Anger against the federal government is at record levels

[kach22i]

Feel angry do ya?



A third of U.S. public believes 9/11 conspiracy theory
By THOMAS HARGROVE and GUIDO H. STEMPEL III
Scripps Howard News Service
http://www.sitnews.us/0806news/080206/080206_shns_conspiracy.html

August 02, 2006
Wednesday PM


More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

The national survey of 1,010 adults also found that anger against the federal government is at record levels, with 54 percent saying they "personally are more angry" at the government than they used to be.

[Dantilla]

National survey of 1010?

I call BS.

Kinda like the survey that found that a much larger percentage of Americans are gay than previously believed. It later came out that the "survey" was mostly prison inmates.

[rammstein]

"More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them"

What we have here are two very different things, with a headline indicative of only one.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Agreed. A child could write a better poll question than that - it's deliberately misleading and statistically invalid.

[rammstein]

Precisely. And this is what upsets me the most about political arguments. One side is so hellbent on showing up the other that ridiculous stories/statistics/theories are thrown around and it all ends up totally unscientific and childish.

Lets be honest here- 2 separate polls.

1) How many believe that the US govt was doing everything it could to counter terrorist acts prior to 911?

2) How many believe that a group of govt officials collectively decided that the best way to justfy a bloody war to get oil would be to set up a fake terrorist attack?

My guess is #1 would be yes ~75% of the time.
My guess is #2 would be yes ~5% of the time.

I won't color this by saying my feelings, I am just trying to set up a legit poll.

[Jims5543]

That poll is a joke. Most of the time the only people that speak out are the ones that want to complain. 1000 people in the country?

Way too many variables here for this pole to mean anything and Scripps is showing its arse and agenda publishing it.

[BGCarrera32]

B.S. visual graph too...notice how the X goes from 1995-2000 off increment and the last index jumps 2000-2006.

"Percent More Angry" in Y... LOL...

[rammstein]

That's it. I am angry.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by rammstein
That's it. I am angry.

Proves the poll right?

I think there a lot of very disappointed people out there. Some of them may even bother to vote.

[BK911]

I may not be as smart as all y'all, and I am definitely not up on current events as most of you, so I am probably a good example of an average american. Regardless of the validity of the X's and Y's and blah blah blah, I would consider myself part of the 1/3.

Could one of you smart fellers please explain the connection between 9.11 and Iraq? I just don't see how we got from point A to point B. Let's go get the mastermind behind 9.11 (who just happens to be a business associate of the Bush's), he's in Afghanistan, so let's attack Iraq? Uh, ok.

Again, I am not the smartest person so please use small words.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Dantilla
National survey of 1010?

I call BS.

That's actually a fairly large survey, if it's sophisticated enough, it will hold true within it's accuracy range no matter how large the sample N.

[Icemaster]

Bull$hit.

Marketing, pure & simple.

[Rick Lee]

Ever hear the one about marriage being the #1 cause of divorce? How'd the figure that out?

[Jims5543]

I just took a poll and 99.99% of Americans hate Fernando Alonso. I took it in my living room about 10 minutes ago and there were 3 people present for the vote.

There are approx, 295,734,134 people in America my sample represented 1 in 98578044.66 people this "other" pole represented 1 in 292806.07 people.

My pole in better! and my wife agrees

[fastpat]

I just looked at the Poll breakout, of the questions and N demographics. The only thing I didn't see was the accuracy range. Looks like a valid poll to me. The graphic depicting the results is for display "prettiness", and isn't what you'd see in a scientific journal, but it's not designed to lie either.

If you want to know more about statistical analysis obtain a copy of How to Lie with Statistics which is used in many university level statistics classes.

[Bryan Beaumont]

No news to report here. Just an opinion. MINE.
I agree it is a BS poll. However, I am curious why everyone is so quick to defend our government. Does everyone really believe our govt. is doing a great job? Please tell me what our government is doing
effectively. As far as I am concerned we are a bureaucratic mess that leaves very little to be desired. If our government was a private corp. we would have been bankrupt and closed for business many years ago.
Simply take an unbiased examination of the amount of revenue that passes through our governments hands and how ineffectively the money is dispersed and it is enough to literally disgust me. Completely unacceptable as far as I am concerned. Mediocrity is an understatement.
AGAIN...MY OPINION.
What does everyone else have to say about the state of our nation. Are you truly satisfied with what you are witnessing. This is an issue which is
much bigger than simply Democrats, or Republicans. Whata ya say?

[nostatic]

Unless you have the details of the instrument, you can't determine the "bs-ness" of the poll itself. The questions are biased, but all poll questions are. You cannot avoid bias...you can limit it, but not avoid it.

The plot is at best sloppy, at worst manipulative. Could be they only had data points for those years and they didn't understand the right way to scale the x axis. Or they wanted to emphasize the climb from 2001 to 2006 and give an incorrect slope. While people love to make their point, don't underestimate the cluelessness of people plotting data...

[fastpat]

Originally posted by nostatic
The plot is at best sloppy, at worst manipulative. Could be they only had data points for those years and they didn't understand the right way to scale the x axis. Or they wanted to emphasize the climb from 2001 to 2006 and give an incorrect slope. While people love to make their point, don't underestimate the cluelessness of people plotting data...

Most likely, they wanted it shaped for presentation in the article, thus the uneven scale used. In academia, it's presupposed that if you use color in your graph, you're trying to confuse the data.

[nostatic]

Originally posted by fastpat
In academia, it's presupposed that if you use color in your graph, you're trying to confuse the data.

r i g h t

[fastpat]

Originally posted by nostatic
r i g h t

When I was in grad school, we had many long discussions of this subject, nostatic. There were few good reasons to use color in a graphic other than to sell bias.