Nothin' Could Be Finer

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Naturalization

TITLE 8--ALIENS AND NATIONALITY

CHAPTER 12--IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY

SUBCHAPTER III--NATIONALITY AND NATURALIZATION

Part II--Nationality Through Naturalization

Sec. 1424. Prohibition upon the naturalization of persons
opposed to government or law, or who favor totalitarian forms of
government

(a) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 405(b) of this Act, no
person shall hereafter be naturalized as a citizen of the United
States--
(1) who advocates or teaches, or who is a member of or
affiliated with any organization that advocates or teaches,
opposition to all organized government; or

(2) who is a member of or affiliated with (A) the Communist
Party of the United States; (B) any other totalitarian party of the
United States; (C) the Communist Political Association; (D) the
Communist or other totalitarian party of any State of the United
States, of any foreign state, or of any political or geographical
subdivision of any foreign state; (E) any section, subsidiary,
branch, affiliate, or subdivision of any such association or party;
or (F) the direct predecessors or successors of any such association
or party, regardless of what name such group or organization may
have used, may now bear, or may hereafter adopt, unless such alien
establishes that he did not have knowledge or reason to believe at
the time he became a member of or affiliated with such an
organization (and did not thereafter and prior to the date upon
which such organization was so registered or so required to be
registered have such knowledge or reason to believe) that such
organization was a Communist-front organization; or

(3) who, although not within any of the other provisions of this
section, advocates the economic, international, and governmental
doctrines of world communism or the establishment in the United
States of a totalitarian dictatorship, or who is a member of or
affiliated with any organization that advocates the economic,
international, and governmental doctrines of world communism or the
establishment in the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship,
either through its own utterances or through any written or printed
publications issued or published by or with the permission or
consent of or under authority of such organization or paid for by
the funds of such organization; or

(4) who advocates or teaches or who is a member of or affiliated
with any organization that advocates or teaches (A) the overthrow by
force or violence or other unconstitutional means of the Government
of the United States or of all forms of law; or (B) the duty,
necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any
officer or officers (either of specific individuals or of officers
generally) of the Government of the United States or of any other
organized government because of his or their official character; or
(C) the unlawful damage, injury, or destruction of property; or (D)
sabotage; or

(5) who writes or publishes or causes to be written or
published, or who knowingly circulates, distributes, prints, or
displays, or knowingly causes to be circulated, distributed,
printed, published, or displayed, or who knowingly has in his
possession for the purpose of circulation, publication,
distribution, or display, any written or printed matter, advocating
or teaching opposition to all organized government, or advocating
(A) the overthrow by force, violence or other unconstitutional means
of the Government of the United States or of all forms of law; or
(B) the duty, necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or
killing of any officer or officers (either of specific individuals
or of officers generally) of the Government of the United States or
of any other organized government, because of his or their official
character; or (C) the unlawful damage, injury, or destruction of
property; or (D) sabotage; or (E) the economic, international, and
governmental doctrines of world communism or the establishment in
the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship; or

(6) who is a member of or affiliated with any organization that
writes, circulates, distributes, prints, publishes, or displays, or
causes to be written, circulated, distributed, printed, published,
or displayed, or that has in its possession for the purpose of
circulation, distribution, publication, issue, or display, any
written or printed matter of the character described in subparagraph
(5) of this subsection.

Border Security

Passport process will get easier for Canadians (CBC News, 6/8/07)

Ottawa will make it easier for Canadians to get their passports, Foreign Affairs said Friday.

Beginning this summer, Canadians will be able to renew their passports without submitting proof of citizenship or a guarantor declaration, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said in a news release.

I'm sure the anti-Canadian backlash will start any minute.

We've Got Good News And Bad News

Rising immigration fuels 26-year fertility high (Emma Henry and agencies, Telegraph.co.uk, 6/8/07)

Figures released by the Office of National Statistics show the average number of children has risen for a fifth straight year to 1.87, the highest rate since 1980.

The last decade has seen a 77 per cent increase in births by mothers born outside of the UK, with the figure climbing to almost 150,000, or over a fifth of all babies, last year.

As Britain's demographics change, Mohammed is expected soon to replace Jack as the most popular boy's name. It has already pushed Thomas into third place.

No, that's not the bad news, you racist bigots. The bad news is that it still isn't at replacement levels. If only Britain was right next to Mexico.

Today's Meme

Bryan Appleyard points us to a series of tests meant to determine if we have unconscious preferences or dislikes for various victimized groups. Like Bryan, I only took the race (i.e., African American v. European American [sic]) test. Unlike Bryan, I am a decent human being:

Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between European American and African American.

I'm torn on the usefulness of this test. On the one hand, it seems like complete and utter social science nonsense, with the results completely dependent upon the ordering of the test and the subject's reaction speed. On the other hand, it said nice things about me that confirm my self-image and I took a similar (or perhaps the same) test a few years ago and it said the same thing.

