I, Toaster: A British artist inadvertently brings Leonard Read's classic essay "I, Pencil" to life.
This week, a new exhibit called "The Toaster Project" opens at the Royal College of Art in London, England. On his website, artist Thomas Thwaites explains the gist: "I'm trying to build a toaster, from scratch--beginning by mining the raw materials and ending with a product that Argos sells for only Ł3.99." But as Senior Editor Radley Balko writes, the basic theme of Thwaites' Toaster Project was first conceived back in 1958 in the brilliant essay "I, Pencil," written by Leonard Read, founder of the libertarian think tank the Foundation for Economic Education. http://www.reason.com/news/show/134322.html<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4808340/28258852/77729/0/> Preventive Care is a Sick Idea: When it comes to unhealthy behavior, some of us can't be helped. Despite the extraordinary energy exerted in trying to delay the inevitable, the inconvenient fact is we all die. So it is no surprise, writes David Harsanyi, that "preventive" health care, that game-changing fix trotted out relentlessly by both Democrats and Republicans, is so appealing. And like many cure-alls, it's a myth. Moreover, Harsanyi continues, there is one vital aspect of preventive health care that many health care professionals and bureaucrats simply refuse to accept: Some of us can't be helped. http://www.reason.com/news/show/134333.html<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4808340/28258852/77730/0/> Now Playing at Reason.tv: Catching Up With The Motorhome Diarists, Free-Wheeling Friends of Freedom The last time Reason.tv caught up with Jason Talley and Pete Eyre, the duo was just about to hit the open road in a revamped RV to report on small-town stories of repression and nanny-statism, and to meet up with libertarians around the country. Since hitting the highway in April, the pair picked up a third crew member, Adam Mueller, got arrested (for no real reason) in Jones County, Mississippi, and created a thriving online site and community. Reason.tv caught up with Motorhome diarists on a recent swing through DC and took a tour of the RV parked just outside our offices on Connecticut Avenue NW. Nick Gillespie talks with the Motorhome Diaries crew about their continuing journey, the shape of individual liberty in the heartland, their plans for the future, and more. Click here to watch. <http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4808340/28258852/77731/0/> Crime Fighters vs. the Constitution: Where's the authority for federal laws aimed at hate crimes and sex crimes? In a 1995 decision that overturned a federal ban on possessing guns near schools, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that "the Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers," which do not include a general authority to fight crime. Five years later, when it overturned a statutory provision that created a federal cause of action for victims of gender-motivated violence, the Court warned that congressional attempts to usurp the states' police power threatened to erase the "distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local." But as Senior Editor Jacob Sullum notes, two pieces of legislation in the news, both named after murder victims, show that posing as a crime fighter is still more popular on Capitol Hill than obeying the Constitution. http://www.reason.com/news/show/134308.html<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4808340/28258852/77732/0/> >From Hit & Run, Reason.com's staff blog Twitter Users Revolt as China Takes Google Offline Over the past few years, Google has proven a great success in China, capturing more than 30 percent of the online search market. But along the way, it's irked government authorities eager to control the flow of information and ideas. Tensions have grown with the search engine's popularity, and Chinese officials recently ordered the company to suspend some services in the country under the hard-to-believe pretense that the search engine allowed access to pornography. Now, reports indicate that the Chinese government has used its filtering system, the so-called Great Firewall of China, to take all major Google services, including chat, mail, and search, offline entirely -- and the country's Twittering webheads aren't happy. Read the rest here. <http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4808340/28258852/77733/0/> Posted by Peter Suderman http://www.reason.com/blog/show/134343.html Daily Brickbat Enter Your Password City officials in Bozeman, Montana, seemed to think that city employees should have nothing to hide. On employment applications, they demanded that prospective employees list their user names and passwords to "personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc." After local media reported the demands, the city backed down. http://reason.com/brickbat/<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4808340/28258852/75964/0/> Click here to unsubscribe.<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4808340/28258852/76426/0/> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
