Coolest Census PSA Ever!
Geek love knows no boundaries of race, color, creed, or sexual orientation!
‘Course, if Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Batshite) and Ron Paul (R-Bugfvck) can agitate Texans into losing votes & funding for fear of OMG ZOG, that’s just the cherry on the sundae…
March 31, 2010 9:58 am
Posted in: Daydream Believers
75 Comments
75 Responses
LarsThorwald - March 31, 2010 | 10:00 am · Link
I fucking love this country sometimes.
cleek - March 31, 2010 | 10:02 am · Link
George Takei – i remember him.
he was on that shitty TV show, Heroes!
Pigs & Spiders - March 31, 2010 | 10:04 am · Link
Oh thank God, that last thread was like having a conversation with Levi Johnson…at least as I imagine it.
SGEW - March 31, 2010 | 10:07 am · Link
@Pigs & Spiders: My imagined conversations with Levi Johnson seem to be a hell of a lot different than yours. ;)
Suicidal Zebra - March 31, 2010 | 10:08 am · Link
Awesome :)
dmsilev - March 31, 2010 | 10:10 am · Link
While the thought of Michelle Bachmann essentially redistricting herself out of a job is certainly an appealing one, I’m somewhat concerned that the frothing rhetoric that she and others are spreading are going to get some poor Census worker shot.
-dms
Colette - March 31, 2010 | 10:12 am · Link
Awwwww! Now that’s the way to start another work day.
geg6 - March 31, 2010 | 10:15 am · Link
FWIW, I love you Ann Laurie.
And this post is exhibit #1 for why.
Sulu rocks. That is all.
gypsy howell - March 31, 2010 | 10:15 am · Link
How can anyone not love George Takei?
PaulW - March 31, 2010 | 10:16 am · Link
Let me re-state my fear that the Far Right is talking their supporters into not doing the Census so that when time comes to redraw the Congressional districts, the Republican-controlled state legislatures will use it as an excuse to wipe out Democratic-held districts and redraw GOP-friendlier maps, so that at least for one election cycle they can retake the US House.
Morbo - March 31, 2010 | 10:19 am · Link
Man, I love how he writes his Rs.
toujoursdan - March 31, 2010 | 10:20 am · Link
Love it! Will post this on Facebook
demo woman - March 31, 2010 | 10:21 am · Link
@PaulW: My rep is Tom Price and GA should add seats after the census. Your analysis could be correct since the south should add seats. Bachman is laughable but the Price’s are dangerous.
Folderol and Ephemera - March 31, 2010 | 10:22 am · Link
@gypsy howell:
Racism and homophobia, for one thing. Or Next Generation fanaticism.
Yes, that’s right: anyone who doesn’t love George Takei is a racist, a homophobe, or a fanatic. There, I said it.
LuciaMia - March 31, 2010 | 10:23 am · Link
Just last night’s thread down below, the one with the pic of Lily curled up on the duvet. They should put that picture in the dictionary under ‘bliss.’
Pigs & Spiders - March 31, 2010 | 10:25 am · Link
@SGEW: YLJMMV.
demkat620 - March 31, 2010 | 10:27 am · Link
That is so full of win.
Much better than the way John chose to start the day.
Thanks!
Gary K - March 31, 2010 | 10:27 am · Link
It’s amusing, isn’t it, that they can tell us the rate of return on census forms? To do that, you need to calculate a fraction, and where are they getting the denominator?
Comrade javafascist - March 31, 2010 | 10:28 am · Link
Hard to be snarky with such a pitch perfect lovely sentiment. Thanks for sharing it.
Libby - March 31, 2010 | 10:30 am · Link
Love that ad but admit I wish no one had told the wingnuts that not filling out the census will hurt them. It would be delicious payback to see GOPers lose seats because they lied to their base about it.
Violet - March 31, 2010 | 10:30 am · Link
More Texas bashing? Really? There are a lot of people in need in Texas and if they aren’t counted then Texas won’t get the money to help. Thanks for supporting that.
Texas has a fast-growing Hispanic population and the state leans a lot more purple than Texas-bashers seem to think. Go on – cheer on the under-counting of the Texas population, and nevermind that such under-representation will likely slow down the aforementioned move to purple.
Does you really want Texas to be in play electorally? I know I sure do. Hoping the population is undercounted isn’t going to help Texas get there.
