April 03, 2006

• the U.S. gov't can find out lots of nifty information about you and yours. Um, like how many of you there are?
• Blame Canada!
• + ethnicity, yearly earnings, family, relationships, religion, political leanings..
• Oh geez that sucks, eh? Like, I'd totally lie about the 2 1/2 baths eh. Okey. Gimme a smoke.
• But seriously, what's the plan? IIRC over here when one doesn't send in a census they start harassing us by phone and all sorts of thinly veiled pointless threats. "Oh, you don't want us to come over and interview you do you?" Of course, the form of I.P. Freely, who is an Evangelical 52-year old Asian-American woman with 8 bathrooms and 5 housepigs was promptly submitted.
• Um, like how many of you there are? Well, sure. There's that. But there's also lengthy sections about your family situation, ethnicity, citizenship, countries of origin, languages spoken, phone numbers, where you're living now, where you lived last year, or five years ago, etc., etc. Not to mention reciting the whole of your last income tax return. And how many cows you have. And seeing as how Canada is a rather diverse country, and how we're supposedly harbouring all these terrorists and all, Canadians are placed in a position where they give this info to the people that are supposed to protect their interests, but can go right into the hands of the U.S. government -- which doesn't care about Canadians' interests at all. (And the 'If you don't have anything to hide, then you have nothing to worry about' argument has thoroughly discredited by one Maher Arar, so let's please not get into that.)
• You can request the census forms in over forty different languages. I'm gonna do mine in Urdu. I neither speak nor read it, but hey, they're giving me the option.
• Ahh, just the reason I needed to stop answering my door all together.
• What! No Latin! Or Icelandic! How can they possibly expect me to fill in a census. Not that I speak either. I think I will fill mine in with a fountain pen. Then accidently leave it in the rain.
• The U.S. Fed's can only use the U.S. Patriot Act to access data if the data 'crosses the border', i.e. it is hosted on or transferred to a data repository in the U.S.A.. I routinely mask client sensitive data our company send to venders in the States because of this. It appears (but not confirmed) the work will be done here in Canada, so the Patriot Act does not apply. I lost interest in the civil disobedience, however, when I read the following from the CountMeOut site, But computer software is highly technical and complex. We believe it would be entirely possible for Lockheed Martin to plant a "trojan horse" within the Census software, to secretly allow the CIA to tap into Canadian census data. So, the CountMeOut movement is based on the possibility of modified software. Crap! If such a trojan were ever discovered, there would be more fecal matter tossed around than in a History.com forum thread debating who won the war of 1812! (We did) entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem - If the CIA wanted Canadian census data, they would already have it. A bribe of US$10K to a Statistics Canada tape-monkey to 'misplace' an archival tape containing the data is so much simpler.
• You forget, these people are morons. They can't even do basic dirty tricks right anymore. I don't put anything past anyone anymore. Especially you. /points at YOU
• Hey, what did I do?
• 1. Count me out is opposed to free trade between Canada and the US. This Lockheed-Martin business is just a ploy to scare ordinary Canadians over a nonexistant threat. 2. Lockheed Martin Canada is a Canadian company which is subsidiary to an American Company. The company I work for is similar. I have no problem with a Canadian company handling Canadian census data. 3. The current Canadian govenment is US-friendly, War-on-Terror-friendly and Bush-friendly. I'd be more concerned with them having my data than Lockheed-Martin.
• lengthy sections about your family situation, ethnicity, citizenship, countries of origin, languages spoken, phone numbers, where you're living now, where you lived last year, or five years ago, etc., etc. Not to mention reciting the whole of your last income tax return. And how many cows you have. So?
• 1. How many talking chickens do you own? 2. Do any of them play the oboe?
• 
• Well, why don't you tell us how many cows you have? And, to address your "So?": It's none of their business! I wrote on the last census form that I resented the whole thing as I considered it an infringement on my privacy and had no intention of doing it again. As it is, all that information is readily available from various sources, so why should I go through the hassle of compiling it all for "The Man's" convenience?
• 14. blue.
• This doesn't make census.
• And, to address your "So?": It's none of their business! So?
• Touche. [Slinks off, plotting revenge]
• What the census data is used for How does the government plan educational spending if it doesn't know how many students to expect? How does the government plan social spending like pension plans and childcare if it doesn't know how many need it? A boycott of the census based on the unlikely hypothesis of a Trojan horse seems like the triumph of paranoia over civic responsibility.
• I think somebody's hiding a few dozen cows in his basement. "So" is the Godwin of arguments. It's awesome! Plus, if it's all readily available from other sources, why worry about giving it to them? P.S. I think Lockheed Martin has its fingers in far too many pies. P.P.S. I'm gonna write in Jedi as my religion on the next census because that's just how cool I am.
• seems like the triumph of paranoia over civic responsibility So?
• Heh - in the U$A the fine for failure to return census documents is $100 and the fine for submitting false information is $500; go figure which course of action is more economical. The census people are afraid of my road with its bikers, bad dogs and locked gates, so they don't bother me much.
