Reason articles from October 2006

Reason archives from October 2006

Let the sun shine in.(Editor's Note)
October 1, 2006... SUNLIGHT, WE'RE TOLD, is supposed to be a pretty good disinfectant. Certainly it never hurts to discuss the effects of public policy openly and clearly. Three stories in this issue of reason clean out some shadowy corners in contemporary...

How the FBI let 9/11 happen.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... Thank you for "How the FBI Let 9/11 Happen" (June). The Federal Bureau of Investigation's reputation in the media has always been mythic, but in the law enforcement community it is not that great. As a retired New York City detective I can tell...

The Jihad against Muslims.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... Cathy Young should inform herself better about the views of the people she criticizes ("The Jihad Against Muslims," June). Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch has stated clearly that he is in favor of reform from within Islam's ranks, and he...

The President's Rotten Record on Trade.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... Bruce Bartlett's article ("The President's Rotten Record on Trade," June) is sadly accurate. Because Republicans are operating on such a tight political margin, the Bush administration has basically conceded control of domestic issues in order...

Marital Mythology.(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... I very much appreciated Julian Sanchez's thoughtful review of my book, Marriage, A History ("Marital Mythology," June). I was sorry, however, to hear that I come across as fatalistic about the future of marriage. I certainly don't think...

reason news.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... We're pleased to announce that as of this issue, Kerry Howley has been promoted to associate editor. Several reason contributors took home prizes at the Southern California Journalism Awards in June. Former Associate Editor Matt Welch and...

Money talks: campaign finance and talk radio.(Citings)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... DOES THE First Amendment allow Americans to talk about politics without any legal restrictions? A Washington state court doesn't think so. After talk radio hosts Kirby Wilbur and John Carlson discussed their support for a ballot initiative to...

Deadly disarmament: U.N. gun control.(Citings)
October 1, 2006... IN JULY, as the United Nations convened a conference on controlling the illicit trade in small arms, Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced, "To halt the destructive march of armed conflict and crime, we must stop such purveyors of death." He...

25 years ago in reason.(Citings)
October 1, 2006... "'There is no unemployment in Cuba,' our guide, Teresa, told us proudly. And it was easy to see why. Every hotel has elevator operators, even though most of the elevators are push-button type. To make sure that patrons use them, the stairway...

Get out of town: cities vs. immigrants.(Citings)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Avon PARK, Florida, Mayor Tom Macklin has an unusual scheme for economic growth: Kick people out. He got the idea from talk radio, where another mayor--Lou Barletta of Hazleton, Pennsylvania--was talking about his crackdown on landlords...

My suit: Cybersex crimes.(Citings)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... A 13-YEAR-OLD girl in Texas met a 19-year-old boy on MySpace, the wildly popular online community site. She claimed to be 15; he claimed to be a high school senior and a football star. They exchanged phone numbers, they met at a Whataburger,...

Quotes.(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... "At the rate that technology is advancing... people will be implanting chips in our children to advertise directly into their brains and tell them what kind of products to buy." --Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) talking at a Kaiser Family...

Transportation Security Administration officials grabbed Daniel Brown at Los Angeles International Airport and dragged him off for interrogation, causing him to miss his flight.(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Transportation Security Administration officials grabbed Daniel Brown at Los Angeles International Airport and dragged him off for interrogation, causing him to miss his flight. Brown was part of a group of U.S. Marines, all of whom were in...

A restaurant in Vicenza, Italy, has been fined $860 for displaying lobsters on ice.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... A restaurant in Vicenza, Italy, has been fined $860 for displaying lobsters on ice. A court ruled that the display was a form of animal abuse.

Rob Colwell, school resource officer at South Carolina's Greeneville Middle Academy, had already warned two students about flipping coins during class.(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Rob Colwell, school resource officer at South Carolina's Greeneville Middle Academy, had already warned two students about flipping coins during class. So when he caught them doing it again, he arrested the 12-year-old and the 15-year-old for...

After Russian President Vladimir Putin called on his nation's women to have more children, journalist Vladimir Rakhmankov wrote a satiric article calling Putin "the nation's phallic symbol.".(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... After Russian President Vladimir Putin called on his nation's women to have more children, journalist Vladimir Rakhmankov wrote a satiric article calling Putin "the nation's phallic symbol." Prosecutors have charged him with insulting a...

Three men face felony charges for videotaping police officers as the cops gave random breath tests to people outside an Albuquerque bar.(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Three men face felony charges for videotaping police officers as the cops gave random breath tests to people outside an Albuquerque bar. The owner of The Distillery believed the officers were harassing his customers, so he and two employees...

A Swedish court has ordered a kennel owner to pay $2,600 to a woman for refusing to sell her a puppy.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... A Swedish court has ordered a kennel owner to pay $2,600 to a woman for refusing to sell her a puppy. According to Sweden's discrimination ombudsman, the kennel owner refused the sale after learning the woman was a lesbian.

