Reason back issues from April 2005:
The best reason for private retirement accounts.(Editor's Note)(Editorial)
Apr 01, 2005; ... LIKE MANY--probably most--Americans, I got a late start on saving for my golden years, not throwing a single penny into any sort of retirement account until well into my 30s. There were many reasons for this. I grew up in a household in which there was relatively little money to ...
Iraq's Summer Soldiers.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Tim Cavanaugh ("Iraq's Summer Soldiers," January) notes the liberal hawks' supposed hypocrisy in blaming President George W. Bush for mismanaging the postwar situation. This charge is spurious: To acknowledge the neglect or betrayal of an ideal is not to be hypocritical but to be honest. ...
Civil Liberties & Enemy Combatants.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
Apr 01, 2005; ... There are two stories in Harvey Silverglate's "Civil Liberties and Enemy Combatants" (January). The first is about the abridgment of civil liberties, about the belief that people under the jurisdiction of our government should be afforded the protection of our laws. Extending the right to ...
Cut-Rate Diplomas.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
Apr 01, 2005; ... I enjoyed reading Paul Sperry's article on diploma mills ("Cut-Rate Diplomas," January) but feel compelled to correct the impression he left of Thomas Edison State College when he compared it to Hamilton University. Thomas Edison is a nonresident institution, but that is where the ...
Imperial Waltz.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
Apr 01, 2005; ... My pleasure in reading Michael Young's "Imperial Waltz" (January) was considerably diminished when I got to the middle of his piece, where I felt that he deviated from his posture of objectivity when he arrived at the Israel-Palestinian issue. There are four paragraphs, starting with the ...
John Locke Lite.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
Apr 01, 2005; ... I haven't read Michael Otsuka's book and don't know his work. Tom Palmer's assessment of it in the January issue could be on target. But his review ironically suffers the disease its title, "John Lock Lite," describes. Palmer correctly quotes Locke's praise of private property, but his ...
Among the Nonbelievers.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Chris Lehmann's review of Sam Harris' The End of Faith ("Among the Nonbelievers," January) made me chuckle in disbelief. If Harris can be accused of flying off the handle in places in his book (and yes, I have read it), Lehmann's review was one full flight from the handle. ...
Corrections.(Letters)(Correction Notice)
Apr 01, 2005 ... CORRECTIONS: "Hayek for the 21st Century" (January) misstated the year of F.A. Hayek's birth. It was 1899. "Doctor Sex, Ph.D." (February) mistakenly referred to Indiana University, where Alfred Kinsey ...
Uncle Sam's barbecue: USDA identity crisis.(Citings)(U.S. Department of Agriculture)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... LAST FALL THE food critic Mr. Cutlets excoriated the Bush administration for bringing its "bloodlust of deregulation" to "the world of smoked meats. "The offending act: the U.S. Department of Agriculture's September announcement that it would no longer include a weight-reduction ...
Coffin break: funeral home protection.(Citings)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... MEMORIAL CONCEPTS Online sells an oak coffin for about $2,000, roughly half the average price at funeral homes in Oklahoma, where the company is based. But in Oklahoma, where only licensed funeral directors are allowed to sell caskets, such competition is illegal. Memorial ...
25 years ago in reason.
Apr 01, 2005 ... "How would you like to have your own satellite ground station, receiving up to six channels of first-run movies, live concerts, and sports events? Several years from now you may be able to call your local Sears Roebuck store and order such a system." --Robert Poole Jr., "Pay TV ...
SuitTorrent: Hollywood vs. downloaders.(Citings)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... FORGET NAPSTER. Newer programs such as BitTorrent have made it practical for Internet users to swap the much larger files required to store movies and TV shows, pushing Hollywood into the same hot seat as the record labels. In December the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed ...
Fizzling lawsuits: guns in the courts.(Citings)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... OF 33 GOVERNMENT-sponsored gun lawsuits filed since 1998, all but three have been dismissed. According to a tally by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the main industry group, 17 of those dismissals (including six that resulted from state legislation) are final, while the rest are ...
Shocked to death: Tasers under fire.(Citings)
Apr 01, 2005; ... TASERS, "NONLETHAL" dart guns with a range of about 15 feet that deliver 50,000-volt electric shocks for five seconds at a time, are under fire for their roles in several civilian deaths and police injuries. About 6,000 law enforcement agencies, including officers at nine ...
Quotes.(Citings)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005 ... "You almost began to want to put the wall back up." --Robert Bork in the December 31 Washington Times, reacting to the spread of American popular culture in Eastern Europe "Get some devastation in the back." --Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to ...
Sources.(Citings)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005 ... Congress and blogs: two wonky tastes that taste even wonkier together. Joshua Tauberer's site GovTrack.us follows both legislation and legislators, identifying the most frequent no-shows, the biggest blabbermouths, and those most likely to sponsor doomed bills. It also ...