• Perhaps if you set out a side dish of Fava beans and a nice Chianti it would dissuade the census taker from visiting your home.
• If they know enough to know the information is false why do they need the information again?
• Please refer to StoryBored's answer before indulging in any more lurid paranoiac fantasies. Answering the census accurately is in fact in your own interest. *wrings dirty mop out*
• How does the government plan educational spending if it doesn't know how many students to expect? How does the government plan social spending like pension plans and childcare if it doesn't know how many need it? Well, if everyone with children and those child-free would claim two EXTRA children... AND two EXTRA old folks, plus say they need childcare... Then maybe the damn government would give half a minute thinking about caring for the people instead of priming the military-corporate complex with billions of dollars that go straight into politicians pockets. Oh, wait. We're talking about Canada? Carry on.
• I don't have any kids, and there ain't gonna be no more pension money by the time I'm a senior, and they'll probably push the age for that up to like 90 by then, in which case I'll have already been processed into Soylent Timbits. It's made of people!!! PEOPLE!!! I'm sorry for teh cranky, I took the wrong bus home today, and I didn't notice 'til we got to the part of the city where there wasn't anymore city. And then later, thinking that the bus had reached its terminus, I got off the bus I had been riding for about an hour, whereupon I realized I should have stayed on the bus, and so I got back on, and then the driver ASKED TO SEE MY GODDAMN TRANSFER!!! Dang, am I ever angry. I'm going to MeTa.
• Lockheed Martin Canada is a Canadian company which is subsidiary to an American Company. The company I work for is similar. I have no problem with a Canadian company handling Canadian census data. I didn't pull the trigger, my hand did! My hand is not a part of me!
• - Census-Taker: Yeah. Well, I just need to fill out this Census form with you. Uh.. how many people live in this residence? - Mr. Leonard (Christopher Walken):Oh, boy.. good question. I'm bad with numbers.. Maybe 80. - Census-Taker: 80 people live in this apartment? - Mr. Leonard: Seems high, doesn't it? Not 80. How about 4? I don't know.. I'm so bad at guestimating.. - Census-Taker: Well, just take your time, and count. - Mr. Leonard: Okay.. there's me.. my wife.. our plants.. we have some candy bars.. - Census-Taker: Well, you know, we don't count candy bars or plants.. - Mr. Leonard: Well, then, there's just the two of us. Boy, I really overshot with the 80!
• That was a very funny sketch. The SNL's that Walken hosts are almost always the year's best.
• Soylent Timbits BWaH! HAhahaha! . . . *hoo!* *munch**munch**munch*
• I am crushing...er....I am counting your heads!
• ....Pete, do you want me to count your two and half heads as two heads or just one big head?
• But what about the rest of Pete? Do buttocks get counted as two items or one large butt? I really, really want to know this.
• *waits for the good part*
• The place where I worked used to do research with anonymised Canadian Census data, and similar surveys, for health and epiemiology. They wanted to know how many people in the country had arthritis, how many had rheumatologists near them, etc. They used this research to present to the government and to help the Arthritis Society. It was all very nefarious. As for privacy, they were never allowed to publish anything with too few numbers - so no one could ever be possibly identified. The one time anyone worked with not completely anonymised data (he was doing a longitudinal study, and even then I don't think he knew names or anything), he had to sign confidentiality agreements up the wazoo and basically put his career and freedom on the line just to use data that was connected to specific numbers. They are very careful with this data, much, much more so than any market researcher or other surveyer.
• During WWII, I understand that Statistics Canada was "asked" by the government to reveal the names and locations of Japanese-Canadians for internment purposes. They refused. So even under war conditions, they upheld their principles which is no small matter. Unfortunately, this didn't help the Japanese Canadians any, because the information was available elsewhere.
• Yeah but that's back in the 40's when . . umm . when people . . uhh . . ah forget it.
• This is probably a dumb question, but do they ask for your religious affiliation on the Canadian census forms? I thought that was illegal, like it is here in the States.
• Nope, no questions about religion. Oh, another benefit of the census: 25,000 jobs available right now.
• How often do census workers get shot at?
• THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT! IT IS A SAFE JOB!
• Earlier, Monkeyfilter announced that there were 25,000 census jobs available. The actual number is now 25,001. We regret the error.
• Investigators were not sure how many of the dogs belonged to the homeowner, Wayne Newton, and how many were strays. Geez Wayne's really gone Unabomber on us, I thought he was all rich and livin' in Vegas . . .
• When my sister was a little kid she always sang Newton's song "Donkey chin, darlin' donkey chiiiiin..." /derail
• Investigators were not sure how many of the dogs belonged to the homeowner If only a census taker had gotten there sooner, they would have known for sure.
• *chokes*
• Spit. Take.
• *dials Letterman*
• To speak to Dave press 1. To report a census-taker death press 2
• To irritate a Canadian, repeatedly press 3