I don't watch very much television, but I do watch some. Lately, in the small amount of time that I've watched, I keep seeing the same commercial over and over again. It's a commercial for the US Census. Now I acknowledge the need for an accounting of the number of people in the country. But in the commercial, they're burning a barn down, showing outdated fire department equipment failing. I'm curious as to how much money it cost to make the commercial, and how much it is costing us to run this commercial repeatedly on network television. The census is so important? And then I received a reminder notice to fill out and return my census form before and after I actually got the fucking thing. I have a better idea. Take all this money that is being wasted on the excesses of the census, and use it for something. Like Income Tax relief for the poor, maybe? That'd just be a shame if the government had to put the money to good use and not tax the shit out of poor people the way they do now. Not that I'm bitter about giving away a fifth of every one of my paychecks away so that in return I can be harassed by police and receive shitty mail delivery from a postal worker who might later shoot me in a McDonald's. Because delivering mail is such a stressful job.