Karen S. - March 31, 2010 | 10:30 am · Link
No doubt the Repubs will probably use the fact that so many of their lemming-like supporters are refusing to fill out and return the census forms to their advantage somehow. Still, I’d like to spend a few more minutes feeling gleeful about the possibility of them losing Congressional seats because of their anti-Census stand. Their intransigence about this baffles me. They keep howling about how sacred the U.S. Constitution is yet throw tantrums about the Census, which is mandated in that very Constitution. Chuckleheads.
jwb - March 31, 2010 | 10:31 am · Link
@PaulW: That’s one weird conspiracy. How do the Goopers use census data that underrepresents Goopers (and they have to base the redistricting on census data) to redraw districts more favorable to Goopers? I mean, I can see that they will try to redistrict in ways favorable to Goopers, but I don’t see how having an undercount of Goopers helps them in the cause of redistricting.
Viva BrisVegas - March 31, 2010 | 10:32 am · Link
@Folderol and Ephemera:
Or Shatner.
stuckinred - March 31, 2010 | 10:33 am · Link
@demo woman: You could live over here with paul broun!
jwb - March 31, 2010 | 10:33 am · Link
@Gary K: Maybe the number of forms they sent out versus the number of forms returned?
West of the Cascades - March 31, 2010 | 10:33 am · Link
@LarsThorwald: This.
We have four lesbian couples in our church who can’t legally be married (in Oregon) who absolutely ARE married, and bless the census for counting them even if our freaking state won’t yet. Time’s a comin’ when only Utah and Wyoming won’t allow gay marriage and everyone else will ask why everyone thought it was a big deal (ok, maybe a few years yet, but it’s coming).
rootless-e - March 31, 2010 | 10:33 am · Link
when logic shows
that I’m at fault
I’ll point out
you’re in a cult
Each word I write is great
each run-on line
and quick update
honest disagreement – NOT!
that’s obvious
Obamabot!
I was a litigator
not a pleader
and am not fooled
by your Great Leader
I see right through
his Rahmish putsch
I know that he
is worse than Bush
Update V
Your questions
offend
my dignity
everything for sure
is all about
me
demo woman - March 31, 2010 | 10:37 am · Link
@stuckinred: If they add a rep it’s suppose to be north of Atlanta so we could have another whacko in between.
WereBear - March 31, 2010 | 10:39 am · Link
Love this: thank you, Anne Laurie!
To be typecast as a young actor is one of the worst hazards of the profession.
George Takei has handled it with grace, and his new activism side is awesome, too.
Exurban Mom - March 31, 2010 | 10:41 am · Link
This is full of epic win. I love George’s voice, could listen to it all day…
Libby - March 31, 2010 | 10:43 am · Link
Violet, that’s not Texas bashing. Have lots of friends in TX that I worry about. Don’t see how losing crazy Reps is going to hurt them any more than having those crazy Reps making decisions for them does. In the long run, I figure it just might help make the GOPs deluded believers understand that those people aren’t working in their best interests and some might come over to the light. Just a theory.
QDC - March 31, 2010 | 10:44 am · Link
Incidentally, is it really true that the official Census position is that you should check “married” if you consider yourself married whether or not you have a license? Or is this ad a little bit of civil disobedience in support of marriage equality? Fine with me either way, but now I’m curious.
Wormtown - March 31, 2010 | 10:45 am · Link
Thanks. That made my day :).
Max - March 31, 2010 | 10:46 am · Link
George has been on Howard Stern this week and he’s just the greatest.
He’s game for anything and really is fun to listen to. Yesterday, he talked about visiting the Brambles in Central Park during his wild and crazy younger days.
Punchy - March 31, 2010 | 10:47 am · Link
What’s this got to do with Greenwald’s PAC?
Maude - March 31, 2010 | 10:51 am · Link
@QDC: It means legally married. It’s not like I feel my feminine side breaking through today.
When you read about more single parents, this is how they find the info.
Violet - March 31, 2010 | 10:56 am · Link
@Libby:
I don’t think it works like that. A lower population count won’t mean fewer GOP-leaning districts. The Texas State Legislature will make sure of it. I tend to lean more toward PaulW’s concern:
@PaulW:
Lurker - March 31, 2010 | 10:58 am · Link
@Gary K:
On the chance that this was not snark…
If I mail out 100 RSVP cards, and 24 people send them back, then 24% of the cards were returned (24/100).
The census folks know how many forms they mailed out, and they know how many have been returned. They get the denominator from the number of forms mailed out.
EDIT – jwb beat me to it.
Redshirt - March 31, 2010 | 10:59 am · Link
The Census is my new favorite political story of the year and I can’t wait to see how it plays out. The idea that the wingnuts have so thoroughly checkmated themselves just gives me spasms of joy.
The Boramander You Know - March 31, 2010 | 11:02 am · Link
@Violet: Exactly, and the lowest return of census forms has been among two groups: heavily Republican counties (not that many) and heavily Hispanic counties (many more).
The rate of census returns in Texas is something to be truly alarmed about – if you’re a Democrat.
Tenzil Kem - March 31, 2010 | 11:03 am · Link
Ahem.
