Reason articles from January 2008

Reason archives from January 2008

Free to move.(Editor's Note)(Editorial)
January 1, 2008... LIKE MANY--maybe most--Americans I come from a family of migrant workers. My grandparents left Ireland and Italy in the 1910s for the United States, chiefly for the opportunity to work long hours and be treated as second-class citizens--a...

The 4 Boneheaded Biases of Stupid Voters.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Most of Bryan Caplan's points ("The 4 Boneheaded Biases of Stupid Voters," October) are well-taken. But I am a bit perplexed by his lumping of anti-free-trade views and anti-immigration views into a single "anti-foreign bias." I am well...

Gone Fishin'.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... I was pleased to read that Trout Unlimited recognizes that purchasing water rights in Wasson Creek is not the long-term solution for resource use conflicts ("Gone Fishin'," October). The real issue is not how the market might be used to secure...

Tuning Out the World.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... David Weigel cites many cases of protectionism in politics in "Tuning Out the World" (October) but neglects to make clear the general principle: the tradeoff between the level of prices and the standard of living. Every time you cut a price you...

Let's All Give Money to the Rich Man.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Cartoonist Peter Bagge's "Let's All Give Money to the Rich Man" (June) was a home run! Too many sports team owners count on favorable eminent domain rulings, along with corporate welfare handouts in the form of direct government funding, public...

Reason news.(Letters)(the new website Reason.tv)(Website overview)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... We're very happy to announce a new website, reason.tv, featuring videos devoted to free minds and free markets. The recurring features include a series of short films in which comedian Drew Carey tackles issues ranging from traffic congestion...

Book check.(collection of traveler's information by the Department of Homeland Security )(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... THE NEXT time you travel through airport security, make sure to pack a spare Sean Hannity book. According to a September report from Wired News, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is storing and aggregating information on international...

Clean cameras.(CleanScapes's innovative method won them service contracts)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... IN EARLY October a small Seattle based waste management company called CleanScapes pulled an amazing coup: It defeated two huge national companies for $25 million in Seattle-area service contracts. One of CleanScapes' ideas: photograph clients...

Buzz kill.(colony collapse disorder)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... BEEKEEPERS in at least 24 states reported a huge number of empty honeybee hives last spring. Since honeybees are the hard-working pollinators of many American crops, that is very bad news. Theories about what might be causing this "colony...

35 years ago in reason.(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... "According to columnist Jack Anderson, the FBI obtains 'informal' access--without the benefit of subpoena--to bank accounts of political dissidents. Anderson last summer gave the Senate Banking Committee FBI memos on the bank accounts of Jane...

Bad touch.(Transportation Security Administration and lighter ban in airports)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Six YEARS after Richard Reid tried to blow up a flight from Paris to Miami by igniting plastic explosives in his sneakers, American travelers are still removing their shoes before walking through the metal detector at the airport. But as of...

Bloomberg's folly.(Michael Bloomberg's crackdown against gun stores in other states)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... NEW YORK Mayor Michael Bloomberg was angry that guns bought outside his city were used to commit crimes inside it. So in 2006 he sent private eyes to entrap gun store operators in five other states. His agents tricked the stores into going...

Quotes.(Quotation)
January 1, 2008... "I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all." --Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), quoted in The Boston Globe, October 11 "Eleven violent protestors were arrested together with one 12-inch knife, one pointed thin iron rod,...

All the news that's unfit.(List)(Fark.com)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Drew Curtis, 34, is the editor of the hugely popular (and hugely funny) news aggregator and community website Fark.com, which focuses on the curious, the dubious, and the bizarre. He is also the author of the recently released book It's Not...

Home again.(Outsourcing the outsourced)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... THE OUTSOURCING of jobs to India has worked so well that the Indians have decided to do some outsourcing themselves. With Indian salaries on the rise and the rupee stronger than ever, the Bangalore-based software services company Infosys, which...

Swiss, please.(Free trade in cheese)(Swiss cheese trade)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... SWITZERLAND and the European Union have torn down the dairy curtain that blocked free trade in cheese. Under the agreement, first negotiated 10 years ago but in full effect only since June, Switzerland has repealed the tariffs that hiked the...