Madrassas molesters: clerical abuse in the Islamic world.(Citings)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... A MINISTER IN Pakistan's religious affairs department says there were 500 complaints last year of child sex abuse by clerics in madrassas, Muslim religious schools. Irfan Khawaja, writing for the Web site of the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society, wonders why Western ...
Food, blankets, and medicine meant for Malaysian victims of the tsunami that swept Asia were held up pending the arrival of politicians to take credit for them.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Food, blankets, and medicine meant for Malaysian victims of the tsunami that swept Asia were held up pending the arrival of politicians to take credit for them. "There are mattresses and blankets piled up to ...
There were obstacles to aid here at home too.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... There were obstacles to aid here at home too. When 10-year-old Carolyn Lipsick wanted to do something to help the tsunami victims, she ...
A Detroit food bank wants to know what happened to 60 frozen turkeys it gave the office of U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) to deliver to needy people at Thanksgiving.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... A Detroit food bank wants to know what happened to 60 frozen turkeys it gave the office of U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) to deliver to needy people at Thanksgiving. The director of the center got suspicious when federal ...
Selling voodoo dolls isn't illegal in Colombia, but that didn't stop police in the province of Quindio from seizing a shipment of 292 dolls and 192 packages of "magic dust.".(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Selling voodoo dolls isn't illegal in Colombia, but that didn't stop police in the province of Quindio from seizing a shipment of 292 dolls and 192 packages ...
Wearing the wrong clothes can get a woman arrested in Zimbabwe.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Wearing the wrong clothes can get a woman arrested in Zimbabwe. Police have been cracking down on illegal ...
A British man was barred from his home for six months, kept from unsupervised visits or telephone conversations with his 3-year-old son, and placed on two years' probation.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... A British man was barred from his home for six months, kept from unsupervised visits or telephone conversations with his 3-year-old ...
Colorado paid more than $2 million in 2003 to doctors and others who claimed to be treating people who were already dead.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Colorado paid more than $2 million in 2003 to doctors and others who claimed to be treating people who were already dead. In all, a state audit found $3.5 million in ...
Marta Andreasen, formerly the European Commission's chief accountant, says she was suspended from her job and ultimately fired because she refused to sign accounts she believed were unreliable.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Maria Andreasen, formerly the European Commission's chief accountant, says she was suspended from her job and ultimately fired because she refused to sign ...
Kelli Billingsley was suspended from her school in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, after she gave Jell-O to her fourth-grade classmates.(Brickbats)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Kelli Billingsley was suspended from her school in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, after she gave ...
Over spray.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Afghanistan's expected war on opium will not include aerial spraying of pesticides onto poppy fields. The U.S. backed the idea (and may have tried it ...
Indecent proposals.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... The Federal Communications Commission finally turns off the goofy Parents Television Council, rejecting 36 indecency complaints from the ...
Sun rises.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Sun Microsystems releases more than 1,600 patents in a bid to make its Solaris operating system an open-source ...
White trash.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... After way too much legal wrangling, the Supreme Court lets stand a decision allowing the Ku Klux Klan to be ...
Extreme decision.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... A U.S. district court judge dismisses porn trafficking charges against the owners of Extreme Associates (see "Xtreme ...
Revolution resolution.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... At its annual meeting, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators passes a resolution condemning the war on ...
War economy.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... The Iraq war begins to bite into funding for needed anti-terror systems, including intelligence gathering and airlift, ...
Beta test.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... The U.S. entertainment industry tells the Supreme Court P2p file-swapping software can provide a "perpetual free pass" to copyrighted material ....
Low tech.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Mysterious federal security objectives hold up IBM's sale of its PC division to China's Lenovo ...
Judicial constraint.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... An Australian judge demands that any information on the Internet about an upcoming case be removed from circulation if ...
Dr. Strangelaw.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... The House of Representatives passes a provision that permits a few lawmakers to do the ...
Docu drama.(Balance Sheet)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... The Securities and Exchange Commission has to consider cutting back on costly Sarbanes-Oxley documentation regulations almost immediately ...
Putin on the fritz.(Data)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Russia watchers remember the late 1980s and early '90s as a time when tyrannies toppled and the archetypal Evil Empire was dissolved. The intervening years, alas, have shown that building a free country is more than a matter of switching flags and ordering new stationery: The latest survey ...
Private screening: airports opt out.(Citings)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... IN NOVEMBER the Transportation Security Administration began accepting applications from airports to opt out of using federal security services to screen passengers. The new option, dubbed the Screening Partnership Program, began with a five-airport pilot program but is now open to all 450 ...
When wars collide: war on drugs vs. war on terror.(Citing)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... As DEMOCRACY attempts to take root in Afghanistan, the poppy crop is doing so with greater alacrity. Opium cultivation was up a staggering two-thirds in 2004 over the previous year, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, with only inclement weather and disease keeping ...
Let freedom sing: Iran's mystery diva.(Citings)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... IN IRAN WOMEN are not allowed to sing solo when men are present. But according to the Middle East news site Al Bawaba, "aggravated young Iranians (and there are many ...) are tuning nowadays in to a mysterious voice that, according to them, symbolizes the notion of 'freedom.'" ...
