Reason articles from June 2007

Reason archives from June 2007

World-changing tools.(Wikipedia, internet, video cassette recorders )(Editorial)
June 1, 2007... TRULY TRANSFORMATIVE technologies integrate themselves seamlessly into our daffy routines, making our lives easier and richer--and making it difficult to remember what it was like before those newfangled contraptions seemingly appeared out of...

Enforcing virtue.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2007... Cathy Young's "Enforcing Virtue" (March) skillfully exposes the fallacies of the cultural libertarians on one side and the social conservatives on the other. The "good society" rests on two mutually dependent pillars: 1) that the people of that...

Letters of the law: no warrant? No problem.(Citings)
June 1, 2007... A MARCH REPORT from Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine confirmed what many critics of the PATRIOT Act had long suspected: Under the law, warrantless searches and seizures have skyrocketed, especially via the FBI's national security...

Farmer in the cell: cashing in on prisoners.(Citings)(Colorado Correctional Industries)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... AFTER A crackdown on illegal immigration, farmers in the rural area outside Pueblo, Colorado, found they lacked the labor to help them plant and harvest crops. When the farmers pressed their case with state Rep. Dorothy Butcher (D-Pueblo), she...

30 years ago in reason.(Citings)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Please don't conclude that I'm urging you to break the law. Don't even assume that I'm subtly suggesting it. I'm not. You can get into trouble for breaking the law. The risks involved are appropriate only for people who are desperate or...

'No fly' no go: airline security follies.(Citings)
June 1, 2007... IN 2010, nearly a decade after the 9/11 attacks brought home the importance of keeping suspicious characters off airplanes, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) hopes to launch a new system for distinguishing between harmless...

Self-exploitation: child porn prosecutions.(Citings)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... IN MARCH 2004, two Florida teens--17-year-old male "J.G.W." and 16-year-old female "A.H.," as court records refer to them--photographed themselves engaged in sex acts. Then they sent the pictures from A.H.'s computer to J.G.W.'s email account....

Quotes.(Citings)
June 1, 2007... "Consumers are always in jeopardy when there's an opportunity to make a lot of money." --Val J. Halamandaris, president of the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, on a growing black market in home health aides for the elderly,...

Wii the living: video games and violence.(Citings)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... CRUSADERS against video games like to cite studies that link violent games with aggressive behavior. A new meta-analysis of that research suggests it's much weaker than activists, politicians, and researchers themselves claim. Christopher...

Scrubbing 'dirty bombs': explosive hype.(Citings)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... SINCE 9/11, politicians and pundits have repeatedly warned that terrorists who can't get their mitts on a fully functioning nuclear device could still spread radioactive death with a "dirty bomb," a conventional explosive combined with...

Back into the woods: more money, more forests.(Citings)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... MORE PEOPLE don't necessarily mean less forestland, according to a study reported in the November 14 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Amid widespread reports of deforestation," the authors conclude, "some nations have...

Kidney kickbacks: organs and incentives.(Citings)(organ donation)
June 1, 2007... CONGRESS officially banned the exchange of body parts for "valuable consideration" in 1984, based on the principle that human beings shouldn't treat their organs as commodities. Mindful of that proscription, state governments are suggesting...

Banned from Canada: border restrictions.(Citings)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... IN THE POST-9/11 age of heightened security and improved data collection, crossing the U.S.-Canada border is no longer a cakewalk. American travelers increasingly find that minor convictions, or even just arrests, from the distant past are...

Early one morning in Newport, England, a speed camera snapped a photo of Tom Matthews' 12-year-old cab.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Early one morning in Newport, England, a speed camera snapped a photo of Tom Matthews' 12-year-old cab. He later received a notice informing him he'd exceeded the 30-mile-per-hour speed limit--by about 390 miles per hour. "I drive an old...

Yvette Bavier made it through the first 60 years of her life without getting into trouble with the law.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Yvette Bavier made it through the first 60 years of her life without getting into trouble with the law. That record ended on a recent lunch break. She was tossing birdseed to sparrows when two New York City police officers stopped her. She says...

England's Rugby Borough Council has ordered David Bavington to remove a one-inch-wide wind chime from his back garden or face legal action.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... England's Rugby Borough Council has ordered David Bavington to remove a one-inch-wide wind chime from his back garden or face legal action. In response to a complaint that the wind chime tinkles too loudly when the wind blows, the council...

The coaches of many women's basketball teams believe that practicing against men makes women better competitors.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... The coaches of many women's basketball teams believe that practicing against men makes women better competitors. But the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics says such practices violate the spirit of Title IX, the federal law that mandates...

Teresa Langbord found what appeared to be 10 rare 1933 "double eagle" gold coins in a safe deposit box belonging to her late father.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Teresa Langbord found what appeared to be 10 rare 1933 "double eagle" gold coins in a safe deposit box belonging to her late father. She and her family turned them over to the U.S. Mint for authentication. The mint has refused to give them...

In Utah a 13-year-old girl has been declared both victim and offender for the same sex act.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... In Utah a 13-year-old girl has been declared both victim and offender for the same sex act. The girl became pregnant after she and her 12-year-old boyfriend engaged in consensual sex. Both were found guilty of violating a state law prohibiting...

British police have almost 3 million DNA profiles on file, covering about 6 percent of the U.K.'s population.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... British police have almost 3 million DNA profiles on file, covering about 6 percent of the U.K.'s population. But that's not enough for Dave Johnston, head of the Metropolitan Police's Homicide and Serious Crimes unit. He wants samples taken...