Verification nation.(Immigration data mess)(Department of Homeland Security pushes E-verify)
January 1, 2008... IN AUGUST the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) renewed its push for "E-Verify," a 10-year-old federal program also known as "Basic Pilot." The American Civil Liberties Union has a different name for it: a "permission slip to work." The...

Defrocked eMinisters.(Marital woes)(ministers that are ordained by electronic means)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... A PENNSYLVANIA couple whose marriage fell apart after seven months has managed to put an asterisk next to every wedding performed by an Internet minister. Contemplating divorce, the couple wondered if their marriage, performed by a friend who...

Britain's National Health Service has told Olive Beal it will take 18 months to get her the hearing aid she needs.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Britain's National Health Service has told Olive Beal it will take 18 months to get her the hearing aid she needs. Beal is 108.

Fifty years ago, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" was not obscene.(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Fifty years ago, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" was not obscene. To celebrate that anniversary a Pacifica radio station in New York posted a reading of the poem online. Why not broadcast the...

The Chinese media praised Jiang Yanyong when he broke government secrecy to reveal the true extent of Beijing's 2003 outbreak of SARS.(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Chinese media praised Jiang Yanyong when he broke government secrecy to reveal the true extent of Beijing's 2003 outbreak of SARS. But in 2004, when the military surgeon wrote to Chinese leaders asking them to...

Michael Martin is only 7, but he's old enough to have been mistaken for a terrorist three times when he tried to board a plane.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Michael Martin is only 7, but he's old enough to have been mistaken for a terrorist three times when he tried to board a plane. Apparently, his name is on the Transportation Security Administration's no-fly list. Martin's mother says she has...

Percy Julian Middle School in Oak Park, Illinois, has banned students from hugging inside the building.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Percy Julian Middle School in Oak Park, Illinois, has banned students from hugging inside the building. Officials say children were creating bottlenecks in the hallways. While they haven't banned it yet, school authorities say they frown on...

Firefighters in Braintree, Massachusetts, needed practice, so they drove to a vacant house, cut holes in the roof and the walls, and busted out the windows.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Firerighters in Braintree, Massachusetts, needed practice, so they drove to a vacant house, cut holes in the roof and the walls, and busted out the windows. They had planned to practice on a home slated for demolition. Instead, they...

Florida's Oswego High School suspended two students and forced about 50 others to turn their shirts inside out after they all wore anti-drunk driving T-shirts to school.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Florida's Oswego High School suspended two students and forced about 50 others to turn their shirts inside out after they all wore anti-drunk driving T-shirts to school. The shirts, inspired by an alcohol-related crash that killed five local...

Police in Tampa, Florida, arrested Donnie James White for violating the state's flag desecration law after several witnesses saw him dragging and stomping an American flag.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Police in Tampa, Florida, arrested Donnie James White for violating the state's flag desecration law after several witnesses saw him dragging and stomping an American flag. White spent four days in jail before the...

In Sampson County, North Carolina, officials at Hobbton High School refused to let students wear clothing with images of the American flag to mark the anniversary of 9/11.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... In Sampson County, North Carolina, officials at Hobbton High School refused to let students wear clothing with images of the American flag to mark the anniversary of 9/11. It violated their ban on wearing the flags of any country on school...

High risk.(Data)(statistics between marijuana use and arrests)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... In 2006, according to FBI data released in September, more people were arrested on marijuana charges in the United States than ever before: almost 830,000, up from the previous record of about 787,000 in 2005. Those arrests represented more...

Pants police.(Say no to crack)(legislative bill against saggy pants)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... IN FEBRUARY 2005, the Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill to make saggy pants a criminal offense. Under the proposed law, pants that reveal your undergarments would have been punishable by a $50 fine. "It's not about individual fights;...

Starvation diet.(Castro's weight loss plan)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... IN SICKO, the left-liberal documentarian Michael Moore praised the Cuban health care system. But he failed to cite one of Cuban socialism's true health triumphs: the reduction of heart disease and diabetes during the 1990s. In September...

