Reason articles from April 2004

Reason archives from April 2004

In defense of drunken sailors.(Editor's Note)(George W. Bush )
April 1, 2004... TO SAY THAT President George W. Bush has been spending money like a drunken sailor is an insult to drunken sailors. After all, when land-starved seamen go on their binges, they spend only their own money, not yours and mine. With very few...

Domination fantasies.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... It has been a long time since I last saw a TV program on the subject of American imperialism on the "huge variety of news, information, opinion, culture, and entertainment, whether from 10, 50, or 3,000 sources" to which Ben Compaine refers...

Just say no again.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... Although Renee Moilanen's article on the "new" anti-drug education ("Just Say No Again,"January) was interesting and enlightening, and I'm no fan of the war on drugs, I'm not convinced by her negative appraisal of the Life Skills Training...

Self delusions.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... Julian Sanchez's well-reasoned review of Owen Flanagan's The Problem of Soul ("Self Delusions,"January) may be further developed on two crucial fronts. First, Flanagan's general contention (as summarized by Sanchez) that "it would not...

Patriot spawn: slipping down the slope.(Citings)
April 1, 2004... WHEN A DRAFT of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, nick-named PATRIOT II, was leaked last year, public outrage scuppered the proposal. But since then key provisions of the bill have been introduced piecemeal, in what many civil libertarians...

Flower power: free the florists!(Citings)
April 1, 2004... ONE DAY LAST year Sandy Meadows, who supervises the floral department at an Albertson's grocery store in Baton Rouge, was helping out at another Albertson's that had lost its florist. An inspector from the Louisiana Horticulture Commission...

30 years ago in Reason.(Citings)
April 1, 2004... "The truly small minicomputer market... represents a possible threat to IBM, because huge and expensive computers may soon be replaceable by expandable systems of combined microcomputers." --Alan Reynolds, "Trustbusting for Fun & Profit"...

Patent sense: letting genes out of the bottle.(Citings)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... ACTIVIST GROUPS SUCH as the Rural Advancement Foundation International complain that the technology behind genetically modified (GM) crop seeds is usually patented, often by huge conglomerates such as Monsanto. They fear patent controls will...

Textbook tolerance: Gulf of Hate.(Citings)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... THIS WINTER, THE six nations that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council--Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates--agreed to begin revising public school textbooks to remove inflammatory passages. Among the...

Late communism: capitalist roaders.(Citings)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... THE PEOPLE'S Republic of China is still formally a communist country. But if this is communism, it's an increasingly peculiar kind. In December party leaders proposed a constitutional amendment to protect property rights. It's hard to...

Quotes.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... "Congressman Kucinich is holding up a pie chart, which is not truly effective on radio." --moderator Neal Conan at a January 6 Democratic presidential debate broadcast only on National Public Radio "I have recently been made aware of a...

Sources.
April 1, 2004... Britney Spears and Outkast are old news. Next time you're jogging with your iPod, why not groove to the dulcet tones of Antonin Scalia? The OYEZ Project at Oyez.org serves up oral arguments from seminal Supreme Court cases, from Miranda and...

As George Pulido and his sons were walking home from a birthday party in New York City, a small balloon his oldest son was carrying hit the sidewalk and burst.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... As George Pulido and his sons were walking home from a birthday party in New York City, a small balloon his oldest son was carrying hit the sidewalk and burst. Police Immediately ticketed him for making an unreasonable noise.

Islamic leaders in Somalia say they will flog anyone caught using or selling condoms.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Islamic leaders in Somalia say they will flog anyone caught using of selling condoms. Sheikh Nur Barud, chairman of the Ulema Council, explains that the use of condoms will increase adultery, and that those promoting adultery deserve to be...

An officer with the Aberdeen Racist Incidents Partnership.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... An officer with the Aberdeen Racist Incidents Partnership says Scottish children as young as 3 should be reported to police if they make racist remarks.

