Reason articles from December 2005

Reason archives from December 2005

How Bush outspends LBJ.(George W. Bush, Lyndon Baines Johnson )
December 1, 2005... Who could have predicted when he took office that George W. Bush would end up looking more like Lyndon Baines Johnson than his own father? But waist deep in the muck of his second term, Dubya is looking positively Johnsonesque: He fights an...

Lacking Up Life-Saving Drugs.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Thanks to Kerry Howley for saying what I have wanted to say for years ("Locking Up Life-Saving Drugs," August/September). Being a libertarian and a pharmacist, I have had time to contemplate the issue of why most drugs require physician...

Self-Medicating in Burma.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... My experience in Myanmar during the last five decades confirms the experience reported in Kerry Howley's "Self-Medicating in Burma" (August/September). While the Food and DrugAdministration would not approve of much that happens in...

Who Killed PayPal?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Radley Balko's article on PayPal ("Who Killed PayPal?," August/September) or at least the book he was reviewing, The PayPal Wars--suggests that government interference, frivolous lawsuits, and then the elimination of competition once eBay...

Under the Spell of Malthus.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Ronald Bailey's review of Jared Diamond's Collapse ("Under the Spell of Malthus," August/September) was excellent and raised important public policy issues. But Bailey's happy scenario for the 21st century is no more certain than Diamond's...

Correction.(Letters)(Correction Notice)
December 1, 2005... In "Freedom Riders" (November), Jeff Hennie, vice president for government relations at the Motorcycle Riders Foundation, was misidentiffed as "head" of that organization in a subsequent reference. reason news October's Playboy hails...

Weird science: building a better Tardis.(teleportation research?)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... In 2004 the U.S. Air Force released a report on the feasibility of teleportation--the procedure, familiar to students of Star Trek and Doctor Who, in which an object is dematerialized in one location and reappears in another. The study includes...

Like starting over: price controls are new again.(Citings)
December 1, 2005... On January 28, 1981, when freshly sworn-in President Ronald Reagan abruptly lifted federal price controls on gasoline, the No. 1 song in the country was the late. John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over." On September 1, 2005", it was just...

26 years ago in reason.
December 1, 2005... "It's ironic that persons like myself and Walter Williams, who grew up in the ghetto, are regarded as being either middle-class or just aberrant, whereas people like Andrew Young, who grew up in the lap of affluence, are said to truly speak for...

Behind the boom: engineering the housing bubble.(Citings)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... As marketing watchers puzzle over the current housing boom, a recent study suggests government may be fueling price increases. In a paper to be published in the American Economic Review, two Harvard economists, Edward L. Glaeser and Raven...

Cluster busters: fast food near schools.(Citings)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Fast food clusters may sound like the latest offering at KFC, but they're actually the latest hazard to be trumpeted in the American Journal of Public Health. "The concentration of fast-food restaurants around schools within a short walking...

Quotes.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... "After 11 years of Republican majority we've pared it down pretty good." --Tom DeLay, declaring an "ongoing victory" over federal budgetary waste, in The Washington Times, September 14 "If... the American government would have...

Pundit payola: accidental propagandists.(Armstrong Williams, Department of Education, public relations)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... On January 7, 2005, USA Today revealed that the Department of Education had paid television and radio personality Armstrong Williams more than $240,000 to, among other things, "regularly comment on [the No Child Left Behind Act] during the...

The crisis that wasn't: building a better garbage dump.(Citings)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The news that America was not running out of landfill space had The New York Times all aflutter in August. Waste disposal, the Times decreed, was an "unlikely industry" for productivity improvements. "Simply put, operators of garbage dumps are...

It isn't illegal in Canada to wear a T-shirt that has a picture of a gun and says "Rule no. 1 be armed.".(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... It isn't illegal in Canada to wear a T-shirt that has a picture of a gun and says "Rule no. 1 be armed." Toronto police say they are going to crack down anyway. "The seizure of the shirts may be in question, but if you are wearing one of these...

Saparmurat Niyazov, president of Turkmenistan, has banned lip synching, saying it has a negative effect on singing.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Saparmurat Niyazov, president of Turkmenistan, has banned lip synching, saying it has a negative effect on singing. The ban covers concerts and television appearances as well as private performances. Niyazov also has banned opera and ballet.

In 2004 the Manhattan radio station WQHT sponsored "smackfests" in which women slapped each other to win prizes.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... In 2004 the Manhattan radio station WQHT sponsored "smackfests" in which women slapped each other to win prizes. But New York Attorney General Elliott Spitzer and the New York Athletic Commission said the contests were unlicensed combat sports...

A security camera caught at least six Richmond, California, police officers taking drinks from a closed Mrs. Fields Original Cookies store during a search for a burglar.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... A security camera caught at least six Richmond, California, police officers taking drinks from a closed Mrs. Fields Original Cookies store during a search for a burglar. An attorney representing the officers says they were dehydrated after a...