Al Qaeda's forerunner.(Soundbite)(interview with Yaroslav Trofimov regarding the takeover of the Grand Mosque)(Interview)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Not many people can tell you much about the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Islamist militants in November 5979. The Saudi authorities kept a tight lid on information during that fateful two-week period when...

Bonds for babies: democrats discover the ownership society.(Columns)
January 1, 2008... You PROBABLY MISSED it, but there already was an "idea primary" in the 2008 election. It lasted two weeks and nobody won. In September, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) strolled into a Congressional Black Caucus forum, belted "Brooklyn's in...

Where's the beef? Thank McDonald's for keeping you thin.(Columns)(fast food chains' products and the American obesity problem)(Critical essay)
January 1, 2008... IMAGINE IF McDONALD'S picked up your bill any time you managed to eat 10 Big Macs in an hour or less. What if Wendy's replaced its wimpy Baconator with an unstoppable meat-based assassin that could truly make your aorta explode--say, 20 strips...

Burn the rich: is it "apartheid" to pay for extra fire protection?(Rant)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... WHEN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA really burns, as it does every fourth October or so, there can never be enough firefighters. Scorching Santa Ana winds turn parched chaparral canyons into wind tunnels begging for any spark--from lightning, cigarettes,...

Guests in the machine: guest worker programs mean legal inequality, tight government controls, and sometimes terrible abuses. They are also the best hope many of the world's poorest people have for improving their lot in life.
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE TOWERS OF Marina Bay Sands will reach 50 stories into the sky, narrowing in the middle and splaying at the tops and bottoms, arching toward the water's edge like giant joysticks in play. A thumb shaped pier,...

Remembering 'the forgotten man'.(Amity Shlaes on her book, The Forgotten Man)(Interview)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Amity Shlaes, author of a new history of the Great Depression, talks about Franklin D. Roosevelt's baleful economic legacy, the growth of government, and the death of classical liberalism. WITH THE POSSIBLE...

Big box panic: Americans have been afraid of chain stores for nearly a century, but independent outlets keep thriving.
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ON THE CORNER of Newbury Street and Massachusetts Avenue in Boston sits one of the famed architect Frank Gehry's least inspired creations. "360 Newbury" is a big box of a building--appropriate considering that its...

A code is born: how catholic crusaders and New Deal regulators created the most intrusive censorship regime in Hollywood history.
January 1, 2008... PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD is the marquee name for a brief period in motion picture history, a privileged zone of relative screen freedom, dating from (roughly) 1930 to (precisely) July 15, 1934. The phrase evokes a time when trigger-happy gangsters,...

The real untold story: what the Anna Nicole Smith case tells us about the legal system.
January 1, 2008... When Larry Birkhead stood outside a Bahamas courthouse proclaiming that he was the father of Dannielynn, the then seven-month-old daughter of deceased Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith, the event had the surreal atmosphere of someone...

Secrets of weight loss revealed! A little is easy, a lot is hard, and results may vary.("Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss - and the Myths and Realities of Dieting", "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think")(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting, by Gina Kolata, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 257 pages, $24 Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, by Brian Wansink, New York:...

The Amateurs' hour: is the internet destroying our culture, or is it just annoying our snobs?(Book review)
January 1, 2008... The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture, by Andrew Keen, New York: Currency, 228 pages, $22.95 ANDREW KEEN'S website claims, without a hint of humility, that he's "the leading contemporary critic of the...

Inverview with the vampire expert: Eric Nuzum on censorship, panics, and bloodsucking fiends.(Interview)
January 1, 2008... LIKE MOST people who find themselves wrestling with vampires--Jonathan Harker, Robert Neville, Buffy--Eric Nuzum was leading a perfectly normal life until the monsters came along, In 2001 he published Public Advisory: Music Censorship in...

TSA-inspired art.(Artifact)(Transportation Security Administration )(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN THE LAST year, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the widely reviled agency responsible for snagging verboten lotion bottles and other contraband from air travelers, confiscated some 8 million...