UPDATE: Well, that was interesting. I went back and did the test on fat people v. thin people. It found that I had a slight preference for thin people. What was interesting is that, compared to the first test, I could tell while taking it that I did associate good emotions with thin and bad emotions with fat. (Yes, yes, I know, but let's leave the psychological implications of this for another day.) It was a completely different feeling and caused me to slow down and make a lot more errors. The different experiences make me take the tests much more seriously.

Raised By A Single Mother, No Brothers, Never Dated

Dear Prudence,

I am one of five women at my office. Roughly three out of five mornings, the one man we work with spends the first 10 to 15 minutes of the day in the (single, shared) bathroom. We work in a small office where we need to be available to any current or potential clients who call or drop in, so it does affect the rest of us if someone disappears mysteriously since, obviously, he doesn't announce that he's heading off to the can. I feel that if something is happening on such a regular basis, he should be able to take care of it at home before he comes to work. (He has only a half-hour commute.) My two-part question for you is: Is it worth saying something to him about it? And, presumably this would be a job for our manager, but what would be the best way of going about this? She usually hasn't arrived by that point in the morning, and so is not aware of this tendency.

—Waiting for the Can

Well, I Don't Believe This

OJ links to an article in the Daily Record(?) reporting that:

Doctors at Glasgow University found that between 1974 and 2003, a total of 462,000 people died in Scotland as a result of health service failings

Now, according to some web site I found, the population of Scotland in 2001 was about 5 million, and there were about 50,000 deaths. So, in the 29 years between 1974 and 2003, there were about 1.5 million deaths in Scotland and these doctors are saying that one-third, more or less, were caused by the National Health Service.

I understand that this is all very approximate, but it's close enough for government work. I can't believe that the NHS, as incompetent as it may be, is causing nearly one-third of all Scottish deaths, or anything like it. I wouldn't believe 25%, or 20%, or 10%.

Go Here

And watch this.

I don't have any greater point to make, although it's interesting that the people are rooting for the Buffalo.

Charlie Pierce Is A Wanker

A long time ago on a website far, far away, I took sportswriter Charlie Pierce to task for attacking Michael Jordan for no reason other than the fact that Charlie Pierce wanted to make a political point.

He's done it again. This time, his excuse for attacking Jordan is that LeBron James just gave the greatest performance in a NBA playoff game ever but, in April, had refused to sign an angry letter to the Chinese government protesting Chinese involvement in Darfur. This makes James like Jordan (in a bad way). The article is dumb, it stems from Pierce's conviction that what he does for a living is trivial, and that failing to agree with him politically is a moral failing. He doesn't mention that even having LeBron James send a letter to the Chinese government, even an angry letter, will have exactly no effect.

But let's think about Darfur for a moment. What's happening is inhuman and should be stopped, but what can we do. Our Rabbi is a Darfur activist. He has traveled there, he protests, he marches and he has put up a sign on the Temple. I'm sure that he would sign an angry letter to the Chinese government. We've donated some money to refugee relief and will probably donate some more. Nothing has changed.

The one thing that would change Darfur for the better would be for us to send in the troops, enforce a no-fly zone and carve off Darfur from Sudan. We're not going to do it. It's tempting to say that the one real cost of the Iraq has been that it has made it politically impossible to invade Iran or North Korea or even stage a humanitarian invasion in Darfur. But unfortunately I don't think we would have invaded in any event. In the end of the day, international humanitarianism is a null set meant to sooth our conscience rather than saved the afflicted.

Learn Something New Every Day

Senator Craig Thomas (R. Wyo) has passed away. He has always seemed like a modest, unassuming and decent man. Our thoughts are with his family.

The governor of Wyoming is a Democrat and, usually, that would mean that Senator Thomas' successor would be a Democrat. However, the linked story has this to say about the process of filling a Senate vacancy in Wyoming:

Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, will appoint a successor from one of three finalists chosen by the state Republican party....

According to Peggy Nighswonger, Wyoming's elections director, the governor has five days to appoint one of the party's three nominees once he receives the names. That person will serve until the next general election in 2008.

I've never heard that before.

Nudes In The News

Today's Theme of the Day thrown up by the collective unconscious is apparently peacenik nudity. Brit notes that pictures of Tony and Cherie Blair meant to stop the war naked have won a prize in Britain. Duck then comments, "Nudity? What's up with that" and points to John Lennon getting nude for peace back in the day. AOG piles on with naked Dixie Chicks. But the Supreme Court takes away the punch bowl by deciding that the sponsor of a nude peace sign doesn't get to collect attorneys' fees from the State of Florida.

