Reason articles from January 2006

Reason archives from January 2006

The really big picture.(partisan politics)(Editorial)
January 1, 2006... IF YOU'RE INTO partisan politics, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture--the truly seismic shifts in culture and technology that, in the long run, underwrite human progress (or lack thereof). It's deceptively easy to mistake the petty...

The social responsibility of business.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... John Mackey's "new form of capitalism" ("Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business," October) is as suspect as an organic label on a Whole Foods apple. Before we concede that Mackey has somehow superseded the Darwinian forces that shape...

In defense of happy pills.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... Maia Szalavitz took heroin to stop depressing herself, and she now takes Zoloft for the same reason. She argues that the rewards of self-examination--and psychotherapy is not the only way to know oneself--are no different from the happiness she...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
January 1, 2006... The article "Antonin Scalia, Judicial Activist" (October) mistakenly referred to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as the "swing vote" in Gonzales v. Reich; the vote in that case was 6-3. The article also erroneously referred to Justice John...

Sorry, wrong number: truly roving wiretaps.(Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... HAVE THE FEDS been snooping on you by mistake? That was the specter raised by a September 2005 report from the Justice Department's inspector general, which found that an undisclosed number of monitored telecommunications picked up...

Don't ask, yet: gays in combat.(Citings)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... THE PENTAGON has long argued that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which prevents openly gay soldiers from serving in the U.S. armed forces, is necessary to preserve unit cohesion. But in wartime--when cohesion matters most--the military may...

25 years ago in reason.(American politics)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... "It's easy to understand the euphoria felt by our conservative friends and colleagues at the Reagan landslide.... At the same time, however, we share the concern of many, libertarians over what else the election may signify: * A political...

Byrd watching: Corporate welfare queens.(Robert Byrd)
January 1, 2006... IN 2000 SEN. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) slipped a provision into an agricultural appropriations bill the night before the House passed it. He did this--without benefit of committee hearings, public comment, or any debate whatsoever--in the name of...

Takings, take 2: eminent domain in state courts.(Citings)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... ACCORDING TO the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 ruling in Kelo v. New London, almost any commercial enterprise could be a "public use" justifying the forced transfer of property from one private owner to another. But state courts, where the battle...

Kentucky school days: the four-day school week.(Citings)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... FACED WITH rising fuel costs and flat school budgets, a Kentucky county has begun playing hooky one day a week. Schools in the Jackson County district have given kids Fridays off, while teachers work half a day. The district expects to see...

Quotes.(Citings)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... "I don't need the approval of the press, but I just wish they'd stop the viciousness....I never felt sorry for people like Lindsay Lohan in my life. I thought they were dopey little movie stars. Now I feel sorry for those people." --Bill...

Mistakes will be made: NASA's money pit.(National Aeronautics and Space Administration)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... IN A SEPTEMBER interview with USA Today, National Aeronautics and Space Administration chief Michael Griffin agreed that most of what NASA has been doing for the last few decades--the shuttle program and the International Space Station--has...

That chemo cachet: medical marijuana and kids.(California)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Two MONTHS before California voters approved a 1996 ballot initiative that legalized the medical use of marijuana, Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates warned that passing the measure would "be sending absolutely the wrong message to kids" Two...

When Joliet, Illinois, police raided Dorothy Campbell's home, they didn't find the marijuana they claimed her son was selling.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... When Joliet, Illinois, police raided Dorothy Campbell's home, they didn't find the marijuana they claimed her son was selling. They did find her sex toys, presented them to her son, and asked what his mother did with them. Later, when a...

Prosecutors in Orange County, Florida, have asked police to arrest parents who jaywalk with their children.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Prosecutors in Orange County, Florida, have asked police to arrest parents who jaywalk with their children. Some cases, they say, may be prosecuted as felony child neglect.

Jason Hegg's 22-month-old son, Carter, has asthma and is too young to use an inhaler, so his family carries a portable device that allows him to breathe a medicated mist.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Jason Hegg's 22-month-old son, Carter, has asthma and is too young to use an inhaler, so his family carries a portable device that allows him to breathe a medicated mist. According to Hegg, federal Transportation Security Administration...

Homeowners in Leamington, Ontario, may not hold more than three garage sales a year.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Homeowners in Leamington, Ontario, may not hold more than three garage sales a year. City officials say the new ordinance will cut down on noise and traffic. Those who break the law will have their sales shut down by police and face fines of up...

After Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, Mark Perlmutter, a physician, traveled from Pennsylvania to help.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... After Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, Mark Perlmutter, a physician, traveled from Pennsylvania to help. That's how he found himself on the tarmac of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport administering chest compression to a dying...

The Washington, D.C., Council has unanimously passed a bill forbidding pharmaceutical companies from selling their products in D.C. at an "excessive price.".(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... The Washington, D.C., Council has unanimously passed a bill forbidding pharmaceutical companies from selling their products in D.C. at an "excessive price." The law gives private citizens the right to sue drug companies over prices, and it...

The Scottish government plans to hire "health enforcers" who will seek out people with poor health, bad eating habits, nicotine addiction, or a family history.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... The Scottish government plans to hire "health enforcers" who will seek out people with poor health, bad eating habits, nicotine addiction, or a family history of heart disease and nag them into seeing a doctor.

Officials in Nanjing, China, have banned bald men from driving taxis.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Officials in Nanjing, China, have banned bald men from driving taxis. They've also banned men with long hair or moustaches from driving cabs. Female taxi drivers can't wear a lot of makeup. The new laws are part of a drive to spruce up the city...

