stupid, ugly uses for the datagathering power of the census bureau. it's funny...there are a lot of actual scientists there, and there was already some grumbling about politicization in '02 when i was there, but this is just downright dumb. all my old pals in planning, research and evaluation (the folks whose job is to make sure everybody responds) are probably wringing their hands and beating their heads on the walls (the walls of their hideous, cavelike, prefab office), waiting for the return and response rates from arab americans to go down (er, down even more, if i remember the regression coefficients).