Everyone is always babbling about the "Bradley Effect"—the supposed tendency of white people to tell pollsters they'll vote for a black guy even though they're racist and won't—and how it might hurt Barack Obama in two weeks. But honestly the Bradley Effect doesn't seem to be applicable this year. Not because white people are less racist, but because they have no good reason to lie about supporting McCain. John McCain's current Election Exit Strategy seems to hinge on Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, and he's going to get those states back in his corner by scaring the shit out of white people. Will it work? McCain might want to look at the dire position modern white supremacist organizations are in; they can barely rile up the neo-Nazis to care that a black guy might be the next president! American National Socialist Workers Party head Bill White may be a neo-Nazi, but he's not voting for John McCain.

Bless their little hearts, TechCrunch50 organizers Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington have had someone sing the national anthem to kick off each day of their startup demonstration conference. Even we here at Valleywag, who will presumably believe anything, couldn't believe this. Marxists, Objectivists and Kurt Vonnegut can all agree: drawing national boundaries and exciting nationalist sentiment through propaganda was so last century. And to have Arrington's former paramour Meghan Asha try to hit that high note in a room full of pitch-perfect math geeks, as pictured here? Deadly.

The Department of Homeland Security used Wikipedia in its effort to reject an application for asylum by Ethiopian woman Lamilem Badasa. Badasa had presented a "laissez-passer" travel document as a form of identification, and the DHS used the Wikipedia page in its successful petition to deport the woman. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that "Wikipedia is not a sufficiently reliable source" to make such decisions, and handed the case back to the immigration appeals court. Too bad for Jimmy Wales — think of all the vulnerable hotties facing deportation from around the world he could have seduced in exchange for helpful edits. [Wired]

The U.S. Department of Labor and law firm Fragomen Del Rey Bernsen & Loewy, which represents clients such as IBM on immigration issues, are in a legal tussle. The department is conducting an audit of Fragomen's practices in helping clients disqualify American applicants — a necessary step before employers can obtain H-1B visas for foreign workers. Now Fragomen has fired back with a lawsuit that calls the Labor Department's rules restricting lawyers' activities unconstitutional. How do lawyers work to make sure no citizen applicant could possibly qualify?In the video above from last year, attorneys from law firm Cohen & Grigsby detailed how the firm suggests a minimum of job opening ads are placed in markets where it's unlikely a qualified applicant will apply, so few are received. The firm also provides the company with a checklist which the employer can use to quickly process — and reject — any applications it may receive so that the company can permanently certify the foreign national. If a citizen passes that test, there are further tricks to making sure something arises from the interview process that disqualifies them. Disqualifying Americans also works in the favor of companies overall, since it allows them numbers to cite when complaining about the need to raise immigration quotas and expedite the process. Fragomen is citing the First Amendment and due process in arguing that it should be allowed to offer counsel to employers. Meanwhile, up to 3,000 applications are on hold pending the investigation.

A grisly beheading on a Greyhound bus bound for Winnipeg, Manitoba may well have been committed by an immigrant admitted under a skilled-worker program in 2001. While riding the bus, a reportedly unprovoked Vince Weiguang Li stabbed carnie Tim McLean twelve times, beheaded him, and began eating parts of the corpse. A laptop which Li sold to teenager Darren Beatty had a letter which said "he felt guilty for leaving China, and that everything in Canada was not as he expected," according to a Google translation. Why are we subjecting you, dear reader, to this gory tale?Because this is the same skilled-worker immigration program that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates praised at the 50th anniversary hearing of Congress's science and technology committee:

Hearty Defamer congratulations go out to the estimated 40,000 immigrants acquiring their American citizenship today in Los Angeles. And even bigger kudos for making it the kind of party those Liberty Island underachievers in New York only dream of:

VBS.TV (Vice magazine's online video channel) has an 8-part series called "Illegal LA" about the illegal immigration issue. The setup is to tell the story through the eyes of several key figures on different sides of the issue—including pervy American Apparel CEO Dov Charney! It raises an interesting point: though Charney is the neurotic head of our nation's most annoying fashion line who enjoys playing with himself in front of reporters, he is also one of the only entrepreneurs in his field with a truly progressive labor policy. Should he be forgiven for the first because of the second? No, but at least he has a mark in his favor on the balance sheet. After the jump, two clips featuring Charney's take on this unjust country of ours; and, as a counterpoint, a new spoof American Apparel ad that graphically reminds you of the evils of spandex.

The UK does not want Martha Stewart no matter how many lines of crockery she's designed for Wedgwood! The UK Border Agency has barred the felonious lifestyle queen from entering the country, presumably because of her criminal ways here in America. It's admirable consistency for the agency-famous star criminals must be kept out along with the common scum. But it may turn out to be a crippling blow for England's Toad-in-the-hole industry:

CNN shouter Lou Dobbs is apparently "mulling a run for New Jersey governor." Oh, please let that be true! Current governor Jon Corzine is quite unpopular and "Republican officials" claim the oddly orange-hued pseudo-populist pundit is "taking steps toward running" for that prestigious office himself. We cannot think of a better idea! For so many reasons!

Never mind that it rejected over a million other hopefuls last year: Google is really steamed that only 210 of its 300 work-visa hopefuls won the H-1B lottery. And Google lobbyist Pablo Chavez has also had it up to here with critics who say Google isn't doing enough for Americans and underprivileged U.S. students, insisting that Google has a diverse workforce and may even have some non-offshored money for black and Hispanic students — once they've proven their worth by completing two years of a computer-science or computer-engineering major on their own with a 3.5+ GPA — this at a time when budgets are down across the board for academic computer-science programs.

