as well as control over justice and police affairs and, to a certain extent, foreign affairs.
The new status will take effect on June 21, 2009.

But there are some matters that will be considered just too important for the wet-behind-the-ears independent Greenland:

Home to the US Thule radar base, Greenland will also with its new status be consulted on foreign and defence policy, which are now decided by Copenhagen, but Nuuk would not have the final say and little is expected to change in that area.

Link via Rational Review.

Some News to Be Thankful For: U.S. Cancer Rate Declines

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:22:00 EST

From the L.A. Times:

For the first time since the government began compiling records, the rate of cancer has begun to decline, marking a tipping point in the fight against the second-leading cause of death among Americans.

Researchers already knew that the number of cancer deaths was declining as the result of better treatment, but the drop in incidence indicates that major progress is also being made in prevention.
.......
Incidence rates for all cancers combined and for men and women combined dropped by 0.8% per year from 1999 through 2005, with the rates for men dropping at about three times the rate for women. The only ethnic groups for which rates did not decline were American Indians and Alaskan natives.

The overall death rate declined by an average of 1.8% per year over the same period.

Currently, about 1.4 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer each year, and an estimated 560,000 die from it.

The decline in both incidence and death rates was due in large part to declines in the five of the six most common cancers -- lung, colorectal and prostate in men and breast and colorectal cancer in women. The sixth most common form, lung cancer in women, leveled off.

Our science writer Ron Bailey back in our June 2001 issue was explaining how environmentalist fears of an increasingly artificial world allegedly leading to increased cancer were off the mark, and how right he was.

Doherty Podcast on Gun Control on Trial

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:15:00 EST

I talk about my new book Gun Control on Trial and the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Second Amendment milestone Heller case in this new podcast from the book's publisher, the Cato Institute.

The December reason has a nifty excerpt from the book.

Buck Rogers in the 21st Century

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:27:00 EST

From Fox News:

A man used a hydrogen-peroxide powered jet pack to travel 1,500 feet across the Royal Gorge near Canon City on Monday...The Royal Gorge, cut by the Arkansas River in southern Colorado, is more than 1,100 feet deep.

Katherine Mangu-Ward wondered in our October 2007 why we don't all have our jetpacks, or other signifiers of the future of the past (or the past of the future).

A Google Buck Rogers timeline.

UPDATE: CNN footage, for them that must see to believe.

Hayek in the Stagflation Days of Yesteryear (and tomorrow)?

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:25:00 EST

A blast from the stagflation past (and future)? The audio track from Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek's June 22, 1975, appearance on "Meet the Press." Against all odds and all the interviewers, he steadfastly maintains that inflation is a monetary phenomenon, and the government's fault.

New Council of Economic Advisers Chief Romer on Taxes and the Beast

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:30:00 EST

James Pethokoukis and Tyler Cowen point to newly minted Obama CEA chief Christina Romer as an advocate of tax cuts, and a skeptic that tax cuts will lead to spending cuts, a theory often beloved of market-leaning economists and sometimes known as "starving the beast."

Here's the money quote from the paper Pethokoukis points to on her tax cut bonafides:

Our estimates suggest that a tax increase of 1% of GDP reduces output over the next three years by nearly 3%. The effect is highly statistically significant.

I wrote about the latter study by Romer and her husband in the February 2008 issue of reason. An excerpt:

A new study by University of California at Berkeley economists Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, indicates that the beast is thriving despite the tax cuts of the last three decades. Government spending seems to march on regardless of revenue or tax rates.
The economists studied the effects of four major legislated changes in U.S. tax rates and policy since World War II, choosing episodes where the “starve the beast” motivation was most conspicuous. After looking at the data every which way, with multiple regressions and time lags, and accounting for wars and military spending, they found that the one thing most clearly connected to tax cuts was not spending cuts but future tax increases.

“Although a tax cut leads to a sharp fall in revenues in the short run, it does not have any clear impact on revenues at horizons beyond about two years,” the economists write. “Between one-half and four-fifths of the tax cut is offset by legislated tax increases over the next several years.” And spending cuts? “In no episode [of postwar American tax cuts] was there a discernible slowdown in spending following the tax cut,” the economists conclude.