Rodolfo Celis answered a knock at his door one night and found himself staring at the business end of a gun.(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Rodolfo Celis answered a knock at his door one night and found himself staring at the business end of a gun. Six Murrieta, California, police officers forced Ceils and five family members into their living room while they searched their house...

A German court has ruled that police have the right to strip-search fans going into soccer games, even if they have no specific grounds for the search.(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... A German court has ruled that police have the right to strip-search fans going into soccer games, even if they have no specific grounds for the search. The ruling came following a complaint filed by a 16-year-old girl who was strip-searched at...

Flood money: FEMA, Katrina, and fraud.(Federal Emergency Management Agency, Government Accountability Office)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... "IN ISOLATED instances, debit cards were used for adult entertainment, to purchase weapons, and for purchases at a massage parlor that had been previously raided by local police for prostitution." That's a sample of how the decidedly...

Watching the kids: Surveillance in the U.K.(childcare)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... CHILDREN IN the United Kingdom will soon have a new reason to eat their vegetables: The government is watching. In June child care practitioners and child protection experts gathered at the London School of Economics to voice concern about...

Eminent victory.(Ohio Supreme Court on land allotment)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... The Ohio Supreme Court rules that Buckeye State cities can't use eminent domain powers to claim land for economic development schemes. The City of Norwood had tried to take 70 middle-income homes and turn them into a private $125 million...

Line level.(Vaughn Walker's dismiss a suit against AT&T)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker refuses to dismiss a suit against AT&T, and by extension the National Security Agency, over secret, warrantless wiretaps allegedly installed on AT&T fiberoptic lines. Walker dismisses government claims that the...

Plug 'n' play.(Toyota Motor Corp. moving towards gasoline-electric hybrid cars)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Toyota says it is moving toward gasoline-electric hybrid cars with bigger batteries and the ability to recharge at any common electrical outlet--a key range-boosting feature.

Mission accomplished.(Lower Manhattan Development Corporation)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation does the unthinkable for a government agency: It puts itself out of business. Created in the wake of 9/11, the public corporation has achieved its goal of spurring development, officials say.

Brand freedom.(ESPN Mobile cell phone service and Sony's reject closed technologies )(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Consumers reject closed technologies from two of the world's biggest brands. Disney's $135 million ESPN Mobile cell phone service flounders, and retailers pull Sony's proprietary "universal movie discs" from shelves.

Nutrition knowledge.(Balance Sheet)
October 1, 2006... Contra the assumptions of the public health diet cops, people seem to know what they're eating. Almost 80 percent of respondents to an AP-Ipsos poll report they read food labels in grocery stores.

Dead Doha.(Balance Sheet)
October 1, 2006... The latest round of trade talks collapses without an agreement. Blame America's addiction to farm subsidies and Europe's addiction to high agricultural tariffs.

Gag order.(Balance Sheet)
October 1, 2006... SUNY Fredonia tells professor Stephen Kershnar to stop challenging the school's affirmative action policies--or else. Fredonia administrators denied Kershnar a promotion, explicitly citing his "deliberate and repeated misrepresentations of...

Childwood's end.(Balance Sheet)
October 1, 2006... A poll by kidshealth.org finds that 40 percent of 9-to-13-year-olds say they are stressed from having too much to do, and 78 percent wish they had more free time. Some 39 percent said they were in three or more organized activities, and 47...

Boxed out.(Chicago aldermen pass a bill on higher minimum wage )(Wal-Mart's plans to build more stores)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Chicago aldermen pass a bill forcing big-box stores to pay a higher minimum wage by 2010. Wal-Mart's response: It plans to build more stores outside the city limits.

Net minders.(The Business Roundtable with federal government to guard against cyberattack)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... The Business Roundtable, the big-business brain trust, calls in the federal government to come up with a "national policy" to help companies guard against "cyberattack."

Market fakers.(San Francisco Board of Supervisors to build and sell real estate)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... The San Francisco Board of Supervisors imposes tougher requirements on developers to build and sell real estate at below-market prices. Previous regulations had helped drive up the price of housing. Obviously, even more regulation is just what...

National parking.(unpaid parking tickets corruption)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Before a belated crackdown in 2002, the city of New York was an open parking lot for diplomats: Pleading immunity, they were free to pluck tickets from their windshields with nary a thought of paying up. But as their paper trails demonstrate,...

Foul shot? Autism and the MMR vaccine.(Citings)
October 1, 2006... THE PERCENTAGE of American children who receive childhood vaccinations is dropping, and educated, well-off parents are leading the retreat. What has spooked them? Parents fear that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine may trigger autism, a...

