Category: reason

In Vancouver, officials at
Coghlan Fundamental Elementary School have banned kindergarten
students from touching
each other That means no holding hands and no games of
tag. School officials say they are trying to reduce injuries to
their students.

Thousands of Washington State Obamacare
enrollees were told by their state-run exchange that they qualified
for those subsidies that were supposed to keep insurance rates
reasonable. Turns out they were told wrong. Whoops! According to
the
National Review:

Thousands of Washington State Obamacare enrollees will be
informed that the state’s health-care exchange underestimated how
much they’d have to pay for insurance.

Approximately 8,000 Washingtonians are about to learn that for
its first three weeks of operation, Washington Healthplanfinder,
the state’s exchange, was erroneously sending their monthly incomes
to the federal hub, which compiles data from various federal and
state agencies to determine applicants’ eligibility for Medicaid
and premium subsidies.

What, you mean all those people weren’t making $3,000 a year?
Jeez. How confusing!

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Shirking
$30,000 in medical fees for a traditional prosthetic hand,
videographer Paul McCarthy built a multi-colored “Robohand” for his
twelve-year-old son using a friend’s 3-D printer. McCarthy says he
spent, “Five, maybe, ten bucks.”

The boy, 12-year-old Leon
McCarthy, was born without fingers on his left hand. Once he turned
ten, Paul started searching for an inexpensive and functional
prosthetic alternative.

What he found changed his son’s life. A YouTube
video by Washington-based special effects artist and
puppeteer, Ivan Owen, shows the results of the artist’s
collaborative effort to build a Robohand for a disabled boy in
South Africa. Like McCarthy, Owen was not an engineer, computer
scientist, or doctor. However, he was passionate about helping to
develop affordable, DIY prosthetics. In an interview with CBS News,
Owen said:

I’ve always had this vision of people being able to build their
own prosthetic device at home.

To help him accomplish this goal, MakerBot, a firm that produces
3-D printing equipment, offered Owen and his South African design
partner, Richard Van As, free printers. From there, Owen and Van As
honed the Robohand and posted the design and
instructions for free download on Thingiverse, a website for
sharing digital designs.

According to
NPR, once the McCarthy’s discovered Owens’ video and the
Robohand instructions, they decided to make one for Leon:

Printing the parts (using a friend’s borrowed 3-D printer) was
easy, the two say. But it took them a month to figure out how to
string, screw and bolt together what they describe as the
“Frankenstein” version. It’s still a work in progress, they say,
but several weeks ago, Leon wore it to school for a tryout.

“I’m able to hold a pencil and piece of paper,” Leon says. “I’ve
done a lot more than I ever thought I could, so it’s opened up a
lot of new doors in my life.”

Van As is now raising money
through a crowdfunding site to build more Robohands for disabled
children at no cost to their families. In the meantime, the
latest version of
Robohand is available for free download – and the materials
cost just $5.

While many are lauding these developments as an awesome way to
revolutionize healthcare and DIY projects, some are concerned that
lobbyists and politicians may try to stop their proliferation. In

Forbes:

Because a 3D printer can make perfect replicas of many kinds of
object, manufacturers may seek to brand it a “piracy machine” and
demand additional measures to protect their traditional way of
doing business. Mr Weinberg worries that they may behave rather
like the record industry did when its own business model—based on
selling pricey CD albums that few music fans wanted, instead of
cheap single tracks they craved—came under attack from Napster and
other file-swapping networks.

 

According to a survey of gender experts published
by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Egypt is the worst country
in the Arab world when it comes to women’s rights. Saudi Arabia,

where women are not allowed to travel abroad without
permission, drive, or open a bank account, came in two places ahead
of Egypt.

The survey cites high levels of harassment, genital mutilation,
and trafficking as some of the factors contributing to Egypt’s
place on the list.

From the
Thomson Reuters Foundation:

Sexual harassment, high rates of female genital cutting and a
surge in violence and Islamist feeling after the Arab Spring
uprisings have made Egypt the worst country in the Arab world to be
a woman, a poll of gender experts showed on Tuesday.

Discriminatory laws and a spike in trafficking also contributed
to Egypt’s place at the bottom of a ranking of 22 Arab states, the
Thomson Reuters Foundation survey found.

According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation article, an April
United Nations report found that 99.3 percent of women and girls
are the subject of sexual harassment in Egypt. The article also
cites the claim, made by UNICEF, that 91 percent of Egyptian women
and girls are subjected to genital mutilation.

That the experts polled believe that Egypt is a worse Arab
country to be a woman in than Syria, where a brutal civil war is
being waged, is shocking. While Egypt has yet to descend into full
blown civil war, recent events such as last summer’s coup and the
military-backed government’s crackdown on supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood have not contributed to stability or the safety of
Egyptian women and girls. More from the Thomson Reuters
Foundation:

Syria’s civil war has had a devastating impact on women at home
and in refugee camps across borders, where they are vulnerable to
trafficking, forced and child marriage and sexual violence, experts
said.