Attn, DC Reasonoids: Brian Doherty Talking Gun Control on Trial, Monday Nov. 24

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:03:00 EST

My new book on the Heller case and the gun control debate will be out any day now (and read a nifty excerpt from it, from our December print issue). I'll be in D.C. on Monday talking about it at the headquarters of the book's publisher, the Cato Institute.

WHAT: I talk about my new book Gun Control on Trial, with comments on my remarks by lawyer Christopher Rhee of Arnold & Porter. Cato's Tim Lynch moderates.

WHERE: The Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington D.C. 20001

WHEN: Monday, November 24, 4 p.m.

It's free. Refreshments are served after the event. They do like you to register online. All D.C. area reason friends and enemies, please come by.

Poor Poverty Statistics

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:41:00 EST

An article at AEI's web site by Nicholas Eberstadt was a big nostalgia experience for me, as I recall that conservative and libertarian mags were full of this sort of debunking of poverty rate figures during the Reagan '80s/decade of greed when I first started reading them. Apparently, certain anomalies in how we measure official poverty that seem to make things sound worse than they are continue to abound, as Eberstadt explains.

Official U.S. government poverty measures show that the proportion of Americans living in poverty has actually increased some since the early 1970s:

To go by the OPR, then, America, through three decades of both Democratic and Republican administrations, has utterly failed to improve the material lot of the more vulnerable elements of society--to raise them above the income line where, according to the author of the federal poverty measure, "everyday living implied choosing between an adequate diet of the most economical sort and some other necessity, because there was not money enough to have both."

Eberstadt thinks there is much to doubt about this, though.

Since 1973, the behavior of the OPR looks increasingly aberrant when compared to other indices widely thought to bear on the risk of poverty in a modern urbanized society. In 1973, nearly 40 percent of adults over the age of twenty-five lacked a high school degree; by 2001, the figure was under 16 percent. Or consider trends in means-tested benefit programs--food stamps, housing subsidies, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and other programs that benefit the poor. Between the 1973 and 2001 fiscal years, spending on those programs more than tripled from $163 billion to $507 billion (in 2004 dollars) and increased by over 130 percent in real, per-capita terms.

Eberstadt goes on to show data indicating that expenditures by those under the poverty line are a more accurate measure of their actual deprivation than their reported income, and that "there is good evidence that, for the lowest fifth of Americans on the income ladder, reported expenditures are almost twice their incomes." When it comes to food, housing, transportation, health care, and home appliances, data indicates great improvements in overall American well-being that seem to belie stagnant or increasing poverty in the sense of absolute deprivation.

Eberstadt also notes that

the average net worth of households in the bottom fifth has actually grown in the last decade. Additionally, the gains in wealth have been broadly shared, with the portion of bottom fifth households reporting no assets whatever falling from 21 percent in 1989 to just 8 percent in 2004.

He ends with a call for better statistical well-being tracking based more on consumption than reported income, and some tentative praise for alternative poverty measures undertaken by New York's Mayor (for life?) Michael Bloomberg, though even that only offers a snapshot at a moment in time. Given what we know about the great churn in relative well-being among American families and households, and that Eberstadt thinks there is some reason to believe such volatility might be growing, it's mistaken to imagine that there's a large permanent underclass mired in misery being captured in official poverty stats.

Doherty Talking Gun Control on Trial on the Radio Today--Twice

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:07:00 EST

Obama has appointed a very anti-gun attorney general. But I am not daunted: I'll continue to talk about my new book Gun Control on Trial, the story of the Supreme Court's Heller case (which overturned D.C.'s gun ban and established that the Second Amendment protects an individual right) and America's gun control debate.

I'll be talking about it today on two programs. One, Barry Lynn's "Culture Shocks", which airs nationally on WMET 1160 AM in D.C. (4-5 p.m.), KCAA 1050 AM in Los Angeles (1-2 p.m.), KRXA 540 AM in Monterey, CA (1-2 p.m.), and KTAA 1330 AM in Cameron, TX (3-4 p.m.) All times are local. Check the show's web site for more details and listen-live options.

Also, today at 10:15 a.m. pacific/1:15 p.m. eastern, I'll be on Antiwar Radio with host Scott Horton, also talking Gun Control on Trial.

