Say Anything Blog

Norm’s got himself quite the woman.  No doubt about it.

Always wondered though, why do those polls seem to have 1,001 participants so often?

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Josh, may I venture that your mother and the aunts she consulted are in their early to mid 40s. Their parents were, on the whole, born before 1940. They are a generation known as"Tweeners". Not"Boomers" and not"Depression Babies”. I am the product of tweeners, and I look at"My" generation and want to cry. Not putting your mother down, just saying look at the demographics, then look at what"my" generation has done. Or more correctly, not done. It is my generation that has elected people on their looks and not their ability. Boomers are quilty of this too, but not to the degree that my birthmates are. Being the child of tweeners, I am a tweener. Neither boomer nor GenX, shallow, superficial, selfish. The wife and I have tried to be the exception in our generation but it is hard to hold back such a large tide. One of the first research gigs I had was studying the political trends and infulence of the generations born between 1950 and 1970. A real eye opener. You seem to be a bit on the researchy side, check it out. And don’t be lazy and read other peoples work, do the digging. It will give you an understanding of the current political topography that few other things will.

It has something to do with making a sample statistically relevant. If I remember correctly from Stats class in undergrad, there was some figure that you used in your computations that was “n-1.” With “n” being the raw number of participants. If my hunch is correct, that would make this figure 1,000 even (1,001-1). Just a guess.

Pretty much right on. There is an old saying derived from one of the more famous Nazi’s that says if you keep on repeating a lie that the people will eventually believe it. That is in part because people are lazy and they don’t care to look further into issues, they’d rather judge a politician on his/her looks or their likelihood to have a beer with them.

I think this is particularly hurtful for the Right since you know who controls the media and has the ability to keep on telling a lie over and over again.