I'm with Duck in being a little befuddled by the connection between being antiwar and being nude. Apparently, though, it has something to do with the time of year.

We'd Better Hold A Bake Sale

Just because it's always fun to bring up in conversation, I note that, in 2005, public school systems in the US spent $488.5 billion. The Pentagon spent $429.5 billion (pdf).

Have I Ever Told You The Chandelier Story?

Instapundit points us to a story in the Guardian rubbishing various UN and EU greenhouse gas reduction scheme. Among other things, it turns out that paying for the destruction of greenhouse gases can cause the production of more greenhouse gases:

There are doubts about the validity of some of these CERs [certified emissions reductions], on two separate grounds. First, some of them appear to breach the CDM's requirements for sustainable development - 53% of the existing CERs come from just six monster projects, in India, China and South Korea, all of which engage in the most controversial form of carbon reduction. They manufacture refrigerant which produces as a side effect a gas called HFC-23. Although carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas, HFC-23 is 11,700 times more likely than carbon dioxide to encourage global warming. Refrigerant companies find it relatively cheap to install an incinerator to burn the HFC-23 and, once that is converted into certified reductions of emission, each tonne saved can be sold as 11,700 carbon credits. These companies are now earning millions of euros from these credits - more than from selling their refrigerant products.

The environmental problem is two-fold, first that HFC factories tend to pour out other pollutants which don't happen to be greenhouse gases but which are unpleasant or dangerous for local communities; and second, that the potential profits from burning HFC-23 are so great that companies are being encouraged to expand production of refrigerants so they can produce more HFC-23 to incinerate, thus increasing the net amount of pollution.

There was a story, perhaps apocryphal, about planning in the Soviet Union. One year, the authorities started to notice a spurt of reports of chandeliers falling from the ceilings of hotels and other public buildings. It turned out that the most recent five year plan had set forth the required production of chandeliers in kilograms.

This is also relevant to our discussion of bad science. One source of bad science comes when scientists measure the effect of an input by looking at the output, not of what they actually want, but of (what they think is) a good proxy of what they want.

How We Become What We Hate

In a comment below, Harry Eagar points us to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. On a quick trip to their home page, our eye is immediately drawn to a link for "Camp Inquiry", "A week of adventure, discovery and exploration for children, ages 7 to 16 years of age." If the little goddicts get bible camp, well, then, the little skepticons need to have inquiry camp. The Skeptics should take this warning from a Jew: If you try to make Hanukkah like Christmas, eventually the kids will just start celebrating Christmas.

You're Still Not Going To Believe It

Wonder Quest (April Holladay, USAToday, November 26, 2004)

Q: I know that viruses spread colds but can getting cold or wet somehow make a person more vulnerable to the cold virus? (Doug, Someplace, World)

A: Another myth bites the dust — however reasonable it seems. No. People don't become more vulnerable to catching a cold because they got cold or wet. We've looked into this one thoroughly and the myth isn't true (unless, of course, the cold is so intense that it destroys the body's defenses, such as freezing to death).

In 1958, H.F. Dowling exposed 400 volunteers to cold viruses. The volunteers experienced different temperatures and dress protection — some shivering in extreme cold of 10°F (-12°C) but wearing heavy coats, others chilly in 60°F (16°C) temperature wearing only underwear, and still others sweltering in 80°F (27°C) temperatures. They all, however, caught colds at "about the same rate."

Ten years later, R. G. Douglas, Jr. experimented in a similar fashion with inmates at a Texas prison.

Again, no difference. The men caught colds at about the same frequency and the resulting colds were about equally severe whether or not the inmates had endured cold and no matter how they were dressed.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) also has funded studies and found no correlation between getting chilled or overheated and catching a cold. NIAID has found no relationship with exercise, diet, or enlarged tonsils or adenoids either. They have found that psychological stress, allergic disorders affecting the nasal passages or the throat, and menstrual cycles can make a person susceptible to colds.

By the way, colds spread through touching infectious surfaces or inhaling viruses. Cold viruses can survive for about three hours outside the nasal passages. So, to prevent catching colds, we can:
• most effective: wash our hands
• also effective but much more difficult: don't touch our noses, mouths, or eyes.

Finally, over 200 viruses cause the common cold says NIAID. "Prospects for a cold vaccine are dim."

Further reading:

•Myths of the common cold by Drs. Jack M. Gwaltney and Federick G. Hayden

•Cold treatment and information by Drs. Gwaltney and Haden

•NAID, National Institute of Health: The common cold fact sheet

•Dowling, H.F. 1958. Transmission of the common cold to volunteers under controlled conditions. Am J of Hygiene 68:659-65.

•Douglas RG Jr, Lindgren KM, Couch RB. 1968. Exposure to cold environment and rhinovirus common cold: Failure to demonstrate effect. N Engl J Med 279:742-7.

