Reason articles from October 2008

Reason archives from October 2008

Illegal editor: immigration restrictions hurt legal residents.(From the Top)
October 1, 2008... I FIRST BROKE immigration law one month after my 22nd birthday. Czechoslovakia had a rule, left over from the recently expired Communist regime, that foreigners were required to change around $15 per day at the state-run tourist office. Not...

The War on Renters.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Paul Thornton's "The War on Renters" (July) ignores four key points: 1) When families lose their homes to foreclosure, they return to the rental market, which increases demand, drives up rents, and eats into the...

Classical Gasbags.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... In "Classical Gasbags" (July), Tim Cavanaugh missed one of the most interesting and potentially far-reaching developments in classical music: The ubiquity of broadband now allows anyone, anywhere to tune in to classical music stations all...

Hear! Hear the pipes are calling.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... The Highland bagpipe was certainly standardized by the British in the 1800s. Thus the current instrument is not the same as the ancient. I think that's what Hugh Cheape is saying in the book Jesse Walker describes ("Hear! Hear the Pipes Are...

The Birth of the Nuppie.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... I enjoyed Greg Beato's "The Birth of the Nuppie" (June), but I must object to the use of the word nuppie. As a so-called nomadic urban professional, I do not think the term is accurate. The problem word is nomadic. We do not travel as a...

Fresh From the Farm.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... As a market gardener who sells at five farmers' markets a week, I appreciated your bringing Joel Salatin to the pages of reason ("Fresh From the Farm," June). My wife and I started in a 30-square-foot garden plot in a trailer park 10 years...

Corrections.(Letters)(Correction notice)
October 1, 2008... "What's the Matter with Chicago?" (August/September) contained a tabulation error that resulted in several cities being listed with an incorrect rank. The correct rankings can be seen online at reason.com/cities. Also, according to the most...

Would President McCain obey the law? Parsing the candidate's straight talk on wiretapping Americans.(Column)
October 1, 2008... WHEN PRESIDENT Bush asked Congress to allow warrantless surveillance of Americans' international communications, he was seeking permission to do something he doesn't think he needs permission to do. And like the parent of a defiant teenager,...

Cheaters prosper: corruption on the Nile.(Citings)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... EGYPTIAN secondary school students have it rough. Socializing with the opposite sex is discouraged, political and religious dissent is banned, and at the end of their school years they sit for the most intimidating and life-altering final exam...

Keep it clean: Supreme Court laundry.(Citings)(money laundering )
October 1, 2008... FOR THE last 22 years, it has been relatively easy to bring charges of money laundering against people concealing or moving large amounts of cash. In June the u.s. Supreme Court made it a little harder, ruling for defendants in two money...

35 years ago in reason.(Citings)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Wouldn't we all be better off if the White House became an empty monument to a grisly past, and our Nixonian rulers were turned loose to seek honest employment--provided they can stay out of jail?" --Murray N....

Riding roughshod: where not to drive.(Citings)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... IN EUROPE a modest rented VW Passat can fly down the freeways at 120 mph with nary a bump or shudder. And when the speedometer says 193 kilometers per hour, it seems even faster. Back home in California, 60 mph on the freeway feels like taxiing...

Fake speed bumps: pound foolish in Philly.(Citings)(Philadelphia)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... PHILADELPHIA, the home of founder and aphorist Ben Franklin, has taken an old cliche--"penny wise, pound foolish"--to a new level The city doesn't want to spring for real speed bumps, so it's hoping fake ones will do the trick, despite hard...

Don't drink the water: the politics of rain.(Citings)
October 1, 2008... IF YOU LIVE in Colorado, you should look around to make sure no one is watching before you stick your tongue out to catch those first drops of spring rain. Rainwater in Colorado isn't yours for the tasting, even water that falls on your...

Quotes.(Citings)
October 1, 2008... "I'm confident that at the end of the day, Republicans and Democrats and Libertarians and vegetarians will vote for me." --Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on MSNBC, July 8 "I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when...

Screening the military.(List)(Evan Wright's favorite movies)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Evan Wright is the author of Generation Kill (Putnam), an account of his time embedded with the U.S. Marines' 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, the lead American military unit in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. A seven-part miniseries based on the book,...

