Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 21:29:02 -0500
From: reason@free-market.net ("Jeff Taylor")
Subject: Reason-Express: REx15, 3
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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(gillespie@reason.com).
REASON Express
April 10, 2000
Vol. 3 No. 15
1) Federal Panel Finds Bio Engineered Food Safe
2) Strange Budget Impasse in Washington
3) First Amendment Repealed in Texas
4) Quick Hits
- - Out Cropping - -
Not that it will influence anti-biotech protestors, but a review panel of the
National Academy of Sciences found that crops genetically engineered to
produce their own pesticides or some other trait pose no threat to humans.
The committee is not aware of any evidence that foods on the market are
unsafe to eat as a result of genetic modification," the report concludes.
Greenie activists, who have gotten good mileage out of their "frankenfood"
campaign, immediately attacked the results as the best science money could
buy. Such is always the case when any scientist even remotely associated with
the private sector is involved with any research no matter how well
peer-reviewed it might be.
That makes the biotechnology industry's new commitment to spend up to $50
million on ads to tell the public that genetically modified foods are safe the
second part of an effective message in the down and dirty war of public
opinion.
Contrary to some reports, the move is not a preemptive strike. It is, in fact,
about a year too late. For some time the anti-biotech activists have had the
field to themselves and have won significant victories, such has a pledge from
several baby food makers not to use genetically modified crops and bans on GM
foods from certain "natural" food supermarket chains.
Of course, however the Council for Biotechnology Information spends its money
it will be denounced as propaganda. But even supplying basic facts--such as
the Academy of Sciences conclusions--to a confused and cruelly misinformed
public is a good start.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/06/256l-040600-idx.html
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/04/030l-040400-idx.html
Ronald Bailey interviewed agronomist Norman Borlaug on fighting world hunger
and the doom-sayers with technology at
http://www.reason.com/0004/fe.rb.billions.html
- - Bonded Money - -
Election-year politics has conspired with unimaginative thinking to produce a
kind of budgetary stasis in Congress. In a bogus bipartisan ploy to "save"
Social Security--the only way to save it is to privatize it--a budget will
likely be passed that for the first time in recent memory will not use surplus
Social Security payroll tax revenue to pay for current spending.
Instead, the entire $160 billion overage could be used to buy back outstanding
Treasury bonds, an attempt to enact the pay-down-the-national-debt strategy so
popular with the WWII generation. But it is very hard to see what the
investment nets the country besides roiling the portfolios of bond investors
when certain issues suddenly become very scarce.
The money could certainly supply more oomph if it were deployed as part of a
capital gains tax cut. But pro-active, pro-growth policies in the midst of
boomtimes are just too much to ask of politicians.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/07/061l-040700-idx.html
- - Whys of Texas - -
There is a certain Chicken Little/Boy Who Cried Wolf danger inherent is
pointing out how government officials routinely ignore the Bill of Rights. But
what a Texas state judge did last week goes right to the heart of the First
Amendment and even beyond, to the distinction between public and private
conduct.
District Judge Margaret Cooper refused to rescind her order prohibiting The
Associated Press from publishing a story about a state-guaranteed loan to a
West Texas shrimp farm. The information was obtained by legal means via the
Texas Public Information Act.
But the judge held that a story about Permian Sea Shrimp and Seafood and its
private sector lender would amount to disclosure of trade secrets, and hence
should not be made public.
Benjamin Hathaway, a lawyer representing Permian Sea and its lender, said his
clients' right to secret deals with the government trumps the First Amendment.
"The shrimp farming industry is a very competitive industry and these
documents lay out a lot about our financial situation, business plans,
information that was meant to be kept confidential and should have been kept
confidential. In that kind of competitive nvironment it can do both the bank
and the farm substantial harm to have that stuff published," he said.
Yes, but if you want to keep secrets, don't go begging to the state for a
handout. The loan program can guarantee as much as 90 percent of the value of
loans that a business gets from private lenders.
Under those kinds of terms, the taxpayers of Texas are practically junior
partners in a venture. The least they deserve is to be told what it is they
are on the hook for. And it is just mind-boggling that anyone with passing
acquaintance with the law could not see that, let alone move to muzzle
legitimate news-gathering on the topic.
It would be nice to hear George W. Bush weigh in on these happenings back
home. If nothing else it would give him the opportunity to show that he
understands the difference between public and private.
http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/61139_FOI07.html
QUICK HITS
- - Quote of the Week - -
"I'd rather break up the Justice Department," House Majority Leader Richard K.
Armey (R-Tex), during a visit by Microsoft's Bill Gates to Capitol Hill less
than 48 hours after federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found the company
guilty of violating antitrust law.
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-04/06/307l-040600-idx.html
- - Freeh Falling - -
Turns out that FBI Director Louis Freeh wrote not one but two memos to
Attorney General Janet Reno urging her to seek an independent counsel to
investigate Vice PresidentAl Gore's role in the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign
fund raising irregularities. The second memo came in 1998 following FBI
interviews with Gore. Freeh has recently let it be known he is looking for
work in the private sector.
http://www.foxnews.com/elections/040500/finance_riley.sml
- - Stage Driving - -
Administrators at Redondo (California) Union High School thought a great way
to get kids not to drink and drive was to lie to them and stage a wreck which
"killed" a classmate. Incredibly, police and fire officials also thought the
lying was the best policy.
http://www.latimes.com/news/state/20000407/t000032808.html
REASON NEWS
For the latest on media appearances by Reason writers, visit
http://www.reason.com/press.html.
Adrian Moore, RPPI Director of Economic Policy, will take part in a panel
discussion on Turning Back Federal Highway Programs to the States at the
Heritage Foundation's Annual Resource Bank Meeting April 28th at the Hotel
Inter-Continental in Chicago.
Reason Express is made possible by a grant from The DBT Group
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-
Later,
JAT
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