Studying shrooms: psilocybin and spirituality.(Citings)
October 1, 2006... ALTHOUGH THE religious use of mushrooms containing the psychedelic drug psilocybin dates back thousands of years, early practitioners were not familiar with controlled, double-blind experimental methods. That helps explain the sensation caused...

The X-man's last stand.(an interview with Allan MacDonell )(Interview)
October 1, 2006... A "punk rock dropout" who edited a department store's newspaper ads before moving to Hustler in 1983, Allan MacDonell spent 20 years climbing the greasy pole at Larry Flynt Publications. He was sent packing after insulting his boss-at a roast....

They don't know Jack: the Abramoff scandal thrills Washington but bores voters.(Columns: David Weigel)(Column)
October 1, 2006... SIX MONTHS AGO, Washington pundits could agree on one thing: The Jack Abramoff scandal was going to shake the city to its foundations. New York Times columnist Frank Rich opined that "Watergate itself increasingly looks like a relatively...

Crying 'Treason': the right goes into hysterics over The New York Times.(Columns: Cathy Young)(Column)
October 1, 2006... TENSIONS BETWEEN THE government and the press are nothing new. But it's not every day that an administration's supporters call for executing the editor of a major newspaper. That is what happened in June, when the San Francisco talk show...

America gives a shit: was Bush's open-mic gaffe a flaming sack of good news for free speech?(Rant: Jeff Jarvis)(George W. Bush)
October 1, 2006... AT July's G-8 summit meeting in Russia, as conflict heated up between Israel and the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, a microphone picked up a candid moment between George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Syria, Bush told Blair,...

Ova for sale: the art of the deal in the gray market for human eggs: "Donor #15".(Cover story)
October 1, 2006... LOUISE BROWN WAS born in July 1978, but the story of how she would recast civilization had been written years before. The first baby born through in vitro fertilization came not as a shock but as an affirmation, exhibit A to the commentariat...

The state of war and domestic terrorism: where we're at, five years after the 9/11 attacks.(Chet Richards, John Mueller )(Interview)
October 1, 2006... To COMMEMORATE the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, reason talked with military analyst Chet Richards and political scientist John Mueller about Iraq, Al Qaeda, and the legacy of the worst terrorist assault in the history of the United...

The case of Cory Maye: a cop is dead, an innocent man may be on death row, and drug warriors keep knocking down doors.
October 1, 2006... CORY MAYE had settled into a chair in front of the television and was drifting off to sleep. It was around 9 p.m. on the day after Christmas, 2001, and the 21-year-old father had put his 14-month-old daughter, Tacorriana, to bed an hour...

How to fire an incompetent teacher: an illustrated guide to New York's public school bureaucracy.
October 1, 2006... JOEL KLEIN LED THE Justice Department's attack on Microsoft for its alleged efforts to monopolize the software market. But Microsoft is a hotbed of competition compared to the organization Klein runs now. Klein is chancellor of New York City's...

The real Mommy Wars: both left and right attack mothers for the choices they make.(To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife)(The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism )(Book review)
October 1, 2006... To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife, by Caitlin Flanagan, New York: Little, Brown, 272 pages, $22.95 The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism, by Carrie Lukas, Washington, D.C.: Regnery...

'A glorious liberty document': Frederick Douglass' case for an anti-slavery Constitution.(Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July)(Book review)
October 1, 2006... Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July, by James A. Colaiaco, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 256 pages, $24.95 ON JANUARY 27, 1843, in a resolution adopted by the American Anti-Slavery Society, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison...

CleanFlicks v. Kate Winslet's breasts: how Hollywood won a legal battle while losing a cultural war.
October 1, 2006... Welcome to the landmark legal case of CleanFlicks et al. v. Kate Winslet's Titanic Breasts. Utah-based CleanFlicks is one of a dozen or so companies that delete sex, violence, and profanity from movies and then distribute the bowdlerized...

It can't happen here: the fantasy worlds of War on Terror novels.(Prayers for the Assassin)(The Last Fihad)(The Last Days)(The Ezekiel Option)
October 1, 2006... ON THE MORNING of June 23, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales congratulated blowtorch-wielding agents for breaking up the "deadly plot" of seven Miami men who threatened to explode FBI offices and the Sears Tower. It sounded deeply...

The longneck tail: a revolution in American beer.(Industry overview)
October 1, 2006... WHILE YOU WERE sleeping one off, a national crisis in drinking was averted. In 1980, good American beer was on the brink of extinction. Our most popular brands--Bud, Miller, Coors--were the laughingstocks of the world. Our brewing heritage had...

Natural or synthetic?(Ingeo)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... THE HEATHERETTE taffeta skirt and bustier combo to the right, by designers Richie Rich and Traver Rains, did not make it to the runways of Milan. Instead it was featured at a fashion show last July at the World Congress on Industrial...