Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

You haven't had mathematics and statistics explained to you very well, have you?
 
You haven't had mathematics and statistics explained to you very well, have you?

:rolleyes:

Hrrr, I dun need no book lernin

EDIT: Anyways, yes I do have a statistical and mathematical background, and a pretty good one for a political science student.

Just because the numbers don't add up to 100% does not render such stats useless. When taking a small sample to extrapolate out to a larger population, a large margin of error is not uncommon or necessarily a bad thing.

Plus, when polling for political party, many third party members won't categorize themselves as independents, but as a member of that party. I bet if the polls had more options, the numbers would certainly get closer to 100%.
 
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Mussolini was paid ?100 a week by MI5 in 1917 for "at least a year".

Mussolini a British spy? The mind boggles.
 
Especially interesting as he, if I'm not mistaken, was a blatant communist back in 1917.

That said, the Balfour decleration (Foreign Secretary Balfour promising the jews a homeland in Palestine) was after all an attempt to appeace Lev Trotskij, so he might get Russia back in the war. After all, he was a jew, so a jewish homeland should mean a lot for him. It didn't. He was an internationalist, not a zionist.

One thing you need to understand about british intelligence and foreign policy of that era is that it employed the best minds the British nation had to throw at such matters. But we're still talking about very conservative imperialists, and they didn't really understand the underlying causes of communism, so it was a lot easier to understand it as zionism, something that was easy to analyze, it was about terretories and resources.

Wouldn't suprice me if they tought they had some good reason to pay Mussolini. Kaiser Willhelm did send Lenin on a train to Russia as well. Willhelm was a blithering idiot, that's true, but still.
 
:rolleyes:

Hrrr, I dun need no book lernin

Oh you do. You really do.

EDIT: Anyways, yes I do have a statistical and mathematical background, and a pretty good one for a political science student.

But not as good as you think. Then again, political science - the art of spinning numbers and hoping someone doesn't notice.

The margin of error is applied to the percentage of the overall responses, not to each individual response. If I survey 100 people, give them two options and my margin of error is 3%, that doesn't mean, as you have just argued, that I lose 6 responses, or that I magically have gained 6 responses.

This is utterly basic stuff.
 
maybe more than one response could be identified by people if they felt they watched 2 or more news stations equally?

Although you would think that would be specified by the publishers of the survey....
 
Oh you do. You really do.



But not as good as you think. Then again, political science - the art of spinning numbers and hoping someone doesn't notice.

The margin of error is applied to the percentage of the overall responses, not to each individual response. If I survey 100 people, give them two options and my margin of error is 3%, that doesn't mean, as you have just argued, that I lose 6 responses, or that I magically have gained 6 responses.

This is utterly basic stuff.

I could do the research, and argue with you on this, but, I won't, because I'm tired, and I have more important stuff to do.

You win, good night.
 
He was running for Senate, so he didn't get the same vetting as a presidential candidate got. Not to mention that throwing around lies about a candidate for senate is a lot easier than doing it against a presidential candidate, as the chance of being proven wrong is greater when you say something about a persidential candidate.

The issue would seem quite obvious, it would seem like it's proven without doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii.

:)
 
We're getting thrown more and more into political crisis by a combination of incompetent/impertinent President and partly gutless Parliament. Arguments raged after a party was basically off-loaded from the Government, and the restructured Gov. only lasted for a few weeks before the Parliament approved a motion which sent it down. Now our "dear beloved" President has basically been contradicting his own statements from one day to the next, saying he doesn't want technocrats in the new Government and ending up assigning one of those as the interimary PM.

And all of this is going on while the interimacy has a maximum duration of 45 days and, in less than 45 days, we have the presidential elections.
 
Have you not heard of the "birthers"? Even Ann Coulter thinks they're crazy :lol:. They're a handful of nutcases who think that Obama is not US born. I very much doubt that something as huge as that would have slipped by the Clinton or McCain campaigns.

