Before the 2000 census, many cities and states conducted a vigorous campaign to encourage illegal immigrants to come out of the shadows and be counted so the nation could, for the first time, get a solid handle on how many the country was home to.
Immigration raids also were suspended in advance of the survey, which counts residents, not citizens, and which does not ask about legal status.
The subtext was this: Everything from congressional seats to billions of federal dollars is allocated based on population size, so it was in their interest to count as many noses as possible, be they legal or not. California shelled out $25 million on census-related promotion.
By most accounts, the efforts worked, leading to a national tally of about 7 million illegal residents.
The same incentives are at work this year, and jurisdictions are gearing up again. But, given the recent anti-illegal-immigrant political vitriol and stepped-up investigations and deportations, the odds are good there will be way fewer noses emerging from the shadows. The Bush administration refused to cancel immigration-enforcement actions for next year's census, but the Obama administration is expected to repeal that order.
Complicating matters: A nationwide group of Hispanic pastors has called for a census boycott by illegal aliens.
Grumbling is growing from the Army ranks about the wool berets soldiers must wear when in uniform outdoors. The Stars and Stripes newspaper reports that troops are complaining that the headgear, introduced in 2001 to add elan to the Army's image, is hot, costly, hard to maintain and does nothing to keep the sun out of a soldier's eyes. One critic was quoted as saying a beret "has to be shaved, washed and dried on a lampshade or hat stand to keep its shape."
Meanwhile, a Sikh advocacy group is pressing the Pentagon to allow members of the religious group to wear turbans and keep their beards when in uniform. The Army says it values the rights of soldiers to practice their faith, but considers the head covering and facial hair as interfering with protective equipment and clothing, such as gas masks and helmets. The Sikh group notes, however, that the armies of Britain and Canada have no such objection and allow both.
Many storm experts have been warning, not without some controversy, that rising global temperatures would translate to more intense tropical storms.
Now, Harvard researchers have found that the storms themselves may contribute to global warming by pumping more water vapor into the stratosphere, adding to the blanket of greenhouse gases around the planet.
At ground level, scientists expect that climate change will make many regions around the world warmer and drier, and thus more susceptible to wildfires.
But researchers at Montana State University looked at charcoal from sediments in northern Alaska (one of the regions expected to be hard hit) going back thousands of years.
They found that during a long, warm but dry spell 10,000 years ago, there were fewer -- not more -- fires, because the vegetation went from flammable shrubs to more fire-resistant deciduous trees. The region saw more fires 5,000 years later when the area got cooler and wetter, sprouting more spruce forests that burn readily in a wildfire.
So, depending on vegetation, warmer does not automatically mean more fire-prone.
Speaking of weather, the forecast along the Arabian Peninsula and Somali coasts should make the pirates pleased. For the next few weeks, the skies are expected to be clear, the seas calm and only an occasional thunderstorm is likely to occur, according to AccuWeather.com. Plus, there will be little or no moonlight -- making it harder for those keeping watch from merchant ships to spot the unlighted speedboats preferred by pirates as they approach.
(E-mail Lisa Hoffman at hoffmanl(at)shns.com and Lee Bowman at bowmanl(at)shns.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Washington Calling
There is huge controversy
There is huge controversy among the Sikhs soldiers regarding their dress codes in the British and US Army and there is huge restriction on them putting turbans and keeping long beared, i think it has really hurt their religious sentiments it should not be done.
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