McCain's Big Cash Prize

Paying $4 for a gallon of gas is a drag, but what may be worse is listening to White House wannabes who promise to rescue us from our misery.

Take Senator McCain’s recent proposal to offer a $300 million cash prize to the inventor of a car battery that can out-green 100-mpg plug-in hybrids. Is McCain’s money pile really necessary to spur our nation’s geniuses to get it together and invent an ultra-efficient car? reason.tv’s Ted Balaker thinks not.

Mark Bauerlein: Why Young Americans Are the Dumbest Generation

In his provocative new book The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein argues that "the digital age stupefies young Americans and jeopardizes our future" by turning out hyper-networked kids who can track each other's every move with ease but are largely ignorant of history, economics, culture, and other subjects he believes are prerequisites for meaningful civic participation.

Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University who has written for reason, notes that a 2003 Foundation for Individual Rights survey found that only one out of 50 college students could name the first right mentioned in the First Amendment. Between 1982 and...

Captain Kirk to Brother Jed

reason.tv's Ted Balaker chats with director Roger Nygard about filmmaking, fan culture, religion, and why people get so angry when their beliefs get challenged.

Nygard has directed episodes of TV shows such as The Office and The Bernie Mack Show. He also helmed the celebrated documentary Trekkies and has just finished some serious globetrotting in which he posed existential questions—why are we here? is there an afterlife? shat is the soul?—to Christians, Jews, atheists, Muslims, druids, Baba lovers, Hindu gurus, Confucianists, Taoists, Native Americans, and satanists.

Their answers will be included in his new documentary, The Nature of Existence,...

Why the Cavemen Went Extinct (Winston Tastes Good Like a Cigarette Should Edition)

This isn't new—indeed it's 40-plus years old—but this commercial is still incredibly funny, strange, and totally fucking bizarre. No wonder the Soviets lost the Cold War!

Watch as Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone goldbrick and debate the merits of Winston cigarettes in a kinder, gentler America:

Banned

Whether you love it, hate it, or have never thought about it, chances are some politician wants to ban it. "Welcome to the Nanny State Nation," says reason.tv host Drew Carey. "Where the government minds your own business."

Saggy pants, fire places, plastic bags, light bulbs, poker—it's all been banned somewhere. Same with owning swine or fowl, feeding pigeons, owning pit bulls, and chomping on trans fats, a naughty little substance that makes food taste better.

Of course, smoking's been banned in all sorts of places—indoors, outdoors, near doors, beaches, casinos, even private homes. America's...