Political discussion in this country seems to have somewhat more in common with trash talk among sports fans than it does with any form of constructive dialogue. OK. Now that I’ve practiced understatement, let’s look at the current state of political talk. I had hopes that I might find my Facebook feed more palatable after…
On October 4, 2007 I participated in Free Burma Day by posting just a banner reading Free Burma and nothing else all day. I received an e-mail today from the U. S. Campaign for Burma, asking that we not forget what’s going on there. They mentioned several avenues for action, one of which works well…
Frank Schaeffer has produced some stir with his notes supporting Barack Obama, and now he has written something about the imbalance between the response to Dr. Wright’s comments and the response to those of his, Schaeffer’s, father. He says: When Senator Obama’s preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late…
Allan Bevere writes about the way we tend to see much more corruption in the opposing party than in our own.
… always consider the sampling error when you report the difference between successive polls. News organizations have been getting some better, in my subjective view, in noting when a result is within the sampling error in a particular poll, but they still report increases or decreases in a lead without that note. If a candidate…
One of the least accurate elements of the news, in my opinion, is the reporting of opinion polls. If you think this is always someone else, you may be part of the problem. Polls are not precise measurements and results vary. That’s why you have a probability (often 90% or 95%) that the results fall…