Reason articles from February 2005

Reason archives from February 2005

Four more years ... but of what?(Editor's Note)(Editorial)
February 1, 2005... If history is any guide--a questionable assumption in a post Cold War, post-9/11, post-Dan Rather world in which many of the old verities seem as unreliable as the dodgy newsman's secret memos--George W. Bush has anywhere from six months to two...

A Swift Boat Kick in the Teeth.(Letters)(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2005... I can find only one place in Matt Welch's "A Swift Boat Kick in the Teeth" (November) where Welch actually addresses something he found to be untrue in the swift boat vets' claims: "For instance, in the original commercial, military doctor Van...

Mandatory Health Insurance Now!(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2005... Ronald Bailey advocates "Mandatory Health Insurance Now!" (November). So did some Republicans in Congress during the height of the Billarycare proposal 10 years ago, and so has The Economist. Here's why they're all wrong. Bailey likens a...

Three strikes, out? Sea change in California.(Citings)
February 1, 2005... Since 1994 California's "three strikes" law has mandated that criminals convicted of a third felony must be sentenced to at least 25 years in prison, regardless of the third crime's severity, if one of the three offenses was "serious or...

Civics lessons: schools frown on political speech.(Citings)
February 1, 2005... Brad Mathewson was more than a little surprised when school officials at Webb City High School in Missouri called him into the principal's office for wearing an "offensive" T-shirt. After all, the shirt merely bore the name of a club from his...

Disappearing docs: DEA painkiller flip-flop.(Citings)(Drug Enforcement Administration pulls out the pamhlet on safety of painkiller drug prescriptions from its website)
February 1, 2005... IN A PAMPHLET released last August, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) attempted to reassure doctors who worry that prescribing narcotics could attract unwanted attention from the government. Among other things, the agency acknowledged...

The U.N. vs. cloning: stem cell crackdown.(Citings)
February 1, 2005... IN FEBRUARY 2004, South Korean researchers created the first cloned human embryos by installing nuclei from adult cells into human eggs whose nuclei had been removed. Such "therapeutic cloning" produces embryonic stem cells with genes that are...

Quote.
February 1, 2005... "We have to abridge individual rights, change the societal conditions, and act in ways that heretofore were not in accordance with our values and traditions, like giving a police officer or security official the right to search you without a...

Source.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... It's hard to get politicians to consider policy problems whose consequences come after the next election. But while campaigns turn on this quarter's employment numbers or this year's deficit, ever-expanding entitlement programs will need reform...

Arizona's Paradise Valley Unified School District already tests high school athletes and club members for drugs.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Arizona's Paradise Valley Unified School District already tests high school athletes and club members for drugs. Now the school system says it wants to expand its testing program down to students in the seventh grade. The new program will be...

A Brazilian legislator wants to make it illegal for people to give their pets names commonly held by people.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... A Brazilian legislator wants to make it illegal for people to give their pets names commonly held by people. Reinaldo Santos e Silva says children may get depressed if they find out they share the same name as someone's pet.

When Ashley Owen White was stopped and accused of speeding, she was surprised to learn that the man who pulled her over wasn't a sheriff's deputy, a police officer, or a highway patrolman.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... When Ashley Owen White was stopped and accused of speeding, she was surprised to learn that the man who pulled her over wasn't a sheriff's deputy, a police officer, or a highway patrolman. He works for the federal Environmental Protection...

The Canadian government overpaid tens of thousands of dollars for golf balls and other items used to promote Canadian unity, according to a government investigation.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The Canadian government overpaid tens of thousands of dollars for golf balls and other items used to promote Canadian unity, according to a government investigation. They're not sure where all the items went, but the 1,200 golf balls were...

An internal report found the Transportation Security Administration spent almost $500,000 on "unnecessarily expensive" awards, including a lifetime achievement honor for one employee of the two-year-old agency.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... An internal report found the Transportation Security Administration spent almost $500,000 on "unnecessarily expensive" awards, including a lifetime achievement honor for one employee of the two-year-old agency. The report also found that the...

Kristine Johnson says two armed men burst into a convenience store in Schuyler, Nebraska, where she and other managers were having a meeting.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Kristine Johnson says two armed men burst into a convenience store in Schuyler, Nebraska, where she and other managers were having a meeting. The men forced them to the floor and took their wallets and purses. After police arrived, the two men...

