Filling out the Census

We got the 2010 Census form in the mail today. I decided to go ahead and fill it out and send it back in. I have an unusual affinity for filling out government documents and sending them in as quick as possible -- my taxes are always done by the first week of February.

I tingled in anticipation as I got to a certain question that listed my relationship to the owner of the house, my partner. We had planned to "gay bomb" the census. (I encourage all of my LGBT friends who live with their partners and consider themselves common law or officially married to do so)

And while our numbers won't be counted in the official tally of married couples, this will be the first census that recognizes us as a category of folks, according to CNN:

The 2010 census is the first that will report the numbers of same-sex couples who describe themselves as married, or more specifically, who use the terms husband and wife.

The number of same-sex couples who identify as married will be released separately from the national count on a state-by-state basis, according to Census Bureau reports.

Those couples will not be included in the official national count of married couples because the Census Bureau does not have time before April to change its editing processes -- which "recode" the answer of any person who says he or she is a spouse in a same-sex marriage to "unmarried partner."

So for now it's symbolic, but what a powerful symbol it'll be. I can't wait to see what the records in South Carolina indicate.

The Great (fire)Wall of China

“The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization..."

- Karl Marx

Besides a cool quote by Karl Mark, Reason Magazine has an interesting article on how to utilize the WTO against the Chinese government to open them up, not to corporate interest (though that's a component), but to the virtues and vices of the freedom of speech. Their argument is based around the elements of the Treaty China signed to join the WTO:

When China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 it agreed that foreign service companies would have the same access to markets in China as domestic companies do. Now the European Union and the U.S. Trade Representative office are considering an argument that the Great Firewall violates China’s obligations to permit free trade in services under its agreements with the WTO. Last year, in a working paper titled Protectionism Online: Internet Censorship and International Trade Law, the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) think tank argued that “WTO member states are legally obliged to permit an unrestricted supply of cross border Internet services.”

The idea here is to use their recent spat with Google as grounds to file a complaint with the WTO. The argument goes that state censorship violates the free trade agreement as it interferes with the ability of the Internet giant and other web companies to provide a service to the Chinese people. The article goes on to explain that while a ruling in a hypothetical complaint with the WTO doesn't guarantee compliance that it does in turn allow for legal retribution in the forms of tariffs on Chinese products.

Their is hesitation by the American Trade Representative to pursue this option which is reflective of the Administration's delayed reaction earlier this year to the hacking of Google by Chinese government officials. Because of the extremely close interdependency of the Sino-American economies any negotiation with China must be labeled: fragile, handle with care.