Dianne Erdmann rescued a duckling after it was attacked by a crow.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Dianne Erdmann rescued a duckling after it was attacked by a crow. She nursed it back to health, fed it, bought it custom-made diapers, and watched as it took its first flight. She even took it to work--and that's where she was when officers...

Orhan Pamuk, one of Turkey's most respected novelists, faces up to three years in prison for "insulting" the national character.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Orhan Pamuk, one of Turkey's most respected novelists, faces up to three years in prison for "insulting" the national character. He accomplished this in an interview with a Swiss newspaper by mentioning the 1 million Armenians killed by Turks...

An audit has found California can't account for about 30,000 of the 70,000 vehicles the state owns.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... An audit has found California can't account for about 30,000 of the 70,000 vehicles the state owns. The missing vehicles include trucks, police patrol cars, and fire trucks.

Maura Ciardello left her dog locked in her SUV at night when she ran into a store to pick up groceries.(sport utility vehicle)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Maura Ciardello left her dog locked in her SUV at night when she ran into a store to pick up groceries. Stephen Sexton, an off-duty, un-uniformed New Jersey cop, objected to this; according to Ciardello, he confronted her without immediately...

Single-Europe theory.(new European Union member states see economic growth)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The 2005 Economic Freedom Index finds economic divides fading away on the European continent. Powered by the growth of places such as Estonia, the eight new E.U. members see their per capita incomes rise nearly twice as fast as that of the old...

Morbid rail.(monorail project, Seattle, King County)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Seattle and King County's plans to build a monorail hit reality. Local pols realize that $42 million a year in car excise taxes cannot possibly fund the $2.1 billion segment of what could be a $10 billion project.

Kelo KO.(eminent domain, New London Development Corporation)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The heavy in the Kelo eminent domain debacle, the New London Development Corporation, heeds an order by Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell to rescind eviction notices sent to homeowners who lost the case.

Tax simplification.(Streamlined Sales Tax Project)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Eighteen states implement the Streamlined Sales Tax Project in a bid to make online sales easier and collect some revenue along the way.

Fish market.(fishing permits)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The Bush administration plans to expand on a permit-trading approach to fishing grounds. A system popular in Alaska for a decade could be reproduced around the country.

Flood convergence.(flood insurance)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Hurricanes Katrina and Rita force re-examination of a wacky flood insurance system that encourages people to live in dangerous places and shift damage claims to public insurers.

Auto wash.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The Progressive Policy Institute declares a truce with the auto. "It is time for a new consensus that is based on the realization that we will never get Americans out of their cars," the Clintonian outfit admits.

Bunker hill.(unfinished underground structure in Capitol)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The Capitol's underground Visitor's Center--in reality an anti-terror bunker for Congress--has a price tag nudging $300 million and counting. The three-level, 580,000-square-foot complex is not expected to open until mid-2007.

Snoop ware.(Federal Communications Commission )(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... The Federal Communications Commission unilaterally declares that "consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement." Translation: For wiretap purposes, the FBI decides what...

Big really easy.(police officers, absent without leave, New Orleans)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Around 250 New Orleans police officers went AWOL in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, says the NOPD. The "good news" may be that hundreds of the officers were ghost employees on the payroll.

Mitt fit.(Mitt Romney)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney kicks off the tough-on-terror segment of his campaign for the 2008 GOP presidential nod with a call for wiretapping mosques. "How about people who are in settings--mosques, for instance--that may be teaching...

Cold logic.(ice, oversupply)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Faced with a surplus of ice along the Gulf Coast, the Federal Emergency Management Agency sends 200 truckloads to Portland, Maine, for storage. The ice cost 26 cents a pound.

Drinking problem.(Siena University ban drinking)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Officials at Albany's Siena University outlaw drinking beverages outside dorms. Any beverage, not just alcoholic ones. Water, Kool-Aid--anything. "Safety first, that's what it's all about," a spokeswoman explains.

Poppy flop: the drug war's high yields.(Citings)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... After a much-ballyhooed effort to cut opium production in Afghanistan, the United Nations says the acreage devoted to poppies has been reduced by one-fifth. Yet opium production is virtually unchanged, and the country still accounts for an...

Be seeing E.U.: Europe eyes mobile records.(Citings)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... In the wake of last summer's bombings in London, British authorities are pushing for European Union-wide rules requiring mobile phone companies and Internet service providers to keep records of information about each call, text message, email,...

Escape from poverty.(Data)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... In 2000 the world's eight richest nations set the Millennium Development Goals, one of which is to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty (defined as living on less than $1 a day) by 2015. If they succeed, they'll accelerate a...

Catfish terror: thinly disguised protectionism.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Since mid-August bureaucrats in Alabama and Louisiana have shown a profound concern over the health risks of Vietnamese catfish, known as basa. State governments are so concerned, in fact, that they've decided to ban basa altogether. Explained...