Giovanna Pizzorno was fined $216.50 for showing friends around Rome.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Giovanna Pizzorno was fined $216.50 for showing friends around Rome. According to authorities, she was guiding tourists without a license. A special undercover police force issues around 1,000 such fines a year. A local newspaper advises...

Six Sacramento firefighters have been fired and 13 others suspended or otherwise disciplined for using official vehicles to cruise for women.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Six Sacramento firefighters have been fired and 13 others suspended or otherwise disciplined for using official vehicles to cruise for women. Several were caught taking fire engines to a "Porn Star Costume Ball," where an attendee accused one...

Songs of innocence: DNA testing victory.(Citings)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... THE TEAM AT the Cardozo School of Law's Innocence Project, among other researchers, have used DNA evidence to exonerate 152 people convicted of crimes they didn't commit. Thousands more could still be behind bars, and some of them have just...

San Francisco unwired: Boondoggles by the bay.(Citings)
February 1, 2005... WHEN CELLULAR carriers attempted to outfit San Francisco with new antennas, the city government nixed the proposal out of unfounded concerns that the towers would give brain cancer to children. When dot-com mania gripped and enlivened the city,...

New Coke.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... NAFTA brings Mexican Coke to the U.S., where it is stocked and sold at a premium by Latin grocers. Domestic bottlers grumble as their corn syrup concoction languishes, while the cane sugar-sweetened import flies off store shelves.

Cloud city.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... WiFi networks and appliances continue to disrupt old notions--and pricing--of human communication. Costly cell phone calls might soon be replaced by wireless voice calls made via the Internet.

Liquor chaser.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... NASCAR lifts its ban on liquor sponsorship of its race cars. The line between liquor and beer had grown thin indeed with the move of brands like Smirnoff into the near-beer space--and door panels.

Open sources.(Balance Sheet)(Wikipedia)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The folks behind Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia, branch out to news gathering. Wikinews lets amateur journalists report the stories of the day; it could develop into a real alt-news source, especially for developing countries....

Credibility gap.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... A survey of 50,000 people in 60 countries by Gallup International finds that 63 percent think politicians are dishonest, compared to 43 percent for business leaders. Latin American politicians are the least favored, distrusted by 87 percent of...

Bone collectors.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Purdue University researchers find that carbon nanotubes may help joint implants fuse with growing bone cells. Artificial joints that bond tightly with bone are likely to last longer and perform better for patients, doctors say.

Licensee lock-up.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... More than 60 ABC affiliates pre-empt Saving Private Ryan rather than risk fines from the Federal Communications Commission.

Mental illness.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... Congress throws $20 million at a program the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons says will lead to public schools' conducting mandatory psychological testing of school kids without parental consent. Critics say the program is just a...

Pittsburgh stealers.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The city of Pittsburgh considers taxing visiting pro athletes to raise cash to pay for public art projects. Art project money was used to pay for the bonds that built the stadiums the players play in, you see.

Big flub.(Balance Sheet)
February 1, 2005... Boston's $14.6 billion Big Dig highway project is leaking. A state investigation reveals that millions of gallons of water are flowing into the tunnel system from more than 400 leaks. A subsequent Boston Globe report paints an even worse...

Bases empty.(Balance Sheet)(Toronto Blue Jays bought SkyDome for $25 million Canadian)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... The Toronto Blue Jays spend $25 million Canadian to buy SkyDome, which cost $580 million to build, much of it public funds. The Blue Jays' first baseman cost the team $23 million last year.

Password: sucker.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... A California court finds that a man accused of planting a keystroke monitor on a computer did not violate federal wiretapping laws, since the device was installed between the keyboard and the computer, not on the network.

Money keeps talking.(Data)
February 1, 2005... The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was supposed to reduce the undemocratic, corrupting influence of money in politics, primarily by banning unlimited "soft money" contributions to political parties and regulating "electioneering...

Negative action: backfiring racial preferences.(Citings)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... COULD THE elimination of affirmative action policies in American law schools result in more black lawyers being admitted to the bar--perhaps as many as 8.8 percent more? That's the counterintuitive conclusion of a new study by UCLA law...

Cyberfatwa: blogger death threats.(Citings)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... BLOGGINO promises its more ambitious practitioners a chance to influence multitudes. For some there may even be a measure of renown. But as they begin to reach audiences comparable to those of traditional journalists, bloggers are also finding...