Balance sheet.
January 1, 2006... Growth Fix Multiple hurricanes and sky-high gas prices can't slow down the U.S. economy, which charged ahead by almost 4 percent in the third quarter of 2005. Consumer confidence is battered by the shocks, though. Tokin' Gesture ...

The secret sharer: executive patent privilege.(U.S. v. Reynolds)
January 1, 2006... THE LANDMARK 1953 ruling U.S. v. Reynolds gave the White House unreviewable authority to keep national security information secret even from the Supreme Court. We already knew the decision was based on stack of brazen government lies. What we...

Stop the music: taking on the record industry.(Recording Industry Association of America)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... SINCE 2003 THE Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed almost 15,000 lawsuits charging computer users with trading music online. Now one of its targets is suing back. Tanya Andersen, a 42-year-old disabled single mother, has...

Treat the rich.(Small Business Administration report, small businesses hit hard, compliance costs)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Federal regulations are often sold as a way to rein in the biggest, most powerful corporations. Complicated accounting rules, tax requirements, and workplace regulations may eat up billions a year in compliance costs, but the alternative, it's...

Scare quotes: watching The Watchtower.(Watchtower Bible and Tract Society)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... THE PENNSYLVANIA-based publisher of the Jehovah's Witness magazine The Watchtower is suing a Canadian Web site, quotes.watchtower.ca, for posting quotations from the long-running staple of door-to-door evangelism. The plaintiffs accuse the site...

Unscientific methods.(Chris Mooney)(Interview)
January 1, 2006... In The Republican War on Science (Basic Books), Chris Mooney, Seed's Washington correspondent, examines what happens when the scientific search for truth collides with politics--especially GOP politics. From stem cells to missile defense to...

From Bob Woodward to Judith Miller: the country's most reviled reporter is a direct descendant of its most beloved.(Column)
January 1, 2006... A CONTROVERSIAL REPORTER for one of the nation's leading newspapers stumbles onto what at first looks like a routine Washington story but eventually, after two years of mounting federal inquiry, becomes a wide-reaching scandal that rocks the...

The tsars come Out: a gloomy prognosis for Russian freedom.(Column)
January 1, 2006... AT THE MORNING sessions of the American Enterprise Institute's October 14 conference "Russia: Today, Tomorrow, and in 2008," the room of about 120 seats was filled almost to capacity. The speakers, pleasantly surprised, saw the turnout as a...

Critics in Blue Helmets: the U.N. blocks the only invasion where they really do welcome us with flowers.(Rant)
January 1, 2006... REVEALED PREFERENCE, like love, dare not speak its name. In October the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization voted 148 to 2 to pass a Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural...

Who's afraid of human enhancement? A reason debate on the promise, perils, and ethics of human biotechnology.(Panel Discussion)(Cover Story)
January 1, 2006... ON AUGUST 25 in Washington, D.C., reason staged a debate about "the promise, perils, and ethics of human biotechnology." Moderated by Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie, the panelists included Ronald Bailey, reason's science correspondent and...

Giving away the store to get a store: tax increment financing is no bargain for taxpayers.
January 1, 2006... IF YOU'RE IMAGINING an attraction that will draw 4.5 million out-of-town visitors a year, the first thing that jumps to mind probably isn't a store that sells guns and fishing rods and those brown jackets President Bush wears to clear brush at...

You can be too careful: how the government's new corporate accounting rules impede efficiency and stifle innovation.
January 1, 2006... ADELPHIA FOUNDER John Rigas got 15 years (a life sentence for the 80-year-old executive), and former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers got 25-two victories in the government's post-Enron wave of corporate fraud prosecutions. Meanwhile, the Enron case...

Sarbanes-Oxley vs. the free press: how the government used business regulations to strong-arm the media.
January 1, 2006... BACK IN JUNE, when New Fork Times reporter Judith Miller was about to go to jail on contempt charges for refusing to testify about her anonymous sources, she and the Times had company in legal hot water: Matthew Cooper and his bosses at Time...

The books that rock the cradle: libertarian themes in children's fiction.(Culture and Reviews)
January 1, 2006... YOU ARE 12 YEARS OLD, and you're watching your father cradle an infant in his arms. He works for a special branch of the government tasked with population control and ensuring the health of those deemed "normal" He weighs the infant on a scale,...

I, T-Shirt: a T-shirt's journey unravels the costs of protectionism.(The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade, by Pietra Rivoli, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 254 pages, $29.95 DAYS AFTER terrorist attacks destroyed the World...

The gentle persuader: the long shadow of Alan Greenspan.
January 1, 2006... "Under the gold standard," Alan Greenspan wrote in Ayn Rand's 1966 book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, "a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth. In the absence of the gold standard, there is...

The horrors of the Stasi's East Germany.(Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall)(After the Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life That Came Next)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, by Anna Funder, London: Granta, 288 pages, $16.95 After the Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life That Came Next, by, Fana Hensel, New York: Public Affairs, 180...

Geena Davis is not my president: the bipartisan romance with the imperial presidency comes to prime time.(Commander in Chief)(Television Program Review)
January 1, 2006... ABC's HIT DRAMA Commander in Chief focuses on the personal and political challenges faced by our fictional first female chief executive, played by Geena Davis. What's interesting about the show isn't the idea of a woman president, and it...

Virtual people power.(A Force More Powerful, video game)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... IF YOU WANT to simulate a military conflict, Breakaway Games is the shop for you: Its products include such titles as Virtual Convoy Trainer, Entropy-Based Warfare, and netSTRIKE. Its most recent release, A Force More Powerful, is rather...