Canadians aren't civic, too

It seems like we always hear about how Americans don't know anything about the United States. Or maybe we don't always hear about it; regardless, it's true. Most native-born Americans couldn't pass the citizenship test.

But, apparently, they have the same problem in Canada! And while most first-generation immigrants can still pass, native-born Canadians do dismally--and are doing worse now than they did 10 years ago. Only 40 percent of native-born Canadians would pass their citizenship test. This Globe and Mail article has more, with Canada Day tomorrow (July 1). The test is linked to from the article; I got 17 of 19 (although with multiple choice).

Sprawl doesn't kill people, people kill people

As an amusing aside, I link to: "The Phony Problem of Sprawl." Unfortunately, a majority of Houstonians would probably find no problem with it.

As a fun enrichment game at home: find as many dubious statements as you can. Then, compare with your friends. Cross off a flaw that you both have. The person with the most remaining wins!

By the way, checking comment #2 counts as cheating, kind of.

Might want to say that more softly...

In a move sure to play well on Iraqi TV, George Bush apparently said that Israel is a good standard for Iraq to work towards, as quoted by the BBC:

"In places like Israel, terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq."

Right. And Israel faces multiple suicide bombings and car bombings on a daily basis as well as sectarian death squads working within its army and police force that are leaving thousands dead. Uhhh, wait a minute... when was the last suicide bomb in Israel again? Oh yeah, but Hamas sporadically fires ineffective missiles at an isolated border town. Same thing as Iraq, pretty much.

Anyway, Iraqis, the point is that Israelis aren't letting a few stray missiles here and there prevent them from carrying out their responsibilities! Figure it out already, if you want to be like Israel! Take advantage of your freedom! (By the way, Iraqis, a good way to unite your population is to fight a foreign war. Maybe try that out... invade a small neighbor or something...)

Houston is... a big city

First, consider these facts:

• Houston is larger than Los Angeles (but has just over half the population).
• Houston is almost twice as large as New York City (yes, all five boroughs) in land area.
• Into Houston, you could fit...
• Philadelphia, 4.3 times
• Seattle, 6.9 times
• Washington D.C., 9.4 times
• Boston, 12 times

Now, I just want to know how many roads Houston has--as far as just square footage, or even just length. For those of you who ever played SimCity, it reminds me of when you would build too many roads and maybe try lowering road payments under 100%, and the road would start turning into rubble. Yeah. That actually happens somewhere... it's called Houston.

Past that, though, is the question... why is Houston so freaking big? Turns out (not surprisingly) the answer has something to do with Texas annexation laws and such. All the information that follows can be accredited to what I gleaned from a Texas Municipal League document I read on the Web a few weeks back (the TML is pro-annexation, note):

• First of all, there are two kinds of cities in Texas: home rule cities (I think that's what they're called) and other cities (I don't remember the name... general law cities I think). Anyway, point being that home rule cities can make their own ordinances, and general law cities can't.
• But also, home rule cities can annex up to five miles beyond their limits, pretty much whenever--although some laws have made it a bit tougher. The only thing they can't do is annex another home rule city. They have the obligation to provide services within a couple of years to whatever land they annex.
• The point of this (according to TML) is that cities don't get screwed over: they get the tax base of an expanding area, unlike in other metropolitan areas, where these areas would incorporate into suburbs and not give the city any tax revenue, hence making the city a blighted area and downward spiral, etc. (so if this is where we are with annexation, imagine where we'd be without it...)
• TML also states that cities don't really get much revenue from the state government; hence, they need that local tax base to keep going. (I would argue that a probable effect of some of this is to hinder improvements in more well-off areas, whose inhabitants are more able to collectively act and otherwise don't want to pay more taxes to improve poorer parts of town. Hence why the roads suck even in good parts of town--if the city were able to raise taxes to pay for them, that still wouldn't be the infrastructure most in need of work.)
  