The rank on Takei’s shoulder is that of a Captain; however, the gold trim on the front of his uniform should only be work by an Admiral.
That is all.
gogol's wife - March 31, 2010 | 11:13 am · Link
I really like your posts. All sorts of interesting information. (back to work)
Violet - March 31, 2010 | 11:13 am · Link
@The Boramander You Know:
Exactly. It really bugs that people can blithely claim to be elated that Texas might be undercounted in the census since a lot of the undercounting will be in districts that would really benefit from the help.
Sure it’s amusing that some wingnuts might be shooting themselves in the foot by not returning the census forms, but the reality is much different. Offhand comments like the one in the original post don’t help matters much at all.
Luthe - March 31, 2010 | 11:14 am · Link
The thing is, not returning a census form simply means the Census bureau will send someone out to get a count
and get GPS coordinates of your address for when the black helicopters fire missiles at your front door. This, BTW, costs the taxpayers more money. If the wingnuts were really concerned about government spending, they’d be sending back their forms in droves.Persia - March 31, 2010 | 11:25 am · Link
@Tenzil Kem: IIRC, Sulu was an Admiral by the end of the original series continuity.
Also, if you didn’t see Brad and George on the Newlywed Game you truly missed out.
MattR - March 31, 2010 | 11:25 am · Link
@Luthe: IIRC from watching The Daily Show, it costs $85 million to do the follow up for every 1% percent of households that do not return the forms.
Tenzil Kem - March 31, 2010 | 11:26 am · Link
@Persia: If that’s the case, then the rank on his shoulder is incorrect.
Marmot - March 31, 2010 | 11:26 am · Link
OK, so y’all love to hate on Texas. I got that. I chalk it up to envy.
But realize that here in central Austin, my congressional district is drawn waaaaaaay the fuck out to the east, incorporating a bunch of tiny towns and whatnot, including the western-most portion of freaking Houston. As a result, the middle of my liberal city has a Republican representative. And we’ll lose funding unless the map is redrawn in our favor.
If you assume that none of the mouthbreathers in my district turn in their Census forms, this will appear to be a majority Democratic district. (I’ve already turned mine in, of course.)
The Repub-controlled state legislature will probably be jerks again and try to water down my district with even more rural areas—and the district will be larger than before, in order to incorporate the same number of Census-recorded people as before. Sure, this could end up helping us somehow, since rural areas across the state will have fewer representatives overall, but it’s nowhere near as cut-and-dried as some of you make it sound.
Bad Horse's Filly - March 31, 2010 | 11:41 am · Link
Anne Laurie, thank you for this, made me smile. geg6 said it best, this is just one of the reason I love you so much!
WereBear - March 31, 2010 | 11:46 am · Link
I was just glad I wasn’t the only one who got to the next space on the census form and said to myself, Wait, the rest are all cats.
liberty60 - March 31, 2010 | 12:01 pm · Link
Re: Repubs using low Census counts to screw Dems.
What would they do otherwise? High counts, low counts, moderate counts; What would the count have to be to get them to play fair?
Uloborus - March 31, 2010 | 12:10 pm · Link
Yeah, I can’t see any down side to Republicans not filling out their census forms. It doesn’t give the Republicans an opportunity to screw with districting. They have that opportunity anyway. Same with Hispanic undercounting. These are issues that just aren’t connected to the Republican zeal for underrepresenting themselves.
The idea that some of these new districts might be Democrat is a valid one, but in areas where Republican undercounting will make a difference, isn’t this sort of an ‘at best we’ll break even’ thing?
Mainly, this points out to me that the Republicans don’t have as much to lose here as I might have thought, either, because new representatives are not gauranteed locks for them.
LD50 - March 31, 2010 | 12:18 pm · Link
@Marmot:
You could say that. But you’d be badly mistaken.
JackieBinAZ - March 31, 2010 | 12:22 pm · Link
Here in the city of Prescott, there will only be Census notifications in the Murrican language, thank you!
Geeno - March 31, 2010 | 12:24 pm · Link
If it truly IS GOPers under-representing, and Dems are fully counted then that HAS to hose the GOP. Yes, there some shenanigans they can play within states, but then only so many, and every seat a red state loses is a seat picked up in a blue state.
Derek - March 31, 2010 | 12:24 pm · Link
Maybe this ad will frighten the teabaggers into registering with the Census, if only to counteract the effects of “weirdos” like Takei and Altman.
Howlin Wolfe - March 31, 2010 | 12:31 pm · Link
@Marmot: In Minnesota, Bachmann’s district was engineered to get the $$ Repugs from Stillwater on the eastern border, to St. Cloud, way northwest of the Twin Cities, to get the Xtian repugs. It will be hard to reclaim that one, without redistricting. Talk about mouth-breathers. There are regular racist, anti-gay and misogynistic acts in the St. Cloud area, which seems to have a bit of a neo-nazi infestation – like South St. Paul, where our glorious, bland Dear Leader Pawlenty-o-nuthin is from.
kommrade reproductive vigor - March 31, 2010 | 12:44 pm · Link
OMG, warm fuzzy overdose.