Ontario's provincial auditor says the Ministry of Consumer and Business Services received about 4,000 complaints and inquiries related to debt collectors last year, including 800 written, formal complaints.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Ontario's provincial auditor says the Ministry of Consumer and Business Services received about 4,000 complaints and inquiries related to debt collectors last year, including 800 written, formal complaints. But it conducted only 10 inspections...

New Haven, Connecticut, has had a rash of robberies and shootings at convenience stores and service stations.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... New Haven, Connecticut, has had a rash of robberies and shootings at convenience stores and service stations. Instead of going after the criminals, city officials have proposed forcing the stores to close from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Store owners...

The staff at the U.S. Army's Combat Equipment Battalion at Hythe, Great Britain, just had to be at the office Christmas party.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The staff at the U.S. Army's Combat Equipment Battalion at Hythe, Great Britain, just had to be at the office Christmas party. No, really. They were ordered by the base command to attend the party or face disciplinary action.

Thailand's ruling Thai Rak Thai Party is considering a proposal that would bar politicians from keeping mistresses or visiting brothels.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Thailand's ruling Thai Rak Thai Party is considering a proposal that would bar politicians from keeping mistresses or visiting brothels. One lawmaker objects, on the grounds that the party would be able to field only about 30 candidates for...

When New York City's Human Rights Commission demanded that the makers of Grand Theft Auto remove the phrase "Kill Haitians" from the video game, Mayor Michael Bloomberg hinted that the company could be investigated for human rights violations.(Brickbats)(Take-Two Interactive)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... When New York City's Human Rights Commission demanded that the makers of Grand Theft Auto remove the phrase "Kill Haitians" from the video game, Mayor Michael Bloomberg hinted that the company could be investigated for human rights violations....

Maryland State Police Superintendent Edward T. Norris has been charged with illegally spending about $20,000 in official funds while he was the top cop in Baltimore.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Maryland State Police Superintendent Edward T. Norris has been charged with illegally spending about $20,000 in official funds while he was the top cop in Baltimore. Norris allegedly used the money to cover personal expenses, including those...

About 12,000 residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania, were notified that they had failed to pay city taxes.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... About 12,000 residents of Allentown, Pennsylvania, were notified that they had failed to pay city taxes. Why so many? Maybe because the city neglected to send out some 15,000 tax bills.

Why warming? Climate change confidential.(Citings)
April 1, 2004... THE UNITED Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change claims to have found "new and stronger evidence that most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." This conclusion is based on...

Balance sheet.
April 1, 2004... Caissons Rolling The Pentagon admits it needs 30,000 more troops to meet all of its various security commitments around the globe. It took a while, but the honesty is refreshing. Liberating, even. Magic Beans Harvard researchers...

Lack of pride.(Data)(illegal drug use )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... When last year's Monitoring the Future Study found that illegal drug use was down among teenagers, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) trumpeted the results as evidence that "when we push back against the drug problem, it gets...

Belting utilities: cracking down on clean air.(Citings)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... A WHITE HOUSE initiative to eliminate one of the perverse incentives created by the Clean Air Act has been halted by a federal appeals court. The Bush administration had planned to relax enforcement of "new source review" (NSR) regulations at...

Doubt, despair, and charity: no confidence in nonprofits.(Citings)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... EVEN AS PUBLIC confidence in government institutions has skyrocketed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, faith in charitable organizations has dropped precipitously, according to a recent Brookings Institution study. The report, which relies...

Option overload: choked by choice?(Citings)(The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... "So I SAID I want a pair of jeans, size 32-28," author Barry Schwartz said recently on PBS, "and the salesperson said," Well, do you want slim fit, relaxed fit, easy fit? Do you want wide boot cut, wide leg, peg leg? Do you want acid washed,...

The deregulator.(Soundbite)(Alfred Kahn: Civil Aeronautics Board )(Interview)
April 1, 2004... As head of the Civil Aeronautics Board in the '70s, Alfred Kahn, once an interventionist, opened air travel to competition. In Lesson From Deregulation: Telecommunications and Airlines After the Church, published last year by the AEI-Brookings...

