Ten Arguments Against the US Census:

1. Census data has in the past been used to hunt down draft dodgers and intern Japanese civilians
2. The census methodology reinforces the troubling Prison-Industrial Complex 
3. Did you know that the census is tracking your mail as part of the process?  The ACLU has chided the census for failing to disclose this important privacy violation.
4. Incompetent oversight caused census costs to triple this decade, “largely” due to a botched contract with Florida’s Harris Corp.  This ain’t the first time a Harris from Florida cost our country dearly.
5. The G-men assure the data will remain private.  Reminds me of when Google promised that, before Google Buzz distracted them.
6. The Constitution calls for an “Enumeration” of people.  Enumeration is a tally… i.e. 1, 2, 3…300 million.  Race, sex, age, phone #, are all extra-constitutional variables tagging along for the ride.
7. The penalty for disclosing the census’s valuable marketing data is $250K or 5 years in prison.  You know… the same penalty that has successfully prevented home videos from ever being copied.
8. Gov’t propaganda encourages people to fill out the census to get their “fair share” of gov’t funds.  This creates incentive to over-tally, introducing bias and blocking the supposed goal of an accurate enumeration.
9. It's creepy.
10. Other than constitutionality, no good arguments have been provided against statistical sampling, which offers equivalent results for a fraction of the cost.

Move over foursquare... new greatest app time.  And I don't need to do anything to enjoy it except fall asleep.

With a skeptical eye, I downloaded Sleep Cycle, which purports to analyze your body's biorhythms while you sleep and "wake you up when you are in the lightest sleep phase."  This is supposed to make waking up more enjoyable. 

So does it work?  Here's two days of graphs:

Shockingly accurate.  That's exactly how it happened.  I can't attest to whether the alarm wakes you in a more peaceful phase, because I've been awake before the alarm went off both times, and because thugs are never truly at peace.  But last night (right graph), I did in fact only sleep for three hours before waking up to yell at neighborhood fences.  Wahoo!  I may be a touch crazy today, but at least my apps are working.

Congrats to Andrew Cleland for making Schrödinger's cat visible to the naked eye.  They successfully put a visible paddle into a quantum superposition between a rest and moving state.

Of course, it's worth pointing out that they're too late.  This feat was already accomplished by 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who managed to simultaneously hold two or more conflicting views on the same issue.

Post your best caption for these fine chaps in the comments.  I'll award a million points to the best one (and not to me).

I was stunned to learn that a popular thing for dames do in the absence of dudes is debate who is the "Sexiest Senator."  The hands-down favorite, according to off-the-record sources, is Scott Brown (R-MA, 2010-?).

Yeah, sure, I guess he's kind of cute... if noses shaped like portly tulip bulbs are your sort of thing. 

Ladies... as always, you should've just asked me first, because I always happen to carry around my definitive list of sexiest senators.

Honorable Mentions:

• Chauncey Goodrich (F-CT, 1807-13) 
• William Upham (W-VT, 1843-53)
• Al Franken (D-MN, 2009-?)
• Ephraim Bateman (A-NJ, 1826-29)
• William C.C. Claiborne (DR-LA, 1817)
• Henry "Hubba Hubba" Hubbard (D-NH, 1835-41)
• Duncan Upshaw Fletcher (D-FL, 1909-36)
• Roscoe Conkling (R-NY, 1867-81)

Despite whatever we may think about the stimulus plan, we can all agree that a fully-realized high speed rail system in America will allow our nation's busy hobos to criss-cross the country in record time.  Just think about the boost our economy will get when hobos are more efficiently able to trade beans for stories.

I can think of at least 800 hobos who stand to gain.  Perhaps they'll be on next year's Fortune 800 list?

Get a job, hippie!  Quit looking at your psychedelia and playing with your imagination.  Oh wait... in this case they're actually mathematicians.  Well... get a real job!

Also, it's revealed that the Grateful Dead were sharp businessmen.  

The whole world has gone topsy-turvy.  This chart won't help clear anything up:

I decree that the following words or phrases should be considered derogatory, profane, or otherwise unfit for use in polite company by the year 2011. 

• Ausgezeichnet
• Barrister
• Barton Fink
• Crankshaft
• Dardanelles
• Dyspeptic
• Estes Kefauver
• Hollandaise
• Klickitat
• Op/Ed
• Petion
• Ratatat
• Segue
• There
• Türkoğlu

Let's put our shaming fingers to work!

We try to run a fair points competition here at 2log.  And by fair, I mean grossly dishonest, corrupt, and prone to bribery.

But while conducting my routine audit of last week's points competition, I came across something weird.  The winner of last week was one Ms. Florence the Diva Horse, a.k.a. Flo Sparkles Divine, a commenter who appeared once about a year ago and never commented since.

But you see, the particular algorithm that calculates the winner of the 2log points competition is something like the Goblet of Fire from Harry Potter.  It seems to work by magic, and its word is gospel.  In Harry Potter's fourth year, all of Hogwarts was atwitter when the goblet of fire chose Harry Potter as a fourth competitor for the Triwizard Tournament, in clear violation of the rules of the tournament guidelines.  In his infinite wisdom, Dumbledore assumed the goblet knew best and allowed the contest to continue with all four, and was ultimately vindicated when the Triwizard Tournament ended with the death of the much-maligned Cedric Diggory (SPOILER ALERT).

Similarly, we may think it odd that the 2log has chosen "Flo Sparkles Divine" to win last week's competition, but we have to accept its wisdom.  Thanks to all the 2loggers for your hard work writing entertaining articles for our readership, but roll out the red carpet for this week's reigning champion... that horse.

Expert mixologist Aaron returns with more Oscar-themed cocktails.

Movie	Drink	Ingredients	Comments
Inglorious Basterds	Ginglorious Basterds	Gin, Jager, Blood Orange	German and bloody.
Up in the Air	Up in the Flare	A shot of sambuca mini, lit on fire	Clooney's favorite drink meets his job activity.
The Blind Side	The Blind Cider	Blavod (black vodka), Martinelli's Apple Cider	The strong/sweet combo of the ingredients mirrors how Quinton Aaron and Sandra Bullock combine for 128 minutes of greatness.
District Nine	District Wine	South African Stellenbosch Wine, Watermelon, Shrimp (optional)	One of the top-rated South African wines, with a dash of racism.  The optional shrimp reference the derogatory term "prawns" from the movie.
An Education	An Educa-sin	Pims, Gin, Blue Curacao	A beverage inspired by Mother Britain.  The red, white, and blue ingredients form the colors of the Union Jack.
The Hurt Locker	The Hurt Liquor	24 oz. Tequila, filled with spiders and apathy	Not for the faint of heart.
Precious	Preshake	Milkshake made of bourbon, chocolate ice cream, and bacon	Bacon makes everything great
A Serious Man	A Serious Drink	A lukewarm glass of mineral water	Serve without garnish
Up	Heaven-Up	Aged Suntory whiskey and Seven-Up	The stiffness of age meets the sweet effervescence of youth.  The bubbles lift away your earthly troubles.
Avatar	Guavatar	Guava Nectar, Blue Curacao, psilocybin	Mixed properly, should cause you to see extra dimensions for hours