Torture and defeat.(Soundbite)(Interview)
February 1, 2005... Since breaking the My Lai massacre story in 1969, Seymour Hersh has reported on illegal CIA surveillance of Americans, U.S. involvement in Chile's 1973 coup, and the abuses at Abu Ghraib. In his eighth book, Chain of Command (HarperCollins),...

That old, tired balancing act: did the election kill objective campaign journalism?
February 1, 2005... JAY ROSEN, CHAIR of the Journalism Department at New York University, calls it "The Contraption." Thomas Lang, a correspondent for CampaignDesk.org, terms it the "automatic pilot approach to reporting." Hunter S. Thompson labels it "the...

The "values" panic: the right has no monopoly on morals--or on moral bullying.(moral values the most important issue for voters)
February 1, 2005... ONE OF THE big stories to emerge from the election was the values vote. In a CNN exit poll, 22 percent of the voters said "moral values" was the most important issue ahead of both terrorism and Iraq--and 80 percent of these values-oriented...

Live free and die of boredom: is "economic freedom" just another word for nothing left to do?(Rant)
February 1, 2005... THE VENERABLE MANHATTAN-based Forbes and the venerable San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute have drummed up a "U.S. Economic Freedom Index," which rates the states according to dozens of variables, including taxation, legal exposure,...

Four more years!?!?! 7 high hopes and 7 big fears for Bush's second term.(what prominant people think about Bush's second term)
February 1, 2005... As Maureen McGovern memorably sang after another Most Important Presidential Election Of Our Lifetime, "There's got to be a morning after." And just like in 1972, Democrats woke up humiliated, Republicans rose jubilant, and advocates of limited...

Crime-friendly neighborhoods: how "New Urbanist" planners sacrifice safety in the name of "openness" and "accessibility".
February 1, 2005... BURRAS ROAD WAS a pleasant cul-de-sac of 21 new homes in Bradford, England. Its residents were blissfully unaware that, just east of the site, approval for a proposed new shopping center required the breaching of their cul-de-sac by a...

Neal Stephenson's past, present, and future: the author of the widely praised Baroque Cycle on science, markets, and post-9/11 America.(Interview)
February 1, 2005... IF YOU MET THE novelist Neal Stephenson a decade ago, you would have encountered a slight, unassuming grad-student type whose soft-spoken demeanor gave no obvious indication that he had written the manic apotheosis of cyberpunk science fiction...

Our forgotten goddess: Isabel Paterson and the origins of libertarianism.(The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America, by Stephen Cox, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 418 pages, $39.95 THE HISTORY OF libertarianism has played out in the catacombs of standard American...

Bridget Jones, super spy: Chick Lit goes to war.
February 1, 2005... If you blinked last summer, you probably missed the year's most daring, unusual, and insane literary experiment. This one came not from the pen of John Barth or Philip Roth or David Foster Wallace, nor from one of our era's preening...

Denny the dullard: speaker of the House Hastert's all-too-revealing autobiography.(Speaker: Lessons From Forty Years in Coaching and Politics)(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Speaker: Lessons From Forty Years in Coaching and Politics, by Denny Hastert, Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 312 pages, $27.95 THOSE WHO CAN, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, coach. And those who can't coach become...

Humanizing gun nuts: an anthropologist shoots down stereotypes about gun enthusiasts.(Book Review)
February 1, 2005... Shooters: Myths and Realities of America's Gun Cultures, by Abigail A. Kohn, New Fork: Oxford University Press, 224 pages, $29.95 IF WHERE'S a gun in a scene, an old writer's adage says, it had better go off. As that bit of advice suggests,...

Doctor sex, Ph.D.: are we all Kinseyans now?(Doctor Sex, Ph.D.)
February 1, 2005... ALFRED C. KINSEY is controversial again. A biologist who spent the first part of his career as an unobtrusive cataloger of gall wasps, Kinsey was, depending on whom you ask, either the harbinger or the catalyst of the sexual revolution. His...

No through street.(Artifact)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2005... HERE IS THE new pedestrian plaza in front of the White House. The space used to be a typically busy downtown street, but after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing it was "temporarily" closed to traffic, 9/11 sealed its fate as a city street. ...