Last week, iGate Mastech was fined $45,000 for placing 30 online job listings in the spring of 2006 with the condition that only H-1B visa holders need apply. The company helps foreign workers obtain a visa (often for a fee), and then contracts out their labor to companies at a tidy profit. The contracting company doesn't have to worry about dealing with immigration authorities, paying health benefits and can lay the worker off without cause or severance — often resulting in a revoked visa and possible deportation if the worker can't find new employment quickly enough. As our tipster points out, iGate Mastech VP of immigration and compliance Tripti Noorani has successfully processed 20,000 H-1B visas for iGate Mastech employees since 1990. Maybe the company was just trying to help H-1B holders currently in the country stay in the country?

the relaxation of H-1B immigration quotas as an "innovation" issue, not the exploitation of a global labor market to depress wages, claims UC Davis computer science professor Norman Matloff. He attempts to present a quantitative case to demonstrate that foreign skilled-worker visas don't go to genius inventors but to average, entry-level employees, in a paper for the Center for Immigration Studies. But his methodology is flawed, and a racial undercurrent bubbles beneath the surface of his argument.

Skyy Vodka belatedly saw a good opportunity for some free PR with this whole Absolut Mexico ad brouhaha, which really hit its zenith a week ago. But the second-rate liquor company came lumbering in today with a faux-cheeky press release about how they support the Treaty of Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War in 1848. Oh they don't want America to be Mexico. We get it! And Skyy has now reaped some added benefit by drawing the public support of the flag-waving xenophobe crowd at BoycottAbsolut.com! Full press release, with choice patriotic quotes opposing invasion of the US, after the jump.

Global liquor conglomerates, take note: a hastily constructed website is calling for a boycott of Absolut. Run a humorous ad in Mexico and face financial ruin, Pernod Ricard corporation! "Absolut vodka is trying to sell liquor to Mexicans that aspire to control the Southwest United States," reveals boycott organizer William "Yosemite" Gheen. Now if he can only get Matt Sanchez on his side...Despite its insistence on spelling the company's name "Absolute," the website has already attracted more than 120 visits and nearly 7 comments. But its visual and documentary evidence of the brewing Mexican separatist movement that threatens American freedom may be its most powerful tool:

Score one for Lord Balaji, known to some Indian Hindus as the "Visa God." The Department of Homeland Security changed its rules Friday so as to allow U.S. businesses to employ foreigners for up to 29 months before they must obtain an H-1B visa. Previously, the limit had been 12 months — and the DHS used "emergency" provisions to avoid public review of the change. The foreigners must be students who attended American schools and earned a degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, employed in their field of study. Either that or they have to supermodels, reports the WSJ. Because who said the huddled masses can't look like the Indian/Irish/French Saira Mohan?

Under the Same Moon is, we're told, "a heart-warming tale of a Mexican immigrant mom working as a domestic in Los Angeles, and her Mexico-residing son from whom she's separated." It will open in limited release in April, and apparently the attached commercial for it is airing today on CNN. CNN specifically because the three review quotes pulled for the trailer all claim the film would have a profound emotional effect on Lou Dobbs, the noted Xenophobic scumbag. Of course, a cute Mexican kid would not actually have any effect on Lou Dobbs whatsoever. He would only cry if you took away his millions of dollars, or possibly his daughter's pony. Trailer below.

Legendary SciFi author Larry Niven is apparently a far-right-wing crank. A far-right-wing crank who advises the Department of Homeland Security! Niven, famous for his richly detailed stories of precisely defined aliens coexisting with humans, is now famous for trying to explain to a room full of government officials that "a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants." Also: "The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren't going to pay for anything anyway." The man wrote the Ringworld series and invented the Flash Mob so he's beloved by nerds and obviously qualified to advise important government agencies on how best to deal with the Latino menace. [Guanabee]

A correspondent writes to remind Valleywag that new applications for H-1B specialty worker visas will be accepted starting April 1. Management loves immigrant workers who are often cheaper and less prone to sassback. Meanwhile, homegrown developers and engineers see wage competition and job loss, and can get downright xenophobic. Immigrants catch it in the wash and the rinse, facing the prospect of abusive bosses and prejudiced coworkers. Immigration officials will penalize employers trying to game the lottery by submitting multiple applications for the same candidate, while two bills are up in Congress to double or triple the current quota of 65,000.

Kind of the most astounding lede we've read this week: "So I was having lunch at the Four Seasons with Lou Dobbs the other day, locked in disagreement over who cared more about working people, him or me." (The answer? Lou Dobbs is not swayed by reasoned arguments or civil discussion, demonstrates no interest in workable solutions to problems he identifies for the purposes of <a href="https://www.gawkerarchives.com/342376/lou-dobbs-scumbag".employing trumped-up rage to appeal to the angry white people who've made him an unlikely TV star.) [NYT]

The druggy singer has been denied entry to the New World. She had been scheduled to perform at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, but I guess now it's a big no, no, no. (Get it???) Her continued legal problems and recent stint in rehab are most likely why the US Embassy in London denied her visa. At last report, Winehouse was seen poking around the docks in Southampton, looking to smuggle herself aboard a steamship. [NYT]