"21,000 Canadians registered Jedi knight as a religion in the 2001 census"Fun facts : The Australia 2001 census boasted over 70,000 Jedi devotees while New Zealand had 53,715, making it the second largest religion in New Zealand, along with The Church of Elvis and Rugby, Racing and Beer.
In England and Wales, the Office of National Statistics announced their census totals in a press release entitled "390,000 Jedis there are", going on to suggest that the opportunity to give the hoax answer possibly boosted response from the usually laggardly teens and twenty somethings.
I think anyone who is not Dimitri Soudas appreciates that the Jedi answer was given by the same proportion of the population that normally writes "atheist" or "none" in the census box on religion. Of course, we would need an unbroken lineage of long-form census results to know that.
Soudas goes on to use the Canadian Jedi stat, information he presumably guiltily gleaned from the census, to battle the mighty census-supporting IggySiths :
"Canadians don't want the government at their doorstep at 10 o'clock at night while they may be doing something in their bedroom, like reading, because government wants to know how many bedrooms they have."Take it away, Christopher Walken.
And finally, a week after the Cons stonewalled the SECU committee's call for a G20 inquiry into the largest mass arrest in Canadian history, they are now calling for immediate emergency committee hearings to "examine the urgent public issue created by the Ignatieff Liberals' threat to prosecute and jail law-abiding Canadians who do not wish to participate" in the long census.
Urgent public issue?
The Canada Long Census of 1871, which "asked 211 questions on area, land holdings, vital statistics, religion, education, administration, the military, justice, agriculture, commerce, industry and finance", is now pared down to 59 questions used in the present long-form ever since 1971, but hey, an emergency is an emergency when you're a Con fighting off Jedi Knights in your bedroom at 10 o'clock at night.
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8 comments:
I used to believe in compulsory voting, however given that about a third of my fellow Canadians not only fall for this nonsense but actively support the Cons dissemination of such, I now feel that voters should be compelled to produce a certificate of mental health before permitted to vote.
The Harperite's continued support of policies that do harm to them and their loved ones can only be explained by the presence of some form of psychosis. How far do the Cons have to go before even one Harperite says "You know maybe Harper isn't god after all".
Kev : My money's on Clement. He's already let it be known that this decision came from Harper and that he disagreed with it.
Alison, The fact that Clement and Flaherty saw the need to put their opposition to this in writing says several things to me. It would seem that even as senior ministers they don't have access to the PM, or sensing beforehand a the backlash to such an inane policy that they chose to write CYA letters, or both.
However given their defense of this policy these CYA letters are worthless in fact may come back to haunt them in the future,as the question needs to be asked if you are on the record opposing the scrapping of the mandatory long form why are you now trying to sell Canadians on this policy.
But to get to your point when two of the most senior members of a party and government feel the need to engage in CYA tactics, then there very likely is dissension in the ranks. One can only hope.
The thing that perplexes me the most regarding the timidity of the opposition is that Harper is the leader with the most to lose in an election ( certainly no more than Ignatief) because if he fails to produce a majority or loses, history shows that he is most likely out as leader.
And what issues would the Libs go up against the Cons over, Kev?
On what issues do the Libs differ from the Cons?
Afghanistan? The tar sands? The Canada-Colombia FTA? Exporting asbestos to the third world? Funding abortions in th third world? Tax policy? Stimulous spending? Support for Israel? Afghan detainees? Electoral reform?
I'm not saying there are no differences between libs and cons, but the Libs have left themselves no policy daylight between the Cons and themselves.
Anonymous, I agree that there is little of substance separating the Cons and the Libs. In fact i can guarantee that the Libs will not repeal any piece of Con legislation of any import, in fact they are likely content to let the Cons do their dirty work for them. While it is an exercise in futility to merely swap one oppressor for another,it is still time to send Harper back to safety behind his treasured firewall.
Nothing will change until we force electoral reform or at the very least stop treating elections like sporting events where the only thing that matters is being on the winning side.
Every federal election, I go to the polls knowing one thing, A lib will win in my riding of Etobicoke/Lakeshore, which is why Ignatief chose this riding in spite of the fact that he does not reside here.
As an individual all I can do is to continue to vote my conscience, educate my neighbors, and of course continue to take to the streets advocating for change
Can we now begin calling them The Canadian Con Teabaggers?
I was furious to see Harper using Trudeau's comment about the State having no place in the nations bedrooms to justify their outrageous lying excuses over the census!
Applause for another great blogpost!!!
Brilliant punch line.
The census also was a source of employment for people and I can think of a few who were grateful to have that job.
This leads me to wonder if this long form elimination is a way to save a few dollars. Eliminate the paid census takers.
from: OEM
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