See an excerpt from the book in the December issue of reason.

Yes, He Can. Maybe. When He Gets Around To It: An Ongoing Series

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:13:00 EST

Some of his supporters may not be disappointed at all. He did warn that he might not be able to achieve all his goals in one term. (And for most of his goals, that's a very good thing.) Still, this from today's Washington Times. Obama

will not move for months, and perhaps not until 2010, to ask Congress to end the military's decades-old ban on open homosexuals in the ranks, two people who have advised the Obama transition team on this issue say.
Repealing the ban was an Obama campaign promise. However, Mr. Obama first wants to confer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his new political appointees at the Pentagon to reach a consensus and then present legislation to Congress, the advisers said.
"I think 2009 is about foundation building and reaching consensus," said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. The group supports military personnel targeted under the ban.
Mr. Sarvis told The Washington Times that he has held "informal discussions" with the Obama transition team on how the new president should proceed on the potentially explosive issue.
Lawrence Korb, an analyst at the Center for American Progress and an adviser to the Obama campaign, said the new administration should set up a Pentagon committee to make recommendations to Congress on a host of manpower issues, including the gay ban.

Apparently Obama remembers how Clinton got sandbagged on this one. But a lot has changed since then. It has been an extraordinary decade of progress in public acceptance of gays, with gay marriage, for example, going from a Falwellian horror fantasy to gin up donations for halting American moral decay to something courts are willing to grant as a right, and the voting public can get close to supporting when asked. And as the article mentions, "Today, gay activists cite national polls that show public sentiment, unlike in 1993, support removing the ban." See one such poll here, from early 2007, with 55 percent support for open gay service in the military.

I imagine if Obama makes this change cleanly at any time in his term, he'll be fondly remembered. Still, his apparent unwillingness to be bold on something he considers a matter of both justice and wise policy--and that he has clear political support on--should be disconcerting to his fans.

Mike Riggs on the disaster of "don't ask, don't tell" back in July.

[Hat tip: John Kluge]

Liquidate the Libertarian Party?

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:34:00 EST

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, reason contributor Ilya Somin repeats a pretty consistent call from the more intellectual end of the libertarian movement oh these past 25 years or so: give up on the Libertarian Party as a meaningful vehicle for political/ideological change. An excerpt:

....third party politics simply is not an effective way of promoting libertarianism in the "first past the post" American political system. That system makes it almost impossible for a third party to win any important elected offices. And such a party also can't be an effective tool for public education because the media isn't likely to devote much attention to a campaign with no chance of success.
Libertarians have had some genuine successes over the last 35 years. These include abolition of the draft (heavily influenced by Milton Friedman's ideas), deregulation of large portions of the economy (of which libertarians were the leading intellectual advocates), major reductions in tax rates (facilitated by libertarian economists, libertarian activists, and the legislative efforts of libertarian-leaning Republicans), the increasing popularity of school choice programs, increases in judicial protection for property rights, gun rights, and economic liberties (thanks in large part to advocacy by libertarian legal activists), and heightened respect for privacy and freedom of speech (promoted by libertarians in cooperation with other groups). Libertarian academics and intellectuals have also done much to make libertarian ideas more respectable and less marginal than they were in the 1960s and early 70s.
What all these successes have in common is that they were achieved either by working within the two major parties or by efforts outside the context of party politics altogether. The Libertarian Party didn't play a significant role in any of them.
Libertarians often emphasize that failed enterprises should be liquidated rather than kept going on artificial life support. That enables their resources to be reinvested in other, more successful firms. The point is well taken, and it applies to the Libertarian Party itself. For 35 years, the Party has consumed valuable resources, both financial and human. The money spent on the LP and the time donated by its committed activists could do a lot more to promote libertarianism if used in other ways.

Of course, for some people third party activism is exactly and only how they would care to participate in the game of public ideological change. And for some (including yours truly) getting hooked on the team-sports aspect of an ideological movement through what seems, especially to the young, its only significant action element, political parties running for office, leads them on to other parts of the ol' war for liberty (for better or for worse, I grant).

I wrote on how and why third party politics might be more a consumer good (for its own sake) than a capital good (meant to lead to something else, like political or ideological change, that is meaningful for its own sake) back in 2004.

