B Jarosz

Join handsoffourcens.us this Wednesday for our weekly briefing analyzing the nearly 80k comments published on the decennial census proposed rule. We’ll be joined by special guest Don Graves. 👉 Register here: tinyurl.com/handsoffourcensus-briefing 📅 Wednesdays, 3–3:30 pm ET ⏰ Comments due Nov 2

A rule I live by... If you have to tell me (unprompted) that you are something, then, honey, you are not that thing.

A local wingnut stole one of my yard signs. The replacement now has "security features" (a motion sensor light, a hidden string of jingle bells that will ring if the sign is yanked out, and the back is covered in vaseline). What else should I do to deter future theft?

This is truly the best thread I've read in weeks

Water pollution Hole in the ozone layer Infant mortality rates Accessible infrastructure (not solved, but not as bad as in 1970s)

US measles cases hit 4,588, more than twice last year’s total Pennsylvania remains the US hot spot, accounting for nearly 30% of the country’s cases. Read more: https://bit.ly/4ie8kJt

"In summary, while tax records do cover a substantial share of the U.S. population, and are a valuable source of information for ensuring an complete and accurate census count, they have limitations that must be understood and mitigated before widespread use... georgetown.app.box.com/s/mh1kpammw0...

🔺 NEW from Census Bureau: No decrease in geographic coverage, tables, or detail in 1-year data products due to ban on modern privacy protection methods. (They're still assessing options for 5-yr data.) This raises the obvious question: Does this mean there's less privacy protection for respondents?

Also... if swapping was just dropped, what privacy protection method was used for the data instead?

NEW from the Census Bureau "Removed swapping to comply with DAO 216-26" "Determined swapping has little impact on ACS 1-year data products" How did they determine that? Where are the analyses and findings published?

My hot take on the new ACS table structures that were posted today: The changes in immigration and naturalization data shouldn't worry people. There's typically a mid-decade shift in the year ranges reported for those tables.

EXCELLENT NEWS

Threatening veterans. This tracks.

My brain cannot process this level of corruption. She was being paid $50 million to engineer a pardon from Trump *while working at the Justice Department* as a "Special Government Employee." And it worked. He got the pardon, and she got the money. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/u...

He has a son with the same name. Been saying that record linkage isn't appropriate for this kind enforcement, but it feels like screaming into a void.

This is not the trend I was looking for... If you haven't submitted your comment yet, please do. And SHARE this info with others.

My editorial comment: No wonder why the admin hates science. They think "science" is manufacturing evidence to support an ideology, rather than it being a process of observation and exploration.

"It looks to me that the administration’s already decided what it wants the science to say,” says Meghan Maury, policy director at the Transgender Law Center www.science.org/content/arti...

Join handsoffourcens.us this Wednesday for our weekly briefing analyzing the 50k+ comments published on the proposed decennial census rule. We’ll be joined by special guest Dr. Gail Christopher. 👉 Register here: tinyurl.com/handsoffourcensus-briefing 📅 Wednesdays, 3–3:30 pm ET ⏰ Comments due Nov 2

Every accusation is an admission.

It hasn't been true yet. It's not true now. They're just jealous they don't live in California.

Unpopular opinion, but new privacy protection methods are fine.

"In 2030, US mortality & morbidity rates will suddenly jump. This will happen not because there is a new pandemic or a sudden rise in cases of existing diseases or injuries, or a sudden decline in access to health care..." The secret to prevention? Ensuring an accurate 2030 U.S. decennial census.

This is excellent advice from @ipums.bsky.social

Join handsoffourcens.us this Wednesday for our weekly briefing analyzing the nearly 40,000 comments published on the proposed decennial census rule. We’ll be joined by special guest danah boyd. 👉 Register here: tinyurl.com/handsoffourcensus-briefing 📅 Wednesdays, 3–3:30 pm ET ⏰ Comments due Nov 2

"Every professional organization that represents population scientists has come out in stark opposition to these proposals. It's likely going to lead to a significant undercount. It's going to imperil the validity of the decennial count, which is going to have ripple effects." -Nathan Dollar

"For public health programs to succeed, they must be tailored to the people they serve. General data may show that a health problem is widespread but won’t indicate who is most at risk. To do that, public health experts need to compare rates by demographics such as race..."

Knocked on 52 doors today. Don't know how many more I'll get to given that census chaos is happening at the same time, but it felt good to be out there.

Immediately after Ukraine took out two of the five data centers run by the Russian tech giant Yandex, pro-Trump and pro-MAGA posts on American social media sites plummeted. The same happened to posts boosting Germany's far-right AfD. Russia is engaged in MASSIVE election interference.

Map shows North America about 77 Millions years ago. Saying things like “the US is more divided now than ever before” clearly isn’t factually correct 😜 Source: buff.ly/39psJq2

Artificial Intelligence Lake Ontario Gulf of Mexico Department of Defense What am I missing?

Well, if there was one sure way to make me a fan of artificial intelligence, I think we found it.

Does anyone know why the website for searching U.S. Code is down (and has been for more than a day)?

Ok. What did San Diego do to deserve this week we're having?

To put this in perspective chestnut trees used to be dominant species in the United States. Billions of trees were killed by fungal blight and now fully grown America chestnuts are functionally extinct. There is no getting them back. Ever. All for a data center. www.gadgetreview.com/one-of-ameri...

Good on Michael Lewis for giving the DOGE story the journalistic-thriller treatment it deserves. Two events that fundamentally shook my sense of this country's stability were January 6th, 2021, and the six months I spent dealing with DOGE.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I hate "popcorn" introductions in Zoom meetings. The awkward pauses. The "who hasn't gone yet." Just call on people.

Proposed rule changes could cut data tied to Native populations (The Bureau also appears to have screwed up the mandatory tribal consultation process, but that's another rant for another time...) www.buffalosfire.com/the-daily-sp...

I concur with this message... Census Extended the Comment Period Now it needs to fix the docket. www.chrismarcum.com/marcum-blog/...

"Numbers gave citizens ammunition to apply political pressure. That is what numbers are for. They show us where the problem is, and whether anything we did about it worked." prospect.org/2026/10/05/a...

Join handsoffourcens.us this Wednesday for our weekly briefing analyzing the 20,000+ comments published on the proposed decennial census rule. 👉 Register here: tinyurl.com/handsoffourcensus-briefing 📅 Wednesdays, 3–3:30 pm ET ⏰ Comments due Nov 2 (extended from Oct 13)

If they "take out" San Diego, they'd take out the overwhelming majority of the U.S. Navy on the west coast. He's a fucking danger to national security.

In two years we've gone from a standard where the President's budget proposal was a set of suggestions Congress would ignore to where Congressional appropriations are now a set of suggestions the President ignores.

"There’s something that no one's talking about... [proposed] changes are not just for the 2030 census. They intend to embed them in the Code of Federal Regulations. [This would make them permanent federal policy, rather than Census Bureau internal policy.]" Which makes them harder to change later.

Deadline extended

"Abrupt changes to long established data infrastructure [for the census], as proposed in the federal register notice, will surely damage what we can know about the health of the body politic."