No actually I haven't, to be honest I try not to pay too much attention to news outlets, etc. I can't believe something like that would slip by those running against him. I just thought how odd it was stated, very matter of fact-ly.
 
It?s not exactly a bloody horse head left in the bed overnight, but Fox News has sent a message it?s ready to play hardball with the White House Communications Director who says she?s going to treat Fox News ?the way we treat an opponent? and not like an ordinary cable network. (See Toby Harnden?s post, ?Barack Obama?s Silly Obsession with Fox News?.)

Anita Dunn went on one of the Sunday talk shows last weekend to fulminate about Fox, calling it ?a wing of the Republican Party? and ?not a news organization in the sense that CNN is a news organization.? By Thursday, researchers for Fox?s very popular Glenn Beck Show had unearthed video of Dunn giving an inspirational address last June to an audience of high school students in which she quotes from one of her ?favorite political philosophers?, one of the ?two people she turns to most?, who turns out to be Mao Tse-tung. By Friday, the clip had gone as viral as can be. (To watch clip, go to about 4:00 to get past Beck?s introduction and see Dunn?s speech.)
[YOUTUBE]pYOfNB2igdk[/YOUTUBE]
Voice brimming with emotion, Dunn says:

In 1947, when Mao Tse Tung was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai?shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, ?How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this against all of the odds against you?? And Mao Tse Tung said, you know, ?You fight your war, and I?ll fight mine.?

She then asks the youngsters to ?think about that for a second? and draw the conclusion that ?You don?t have to accept other?s definition of how to do things?You don?t have to let external definitions define you internally? You figure out what?s right for you. Everybody has their own path.?

How very profound

I?m not one of those shrieking ?There?s a Maoist lose in the White House!? I grew up in one of the most left-wing cities in America, Ann Arbor, Michigan, surrounded by actual, declared Maoists ? people who would pull The Little Red Book out of the breast pocket of their denim bib coveralls, and wave them around during demonstrations, so I should know what a real, or even just a summer semester Maoist looks like. Mostly, I agree with a friend who says ?I know. She was using the reference in a sort of ?Aren?t-I-cute-and-kinda-eccentric-and-actually-really-ballsy-at-the-same-time-Lefty-librarian,wannabee-Vietcong-warrior-way.

But I also agree with him that ?she wasn?t speaking about Johnny Apple Seed? here. It?s really not cool to make cute little jokes about the outreness of combining Mao and Mother Teresa in an inspirational lecture. And why do you need Mao to make such a bland, Hallmark cards-ish point? Aren?t there plenty of people who?ve said something inspirational about ?going your own way?? Like that Thoreau guy. Remember him? Didn?t he say something about ?marching to a different drummer??

It?s not outrageous, just kind of embarrassing for the White House, and all too indicative of how many pin-head old Lefties swept in with this administration.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/s...ita-dunn-is-exposed-as-a-fan-of-chairman-mao/

That the White House Communications Director would say something like what she said about a cable news network is quite disturbing. Treat one section of the press like an opponent? I mean really.....
 
Yeah, but Fox isn't a news network.

:)

Treat one section of the press like an opponent? I mean really.....

And Fox treat Obama how, exactly?

I seem to recall one guy on Fox saying that Obama hated white people. He flat out called the POTUS a racist, live, on air.
 
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While Fox is more about bullshit editorializing than actual news coverage, it's stupid to pick a fight like that. All the conservative pundits are just going to eat this up.
 
October 18, 2009
Rahm Emanuel offers more bad media criticism

After the firestorm of media blowback that greeted Anita Dunn's declaration of war on Fox News last Sunday, you might think a little caution would be used before the administration played media critic again.

But there was Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, essentially making the same bad argument in an appearance Sunday on CNN's John King's "State of the Union" that the White House is righteous in trying to ostracize Fox because Fox is not a "news network" -- it's an "arm" of the Republican Party, to quote Dunn.