More Advice Obama Won't Take: Ron Paul for Treasury!

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:33:00 EST

A blogger at a community site run by pop-investment team "Motley Fool" calls for it. Excerpt:

--He's a Republican. Not only that, but he's a Republican primary candidate who the rest of the contenders basically hated, mostly for his repeated statements about where the economy was headed (which pretty much were dead on). You've got a win-win for the Obama camp: "Across the aisle" with a guy who's been beaten up by the rest of the Republican establishment. Talking about having your cake and eating it too: Obama would be able to use the terms "Uniter" without becoming a caricature while lobbing a grenade into the middle of the RNC.
--He's a policy guy, not a banker. This is important because Paul wouldn't have any "former associates" in the banking industry to cover for, sympathize with, or protect. Paulson, on the other hand, can't escape the whiff of insider-ism in everything he's doing. Questions like "Why isn't the bailout being used as originally planned?" and "Why can't we get a clear picture of who's getting the money and who's being turned down?" may have a reasonable answer, but the overall tone of Cover-Your-Buddy's-Ass can't be ignored.
...........
--Convergent ideas. Iraq War: Obama against; Paul against. Economic disaster looming: Obama warned; Paul warned. Fix Bush/Cheney damage to foreign relations: Obama for, Paul for.

Could this happen in the universe we live in? Nope. Good idea? I think so. Not for Obama politically, or Paul's reputation or future, but the greater good of this here nation.

Libertarianism: About Property, Or Something More?

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:18:00 EST

reason contributors spar about the definition and proper focus of libertarianism. A dividing line: is libertarianism (or should it be?) about property rights, or about the exercise of freedom more widely conceived?

This blog entry from Todd Seavey, along with its accompanying links and the comment thread, is a good start to dive into this ongoing round in a debate that had run through the self-conscious libertarian movement for a long time. Seavey is sure that his property rights-based version is both the customary and proper one--while the likes of Will Wilkinson, Kerry Howley, and Roderick Long all think that freedom is bigger than property rights.

Friday Mini Book Review: Kirby: King of Comics

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:17:00 EST

Mini book reviews of days gone by.

Kirby: King of Comics, by Mark Evanier (Abrams, 2008). Man, is this old fan glad he's lived to see the day when comic book artists get this sort of serious, impeccably reproduced and designed, respected artist giant art book treatment. This book is half coffee table art book and half a mini-bio of the most important superhero artist of all time, Jack Kirby, co-creator of everything from Captain America to the Fantastic Four to the Hulk to the X-Men to Darkseid; with that cosmic villanous creation now dominating the D.C. universe, it's fair to say that both major comic companies are now to a large extent still running on Kirby's fumes.

Kirby's story has its tragic aspects; the nature of work-made-for-hire in the comics industry meant that he never reaped the benefits of the enormous wealth his creations have thrown off over the past half-century; his poor treatment from the companies he built, and from his long-time writing partner Stan Lee, turned him into a somewhat bitter man, though one who always had time for his fans. Evanier writes from the inside; he was a personal assistant and then friend to Kirby for most of the last couple of decades of his life, and is working on a monumental pure biography of the man as well.

While the anecdotes and facts about Kirby's career and some of the sad details of his decline in skill and reputation are interesting and sometimes maddening, what makes this book a joy and a treasure and dominates the readers attention are the art reproductions, from pure pencils to inked pages to full color repros of Kirby's scintillating pages and covers--giant pen and ink Galactus heads! Page after page of pure uninked Kirby pencils! Giant lithe Captain America's bashing through walls! Page-sized sea monsters wrecking the Challengers of the Unknown's boat! Larger than life penciled Hulks leaping right in your face! Penciled Karnaks chopping Krazy Kirby machinery! Psychedelic full color Metron collages! Double-page-spread spaceships dominating the skyline! Va-Va-Voom Barda pinups!-- and the "King," as hardworking and dedicated an artist as we've ever known, wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

I'm enough of a fanatic for him to declare, dogmatically, that if you don't dig Kirby, you don't dig LIFE!!, man. As Kirby himself once said of the issue in which he introduced Don Rickles' twin Goody Rickles into Jimmy Olson's war against Darkseid and the anti-life equation, "Don't Ask! Just Buy It!"

