If you filled out the telephone number question accurately and also put “Human” or “Wookie”, I think we can assume you’re getting a follow-up call.
Thanks for helping the employment situation.
Yes. Honestly, though, you’d think they could have taken the time to write shit down.
Whisper whisper literacy punishable by death whisper whisper whisper.
Yes, sexual identity is bullshit. How dare those people not fit into our puritanical sexual categories. They* choose* to be “that way.”
Well, they could still draw, right? Lazy negroes!
I wouldn’t argue with Rumor_Watkins about this. The census seems to make him very, very angry. One must not only fill it out to his satisfaction, they must be more than happy to do so! Anyone with even the slightest negative thought or who doesn’t have a smile of joy on their face is labeled hand-wringing, hypersenstive, and outraged…with delicate sensibilities, too boot! My suggestion is to back away slowly.
yes. Shut up… Now! :d
This is just an idle thought … In time, maybe The Human Genome Project can eventually fill in some of the gaps. It won’t get you down to a long ago individual, but I think it could eventually get down to some geographical area and general group of people. It’s better than nothing.
Some people already do this. It just costs money, is all.
I was thinking about the “science project” that is sometimes mentioned in the Discovery or the Learning Channel. I thought those were free, except maybe for the postage (?). I could be completely wrong - haven’t bothered to check yet. It seems if it were costly for the “test subjects”, it would seriously skew the test data (?).
I should look into it. We have some “my ancestors are blah blah and blah blah” at work, and it would really be fun to answer with “well MY ancestor was Vlad the Impaler or Attila the Hun and he killed YOUR ancestor” 
I’m pretty sure that in some parts of the world having Attila the Hun as a male ancestor is a virtual certainty due to his controversial but effective “kill all the men, rape all the women” policy.
One of the amazing (yet perfectly logical, in a sort of self-serving way) things was how quickly Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann went from attempting to make the Census a rallying point over (her insanely paranoid ideas of) “Socialism” - - - to complete silence and assent…
…after being told that;
a> Minnesota is right on the cusp of losing a house seat, and
b> Due to the way the districts are drawn, the one we lose would very likely be HERS.
Yeah, but my off center point of view is more entertaining
I just spent a good 5 minutes filling out my form. I was asked some incredibly personal questions such as:
- how many people live at my address?
- when was I born?
- how old am I?
I feel violated!
That’s beautiful. And, of course, why would they lose a house seat? Because of all the people she’s encouraging not to fill out the Census, leading to underreporting, leading to a statistical dip in Minnesota’s population.
Nobody, but nobody is better at shooting themselves in the foot than Americans, by god.
It’s a wonderful thing. It’s almost poetic.
“Be careful what you ask for, because you might just get it”.
An elderly man was sitting on his porch, when a young man walked up with a pad and pencil in his hand.
“What are you selling young man,” he asked.
“I’m not selling anything,” the young man said. I’m a census taker."
“A what?” the elder man asked.
“A census taker. We are trying to find out how many people are in the United States.”
“Well,” the man answered. “You’re wasting your time with me, I have no idea.”
Asexuality is an orientation, not a gender label. And I can’t think of many good reasons why the Census would ask about orientation.
The reason the gender question is binary is not because it’s being insensitive, but because it is, for the most part, a binary issue. The Census doesn’t really want to comb through smartass answers like “yes” “no” “sometimes” or whatever. And since the population of truly intersexed individuals is so low, they really are statistically insignificant. The Census is, after all, interested in numbers, not in passing judgment.
I understand “mixed-race” or whatever we are calling it now, was only recently added to the census form.
There may be groups that collect genetic data for their own use, but that’s going to be completely different from asking someone to sequence and analyze your genetic code for something specific (racial heritage and/or specific ancestors).