Canadian Census: 20,000 Jedi Worshippers

Lev13than writes "Canada.com is reporting that some 20,000 Canadians listed "Jedi" as their religion in the last national census (2001). Apparently this is the offshoot of an Internet joke which originated in Australia a few years back. The results are interesting on a couple of levels. While it show that some people may have too much time on their hands, it also raises questions of privacy rights, Internet activism and data integrity. Although it's not statistically significant given Canada's population of 31.5 million, 20,000 lightsabre-wielding census-takers is nothing to sneeze at. StatsCan's full report (with no mention of Jedis) can be found here."

Comments

Religion Question?

[mharris007]

Which brings up a question; Should Religion be a question on a national census form?

If people are getting offended by the race question on the U.S. census form, I can just imagine the number of people that are going to get pissed off by a religion question.

Re:Religion Question?

[RestiffBard]

For the people that are going to say its no one's business about this or that or how many toilets they have and so forth allow me a moment. First off, the toilet question was a real question from the 2000 US Census.

Now, before people get up in arms there are legitimate reasons for wanting this data. And they in no way harm any citizen. They are designed to help citizens.

For instance, the Marklar race respond that on average they earn 12,000 a year and have no indoor toilet. This lets the government know 1. Marklars may not be getting the racial equality that in the US should be mandatory. 2. Marklars are not properly being serviced by their government. This is rudimentary but you get the idea (i hope).

as for the questions, a curious thing happened in 2000. people complained about the questions, race, toilets, salary etc... Trent Lott, then Senate Majority Leader said that if people didn't want to answer the questions then the Census had no right to compel people to do so.

Here's the funny part. 1. the Census is meant only to count heads. 2. the other questions on the Census are tacked on by Congress 3. Congress in fact gives the Census the mandate to compel people to answer. 4. Trent Lott is an obvious asshat.

Finally for all of you clever people that thought the Census wouldn't count you if you closed the blinds when ever an enumerator came by you're wrong. Enumerators, towards the end of the Census would park at the end of your street and count people entering and leaving. How many cars in the driveway? How many people-size shadows behind the curtains? They would make an educated guess at the number and put that down.

Where is the 2000 Census data now? Arizona. In a big vault for the most part.

How do I know? That's where I Fed-Exed it. I was a Census Clerk for 2000. No, I really didn't care what you wrote down.

By the way, James Weatherby of 3247 Main St. has 5 bathrooms.