Congress Tries Again To Extend Deadlines For Late Census Results

Congress Tries Again To Extend Deadlines For Late Census Results

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is renewing a push that failed during the previous administration to extend the deadlines for reporting 2020 census results after the pandemic and Trump officials' interference disrupted the count.

If passed, two bills introduced Tuesday could help shield the U.S. Census Bureau from any questions about the legality of numbers and other data it is set to release months after current federal law says they are due.

The bureau has flagged since last April that it needs more time to ensure the accuracy of new census data. The agency is now close to four months late in delivering the state population counts used to reallocate each state's share of votes in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. That delay also forced the bureau to postpone putting out the data needed to redraw voting districts. That information was due to the states by the end of March.

Both the Senate bill introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska — and its House counterpart introduced by Democrats led by Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, plus Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska — would push back the deadline for congressional apportionment counts from Dec. 31, 2020, to "not later than" May 1, which in effect means they have to be in by April 30, according to Schatz's communications director, Mike Inacay. Redistricting data would be due by Sept. 30.

That's kind of a bummer, as I want to use that data to make maps and look at population and race trends across Capital District.

You know, I do think a carrying capacity study would be worthwhile for the Adirondacks, especially in context of new UMPs

You know, I do think a carrying capacity study would be worthwhile for the Adirondacks, especially in context of new UMPs. I think it’s worthwhile to consider inducted when adding new facilities and expanding or improving existing ones. Often I see that as a topic that is glanced over with UMP documents.

That said, truth be told I don’t follow them as carefully as I once did because it’s not my issue, and I’m less invested in New York State then I once was with other places to go and no long term plans to stay forever. There are other wild lands in other parts of country.

Saranac Lake Marina lawsuit presses state to study ‘overuse’

Saranac Lake Marina lawsuit presses state to study ‘overuse’

The lawsuit is now raising larger issues than his personal enjoyment. Steeped in the bureaucracy and details of environmental regulations, Jorling’s case is dredging up years of uncomfortable questions about whether the state lacks the know-how and will to protect the Adirondack Park.

Jorling alleges the state had a duty to study the lake and other lakes among 94,000 acres of land and water in the heart of the park before approving the marina expansion on Lower Saranac Lake. He argues the Adirondack Park Agency and the Department of Environmental Conservation have repeatedly and illegally failed to study how much development and tourism the park can handle.

A ruling in Jorling’s favor could cause significant changes to regulations inside the park. The questions about “overuse” by hikers in the popular High Peaks, he says, stem from a similar failure by the state to grapple with issues of how much human activity the Adirondacks can handle.

The Top 10 Moral Panics of the 2010s – Reason.com

Tide Pods, Nazis, and Bees: The Top 10 Moral Panics of the 2010s – Reason.com

Human beings are anxious creatures. We worry about things that might kill us. We worry about things that might kill our children. We worry about things that might get our children high. Even if a trend clearly doesn't create any mortal danger, we worry about the threat it poses to all that's good and wholesome in society. The world faces plenty of real problems, but more often than not the things that pique our collective anxieties are wildly overblown.

Before the 2020s start tossing us a new set of worries, it would be useful to reflect on the last batch of folk demons that we were frightened of and then forgot about. So here are 10 of the biggest moral panics of the last 10 years. Some were real but rare dangers; others were fictions from the get-go.

Moral Panics – Subcultures and Sociology

Moral Panics – Subcultures and Sociology

Moral panics are situations in which the general public experiences an unjustified panic about a specific social issue; politicians and other interested parties?create moral panics to direct what the public worries about and focuses on. In his 1972 book Folk Devils and Moral Panics, Stanley Cohen set the stage for the sociological study of moral panics by examining?the classic moral panic in 1960s Britain of violence between two subcultural groups: Mods and Rockers.?Cohen expressed that the major issue was the “fundamentally inappropriate” reaction to social figures in society to the minor events that occurred (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994).