Authorities in China's Fumin County have painted a barren mountainside green, and no one seems to know why.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Authorities in China's Fumin County have painted a barren mountainside green, and no one seems to know why. The Xinhua news agency reports the effort cost more than 470,000 yuan, which local villagers noted could have paid for grass and trees...

The Big Apple bite.(Data)(New York)(Table)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... New York City Mayor Michael Bloom berg brags about discouraging smoking by slapping a $1.50 city tax on each pack of cigarettes, in addition to an already hefty $1.50 state tax. But even New Yorkers who don't smoke are wheezing under a heavy...

Killing Internet radio: copyright death sentence.(Citings)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... ON MARCH 1, 2007, the U.S. Copyright Office announced a potential death sentence for thousands of Internet radio stations. Thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, webcasters must pay a special performance fee each time they play...

Free the CRS! Government transparency.(Citings)(Congressional Research Service)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... CALL THE Congressional Research Service (CRS), and a chirpy automated assistant offers five options to start your data search. Three of them are for members of Congress or their employees, and they are free. The rest of them are for the rest of...

Armed academia.(Soundbite)(Interview)
June 1, 2007... Clayton Cramer is a software engineer by day, a vengeful historian by night. He entered the national gun policy debate in 2000, when he became one of the most prominent critics of Michael Bellesiles' controversial book Arming America....

Right all along, unfortunately: the "Chicken Littles" win the civil liberties debate.(Column)
June 1, 2007... ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO Gonzales and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller spent much of March doing something neither man was used to doing: apologizing. On March 10, Mueller admitted that the agency hadn't told the truth...

Theocons of the world, unite: a prominent pundit wants American conservatives to make common cause with Muslim reactionaries.(The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11)(Book review)
June 1, 2007... A FEW YEARS ago, I heard someone call into a right-wing radio show to rail against the feminists, the homosexuals, the atheists, and other usual suspects. The host enthusiastically agreed. The caller then voiced the hope that the host would...

Not ready for sub-prime players: borrowing's fine; debt's a national crisis.(Rant)
June 1, 2007... EVEN CAVE-DWELLING, 15-year-fixed-rate-paying troglodytes were close to hysteria this spring, spooked by speculation that the debacle in the sub-prime mortgage industry, which had already sunk industry leaders like Ownit and AmeriQuest, was on...

Wikipedia and beyond: Jimmy Wales' sprawling vision.(Cover story)(Biography)
June 1, 2007... JIMMY WALES, the founder of Wikipedia, lives in a house fit for a grandmother. The progenitor and public face of one of the 10 most popular websites in the world beds down in a one-story bungalow on a cul-de-sac near St. Petersburg, Florida....

Presidential scouting reports: a libertarian fan's guide to the World Series of politics.
June 1, 2007... IF THE 2008 presidential election is a baseball season, we're still in that early, delusional phase when even Tampa Bay Devil Rays fans can dream of a World Series ring. The race for the White House is chock full of hopeless players destined to...

Spiritual highs and legal brows: the power and peril of religious exemptions from drug prohibition.
June 1, 2007... ON FEBRUARY 22, 2006, U.S. Border Patrol agents noticed a minivan and a sedan traveling close together on Interstate 10 near Lordsburg, New Mexico.After going east for about 10 miles, the two drivers turned onto New Mexico Highway 113,...

Let's all give money to the rich man! Billionaire sports team owners and their corporate welfare scam.(Culture and Reviews Comic)
June 1, 2007... THE "KINGDOME'" WAS A CONCRETE EYESORE THAT SERVED AS HOME FOR SEATTLE'S PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL AND BASEBALL. WOW! NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL AN IMPLOSION! BACKIN 1976, THE N.F.L. DECREED THE ONLY WAY THE CITY COULD, "WIN" AN EXPANSION...

Evangelicals and the State: a law professor makes a case for a libertarian Christianity.(The Choice Principle: The Biblical Case for Legal Toleration)(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Choice Principle: The Biblical Case for Legal Toleration, by Andy G. Olree, New York: University Press of America, 274 pages, $37 BEFORE HIS FALL from grace, the cherubic Beltway operator Ralph Reed was one of the most influential...

Disney legalizes same-sex unions: real social change doesn't come from Washington.(Walt Disney Co.)
June 1, 2007... Gay couples are now free to buy a Fairy Tale Wedding package at Disneyland, Disney World, or Disney's cruise ships, with "a ceremony setting befitting the dreams of a princess." The company already allowed same-sex couples to tie the knot on...

Revising Ronald Reagan: was the 40th president a peace-loving moderate?(Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History)(Book review)
June 1, 2007... Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History, by John Patrick Diggins, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 493 pages, $27.95 BY THE TIME of Ronald Reagan's death in June 2004, even Saddam Hussein felt a little nostalgic for the...

True his tongue: a sociologist who loves to eat debunks culinary correctness.(The Gospel of Food)(Book review)
June 1, 2007... YEARS AGO, I interviewed Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, for a National Review article about his group's highly publicized reports decrying the delicious dangers lurking in popular...

Bending art history.(Artifact)(quilt making in Gee's Bend)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... THIS ISN'T AN abstract expressionist canvas. It's a quilt. It comes from Gee's Bend, Alabama, where an isolated black community long ago developed its own vision based on necessity (drafty cabins), availability (castoff fabrics), and creative...