Hack roast: when citizens attack ... reporters.(Columns)
April 1, 2004... ON NOVEMBER 30, 1999, Al Gore told a high school class in New Hampshire about how, 20 years earlier, a girl their age had informed his congressional office about toxic waste problems in her hometown of Toone, Tennessee. The resulting Capitol...

Abuse revisited: a feminist challenges the conventional wisdom about domestic violence.(Columns)
April 1, 2004... FOR 15 YEARS or so, a fairly straightforward paradigm has dominated mainstream thinking about domestic violence policies. According to this conventional wisdom, domestic violence should not be treated as a "family problem," the way it often was...

Playing to the totalitarian left: two democratic candidates appeal to their party's "core".
April 1, 2004... MY WORTHY OPPONENT TRIES TO COME OFF AS A "PROGRESSIVE" WHEN HE'S ANYTHING BUT... IN FACT, HE EVEN OPOSES GUN CONTROL. THAT, SIR. IS A GROSS MISINTERPRETATION OF MY RECORD... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I SIMPLY EXPRESSED...

Free play: the politics of the video game.
April 1, 2004... IN 1979 KIDS and their quarters descended on convenience stores and shopping malls to experience the latest in digital entertainment: breaking rocks. The video game Asteroids boasted that its "explosions, laser blasts, [and] fragmentation of...

Emotional choices: what story you choose to believe about antidepressants reveals a deeper truth about who you are.(mood medication)
April 1, 2004... IN MODERN LIFE, we each get to choose how to act and whom to be. This freedom can also be a curse, because we must make our choices based on approaches to doing and being that may be persuasive but are often in conflict. Our choices are...

Washington's biggest crime problem: the federal government's ever-expanding criminal code is an affront to justice and the Constitution.
April 1, 2004... MICHAEL PAUL MAHONEY was convicted of selling methamphetamine in 1980 and served 22 months in a Texas prison. Upon his release, he went straight, opening a pool hall in Jackson, Tennessee. After closing up each night, he would deposit the day's...

Building the perfect candidate.(Cover Story)
April 1, 2004... As DEVOTEES OF free minds and free markets, we spend our nights pining for a major-party politician who not only looks dreamy while reading a Teleprompter but shows some passion for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and sex, drugs,...

Regulation for dummies: is the FDA necessary?(Culture and Reviews)(book)(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... Protecting America's Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation, by Philip J.. Hilts, New York: Alfred A. Knopf 397 pages, $26.95 SHOULD THE LAW be fashioned for stupid people? That's not a question Protecting...

Hobbies in cyberspace: life in an online game world proves nasty, brutish, and short.
April 1, 2004... When the press learned what had been happening in Alphaville, its band of outsiders began to file breathless reports. The city, they said, had been infected with crime, depravity, and now the heavy hand of censorship: Peter Ludlow, editor of...

Fools for Communism: still apologists after all these years.(book)(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage, by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, San Francisco: Encounter Books, 300 pages, $25.95 IN 1983 THE INDIANA University historian Robert F. Byrnes collected essays from 35 experts on the Soviet...

Transcendental goods: Charles Murray discusses art, accomplishment, faith, and doubt.(Interview)
April 1, 2004... CHARLES MURRAY IS the W.H. Brady Scholar in Culture and Freedom at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. His T984 book Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 was a devastating dissection of welfare programs and is...

Text lit.(Artifact)(text messaging; literature of the future)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... THIS COMMON CELL phone may strike you as unremarkable, a familiar telecom device that, in this photo, is displaying the text message,"Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. Whatever." But look again, because this device is morphing into something different: a...

End the FDA's monopoly.(ephedra)
April 1, 2004... The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) recent bah on dietary supplements containing ephedra shows just how dysfunctional government regulation of drugs and dietary supplements is. Ephedra, according to the FDA, is a naturally occurring...