Buying low: the green real estate boom.(Citings)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... "BE FEARFUL when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful," advises the investment guru Warren Buffett. Land conservation groups are taking this advice to heart by snapping up real estate from cash-strapped developers at...

Pakistani pork: military budget bungle.(Citings)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... IN 2004 the Pakistani government began billing the United States military for a new $30 million road. In 2006 it started charging us Sift million to build bunkers. The Department of Defense cut the checks. But according the Government...

Campaign burdens: rich man, poor incumbent.(Citings)
October 1, 2008... MEMBERS of Congress usually have no problem staying in office: They enjoy high name recognition, free publicity, and the power to dispense favors. Since 1980 the re-election rate in the House of Representatives has ranged from 88 percent to 98...

Marnina Norys was trying to board a plane at Canada's Kelowna Airport when security guards noticed her necklace, which had a 1.75-inch silver replica of a Colt .45 on it.(Brickbats )(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Marnina Norys was trying to board a plane at Canada's Kelowna Airport when security guards noticed her necklace, which had a 1.75-inch silver replica of a Colt .45 on it. An agent told her she couldn't board the...

When Victor Abrahams decided to sell his car, he did what a lot of people do: He stuck a "For Sale" sign in the window.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... When Victor Abrahams decided to sell his car, he did what a lot of people do: He stuck a "For Sale" sign in the window. One day he drove to his office in the London, England, borough of Barnet and parked on the street. He emerged from his...

A Melissa, Texas, cop pulled Mark Robinson over for failing to use his turn signal.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... A Melissa, Texas, cop pulled Mark Robinson over for failing to use his turn signal. Then he arrested him, took him to jail, strip-searched him, and held him for three hours. Police Chief Duane Smith admits he's never heard of anyone being...

Police in Rock Hill, South Carolina, arrested seven people at two different high school graduations for disorderly conduct.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Police in Rock Hill, South Carolina, arrested seven people at two different high school graduations for disorderly conduct. Their crime: shouting when students' names were called out. They face up to 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Anne Hartridge and Matt George take environmentalism seriously.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Anne Hartridge and Matt George take environmentalism seriously. They often bike to work, they have installed solar panels on their Sacramento home, they dry their clothes on a clothesline, and with California in a drought, they decided to stop...

More than 100 Northern Ireland pubs, about 7 percent of the total, have closed since the government banned smoking in them a little more than a year ago.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... More than 100 Northern Ireland pubs, about 7 percent of the total, have closed since the government banned smoking in them a little more than a year ago. The Federation of Retail Licensed Trade predicts another 100 will close within the year....

Police in Yorkshire, England, have ordered pubs to ban customers wearing hats from their premises.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Police in Yorkshire, England, have ordered pubs to ban customers wearing hats from their premises. Apparently hats make it harder to identify people on surveillance cameras.

The good news is that the police arrived very quickly when Max Foster of Coleford, England, called to report that three youths were riding his moped late one night.(Brickbats)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... The good news is that the police arrived very quickly when Max Foster of Coleford, England, called to report that three youths were riding his moped late one night. The bad new is that the officers just watched the thieves speed away on the...

Dems for vouchers: school choice surprise.(Citings)(Democratic Party)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... MARION Barry, the famous (and notorious) former Washington mayor, still has the capacity to surprise jaded political junkies. Writing in The Washington Post in May, the liberal Democrat endorsed the D.C. school voucher program. "I know it may...

Cory Maye: off death row, but still fighting for justice.(Follow-Up)
October 1, 2008... In our October 2006 issue, reason published the story of Cory Maye, a Mississippi man sentenced to death for killing a police officer who broke into his home during a drug raid. Thanks in part to the national attention drawn to the case by...

Generation F.(Soundbite)(Mark Bauerlein interview)(Interview)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In his provocative new book The Dumbest Generation (Tarcher/Penguin), Mark Bauerlein argues that "the digital age stupefies young Americans and jeopardizes our future" by turning out hyper-networked kids who can...

Three-parent families: genetics trump politics.(Citings)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... WHILE SOCIAL conservatives of a certain stripe are fretting about the possibility that gay marriage might open the door to other unorthodox family arrangements, a British research team at Newcastle University is on the verge of assembling...