Intimate revelations.(Viviana A. Zelizer)(Interview)
December 1, 2005... From mandatory sexual harassment training to crackdowns on prostitution, Americans spend an awful lot of time erecting barriers between business and pleasure. The assumption, reflected in our legal system and countless advice columns, goes...

They shoot helicopters, don't they? How journalists spread rumors during Katrina.(Hurricane Katrina)(Column)
December 1, 2005... On September 1, 72 hours after Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, the Associated Press news wire flashed a nightmare of a story: "Katrina Evacuation Halted Amid Gunfire... Shots Are Fired at Military Helicopter." The article...

No, this is the story of the hurricane: for too many pundits, left and right, Katrina was just another front in the culture war.(Hurricane Katrina)(Column)
December 1, 2005... Last year's devastating tsunami provoked a lot of soul searching about the ways of God to man. Hurricane Katrina, by contrast, didn't spark much religious or metaphysical discussion, aside from a few folks on the loony right who thought the...

The Crescent city and the fiscal black hole: how a phantom golf game made a ghost of fiscal responsibility.(Rant)
December 1, 2005... True to the presidential tradition of overpromising and underdelivering, the most expensive round of golf in American history was never actually played. Surely you remember the 18 holes President George W. Bush played while Hurricane...

After the storm: Hurricane Katrina and the failure of public policy.(Cover Story)
December 1, 2005... On August 29, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Louisiana coast, directly devastating several coastal towns and flooding the city of New Orleans, whose levees were not strong enough to withstand the water. In the days that followed, over a...

John McCain's war on political speech: how the Arizona senator and other campaign finance reformers use the law to muffle critics and trample the First Amendment.
December 1, 2005... During Bradley A. Smith's legendarily testy 2000 confirmation hearing for a slot on the Federal Election Commission (FEC), senators piled on the insults like pork for home-state contractors. None were more effusive in their outrage than the...

The father of modern school reform: fifty years ago, Milton Friedman introduced the idea of school vouchers. Now he looks back on his legacy.(Interview)
December 1, 2005... In 1955 future Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman kick-started modern education reform with an article titled "The Role of Government in Education." Bucking the "general trend in our times toward increasing intervention by the state"...

Let a thousand choices bloom: debating the future of education reform.
December 1, 2005... Fifty after Milton Friedman first proposed the idea of education vouchers, school choice proposals come in all shapes and sizes. We asked a dozen experts what reforms they think are most necessary and promising to improve American education. We...

Amtrak sucks traveling Soviet-style aboard America's $30,000,000,000.00 Nostalgia Toy!(Culture and Reviews)(Cartoon)
December 1, 2005... ... CHICO, NEXT STOP! CHICO, CALIFORNIA... CHICO?!? ACCORDING TO THE SCHEDULE WE SHOULD BE HALF-WAY THROUGH OREGON BY NOW! WE WERE JUST PULLING INTO SAN JOSE WHEN WE WENT TO BED. WE'VE ONLY MOVED 200 MILES IN THE LAST EIGHT HOURS! ...

Goodbye to Goldwater: Rick Santorum's Republican crusade for big government.(It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, by Rick Santorum, Wilmington, Del.: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 464 pages, $25 In 1960 a Republican senator from Arizona named Barry Goldwater published a little book called The...

The prehistory of cyberspace: how BBSes paved the way for the Web.(BBS: The Documentary)(Video Recording Review)
December 1, 2005... In the antediluvian '80s, when mass participation in the Internet was still but a gleam in Al Gore's eye, an enthusiastic network of avant-garde geeks was exploring an embryonic cyberspace. By the hundreds of thousands, they created in...

From Barry's boys to the Deaniacs: how alternative media have transformed politics on the left and the right.(America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power)(The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power, by Richard Viguerie and David Franke, Chicago: Bonus Books, 375 pages, $26.95 The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the...

Dhalgren in New Orleans: a classic science fiction novel comes to life in the big easy.(Dhalgren)(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... As Americans struggled to grasp what was unfolding in New Orleans, the word unimaginable frequently recurred--even though the catastrophe had been imagined many times. Thirty years ago, the novelist Samuel R. Delany wrote, in rich detail, about...

Dinosaurs vs. Darwin.(dinosaur parks, creationist propaganda platforms)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... It was Cluade Bell, the proprietor of an inn on Interstate 10, who erected the dinosaurs of Cabazon, California. First came Dinny the apatosaurus, built in the '60s and immortalized in the 1985 film PeeWee's Big Adventure. Then came a giant...

Vioxx's runaway jury.
December 1, 2005... You'd think that a reputable company has at least the same chance of a fair trial as an accused murderer. But as the recent Angleton, Texas, jury's verdict against Vioxx shows, you'd be wrong. The horrible effect of this verdict will be...