Behind the curtain.(Soundbite)(Interview)
Apr 01, 2005; ... As the documentary form enjoys a renaissance, the time is ripe for a new version of Orson Welles' underrated masterpiece F for Fake, a tricky pseudo-documentary about a forger that revealed the hidden forgery in all filmmaking. That film may be director Mike Wilson's Michael Moore Hates ...
The Pentagon's secret stash: why we'll never see the second round of Abu Ghraib photos.
Apr 01, 2005; ... THE IMAGES, DEFENSE Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress, depict "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman." After Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) viewed some of them in a classified briefing, he testified that his "stomach gave out." NBC News reported that ...
A wave of hot air: after the deluge, the God talk.
Apr 01, 2005; ... LAST DECEMBER, AS the world tried to grapple with the devastating scope of the tsunami that hit South Asia--at last count, the death toll stood at nearly 300,000--the tragedy became fodder for fatuous religious discussions, focusing on an ancient question: How can a just, good, ...
Tidal waves and tariffs: the feds' foolish fight against Third World shrimp.(Rank)
Apr 01, 2005; ... LESS THAN TWO weeks after a 40-foot wave flattened swaths of Southeast Asia, the United States slapped a new round of tariffs on India and Thailand. As the federal government promised $350 million and private citizens pledged even more, the message to survivors was clear: Have our Marines, ...
The death of social security: debating Bush's plan for private retirement accounts.(George W. Bush)
Apr 01, 2005; ... As GEORGE W. BUSH'S second term begins, no item on his agenda is more controversial than Social Security privatization--that is, allowing Americans to divert at least some of their payroll taxes into personal accounts that they can invest in mutual funds or similar instruments. So far, ...
Homeschooling alone: why corporate reformers are ignoring the real revolution in education.
Apr 01, 2005; ... IT'S SATURDAY MORNING in downtown Modesto, California, and for a city with 200,000 residents, not much is happening. The streets are mostly empty, and the outdoor tables at Starbucks are unoccupied. Outside the Modesto Convention Center, though, a steady wave of soccer moms (and a ...
Ancient treasures for sale: do antique dealers preserve the past or steal it?
Apr 01, 2005; ... As YOU READ THIS, criminals somewhere in the world are destroying portions of mankind's past. With backhoe and shovel, chainsaw and crowbar, they are wrenching priceless objects from sites in the mountains of Peru, the coasts of Sicily, and the deserts of Iraq. Brutal and uncaring, these ...
Are we just really smart robots? Two books on the mind put the human back into human beings.(Culture and Reviews)(Book Review)
Apr 01, 2005; ... On Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins with Sandra Blakeslee, New York: Times Books, 261 pages, $25 Mind: A Brief Introduction, by John R. Searle, New York: Oxford University Press, 326 pages, $26 NEUROBIOLOGY'S advances generate anxiety as well as joy and hope. On the ...
Rock and roll entrepreneur: Frank Zappa's true legacy.(Culture and Reviews)(Biography)
Apr 01, 2005; ... Was Frank Zappa, the memorably mustachioed musician who died in 1993 of prostate cancer, rock and roll's answer to Herman Melville? Maybe so, and not just because the Moby-Dick scribe sported some pretty odd facial hair. Writing about Melville and other American Renaissance ...
Deconstructing Chomsky: America's leading leftist intellectual sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.(Culture and Reviews)(Book Review)
Apr 01, 2005; ... The Anti-Chomsky Reader, edited by Peter Collier and David Horowitz, San Francisco: Encounter Books, 260 pages, $17.95 "ONE OF THE peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal," wrote George Orwell in 1945. He meant not the classical liberal who believed in individual ...
Wide world of sports: soccer mirrors globalization and its discontents.(Culture and Reviews)(Book Review)
Apr 01, 2005; ... How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, by Franklin Foer, New York: HarperCollins, 261 pages, $24.95 THESE DAYS ONE rarely remembers that soccer legends once traveled to America to die in that elephant's cemetery known as the North American Soccer ...
The hippie and the redneck can be friends: two worlds collide in film and music.(Culture and Reviews)(Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema)(Book Review)
Apr 01, 2005; ... IF YOU'RE A cultural historian, a movie geek, or just looking for an excuse to spend three hours watching TV, here's a video double feature you should try. First watch the premier pot-smuggling flick of the 1970s, Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke. Then pop in the decade's most famous film ...
The spirit of popular art.(Artifact)(Brief Article)
Apr 01, 2005; ... WILL EISNER, who died in January, was a founder of the graphic novel--a medium in which serious, extended narratives appear in comic-book form. With his 1978 work A Contract With God, he began a series of semi-autobiographical tales about big-city ethnics, earning acclaim both inside and ...
School performance matters.
Apr 01, 2005; ... In recent weeks, two separate reports on international student performance were released. The performance of students in the United States has remained consistent ever the past three decades--dismal. On the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) mathematics tests, U.S ....