Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification: Franz Kafka's Solution to Illegal Immigration

In last summer's debate over immigration reform, Congress treated a national electronic employment eligibility verification (EEV) system as a matter of near consensus. Intended to strengthen internal enforcement of the immigration laws, electronic EEV is an Internet-based employee vetting system that the federal government would require every employer to use. Broad immigration reform failed before Congress thoroughly considered national EEV, but the lines of debate have been drawn. Advocates in Congress will try to attach a nationwide worker registration system to any immigration bill Congress considers, and the Bush administration recently announced steps to promote such a system.A mandatory national EEV system would have substantial costs yet still fail to prevent illegal immigration. It would deny a sizable percentage of law-abiding American citizens the ability to work legally. Deemed ineligible by a database, millions each year would go pleading to the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration for the right to work. By increasing the value of committing identity fraud, EEV would cause that crime's rates to rise. Creating an accurate EEV system would require a national identification (ID) system, costing about $20 billion to create and hundreds of millions more per year to operate. Even if it were free, the country should reject a national ID system. It would cause law-abiding American citizens to lose more of their privacy as government records about them grew and were converted to untold new purposes. "Mission creep" all but guarantees that the federal government would use an EEV system to extend federal regulatory control over Americans' lives even further

Book review: molecular red: theory for the anthropocene by McKenzie Wark

In Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene, McKenzie Wark draws upon the work of science fiction authors from the USA and from Russia to reflect upon ‘the Anthropocene’ – the term used to denote a new geological epoch defined by the accelerated influence of humans upon the earth – and one of its most defining issues: climate change. While acknowledging that science fiction could offer a productive means of addressing the possibility of impending environmental catastrophe, Jim Harper finds that this book does not convincingly bridge the gap between theory and praxis

Advancing women's participation in livestock vaccine value chains in Nepal, Senegal and Uganda : communications strategy

The report discusses targeted groups to increase visibility, highlight project results, promote uptake of research findings, and promote partnerships. The report details country specific communications strategies, distinguishing between the three countries (Nepal, Senegal, Uganda). It also delineates the indicators used to monitor the communication strategy, as well as the roles and responsibilities of the team regarding communications. The project will further the knowledge of constraints that women face in the livestock vaccine value chain (LVVC).Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)Global Affairs Canada (GAC

Video Nasty: The Moral Apocalypse in Koji Suzuki’s Ring

Although overshadowed by its filmic adaptations (Hideo Nakata, 1998 and Gore Verbinski, 2002), Koji Suzuki’s novel Ring (1991) is at the heart of the international explosion of interest in Japanese horror. This article seeks to explore Suzuki’s overlooked text. Unlike the film versions, the novel is more explicitly focused on the line between self-preservation and self-sacrifice, critiquing the ease with which the former is privileged over the latter. In the novel then, the horror of Sadako’s curse raises questions about the terrors of moral obligation: the lead protagonist (Asakawa) projects the guilt he feels over his self-interested actions, envisaging them as an all-consuming apocalypse

The challenges of randomised control trials in obstetrics and gynaecology

In this short article we explore some of the challenges faced by those conducting randomised trials in obstetrics and gynaecology. We discuss the current status of trials comparing induction of labour versus expectant management, so called ‘deliver or delay’ trials. We consider the benefits of utilising routine data for collecting trial outcome data. Although cluster trials can provide a useful methodology for answering difficult questions, we illustrate with an example that cluster trials are at risk of delivering a misleading result. We discuss the importance of long term outcomes in randomised trials

Exile Vol. II No. 2

SHORT STORIES The Jagged Edge by Marge Sessions 16-22 Friday Is a Lucky Day by Nil Muldur 28-33 Punk Days by Jim Gallant 37-41 ESSAYS A Re-examination of Faith by Barbara Haupt 23-27 A World Manifesto by Gordon Harper 34-36 SKETCH Tom Gordon: A Portrait by David L. Crook 6-15 POETRY Striving After Wind by Jesse Matlack 15 Quiet by E. B. Chaney 22 Faith or Flight by Marylyn Hull 36 Bernadette by Sally Falch 42-44 In this issue the editors of EXILE are proud to publish A Re-examination of Faith by Barbara Haupt. This story has been awarded the second Denison Book Store - EXILE Creative Writing Prize

Pressure Flammability Thresholds in Oxygen of Selected Aerospace Materials

The experimental approach consisted of concentrating the testing in the flammability transition zone following the Bruceton Up-and-Down Method. For attribute data, the method has been shown to be very repeatable and most efficient. Other methods for characterization of critical levels (Karberand Probit) were also considered. The data yielded the upward limiting pressure index (ULPI), the pressure level where approx.50% of materials self-extinguish in a given environment.Parametric flammability thresholds other than oxygen concentration can be determined with the methodology proposed for evaluating the MOC when extinguishment occurs. In this case, a pressure threshold in 99.8% oxygen was determined with the methodology and found to be 0.4 to 0.9 psia for typical spacecraft materials. Correlation of flammability thresholds obtained with chemical, hot wire, and other ignition sources will be conducted to provide recommendations for using alternate ignition sources to evaluate flammability of aerospace materials

Seeing the way: visual sociology and the distance runner's perspective

Employing visual and autoethnographic data from a two‐year research project on distance runners, this article seeks to examine the activity of seeing in relation to the activity of distance running. One of its methodological aims is to develop the linkage between visual and autoethnographic data in combining an observation‐based narrative and sociological analysis with photographs. This combination aims to convey to the reader not only some of the specific subcultural knowledge and particular ways of seeing, but also something of the runner's embodied feelings and experience of momentum en route. Via the combination of narrative and photographs we seek a more effective way of communicating just how distance runners see and experience their training terrain. The importance of subjecting mundane everyday practices to detailed sociological analysis has been highlighted by many sociologists, including those of an ethnomethodological perspective. Indeed, without the competence of social actors in accomplishing these mundane, routine understandings and practices, it is argued, there would in fact be no social order

Towards a synthesized critique of neoliberal biodiversity conservation

During the last three decades, the arena of biodiversity conservation has largely aligned itself with the globally dominant political ideology of neoliberalism and associated governmentalities. Schemes such as payments for ecological services are promoted to reach the multiple ‘wins’ so desired: improved biodiversity conservation, economic development, (international) cooperation and poverty alleviation, amongst others. While critical scholarship with respect to understanding the linkages between neoliberalism, capitalism and the environment has a long tradition, a synthesized critique of neoliberal conservation - the ideology (and related practices) that the salvation of nature requires capitalist expansion - remains lacking. This paper aims to provide such a critique. We commence with the assertion that there has been a conflation between ‘economics’ and neoliberal ideology in conservation thinking and implementation. As a result, we argue, it becomes easier to distinguish the main problems that neoliberal win-win models pose for biodiversity conservation. These are framed around three points: the stimulation of contradictions; appropriation and misrepresentation and the disciplining of dissent. Inspired by Bruno Latour’s recent ‘compositionist manifesto’, the conclusion outlines some ideas for moving beyond critique