On a Doctor's Moral Duty To Cut Off Limbs, or, It's a Szasz, Szasz, Szasz, Szasz World

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:44:00 EST

Interesting report from Australia that triggered a big "Paging Dr. Szasz":

TO most people, the thought of amputating a perfectly healthy limb is unimaginable.
But for at least three Australians, possibly dozens more, cutting off their leg has felt perfectly normal.

These so-called "amputee wannabes" have a very rare condition in which they feel one of their limbs is not truly their own, and they become obsessed with cutting it off.

And people suffering from the bizarre body image disorder should be able to opt for amputation, a Sydney psychiatrist says.
Christopher Ryan, a psychiatrist at the University of Sydney, says there is a good argument for allowing patients with body integrity identity disorder (BIID) to have their unwanted limb removed.
"I am not saying we should unthinkingly cut off people's legs," Dr Ryan said.
"I realise that the idea strikes almost everyone as lunatic when they first hear it. However, there are a small number of people who see themselves, and have always seen themselves, as amputees," he said.
........
Dr Ryan has examined the ethics of the issue in the international philosophy journal Neuroethics and says doctors have a moral duty to amputate for the health and safety of the patient.

He said one 30-year-old patient of his lived his whole life feeling he was truly an amputee, but was so ashamed of how he felt he did not tell anyone.

"Eventually he took the only step he thought he had open to him and placed his leg in a bucket of dry ice until it died and had to be removed," Dr Ryan said.

"Now, a year later, he is living happily as an amputee and getting on with his life."

The paper said the operations should be likened to plastic surgery, with elective amputation offered to BIID sufferers only.

That last sentence is my favorite--make sure you are only cutting off the limbs of those who are "BIID sufferers." How can you tell? Well, you know, they are the ones who keep asking you to cut off their limbs.

Thomas Szasz, a reason contributing editor, is famous, and infamous, for arguing that most of what is called "mental illness" in our culture is not in fact the result of an actually diseased organ, but merely an artifact of bizarre, difficult, or even stupid choices. (Some favorite Szaszian epigrams: "A berserk lunatic may claim to be Jesus or kill his wife. The point of such a person's behavior, I dare say, is to be revered like Jesus or be rid of his wife." "The patient's delusion is a problem to the patient's family, employer, and friends; to the patient it is a solution to the problem of the meaning(lessness) of his life.")

Szasz would point out that it gains us nothing to refer to people who express the desire to have healthy limbs cut off as suffering from a "condition" and medicalizing it and giving it a pseudo-scientific name--except for the cultural ratification of the desire, and the cultural and legal ratification of those professionals who want to help gratify it. (***And, as R.C. Dean points out in comment thread, it also gains the potential for private and public insurers to cough up for the procedure.***)

He'd say--and I say--if someone can find someone willing to help them cut off their limb as a commercial service, God bless 'em, I guess (the joke in a student skit at his old school had it that the only two categories in the "Szasz Diagnostic Manual" were "Crook" and "Bum," and I think the doctor would slot so-called BIID sufferers in the latter category, largely)--but that doesn't mean the rest of us have any duty to be supportive, understanding, or claim that weird desire should be dignified by being called a "medical condition."

As Szasz once wrote: "Without informed and uncoerced consent by the patient, no medical or psychiatric intervention is justified, while with consent every such intervention is justified, even if there is no illness and even if the intervention is considered to be harmful by its critics."

With that libertarian wisdom under his belt, Dr. Ryan could feel justified in cutting off (willing) people's limbs without the unnecessary multiplication of entities like the bogus "condition" of BIID.

Jacob Sullum interviewed Szasz in our July 2000 issue.

Obamania Nightmare (Sure to Be One in a Series)

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:35:00 EST

I've watched with growing distress this past week as many interesting cultural iconoclasts I admire for various reasons who can usually be counted on to be aware and skeptical of government power to at least some degree, from John Perry Barlow to Adam Parfrey to Oliver Stone, have swooned over the mighty Obama and his world-changing powers (my misery over this is maximized by many friends and acquaintances who are not public figures as well).