Obama's wars: liberal interventionism makes a comeback.(Barack Obama)(Column)
October 1, 2008... SIX YEARS AGO, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama walked onstage at Chicago's Richard J. Daley Plaza and launched his national political career. "Although this has been billed as an antiwar rally," the Chicago Democrat said to the assembled, "I...

Man's best friend forever: cloning dogs for love and profit.(Column)
October 1, 2008... "ARE THEY all related?" a woman asks as she watches three puppies romp around Eastwood Park, a little slice of doggy heaven in Mill Valley, California. One of the pups, Mira, is notably larger than the other two, Chingu and Sarang, but they all...

Burn the "speculators"! Why are airlines sounding the alarm against one of their favorite activities?(Rant)
October 1, 2008... IT WILL NOT escape the notice of astute readers that heavier-than-air flight requires a fair amount of consumable energy. Fuel is a big chunk of most airlines' operating budgets. So you can't help being a tad suspicious when normally...

Who killed real ID? An unlikely coalition wins a post-9/11 victory for civil liberties.(Coalition for a Secure National ID)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SEPTEMBER 11? Don't get Karen Johnson started about September 11. "I simply don't buy that terrorists took the twin towers down," says the Arizona state senator, a 12-year Republican veteran of the legislature....

What part of legal immigration don't you understand?(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Opponents of illegal immigration are fond of telling foreigners to "get in line" before coming to work in America. But what does that line actually look like, and how many years (or decades) does it take to get through? Try it yourself! ...

The one-man wall: how a single Arizona legislator's obsession has changed immigration policy for the worse.
October 1, 2008... RUSSELL PEARCE WAS FAR from home the day his son got shot. Minutes from the White House, the state legislator was preaching the Pearce gospel. "They're taking jobs away from Americans," he told a small audience at a prominent DC think tank....

Get in line! Will Americans have to prove their right to work via an error-plagued database?
October 1, 2008... When comprehensive immigration reform crashed in 2007, federal and state legislators searched the remains for salvageable pieces. Some picked up the border wall, others legalization of undocumented workers. In Arizona, lawmakers seized on...

The rational environmentalist: Bjorn Lomborg on the priorities that should come before global warming.(Interview)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHERE IN THE WORLD can we do the most good? That is the basic question addressed by the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank founded six years ago by the Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg. To answer the...

Defaming Milton Friedman: Naomi Klein's disastrous yet popular polemic against the great free market economist.(The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism)(Critical essay)
October 1, 2008... The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein, New York: Metropolitan Books, 576 pages, $28 IN THE FUTURE, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is a risk that...

The cunning linguist: George Carlin's literary genius.
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When George Carlin died in June at age 71, almost every obituary cited the comedian's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV" routine in the first paragraph, if not the first sentence. The monologue led to a 1972...

Zoning toward oblivion: how the Supreme Court's decision in Euclid v. Ambler shaped modern America.(The Zoning of America: Euclid v. Ambler)(Critical essay)
October 1, 2008... The Zoning of America: Euclid v. Ambler, by Michael Allan Wolf, Lawrence, Kan. : University Press of Kansas, 208 pages, $35/$16.95 paper ON JUNE 23, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court announced one of its most notorious and divisive decisions in...

Why opting out is no "third way": the perplexing banality of "libertarian paternalism".(Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness)(Critical essay)
October 1, 2008... Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, New Haven: Yale University Press, 282 pages, $26 AT FIRST BLUSH, "libertarian paternalism" seems a linguistic miscarriage, a...

The Great Recycler: the late Bruce Conner made lasting art out of junk.
October 1, 2008... WHEN THE Wichita-bred filmmaker Bruce Conner moved to San Francisco in 1957, he was stimulated by the bohemian individualism of the Beat scene, by the bustling avant-garde art community, and, above all, by the city's garbage men. "In San...

When free love died: why the sexual revolution plays only in reruns.
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHATEVER BECAME of the Frigid Woman? Along with the Infantile Paralytic and the Thalidomide Baby, the female eunuch once haunted the American dreamscape as a walking, joyless rebuke to our unhealthy, uncaring,...

Uncle Satchmo?(Artifact)(self-portrait of Louis Armstrong)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THIS EYE-CATCHING collage is a self-portrait of sorts by Louis Armstrong, one of many assemblages the jazzman created with found images of himself that he affixed to his huge collection of reel-to-reel boxes. It...