NEW YORK In a (perhaps) historic shift, more Americans now consider themselves Democrats than Republicans, the Gallup organization revealed today. Republicans had gained the upper hand in recent years, but 33% of Americans, in the latest Gallup poll, now call themselves Democrats, with those favoring the GOP one point behind. But Gallup says this widens a bit more ‘once the leanings of Independents are taken into account.’ Independents now make up 34% of the population. When asked if they lean in a certain direction, their answers pushed the Democrat numbers to 49% with Republicans at 42%. One year ago, the parties were dead even at 46% each. This shift indicates, Gallup says, why its polls show Democrats leading in this year’s congressional races. The latest poll was taken from January to March 2006, with a national sample of about 1,000 adults.
NEW YORK – Seal the border. Round up all the illegal immigrants and send them back to their home countries. Start a whole new agency to handle only invited guest workers. Would that open up more jobs for American citizens? This is one of the key questions being posed as the US considers the economics of illegal immigration – with no easy solutions to the challenges in sight. As Congress debates a new immigration bill, some economists believe any restrictions are likely to be disruptive to a variety of industries, from construction to hospitality to agriculture. At the very least, restrictions could add to employers’ costs as they scramble to attract new workers with higher wages. But new regulations might also be good for those without much education or marketable skills: Business might be forced to train them. And those in lower wage brackets might see their wages rise as they face less competition for jobs. ‘Do undocumented workers take away jobs from Americans?’ asks Anthony Chan, chief economist at JPMorgan Private Client Services in Columbus, Ohio. ‘My best guess is that they take some jobs away. Some Americans are willing to work at those jobs […]
In a recent poll, Americans ranked ‘energy dependence’ as their second greatest concern, after the Iraq war. That is hardly surprising. It is now a well-publicized fact that the United States imports 65 percent of the oil it consumes-much of it from unsavory, hostile countries. But the situation is even tougher than most people think. The United States is not only dependent on foreign oil, it is also increasingly dependent on foreign sources of natural gas-a fuel that provides 20 percent of America’s electricity and heats more than half of U.S. homes (including 70 percent of all new homes). Natural gas is popular because it is the world’s cleanest-burning fossil fuel. It produces fewer emissions and pollutants than either coal or oil. Since the early 1970s, worldwide reserves of natural gas have increased steadily, at an annual rate of around 5 percent. The number of countries with known reserves has increased from around 40 in 1960 to more than 85 today. There is virtually no overlap in the United States today between the uses for oil, almost all of which goes to transportation, and uses for natural gas, most of which goes to heating and electricity production. With […]
There is no phenomenon more important in shaping American policy, at home or abroad, than the huge tide of immigration rolling in across its borders. In the home stretch of George W. Bush’s presidency, a vast amount of attention is still given to the analysis of his inclinations. As the imminence of his departure begins to drain the interest from that exercise, the same attention will be transferred to Hillary Clinton and John McCain. That is wilfully blind. The scale of immigration that the US is facing is so large that the subject will come to dominate all of its politics. The past fortnight has given us a taste of the future. Aerial photographs of the sea of people demonstrating in Los Angeles on Saturday suggested the crowd was half a million strong. There were 300,000 in Chicago on March 10, 50,000 in Denver, 20,000 in Phoenix, and 10,000 in Milwaukee. Their immediate target is the Bill to clamp down on illegal immigration, which the Senate will begin considering today. The House of Representatives has already passed a version that would make it a crime to be in the US illegally; impose new penalties on employers who […]
The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed ‘neuro-chips’ in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together. The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons. To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size. They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. However, the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive. ‘They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip,’ said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy. The proteins allowed the neuro-chip’s electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip’s transistors, while the chip’s capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons. It could still be decades before […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