Now, what would I say if I were dictator? I'd say that at least some zoning regulations are in order, and the ridiculous growth out should stop in favor of "filling in the gaps," i.e. the vacant lots that are everywhere. But hey, what do I know?

I'm alive!

Really. I'm not dead. However, I am caught in a whirlwind of a tornado of a twister of things, and it's really been enough for me to follow what's going on with the French and Belgian elections and everything over in Gaza, let alone comment or do any sort of strategic analysis. Once July hits, I should have things a little easier.

Few surprises in Spain's autonomic elections

Spain's elections in the Autonomous Communities today produced very little in the way of drama or surprise; indeed, the results were pretty much the same as in 2003. The opposition Partido Popular (PP) did seem to make more gains, relative to the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE), taking a greater percentage in Madrid.

It appears that the only government which may change hands is that in Navarra, where a potential Socialist-Nafarroa Bai-Navarra United Left coalition has won more seats than the local conservative parties. (Nafarroa Bai--"Navarra Yes"--is a combination of the Basque nationalist parties EAJ-PNV, EA and Aralar). However, the ability of these parties to come to agreement is far from certain.

Note that the most volatile Communities, the Basque Country and Catalonia, did not hold elections; neither did Galicia or Andalucia.

Meanwhile, the opposition Partido Popular took the most votes in the municipal elections in all of Spain, with a margin of about 157,000 votes (0.7%). This is a slightly greater margin than the PSOE's victory in the same in 2003, and gives the PP some confidence, as since 1983 the winner of the municipal elections has won the following general election.

The Continental League debuts

Yet another new independent league--the Continental League--made its debut tonight, including in League City, Texas, where the hometown Bay Area Toros faced the traveling-team Texas Heat. The Continental League is one of eight independent leagues to play this year; together, the leagues total 64 teams, including probably the most famous independent team, the St. Paul Saints of Mike Veeck.

The Bay Area Toros are apparently run by a former Rice assistant athletic director; they play their home games at a high school, Clear Creek HS. (This is a larger high-school ballpark than I'm used to in the Northwest; it seats at least 1,000 in its bleachers, though it has no seat backs.) Overall, they seem like a well-run operation.

Tonight's game was well-attended in relation to the stadium, as there were few empty seats. Notably, the focus was on baseball, not on gimmicks; the crowd seemed into the game, and a large percentage stayed until the end of a game that went 10 innings and took almost four hours. The league president was there and went around meeting fans, and overall the environment was very positive. (The quality of play at a glance seemed around Class A ball).

As would be expected, the park was the only real negative. In addition to the lack of seat backs, the park is oriented towards the northwest, meaning some serious glare. A chain-link fence between the backstop and the field interferes with vision. The only real solution is to succeed at the gate and eventually get a new park (as was already discussed a few days ago in the Chronicle).

I'm quite surprised that the Continental League chose to begin play this year, given that it has only three home markets--two in the DFW market, plus League City (situated between Houston and Galveston). The track record isn't good for leagues that begin without at least a few solid home teams. The Houston area, however, would seem ripe for independent league play; in a market of over 3 million, the Astros are the only game in town once NCAA baseball ends.

I meant to provide pictures, but I forgot my camera, so that will have to wait for the next game... perhaps tomorrow.

[Final note for those in the Northwest: Clear Creek HS was attended by none other than Jay Buhner--"the Bone"! There's a name I hadn't heard in a while...]

Update: Hey, it's me on the Toros homepage! Check out this nice pic...

PCL baseball in Reno won't be successful

Looks like there's an agreement to move an unnamed Pacific Coast League team (Tucson? Omaha? New Orleans? Las Vegas?) to Washoe County, aka Reno-Sparks, Nevada. The following are the smallest five PCL markets, plus Reno:

17. Reno, NV, 410,000
16. Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA, 534,000
15. Colorado Springs, CO, 599,000
14. Tacoma, WA, 767,000
13. Albuquerque, NM, 817,000
12. Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA, 823,000

Note the following:

• The Iowa Cubs, with the smallest market in the league, have been quite successfully managed and continue to outdraw their market by the largest ratio. This is an outcome that is by no means guaranteed, and the Midwest is one of the top minor-league regions in the country.
• Colorado Springs and Tacoma are regarded as weak markets.
• Omaha is doing quite poorly.
• Albuquerque, with a renovated stadium and a second chance (after their original Dukes took off), has been supportive--and has almost twice as many people as Reno.
• Nick Lachey is a part-owner of the Tacoma Rainiers (not really relevant, I guess...)
  