If a cold virus gets into your system, you're going to get sick. It doesn't matter if you're wet or dry, or whether you're cold or hot.

But I've had this conversation enough times to know that simply pointing to the uncontradicted scientific evidence [no longer uncontradicted -- see the comments] isn't going to convince anyone. (Of course, I make my kids bundle up when they go out in the cold just like anyone else.)

Bad Science

Has anyone ever done a study on the persistence of bad science in the population? How long after a bad study is debunked do people still believe in it? What are the factors that affect the half-life of a misunderstanding? How many people are still trying to avoid all salt in their diet in order to live longer, but are actually killing themselves? How many people are gobbling down antioxidants for no particular purpose?

I sometimes try to run my own experiment in this area by trying to convince people that the germ theory of disease is pretty well-established and that getting rained on, or getting cold, or getting cold while getting rained on won't actually make you catch your death of pneumonia. I rarely succeed and, sometimes, people violently reject the very idea. (No, being wet and cold doesn't lower your resistance or affect your immune system.)

Economics In Action

It is a violation of the antitrust laws for a manufacturer to force a distributor to sell the manufacturer's product for a set price. That's why we see suggested retail prices advertised, rather than mandated retail prices. Economists tend to believe that this is a bad law. If the mandated retail price were too high, a competitor could undercut it. More to the point, there's a good pro-consumer reason to allow mandatory retail prices: it allows the manufacturer to make sure that the distributor is repaid for investing in the sale. In other words, for products that must be explained to consumers, or where training is important, a hefty margin ensures that Mr. Joseph's Widget Emporium, with helpful salesmen and informative displays, isn't then undercut by Joe's House of Cheap Prices.

I want a TI-89 graphing calculator. Do I need a TI-89 graphing calculator? Does anyone? Since no one actually knows how to work one? Because these are expensive and daunting machines, I did a good amount of research. Among the research I did was going to Staples, where I could see one and play with it a little bit. I waffled around for a few days and then came across a new factor that tipped the balance in favor of purchasing the calculator: my wife said it was OK.

Having decided to buy, I find myself on the horns of a dilemma. I can get the calculator from Amazon for $142, no tax and no shipping charge. I can get the calculator from Staples for $153, plus 5% sales tax. Of course, from Staples I get the calculator immediately; Amazon will take a few days. I decide that, because of the service Staples provided by having the calculator available to play with, because I can get the calculator now rather than in a few days and because I'm aware of the economic/antitrust issue, I'm willing to pay the nearly $20 premium Staples will cost me.

So I go to my neighborhood Staples. I go over the calculator and look at the TI-89. I play with it a little. I look at the less expensive calculators around it and decide that I really do need those matrix algebra functions. I'm ready to buy.

I look around. The calculator's on display, but there's no rack space for it. It's a relatively small (well, actually it's honking huge, but for a calculator) and relatively expensive, so they probably keep them locked up. There's no sales clerk to be found so I walk to the front of the store. The only clerks to be found are ringing up other customers but there's a manager doing some managing. I interrupt him and tell him that I need help with the TI-89. He says he'll have someone meet me over there right away. I say I just need someone to get the calculator, because I've already decided that I want it. He tells me I can just go to the register.

I go to the register.

The clerk is a young man, probably in his early 20s. He's on the phone with someone. I glance at my watch and start the timer. The customer on the phone has a product that she either wants to have upgraded or repaired. In all the time I was there, he never quite got that clear. He knows that it can't be repaired there -- just send it back to the manufacturer -- but doesn't know about upgrading it. In the next ten minutes, he has her on hold twice, pages a manager three or four times, manages to find out what I want but not to do anything about it and then is back on the phone with his customer. Two more people are behind me. He starts to ring them up while waiting for someone with a key to get me my calculator. He calls over a manager and asks if she can help with the locked room. She sees the blinking telephone line, asks what's up, and picks up the phone.

I leave and order the calculator from Amazon.

Happy AGW Day

This interesting chart is from the European Environment Agency. As you will see, the only non-former communist countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions at all were Denmark, Sweden and the UK, and only the UK has made any substantial progress. ("Germany" includes the former East Germany.) By way of comparison, the US ghg emissions have increased by about 16% since 1990 and only 1.6% since 2000.

So, all Greens are anti-communist, right?

Et Tu, Captain Ed?

Over at Captain's Quarters, Captain Ed takes the media to task for misrepresenting the history of the Kyoto Protocol. Just to prove, though, that a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth, the Captain, in the course of correcting NPR, states that "Bush formally withdrew from Kyoto." In fact, as long-time readers of the secret blog know, we've never withdrawn from Kyoto. For that matter, we're even making decent progress towards our goal: since 2000, US greenhouse gas emissions have risen by less than the G8 average.