Libby - March 31, 2010 | 12:49 pm · Link
Think politicians are going gerrymander no matter what happens. Not an expert but don’t see why GOP wouldn’t lose Reps if their district is undercounted.
The funding problem for the wider district though is a good point I didn’t think of since that would hurt regular people. Don’t want that to happen.
comrade scott's agenda of rage - March 31, 2010 | 12:51 pm · Link
@PaulW:
This.
Here in Misery, the districts are already gerrymandered as to insure incumbancy. One exception is Ike Skelton’s district but since he’s a DINO, he doesn’t care. Of course if he retired (he’ll die in that office, trust me), the district as it stands now would plop a MissourAH wingnut in there.
What will happen regardless is that the Repups who control the legislature will try to gerrymander another Dem out of existence. The Dem governor will veto it. An impasse will occur, then it’ll get kicked to the courts who will do what they did ten years ago in this exact same circumstance: draw incumbant-safe districts.
That being said, the only firewall between those and Repups eliminating Dem seats is a Dem governor.
Origuy - March 31, 2010 | 12:55 pm · Link
@QDC: It is Census Bureau policy. From the LGBT policy factsheet:
Bill Section 147 - March 31, 2010 | 1:06 pm · Link
Why are Texans at once fiercely in love and proud about their state and yet so concerned when others, mock, hate, complain, or laugh at Texas. Oh no. Don’t under-count us.
Please feel free to mock, hate, laugh at, complain and stay away from California. Avoid it at all costs. I hope every GOPer refuses to fill out the socalist sensus. I hope they drastically under-count our population.
And while I am on the subject of California… We are the worst. Every day is horrible. Every second here is torture. Even the dead bunch grass weeps. It’s filthy, crime-riddled, and polluted. There are too many people. The cost of everything sucks. We are a burning sack of poop left on the doormat of the nation. We are a horrid pile of in-bred, drunken hillbillies. We lay with our dogs and cats in biblical fashion and do not even read the bible. There is nothing bad you can say about California that would be atrocious enough to describe it. Picture every thing you hate about your state and double it and you almost come close to how vile California was 20 years ago.
ruemara - March 31, 2010 | 1:12 pm · Link
This is so awesome it takes awesome outside and wrestles it to the ground in a vat of awesomesauce, then puts it in an awesome headlock, then makes it wear awesome girly tiaras. That’s how awesome it is.
Uloborus - March 31, 2010 | 1:24 pm · Link
@Bill Section 147:
I know! I LOVED living in LA. The laying with our dogs and cats and illegal but popular sugar gliders in the biblical sense was the best part!
pluky - March 31, 2010 | 1:26 pm · Link
@Max:
While there might be brambles there, the section of Central Park to which you refer is “The Rambles.” Not that I would know anything about what goes on there ;)
guy44 - March 31, 2010 | 1:58 pm · Link
Just as cool: the music at the end is from Okkervil River. Awesomeness all around.
artem1s - March 31, 2010 | 2:11 pm · Link
@WereBear:
damn, forgot to count the kitteh!
LD50 - March 31, 2010 | 2:44 pm · Link
@Bill Section 147: And Texas, please: don’t share your textbooks with us. Please.
evinfuilt - March 31, 2010 | 2:55 pm · Link
One Married Lesbian couple in Ron Pauls district has filled out the Census. We hope the rest of the repubs don’t so it’ll be listed as dominated by married Lesbian Couples.
Mike in NC - March 31, 2010 | 3:15 pm · Link
Into the 2nd week as a Census Enumerator. Was beginning to think most people would act like assholes over the phone—like the IRS was calling to audit them—but on the whole they’ve been pretty reasonable.
Cheryl from Maryland - March 31, 2010 | 5:58 pm · Link
If you are in Los Angeles, please go to the National Japanese-American History Museum near Little Tokyo. Mr. Takei is an active board member there. He is a champ.
tenkindsofgrumpy - March 31, 2010 | 6:06 pm · Link
@42 Did you time travel back from the 24th century to tell us that? Ahem.
Josh - March 31, 2010 | 6:53 pm · Link
@73 I thought Tenzil lived in the thirty-first century? And isn’t he a Senator or an aristocrat or something? He doesn’t practice law anymore, right?
Tenzil Kem - March 31, 2010 | 9:22 pm · Link
@Josh: There’s a nice but fanciul biography here. Honestly, I don’t know where they get some of this stuff…