• Reno's independent-league efforts have failed, although the Golden League is giving it another shot this year.

All in all, clearly someone thinks this is a good idea, but there were people who thought the West Tenn Diamond Jaxx were a good idea. I'd predict a decent first couple years, followed by a fall-off to attendance near the bottom of the league; to be fair to the PCL, there aren't many good markets left, and with some teams struggling, this may look like the best of the bad options, but you wish that they'd just make things work rather than move into a probably doomed market.

And they say all parties are the same...

Well, maybe. Apparently in April (see El Mundo), the Socialist Party of the Canary Islands (PSC-PSOE) got caught copying the platform of the party Ciutadans (C) of Catalonia. Yes, different parties, from different parts of the country, with pretty much the same platform. It's not just "pretty much the same"... it is the same:

From "125 measures for the first year of a Socialist government: for change in the Canaries" [PDF] (my translation):

We reaffirm the right of the citizens of the Canaries to refer to the Defensor del Pueblo, who is also defender of Canarians; to defend their rights and freedoms when those are threatened by public powers, whether they be autonomic, local or national.

From "100 proposals to improve Catalonia" [PDF] (again, my translation):

We reclaim the right of the citizens of Catalonia to refer to the Defensor del Pueblo, who is also defender of Catalans; to defend their rights and freedoms when those are threatened by public powers, whether they be autonomic, local or national.

The second is the original; the first is the copy. (What, you couldn't tell?). Now, no more comments on how all those politicians are identical!!

This is part of the lead-up to tomorrow's Spanish municipal and autonomic elections--more on those as the results come in.

Farmers Branch: why not STV?

A judge has ruled that the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch cannot enforce its new ordinance against renting apartments to illegal immigrants. The judgment apparently held that the city created its own way of determining whether or not a resident was legal, a responsibility that belongs only to the federal government.

I would be against this ordinance for a couple of reasons: first, because it seems likely to lead to some harassment of people who are legal, but happen to be Hispanic; second, because if all communities adopt similar ordinances, it probably won't cut the number of illegal immigrants, but it could have a very substantively negative impact on the conditions they and their children live in.

What interests me more, however, was further down in the article:

The federal suit, on behalf of three Latino voters who live in Farmers Branch, claims minorities are underrepresented because of the at-large city council system.

It seeks the creation of single-member districts, in which a city council member is elected to represent a specific section of the city. Both large and small cities with diverse racial makeup use the system, said Rolando Rios, the attorney leading the suit.

Activists say if the method had been in place, at least one Latino candidate would have been elected to the council and could represent the group. All five council members are white men.

This assumes that the only or, at least, primary way to represent a voter is by racially descriptive representation. This may be true on this issue, but as the article notes, all five current members of the council are white men. What about women? What about representation on the basis of nonracial issues?

Instead, the plaintiffs would have the city box itself into a racially charged model of electing its City Council by creating seats "reserved" for Latino voters (much like, of course, the U.S. Congress), at the expense of other forms of representation, and at the expense of "disenfranchising" the minority-majority white population in the "Latino" district.

Why not ask, instead of a district model, for a proportional representation model--in particular, the single transferable vote? STV would maintain the system of citywide representation while representing what voters want to see represented.

This is just, of course, a microcosm of the U.S. system in general: if we just took measures to make things more proportional, there'd be no need for ridiculously gerrymandered districts [warning--PDF] to satisfy someone's exclusive concept of "representation." Then the Texas legislators would never have to go to Oklahoma again!