Rights groups say forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have
targeted women with rape and torture, while hardline Islamists have
stripped them of rights in rebel-held territory.

“The Syrian woman is a weapon of war, subjected to abductions
and rape by the regime and other groups,” a Syrian women’s rights
campaigner said.

Further
analysis shows that three of the five Arab Spring countries
(Yemen, Syria, Egypt) are now in the top five worst countries in
the Arab world for women’s rights. Some may have hoped for the Arab
Spring, which began almost three years ago, to usher in a new and
better environment for Arab women. Unfortunately, this has yet to
be realized.  

According to a survey of gender experts published
by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Egypt is the worst country
in the Arab world when it comes to women’s rights. Saudi Arabia,

where women are not allowed to travel abroad without
permission, drive, or open a bank account, came in two places ahead
of Egypt.

The survey cites high levels of harassment, genital mutilation,
and trafficking as some of the factors contributing to Egypt’s
place on the list.

From the
Thomson Reuters Foundation:

Sexual harassment, high rates of female genital cutting and a
surge in violence and Islamist feeling after the Arab Spring
uprisings have made Egypt the worst country in the Arab world to be
a woman, a poll of gender experts showed on Tuesday.

Discriminatory laws and a spike in trafficking also contributed
to Egypt’s place at the bottom of a ranking of 22 Arab states, the
Thomson Reuters Foundation survey found.

According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation article, an April
United Nations report found that 99.3 percent of women and girls
are the subject of sexual harassment in Egypt. The article also
cites the claim, made by UNICEF, that 91 percent of Egyptian women
and girls are subjected to genital mutilation.

That the experts polled believe that Egypt is a worse Arab
country to be a woman in than Syria, where a brutal civil war is
being waged, is shocking. While Egypt has yet to descend into full
blown civil war, recent events such as last summer’s coup and the
military-backed government’s crackdown on supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood have not contributed to stability or the safety of
Egyptian women and girls. More from the Thomson Reuters
Foundation:

Syria’s civil war has had a devastating impact on women at home
and in refugee camps across borders, where they are vulnerable to
trafficking, forced and child marriage and sexual violence, experts
said.

Rights groups say forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have
targeted women with rape and torture, while hardline Islamists have
stripped them of rights in rebel-held territory.

“The Syrian woman is a weapon of war, subjected to abductions
and rape by the regime and other groups,” a Syrian women’s rights
campaigner said.

Further
analysis shows that three of the five Arab Spring countries
(Yemen, Syria, Egypt) are now in the top five worst countries in
the Arab world for women’s rights. Some may have hoped for the Arab
Spring, which began almost three years ago, to usher in a new and
better environment for Arab women. Unfortunately, this has yet to
be realized.  

• American Airlines and U.S.
  Airways have finally satisfied the Department of Justice enough, by
  giving up some gates and facilities at airports, that the agency
  will
  stop trying to block their merger.
• Deaths in the Philippines because of Typhoon Haiyan will likely
  
  not reach the 10,000 leaders feared, but they’re still likely
  to surpass 2,000.
• A North Carolina man is facing federal charges that he tried to
  
  join an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria.
• MakerBot is trying to get a
  3d printer in every school. Given how Los Angeles Unified
  School District freaked out over iPad hacking, I can only imagine
  the kind of panic will come from kids’ creations.
• More and more retailers are announcing they’re
  opening on Thanksgiving evening. Walmart is the latest.
• SeaWorld is suing the federal government to try to end a ban on
  
  contact between humans and killer whales. A judge put the order
  in place following the death of a trainer in 2010.

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Robert Sarvis, a former tech entrepreneur and
lawyer involved with the free-market think tank Mercatus, won
a surprising amount of the vote as the Libertarian Party’s
candidate in last week’s Virginia governor’s race—6.6 percent, or
around 145,000 votes. That was the third largest vote
percentage any Libertarian has ever won for any governor’s
race. The two who did better, Dick Randolph in Alaska in 1982 and
Ed Thompson in Wisconsin in 2002, had, unlike Sarvis, held elective
office in their states before. Sarvis copped the best third party
result for any party in the south for agubernatorial candidate in
40 years. Many Republicans reacted to Sarvis’ strong showing,
combined with Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s narrow
defeat, with accusations that Sarvis caused Cuccinelli’s loss.
That was clearly not true. Although Sarvis was not the death of the
GOP in Virginia, writes Brian Doherty, he may represent a new lease
on life for the Libertarian Party not just in Virginia but
nationally.

View this article.

