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There's ten questions on the 2010 census questionnaire. I believe several of them cannot legally be required, and I won't be answering them.

The Constitution says on the subject:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

The point here is twofold: a. that the federal government gets to count us, and b. that they can do it in such manner the law directs. Implied in the latter part, of course, implies "that doesn't violate the Constitution." Otherwise, they could just make pass a law that says "no one may criticize the Census," and it would not violate the First Amendment.

That's obviously silly, but it's the argument they actually make when they say they can require us to provide any information they choose to force us to provide, despite the fact that the Constitution says they cannot.

There's four types of questions on the form. The first is the explicitly constitutional one: the number of people living there; the second is about whether those people sometimes live elsewhere; the third type is individual identification: name, phone number; the fourth is demographic information for the purposes of tailoring government programs: age, sex, gender, and home ownership.

The first type of question is obviously legitimate, speaking directly to the point of the census as explained in the Constitution. The second is arguably legitimate, as it can aid in preventing double-counting.

The third type -- personal identifying information -- is arguably legitimate as well, for the same basic reason: helping to get an accurate count. Naming each person can aid the respondent in listing all the people properly, and the phone number might be used for clarification if necessary.

The fourth type, though ... it's pure nonsense. In fact, the federal government explicitly states the purpose is all about government programs, instead of enumeration. The constitutional purpose of the census is not served. This questions can, arguably, still be allowed and required, however, if any other part of the constitution is not violated in the process.

Unfortunately for the government, however, the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments do protect my right to privacy. Government cannot compel this extra-constitutional information from me without following due process, and "passing a law" is not due process.

So in the end, I'll only be answering the questions about how many people live here. I am undecided whether I will provide any names of the people living here. The justification is shaky, and it's arguable either way. I'll give them my phone number, though. The Census Bureau will be free to call me and ask for clarification, which will include recitations of relevant portions of the Constitution and legal precedents like Griswold v. Connecticut.

I upgraded the firmware on my Netgear router today and it wouldn't let me use the LAN IP I usually use for it, 10.0.1.1, because it thinks my ISP uses that subnet, because I set the router to read from my own internal DNS. Took me awhile to figure out why it thought what it did, because it didn't occur to me that it would care what DNS addresses I gave it.

CNN dutifully reports that "The government's monthly job report on Friday showed that the disastrous labor situation plaguing the nation's economy is moderating."

The facts: "The unemployment rate fell unexpectedly in January to 9.7%. And businesses shed 20,000 jobs for the month, far fewer than the 150,000 jobs that were lost in December."

So when CNN says the "unemployment rate fell unexpectedly," they mean "more people stopped looking for jobs than expected," obviously, because that's the only way you can lose jobs and still increase the percentage of the workforce that is employed.

And when CNN says that the situation is "moderating," they mean "still getting worse, but not getting worse as badly as before," obviously, because we're still losing jobs.

And when it says we lost far fewer jobs than in December, it also means we lost far more jobs than in November.

I hope that helps.

I'm actually not pessmistic about all this. I don't believe this is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (I still remember the 70s and 80s); I see a lot of fundamentally good things in the economy (which Obama also says ... now, even though he dishonestly attacked McCain for saying so in the campaign); and so on.

The thing that makes me most pessimistic is not where we are, but what we are doing: sowing the seeds for future crises by manipulating the market and drastically increasing debt and deficit, instead of letting the market actually work.

I guess this would be a good time to post this awesome rap video about Keynes and Hayek.

One thing I dislike about many politicians is that they genuinely dislike many of their constituents.

Take Washington Governor Christine Gregoire, for example. When presented with a petition of 14,000 signatures -- mostly from corporate special interests who get government subsidies -- calling for tax increases, she met with them, happy to be asked to raise taxes.

But when 20,000 signatures -- mostly from the people who pay for those subsidies -- were provided in a petition against tax increases, none of our leaders -- not Gregoire, not Speaker Chopp, not Majority Leader Brown -- would meet with them.

Even if they disagree, shouldn't they at least meet with the representatives of 20,000 citizens? Let's face it: they just don't like you. Sorry.

Gregoire was the one who said in her first term, multiple times, that we should not spend a lot during good times, so we would not have to make drastic cuts and tax increases in the bad times. But the 33 percent spending increase in her first term, signing bills passed by Chopp and Brown, is precisely why we are faced with drastic cuts and tax increases today: we could have had the modest increases she dishonestly preached about, and we wouldn't be facing large deficits (if any at all).

So now she and Chopp and Brown want to raise taxes to fix the problem they created, supposedly on your behalf.

Last year, a massive rally on their doorstep successfully diuscouraged them from raising taxes. This year, we can do it again. On President's Day, February 15, there will be another rally on the steps of the Capitol, at 10 a.m.

There's a long line of players in the NFL who claim that it is a personal offense when their teams place the franchise tag on them.

These players are big fat babies.

The players agreed to the franchise tag for the owners, as a compromise. The players take advantage of everything available to them under the contract; why shouldn't the owners do the same?

Stop crying. Stop whining. Sure, you don't like it, but so what? Grow up. Those are the rules that you agreed to.

HB 2837 puts additional regulations on some pregnancy centers if they do not offer referrals for abortions. So two clinics that are exactly the same, except that one offers abortion referrals and one doesn't, and the latter is defined as a "limited service pregnancy center," and must disclose to each client -- both verbally upon first contact, and in writing on the wall, on any advertisement, and on the home page, in English and Spanish -- that it "does not provide medical care for pregnant women."

As if offerring abortion referrals means it does provide medical care for pregnant women? Newsflash: providing a referral for "medical care" is not, itself, providing medical care. I shouldn't have to point out the obvious, but it seems it's necessary.

The center that does not provide abortion referrals also must not administer over-the-counter pregnancy tests, but instead inform the client that it is over-the-counter and give it to the client to self-administer. As if offerring abortion referrals means it should have to do differently?

It also introduces new requirements for disclosure of health care records ... again, as if offering abortion referrals means a center shouldn't have to do such disclosures?

This bill is not about protecting potential clients, it is about trying to harm anti-abortion pregnancy centers, plain and simple. If the state wants to make these restrictions apply to everyone, fine, but to single out centers for restrictions where the only differentiating factor is that they do not offer abortion restrictions is so completely off-the-wall that there's few places it could possibly happen. We in Washington just happen to live in one of those places.