Being surrounded by a creepy-happy adoring Cult of the Great Leader makes me...uncomfortable, to be sure. Via Will Wilkinson comes a particularly awful example of Obamania, in which we are advised via Beatles lyrics both of our responsibility to not let Obama down, and also showered with the adoring love we must express for him.

The Aftermath of Guantanamo

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:20:00 EST

Lest we forget why quick action on Guantanamo is the right thing for our new president, see this book-length new report from U-Cal Berkeley's Human Rights Center (in cooperation with the International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Center for Constitutional Rights), Guantanamo and Its Aftermath: U.S. Detention and Interrogation Practices and Their Impact on Former Detainees.

Excerpts from their findings, as summarized in a press release:

based on a two-year study, [it] reveals in graphic detail the cumulative effect of Bush Administration policies on the lives of 62 released detainees. Many of the prisoners were sold into captivity and subjected to brutal treatment in U.S. prison camps in Afghanistan. Once in Guantanamo, prisoners were denied access to civilian courts to challenge the legality of their detention. Almost two-thirds of the former detainees interviewed reported having psychological problems since leaving Guantanamo.

..........
Researchers conducted interviews with released detainees in nine countries. The comprehensive study also includes in-depth interviews with key government officials, military experts, former guards, interrogators and other camp personnel.
.........

The authors call for an independent, nonpartisan commission to lift the shroud of secrecy from Guantanamo and other detention sites. They further argue that the commission should have subpoena power and, if applicable, recommend further investigations of those allegedly responsible for any crimes committed at all levels of the civilian and military chain of command.

The authors warn that such a commission should not be undercut by the issuance of pardons, amnesties, or other measures that would protect those culpable from accountability. President-Elect Barack Obama has called for the closure of Guantanamo. The UC Berkeley report asks for even broader remedies.

...............

Over half of the study respondents who discussed their interrogation sessions at Guantanamo (31 of 55) characterized them as "abusive." Detainees reported being subjected to short shackling, stress positions, prolonged solitary confinement, and exposure to extreme temperatures, loud music, and
strobe lights for extended periods-often simultaneously. The authors conclude that the cumulative impact of these methods, especially over time, constitutes cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and, in some cases, rises to the level of torture.
.............

Of the more than 770 detainees who have endured Guantanamo since it opened in 2002, more than 500 have been released without formal criminal charges or trial. So far, of the 250 or more who remain in detention, only 23 have been charged with a crime. Two have been convicted and one has pled guilty.

Links for a plethora of reason Gitmo coverage options.

Palin Didn't Know Africa Was a Continent Source a Hoaxster

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:17:00 EST

Turns out the most ridiculous and generic "dumb polack joke"-style accusation about the dimness of Sarah Palin's bulb--that she thought Africa was a country, not a continent--was probably from an interesting and amusing hoax advisor to the McCain campaign--from the nonexistent "Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy"--going by the phony name (~~which is also the real name of another minor D.C. policy dude, unrelated to the hoax~~ nope, there is a minor policy dude named "Michael Eisenstadt") of "Martin Eisenstadt."

The New York Times has the details, including some earlier lies he had told (and been caught up on).

The front "Harding Institute" site, with the brilliantly conceived line: "Welcome to the homepage of The Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. A Washington-area think-tank in the truest sense of the words...."

"Eisenstadt" on YouTube.

UPDATE: As I said, "probably." The New York Times story certainly reads as if Eisenstadt both was the original source of the Africa story, and recently admitted publicly being so. This AP story states--without any details backing it up, though one presumes he got the Fox reporter to say, no, his source was someone other than "Eisenstadt," and the only hoax was Eisenstadt claiming credit for it. Without a named source, I'm inclined to wonder about that as well. But if so, the mere claiming credit for the leak, as opposed to being the leak, is a pretty weak and lame finale to an otherwise interesting fake career.

Yes, He Can. Maybe. When He Gets Around To It.

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:58:00 EST

Boy, I can't promise I won't have to recycle that headline a lot in the next four years.

At any rate, the Chicago Tribune reported the other day that we shouldn't rush to assume Obama will swiftly carry out his announced hope to close down Guantanamo Bay. Excerpt:

Denis McDonough, a foreign policy adviser to Obama, said the nascent administration would wait until its national security and legal teams are in place before determining how to proceed.