Robert Sarvis, a former tech entrepreneur and
lawyer involved with the free-market think tank Mercatus, won
a surprising amount of the vote as the Libertarian Party’s
candidate in last week’s Virginia governor’s race—6.6 percent, or
around 145,000 votes. That was the third largest vote
percentage any Libertarian has ever won for any governor’s
race. The two who did better, Dick Randolph in Alaska in 1982 and
Ed Thompson in Wisconsin in 2002, had, unlike Sarvis, held elective
office in their states before. Sarvis copped the best third party
result for any party in the south for agubernatorial candidate in
40 years. Many Republicans reacted to Sarvis’ strong showing,
combined with Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s narrow
defeat, with accusations that Sarvis caused Cuccinelli’s loss.
That was clearly not true. Although Sarvis was not the death of the
GOP in Virginia, writes Brian Doherty, he may represent a new lease
on life for the Libertarian Party not just in Virginia but
nationally.

View this article.

The National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recently

endorsed a bill that would make the federal ban on marijuana
inapplicable to people who grow, possess, or distribute cannabis in
compliance with state law. H.R. 1523, the Respect State
Marijuana Laws Act of 2013, would essentially repeal (or at least
limit) federal pot prohibition in the 21 states that allow medical
or recreational use of the drug. So far the bill, which was
introduced by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), has 20
cosponsors, including five more Republicans: Justin Amash
(Mich.), Dan Benishek (Mich.), Don Young (Alaska), Duncan
Hunter (Calif.), and Steve Stockman (Texas). 

The NAACP resolution endorsing H.R. 1523, which was adopted
by its board of directors at a meeting last month, notes that “even
though numerous studies demonstrate that whites and African
Americans use and sell marijuana at relatively the same rates,
studies also demonstrate that African Americans are, on average,
almost 4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession,
and in some jurisdictions Blacks are 30 times more likely to be
arrested for marijuana possession than whites.” The NAACP, which in
recent years has highlighted the
racially disproportionate impact of marijuana prohibition and
condemned
the war on drugs, last year
supported the successful legalization initiatives in Colorado
and Washington, so it’s not surprising that the organization wants
the feds to step back and let those experiments proceed. But Tom
Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority,
argues that the NAACP’s willingness to stand up for state’s
rights is significant given the group’s history of battling
segregationists who (erroneously) waved that banner:

For obvious historical reasons, many civil rights leaders who
agree with us about the harms of marijuana prohibition still remain
reluctant to see the states chart their own courses out of the
failed “war on drugs.” Having the NAACP’s support for a states’
rights approach to marijuana reform is going to have a huge impact
and will provide comfort and cover to politicians and prominent
people who want to see prohibition end but who are a little
skittish about states getting too far ahead of the feds on this
issue. 

As I’ve argued
in Reason, there is nothing inherently right-wing about
the Constitution’s division of powers between the states and the
federal government. Properly understood, federalism was never a
license for violating rights protected by the 14th Amendment, and
today it can profitably be employed by progressives to further
their own causes. Ending the war on drugs should be at the top of
the list. 

Washington Post editorial writer Charles
Lane has a
nice takedown today of Tesla, the high-flying federally
subsidized electric car company, as an example of “trickle-down”
economics as practiced by modern-day progressives

Tesla’s corporate fate is ultimately less interesting than the
fact that so many people, especially progressives, have become so
deeply invested in it — politically and psychologically, if not
financially.

Tesla epitomizes the mutation of modern American liberalism.
Once an ideology whose central concern was the plight of
lunch-bucket working stiffs and oppressed minorities, liberalism is
increasingly about environmentalism and related “quality of life”
issues…

This version of green capitalism might be justified if it
delivered the public goods it promises. Tesla’s trickle-down
business plan calls for sales of expensive early models to pave the
way for an everyman electric vehicle later this decade.

But even if widely adopted, Teslas would have little impact on
climate change as long as drivers have to charge their vehicles
from a coal- and natural gas-fired U.S. electric grid. In May,
JPMorgan Chase analysts calculated that the
Model S’s annual fossil fuel “footprint” is bigger than that of a
Honda Civic hybrid.

Nor is there a case for electric cars based on their
contribution to U.S. energy security. Thanks to increased oil and
natural gas production, United States imported only 40 percent of
its oil in 2012, down from 60 percent in 2005,
according to the Energy Department. That trend is projected
to
continue…

Of course, jobs — “green jobs” — are supposed to square the
ideological circle for liberals, making taxpayer “investment” in
Tesla and other environmentally friendly firms a “win-win” for
plutocrats and proletarians.

Tesla employs 2,000
people at good wages. But others would have used the same
resources to employ people, perhaps more than 2,000, if the
government had not funneled them into Tesla — both directly through
loans, emissions credits and tax breaks and indirectly by
encouraging private investors to buy stock in a government-favored
company.

Tesla’s market capitalization, more than $17 billion, represents not
only a possible government-aided stock bubble but also a huge
societal opportunity cost.

Tesla’s Model S is, no doubt, a cool car. Whether it serves any
public purpose commensurate with the public resources it has
absorbed is another question.

For now, all we know is that [Tesla founder] Elon Musk, backed
by Wall Street and Washington, has built a very efficient machine
for the upward distribution of wealth and income.

Can you spell C-R-O-N-Y C-A-P-I-T-A-L-I-S-M?