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"Your Liberty is Our Interest"
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Jefferson Review |
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"Your Liberty is Our Interest" |
March 8, 2004 | |
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Reason's Weekly Dispatch March 2, 2004
1. Rules Great and Small
1. Rules Great and Small Iraq now has an interim constitution. Although this settles nothing about the country's future, it's better than having no interim constitution if only because it signals that Iraqis are finally making some decisions. That is the necessary first step toward a functioning Iraq and a related reduction in U.S. troops in the country. The constitution calls Islam the official religion, but stops short of adopting Islamic law as the whole of the law for the land. This will not please some clerics, so continued fighting over this issue should be expected. The document also tries to split the difference on Kurdish autonomy. The three provinces that were essentially self-governing since the 1991 Gulf War will stay that way, and the peshmergas -- Kurdish militias that are greatly feared by non-Kurds -- will not be disbanded. But the city of Kirkuk will be a kind of open city, belonging to none of the Kurdish territories. If that sounds like a recipe for West Berlin-style intrigue, but with oil, that'd be about right. Still, the constitution and timetable it represents look like tangible movements toward a free and stable Iraq. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4470841 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-1022403,00.html 2. Watch the Skies If we found life on Mars would our government tell us about it? The time has come to think seriously about such things. Scientists working the data from Mars rovers have become somewhat cryptic in explaining what exactly they are doing with the latest info from Martian rocks. We might get a monumental answer as early as today, or it may take several weeks. The crux of the issue remains those strange, clingy globules that were spotted soon after the mission started. One theory is that brine -- heavily salted water that remains liquid even at very low temps -- causes such clumps to form. That's something that no one expected. The presence of liquid water on the surface of Mars appears to demand a serious search for life. Water has always been described by scientists a key precursor to the formation of simple organisms. Trouble is, the 1976 Viking lander supposedly ruled out the possibility of life on Mars when it examined soil samples. Now scientists have to weigh the possibility that they were very wrong. The silence emanating from the Spirit team suggests that such a debate is ongoing. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=96&ncid=753&e=10&u=/space/20040229/ sc_space/marsawaterworldevidencemountsbutscientistsremaintightlipped 3. Disney Magic What do you have to do to get the Ohio's public pension system mad at you? Whatever it is, Michael Eisner has done it. Ohio joins the pension funds from New York, California, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, and North Carolina in opposing Eisner's re-election as chairman and CEO of Disney. Assuming that the pension funds (along with some other big institutional players) are not merely trying to divert attention from their own mistakes in recent years -- a big assumption -- the question becomes: Does Eisner deserve all the scorn? He probably deserves some. It is not at all clear that Eisner has performed so badly, at least when compared to other big (cough)AOLTimeWarner(cough) media conglomerates. Critics seem to latch onto the fact that Pixar has surpassed Disney as the best, most consistent animation studio. But is Disney supposed to direct more or fewer resources to animation? The anti-Eisner crowd doesn't seem to have a clear answer. From a distance, it looks as if Eisner has worn out his welcome, rather like a long-time coach who has let too much time pass with too little success. If that's the case, then the big funds should probably give him a nudge out the door. But no one should mistake the goings on at Disney for a roadmap for post-Enron corporate governance. Disney and Eisner are lightning rods for unrest among shareholders who might well have unrealistic expectations for the company. Both Disney and Eisner are strong enough to survive the outcome. That might not be the case with other, more fragile players. http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/01/news/companies/disney.reut/ 4. Quick Hits Quote of the Week "Every single movie that's made is a fantasy film. ... Films aren't real life; they're make believe." -- Oscar winner Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/8074413.htm
Begin the Begin President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is gone and hundreds of Marines are now heading to Haiti, just as the members of the anti-Aristide coalition are likely to start falling out. The only thing holding them together was their opposition to Aristide. Absent some common organizing goal, the situation could get ugly in a hurry. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/03/01/international0959EST0550.DTL Locking Windows Microsoft beefs up its security offerings with an automatic firewall and promises of Caller ID for email. The Windows Security Center is also supposed to keep users aware of security threats. http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,90617,00.html Record Defense The legal wrangling over the partial-birth abortion ban now involves private medical records. The Justice Department has subpoenaed hundreds of medical files from Planned Parenthood. DOJ contends the records will help it defend the administration against a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood again the partial-birth ban. http://www.post-gazette.com/breaking/20040227abortionp5.asp 5. New at Reason Online Faith, Shame, and
Insurgency 6. The Print Edition 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! 7. News and Events 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! ---
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