"President-elect Obama said throughout his campaign that the legal framework at Guantanamo has failed to successfully and swiftly prosecute terrorists, and he shares the broad bipartisan belief that Guantanamo should be closed," McDonough said in a statement. "There is absolutely no truth to reports that a decision has been made about how and where to try the detainees, and there is no process in place to make that decision until his national security and legal teams are assembled."

Now, fans could read this as a mere tautology; of course, he can't figure out exactly how he's going to go about doing something with some potentially complicated repercussions until he's got his team all a-working on it. But the fact that a high-up aide took the trouble to stress this to reporters on the record seems like a preemptive attempt to lower expectations on this matter.

The Washington Post on some Gitmo chatter that does stress that Obama really, really does want to do something about it, even if he's not quite sure yet what. The people on his team more adamant that quick Gitmo-closing action is just around the corner are, note, anonymous in this piece, since "they are not authorized to speak for the president-elect."

It somewhat makes you miss the days of Democratic administrations crowing about "stroke of the pen, law of the land." But Obama is a very smart guy, and very smart guys need to think very carefully about what they are going to do and how they are going to do it.

He's Fought the Penguin, Now He's Got to Take on Turkey

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:46:00 EST

Riddle me this, caped crusaders: Why is a southeastern Turkish oil burg like a fictional orphaned vigilante with a flying rodent fetish?

In a disturbingly Boratesque move, the mayor of the Turkish city of Batman is, according to this Variety cover story, planning to sue filmmaker Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. over, well, having a very lucrative film and publishing franchise based on a cowled crimefighter named, as you might recall, Batman. Mayor Huseyin Kalkan, in some indefinable way, thinks this infringes on his city's right to, as near as I can tell, get lots of free money from a very lucrative film and publishing franchise.

One wonders about this story, which seems to have come to Variety's reporter straight from the ranting politico Kalkan himself; Warner spokesperson claims they have not yet seen any actual legal papers on this suit. Foreign policy bonus: Kalkan is pro-Kurd! For some reason, I just see this whole silly mess as another argument for anarchism. But that might just be me.

The U.S. Continues to Come to Term Limits

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:52:00 EST

Term limits are still a beloved reform by me, even though they've lost some heat since the 1990s. This isn't because term limits really are furthering any larger libertarian goals of limiting government's reach or shrinking its size; I haven't seen much evidence of that.

But I do know term limits definitely further a secondary goal of mine: driving most politicians to apoplectic anger.

Anyway, somewhat below the radar, and 13 years after being shot down on the federal level by the Supreme Court (and with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg steamrollering over two different citizen expressions of a desire to limit his office to two terms), the term limits movement marches on on the state and local level.

Herewith, an excerpt from a Nov. 11 piece by Steve Moore at the Wall St. Journal site's "political diary," alas not publicly available to non-subscribers:

In last week's election, limits on politicians' time in office were enacted or reaffirmed by enormous margins nearly everywhere they were on the ballot in what might have been the loudest referendum for term limitation by voters ever.
Louisiana voters said "yes" to term limits on elected state officials by a 70% to 30% margin, making the Bayou state the 15th with term limits. Meanwhile, South Dakota's lobbying community tried to overturn that state's term limits law, approved by voters 12 years earlier. Bad idea: 76% of voters said "hell, no." That was a bigger margin of victory than when term limits were originally instituted.
In localities ranging from State College, Pennsylvania to Tracy, California and Memphis, Tennessee, voters approved term limits by two-to-one margins. Eight of the ten largest U.S. cities now have term limits. The only setback was a slight one, when San Antonio voters approved an extension of term limits to a maximum of eight years in office from the current four years.

A Small, Tasty, Nutritious Victory Over Idiot Regulations

bdoherty@reason.com (Brian Doherty) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:25:00 EST

The European Union will be dropping its aesthetically based bans on the marketing of oddly shaped vegetables and fruits--at least for 26 varieties of foodstuff.

Just because they are the E.U., they'll be keeping this intrusive and bad-for-consumers standards for 10 others, including apples and strawberries. But lovers of odd onions, baroque Brussels sprouts, and twisted chicory can rejoice.