HoodaThunk?

Are you smart enough to be a US Citizen?

The US Citizenship and Immigrantion Services agency (USCIS), has released their update to the citizen test they issue to immigrants applying for citizenship. There are 100 questions (PDF format) in the test but a given applicant will receive 10 questions taken from that 100. They must answer 6 of the 10 given in order to pass. Fox News reported on the test and gave the 10 questions they received from USCIS to several people they picked at random in Times Square in New York City. Their survey sought to answer the question of how well natural-born US citizens would score on the test.

Here’s the list of questions:

1. What does the Constitution do?
2. What do we call the first 10 amendments to the Constitution?
3. Name one branch or part of the government.
4. We elect a U.S. representative for how many years?
5. How many justices are on the Supreme Court?
6. How old do citizens have to be to vote for President?
7. When is the last day you can send in federal income tax forms?
8. There were 13 original states. Name three.
9. Who was president during World War I?
10. Name one U.S. territory.

Now, perhaps it’s my interest in politics and the nuts-and-bolts of our nation that made this set of questions laughably easy for me. But I’ve still got the nagging sensation that all of this should be common knowledge and easily answered by anyone walking the street. (Yes, I did get all 10 correct and it took far less than 60 seconds to get through them.) Fox’s sample in Times Square didn’t fare as well. Of the 10 people they picked, 8 were US citizens, 1 was a naturalized citizen, and 1 was a Brit hoping to become a citizen. The naturalized citizen got 8 of 10 correct. The British national managed to get 6 of 10 correct, not stellar but it was a passing grade. Of the 8 citizens they quizzed, 3 got 9 of 10 correct and 4 got 8 of 10 correct. One got 5 of 10, a failing grade. That man lamented his fading knowledge of history as the problem but if you take a look at the 10 questions, only 2 are really history questions – numbers 8 and 9. All the rest are questions on matters applicable to citizens in the here and now. It’s not a matter of springing a pop quiz on someone regarding something they studied in 5th grade 35 years ago. These are matters that affect citizens right now and every day.

The most commonly missed question appears to have been #5, asking how many Justices are on the Supreme Court. That’s amazing, considering the Court’s cases and decisions in the last couple of years. 5 of the 10 people asked that question by Fox got it wrong with answers ranging from 7 to 12 Justices.

So, before you read on, how did you do? Print off a copy of those questions and ask your fellow employees and family members, just as a conversation. See how many they miss and what they’re missing. It might be interesting. Post your results in the comments, if you like, and we’ll see how the numbers stack up.

The answers:

1. Sets up the government, Defines the government, Protects basic rights of Americans. (I’ll accept “limits the power of government” which is what that answer should have been .)
2. The Bill of Rights
3. Legislative, Executive, Judicial. The apparent official answers also include Congress, the President, and the courts.
4. 2 years
5. 9, including the Chief Justice. (You can give honorary bonus points for naming them!)
6. 18. (Most common screw-up by the 10 people in the Fox story: saying it was 21.)
7. April 15. (One US citizen got this wrong!)
8. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.
9. Woodrow Wilson.
10. Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam

October 2nd, 2008 Posted by ricjames | Immigration, Politics, The Media | 3 comments

Hubble telescope’s data transmitter has failed; questions raised over whether to repair & upgrade it.

The primary data format encoder onboard the Hubble Space Telescope has failed which has lead to people asking whether it’s worth repairing. Again. Well, let’s cut right to the chase on this one: Yes, it is. Since putting it into orbit in April 1990, the Hubble has been critical to a number of discoveries as well as pushing our awareness of celestial events in general out exponentially. Ugrades to the scope’s capability were always intended and the Hubble’s design was specifically formulated to allow them. This has already been done on a number of occasions and, while no spacewalk should be considered “easy”, the upgrade process is relatively straightforward.

In this particular case, the data formatter that failed is the primary “A-side” unit that allows the collected data to be transmitted back to Earth. The story does go into the fact that this is a redundant system and the “B-side” unit will pick up this function, as intended. That tends to make the arguments to allow the Hubble to degrade because we’ve “lost” this system rather uncompelling. To the contrary, there’s a mission already scheduled to perform other upgrades to Hubble that would provide the opportunity to replace this unit and get (perhaps) another 18 years out of it. For the continued availibilty of Hubble’s services,the money spent to perform the repair seems cheap.

October 2nd, 2008 Posted by ricjames | Human Interest, Science, Technology | no comments

Texting apparently responsible for L.A. Commuter train crash last month

As previously suspected, investigators looking into the cause of the crash of a commuter train in Los Angeles last month have discovered that the engineer – the guy who was supposed to be paying attention to the operation of the train – was involved in sending text messages.

A commuter train engineer sent a cell phone text message 22 seconds before his commuter train crashed head-on into freight train in Southern California last month, killing 25 people, federal investigators said Wednesday.

Cell phone records of Robert Sanchez, who was among the dead, show he received a text message a minute and 20 seconds before the crash and sent one about a minute later, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a news release.

The finding led Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph H. Boardman to announce an emergency order prohibiting use of personal electronic devices by rail workers operating trains and in other key jobs. The order must be published in the Federal Register to take effect. Spokesman Rob Kulat said that would happen “soon.” California regulators have already enacted a ban.

It is staggering to me that something like this needs to be made into some sort of ordinance. That a person responsible for the operation of a massive machine moving at significant rates of speed in a system that puts them into potential collisions with other similar machines should need to be told that he can’t be heads-down, thumbing away at some phone keypad is just damned silly. And any idiot who would do such a thing, anyway, is someone who shouldn’t be at the controls of a train.

Those of you doing this kind of thing at the steering wheels of your cars had better take note and knock it the hell off.

October 2nd, 2008 Posted by ricjames | Human Interest | no comments