Did You Know...

Photo via Seattle Times

I’ve got another story to add to my Census taxpayer waste files. In addition to the gold-plated Super Bowl ads and cross-country caravans, billion-dollar kiddie propaganda, and multiculti p.r., you can now add government-sponsored Census fortune cookies to the pile.

Really. Via the Seattle Times (h/t My Two Census):

Next time you crack open a fortune cookie, check the flip side. The federal government may have a message for you.

Tsue Chong Co., a fortune-cookie factory in Seattle’s Chinatown International District, is inserting five different census messages into 2 million cookies being shipped to restaurants and groceries across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

Like the usual predictions of wealth, fame and long life you’ll find on one side, the census missives on the opposite side are a bit … well … banal.

“Put down your chopsticks and get involved in Census 2010,” reads one message. “Real Fortune is being heard,” reads another.

It’s all part of a broader effort by the Census Bureau to spread the word about the upcoming population count on April 1. The nation’s 112 million households will begin receiving forms in the mail beginning in late March.

…The “census” cookies began rolling off the “assembly line” at Tsue Chong on Wednesday — at a rate of 8,000 an hour.

Question: Will the White House count these as jobs/cookies they saved/created?