As many problems as I have with Fox News, I am fundamentally opposed to any administration trying to bully any part of the press into submission.

But beyond that, what about the obvious intellectual bankruptcy of the White House argument? Is MSNBC a "real news network"? The highly-partisan, pro-administration channel doesn't even cover the news on weekends. It runs prison documentaries instead -- something I have also complained long and loud about. But that's okay, I guess, because they what -- are an arm of the part the White house controls?

Here is the exchange Sunday between John King and Emanuel. King asks a clear question, and Emanuel gives him a bad answer. That's because Emanuel has a bad argument he is trying to make.

KING: I'm trying to get behind the curtain and understand why your White
House has decided that it is in its interest to have this, boom, with
our rival, FOX News. Anita Dunn, one of your staff, calls it the -- the
communications director, the wing of the Republican Party. Why?

EMANUEL: Well, no, it's not so much a conflict with FOX News. But unlike
-- I suppose, the way to look at it and the way we -- the president
looks at it and we look at it, is, it is not a news organization so much
as it has a perspective. And that's a different take. And more
importantly, does not have -- the CNNs and others in the world basically
be led and following FOX, as if that -- what they're trying to do is a
legitimate news organization in the sense of both sides and a sense of
value (ph) opinion.


As muddy as his words and his thinking are, there is a clear attempt by Emanuel to cut Fox from the herd: "it's not so much a news organization as...." He is also trying to link the other news channels to CNN and distinguish them from Fox. Among the "others" would be MSNBC, no?

I am not even go to take on his silly suggestion that the White House is attacking Fox because it fears the rest of the media will be led into temptation and sin by the success of Fox. At least, that is what he seems to be saying. (And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from all evil, amen, Mr. Emanuel, please.)

Outside of Lou Dobbs, CNN does offer a model worthy of emulation when it comes to emphasizing fact-based journalism rather than opinion. I have written that story repeatedly. Fox is not CNN, that's for sure.

But it is no worse than MSNBC, and it has been performing an all-important function in serving as watchdog of the White House.

And I repeat what I said last week: We should all be concerned about any administration trying to do to anyone in the press what this one is trying to do to Fox. This is the bad stuff of which Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were made when it came to trying to bully the press.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2009/10/rahm_emanuel_fox_news_white_ho.html

And the administration embarrasses itself again......
 
I would have never thought FOX News would be the underdog in a fight for once. Must be all that Bush-era backlash coming through to the top.

And you wonder why nobody trusts the news media anymore? The fourth estate does have a responsibility to keep the government at tabs as their watchdog, but knuckle-dragging fights like this are completely pointless. Dunn should be fired as a Communications Director who has to deal with THE MEDIA.
 
As many problems as I have with Fox News, I am fundamentally opposed to any administration trying to bully any part of the press into submission.

As much as I think this whole thing is stupid (on the administration's part), I don't think they're trying to bully Fox News. They must know that Fox isn't going to roll over easily and that they're just throwing petrol - or gas, in the US - onto the fire. They can't be that thick, can they?
 
That the White House Communications Director would say something like what she said about a cable news network is quite disturbing. Treat one section of the press like an opponent? I mean really.....

And how is that different from how the previous administration treated almost the entire media?

While Fox is more about bullshit editorializing than actual news coverage, it's stupid to pick a fight like that. All the conservative pundits are just going to eat this up.


Agreed
I would have never thought FOX News would be the underdog in a fight for once. Must be all that Bush-era backlash coming through to the top.

And you wonder why nobody trusts the news media anymore? The fourth estate does have a responsibility to keep the government at tabs as their watchdog, but knuckle-dragging fights like this are completely pointless. Dunn should be fired as a Communications Director who has to deal with THE MEDIA.

and agreed.

Portions of Fox news, not all of them Sheppard Smith for example seems like a stand up real news man, are either a bully or a troll. You stand up to a bully and they usually back off but do that to a troll and they just step up their attacks.
 
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