I heard on the news that we haven't all submitted our census forms yet. What a shock! I mean, come on people, how is the government supposed to know how many of us there are, and where we live? Unless we all fill out the ten questions that the government absolutely needs answered, how will Washington ever be able to determine where to send the wealth that is going to be spread around?

Of course, they could just use data that already exists. Data such as voter registrations, welfare checks mailed, children enrolled in school, prison populations, births during the past five years (years beyond the past five would be counted as school enrollment) and deaths during the past ten years (except for the Chicago area, where the departed are still registered to vote). Add those up, use a computer to insure there's no double counts (for instance: people who are both registered to vote and receiving welfare checks), and such and estimate could probably be a more accurate than the results that the Census Bureau will get from their 10 questions when only two-thirds of the population has responded.

Of course that wouldn't be completely accurate, now would it? How in the world will the administration possibly sleep at night knowing that there might be a statistically insignificant error in the data?

Wait, the Census Bureau could hire Michael Mann, that statistical wizard of "hockey stick" fame, to massage the data to give the administration the numbers it wants. Greater population growth in so-called "blue" states and significant population declines in "red" states. That would allow for a shift in congressional seats to safely Democrat districts, further protecting the governing majority for Nancy Pelosi. Unfortunately, Harry Reid doesn't benefit at all, just because of that pesky Constitution thing, which allots two Senate seats per state, regardless of population. Sorry, Harry.

An organization such as the Heritage Foundation might volunteer, since it has both a pool of talent and the financial wherewithal to fulfill the task, to use the voter registration / school enrollment / welfare recipient method to validate the administration's results - just to make sure that they've done their sums correctly. After all when you are totaling a nose count that will top 300 million, errors could conceivably creep in to the effort. Congress is well aware of this problem, since they demand that every publicly held corporation employ independent auditors to check the numbers to protect their stockholders. It would seem reasonable to use the same validation techniques for the largest publicly held organization in the country - the government itself.

After all, Mark Twain said it best - "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."