Today as I walked up to my home after work I noted the all too familiar U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau envelope taped to my door. Two in two days. I must be important for Mr. Marcus/the Census Bureau/the US taxpayers to be spending the money on gas to deliver this envelope. You’d think the USPS would be more efficient. In any case…

This envelope instead of “Important information from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce regarding your residence” being printed on the front [page 6] it has “Updated penalty information.” Inside it contains no trifold pamphlet [page 4,5] and no form letter explaining why I should need to participate [page 1]. What it does contain is another copy of the “Request for Appointment” note [page 3] with better centering of “Edward Marcus” and “201-927-4763″ and the same text in the remarks box. It also contains the print out of the law indicating the Title 18 US Code which overrides the Title 13 fine [page 2]. That’s it. However the print out is structured a bit differently. I’ll try to reproduce it below in HTML and you can compare it to yesterday’s. I’ll scan these tomorrow for archival purposes and true comparison.

Please cooperate in our survey which is helpful to determining the requirements of the households in your area.

Every resident of the United States is obligated to participate in this survey and there are penalties involved for not co-operating.

The American Community Survey is conducted under the authority of Title 13, United States Code, Sections 141 and 193, and response is mandatory. According to Section 221, persons who do not respond shall be fined not more than $100.

Title 18 U.S.C. Section 3571 and Section 3559, in effect amends Title 13 U.S.C. Section 221 by changing the fine for anyone over 18 years old who refuses or willfully neglects to complete the questionnaire or answer questions posed by census takers from a fine of not more than $100 to not more than $5,000.

The U.S. Census Bureau may use this information only for statistical purposes. We can assure you that your confidentiality is protected. Title 13 requires the Census Bureau to keep all information about you and all other respondents strictly confidential. Any Census Bureau employee who violates these provisions is subject to a fine of up to $250,000 or a prison sentence of up to five years, or both.

Wouldn’t “from a fine not more than $100 to not more than $5,000″ be worded better as “from a max fine of $100 to max $5,000.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352471,00.html

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - Springfield’s men in black are returning.

The city’s new police commissioner, William Fitchet, says members of the department’s Street Crime Unit will again don black, military-style uniforms as part of his strategy to deal with youth violence.

Fitchet’s predecessor, Edward Flynn, had ditched the black attire as part of an effort to soften the image of the unit. Flynn left Springfield in January to become the police chief in Milwaukee.

Sgt. John Delaney told a city council hearing Wednesday that the stark uniforms send a message to criminals that officers are serious about making arrests.

Delaney said a sense of “fear” has been missing for the past few years.

If they want to bring about a sense of fear I recommend one of these for their regular attire:

Though I prefer:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,347751,00.html

Enacting city smoking bans appears to increase drunken driving, according to a new national study of arrests by Wisconsin researchers.

Fatal accidents involving alcohol increased after communities banned public smoking, the study to be released by the Journal of Public Economics found. The authors attributed the increase to people driving farther to drink, either to a place with an outdoor smoking area or a city without a ban.

“The increased miles driven by drivers who wish to smoke and drink offsets any reduction in driving from smokers choosing to stay home after a ban, resulting in increased alcohol-related accidents,” the study says.

The researchers, Scott Adams, of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Chad Cotti, now at the University of South Carolina, said they were surprised by the results.

“We thought we would see a reduction,” Adams said. “Our first thought was, ‘Throw it away, it must be wrong.’”

But it wasn’t, he said.

Be sure to read the title in your best Strong Bad voice. Add a “HAHA” before and/or after. What is so hard to believe an action can have unforeseen consequences? Something is going to change when you forcibly alter peoples behavior. Not smoking means more time to drink. It may mean driving further to drink. It may even cause a drop in hook ups from the loss in “Do you have a light?” pickup lines.

Any researcher whose first reaction is “Throw it away, it must be wrong.” has no credibility in my opinion. I’ll need to make a note of questioning anything out of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.