The technology reporters and editors of The New York Times scour the Web for important and peculiar items. For Wednesday, selections include Bill Gates on education and other topics, a ranking of technology companies based on their efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, and rethinking some assumptions about Google Glass. … Read More
Majority Supports Residency and Citizenship Pathway for Unauthorized Immigrants, Muted Support to Ease Path for Future Legal Immigration
According to the
latest ;Reason-Rupe
poll, 70 percent of Americans think the 11 million unauthorized
immigrants currently living in the United States should be allowed
to stay. A majority (55 percent) also believes unauthorized
immigrants should eventually be allowed to apply for citizenship if
they meet certain requirements.
Nevertheless, Americans are less supportive of making it easier
for future immigrants to enter the country legally: 40 percent
favor raising the visa caps for high-skilled and low skilled
workers.
Support for offering residency and pathway to citizenship is
correlated with partisanship, education, and youth,
detailed ;here. ;However,
partisan differences are attenuated when accounting for Americans’
assumptions about immigrants’ economic impact,
detailed ;here.
Interestingly, there is little partisan disagreement when it
comes to easing the path for new high- and low-skilled workers
seeking visas.
Read the full report here: ;Reason-Rupe Feb
2013 Full Immigration Findings
Nationwide telephone poll conducted February 21-25 2013
interviewed 1002 adults on both mobile (502) and landline (500)
phones, with a margin of error +/- 3.8%. Columns may not add up to
100% due to rounding. ;Full poll results found ;here. ;Full
methodology can be found ;here. ;A
full analysis of the poll’s immigration results can be
found ;here. ; … Read More
Why there will be WAY more zombies than you anticipated
Unless we can find a way of getting preparedness accepted by the masses, unless we can make them see that being prepared for such an event is the wise thing to do we will be living with far more zombies than we anticipated. … Read More
Rosa Parks: “I had been pushed as far as I could stand”
“Whites would accuse you of causing trouble when all you were doing was acting like a normal human being instead of cringing,” Rosa Parks explained. “You didn’t have to wait for a lynching.” Such were the assumptions of black deference that pervaded mid-20th century Montgomery, Ala. The bus with its visible arbitrariness and expected servility stood as one of the most visceral experiences of segregation. “You died a little each time you found yourself face to face with this kind of discrimination,” she noted.
Blacks constituted the majority of bus riders, paid the same fare, yet received inferior and disrespectful service — often right in front of and in direct contrast to white riders. “I had so much trouble with so many bus drivers,” Parks recalled. That black people comprised the majority of riders made for even more galling situations on the bus. Some routes had very few white passengers yet the first 10 seats on every bus were always reserved for whites. Thus, on many bus routes, black riders would literally stand next to empty seats. Those blacks able to avoid the bus did so, and those who had the means drove cars. Black maids and nurses, however, were allowed to sit in the white section with their young or sick white charges, further underscoring the ways that bus segregation marked status and the convenience of white needs, and did not simply regulate proximity.
Predictions Are Hard, Especially About the Future, and Especially About Estimating the Excesses of Government Debt
James Pethokoukis at American Enterprise Institute’s web site
takes us back to yesterdecade to remind us that even the smartest
and most expert of estimaters of future government debt
can be very, very wrong:
Here’s the Congressional Budget Office’s ten-year budget
forecast from 2002 (note that this was after the Bush tax
cuts were passed):….Instead of publicly-held debt as a share of
GDP being a microscopic 7.4% this year [as they predicted then], it
was closer to 74% – or 72.8% to be specific (as of the August
update from the CBO.)
Peter Suderman’s great January 2010
Reason feature on the problems with CBO
predictions, on “the highly speculative nature of its work,
which requires an endless succession of unverifiable
assumptions.” … Read More
Do You Know the 5 Powerful Psychological Triggers Your Doctor Uses to Vaccinate Your Child?
Here are five psychological triggers doctors use against you, the parent, and some suggestions to overcome them. … Read More
$4,000 Gold! Yes, But When?
We may be skeptical of price projections for gold, but projections for national debt are quite believable. Since the correlation is very close, future gold prices can be projected, assuming continuing deficit spending, QE, and other macroeconomic influences … Read More
