Why You Should Ignore The Gallup Poll This Morning - And Maybe All Of Theirs If you support the Dems, you might want to pass this on!
"This morning we awoke to the startling news that despite a flurry of different polls this week all showing a tied race, the venerable Gallup Poll, as reported widely in the media (USA Today and CNN) today, showed George W. Bush with a huge 55%-42% lead over John Kerry amongst likely voters. The same Gallup Poll showed an 8-point lead for Bush amongst registered voters (52%-44%). Before you get discouraged by these results, you should be more upset that Gallup gets major media outlets to tout these polls and present a false, disappointing account of the actual state of the race. Why?"...
posted by Postroad
on Sep 17, 2004 -
58 comments
The Shallowing of American Taste First tastebuds and palates fall to McDonalds, now the eyes, ears, and minds fall to Wal-Mart, according to this NY Times article (free registration required)...
"The growing clout of Wal-Mart and the other big discount chains ? they now often account for more than 50 percent of the sales of a best-selling album, more than 40 percent for a best-selling book, and more than 60 percent for a best-selling DVD -- has bent American popular culture toward the tastes of their relatively traditionalist customers...But with the chains' power has come criticism from authors, musicians and civil liberties groups who argue that the stores are in effect censoring and homogenizing popular culture. The discounters and price clubs typically carry an assortment of fewer than a thousand books, videos and albums, and they are far more ruthless than specialized stores about returning goods if they fail to meet a minimum threshold of weekly sales."
Add in Clear Channel Radio and sanitized text books, and all I can say is that the internet has come along at the time it's needed. With the fingers of big commerce all over our culture, the web can serve to reverse an old mega-trend to "high-touch, high-tech." With Wal-Mart, et al, touching our minds, we need to resort to tech to add some depth and breath to their narrow and shallow offerings.
posted by fpatrick
on May 17, 2003 -
45 comments
Is
Gavin Menzies the Stephen Wolfram of history? That's the question
today's New York Times (login:
dr_mabuse, pw:
mabuse) suggests in a Menzies profile. Menzies has a new book out,
1421, which claims that the Chinese discovered America seven decades before Columbus did.
Some people have made similarly precise claims about this planet's developments.
Others have seen their amateur claims initially mocked and later proven to be correct. Is Menzies onto something or is he a crank? And how do we place the passionate amateur within the realm of scholarly pursuits?
posted by ed
on Jan 5, 2003 -
17 comments
Am I the only one who doesn't think
this is news? This story also showed up
here a few days ago. (more inside)
posted by kate_fairfax
on Nov 4, 2002 -
54 comments
It's the clothes. A fashion columnist in
The Washington Post blames corporate scandals on business-casual clothes, which lead to casual ethics.
posted by kirkaracha
on Jul 5, 2002 -
30 comments
It's About Freaking Time! Finally, Someone is actually looking into whether or not Enron might maybe have violated the law. Until now, Ashcroft's little Department was just about the only organization in Washington DC not investigating these jokers. For those who haven't been paying attention, allegations include accounting irregularities, improper partnerships, price fixing, single handedly causing the California Energy Crisis, and failing to let thier employees get thier 401k money out of company stock before it dropped precipitously.
posted by ilsa
on Jan 9, 2002 -
10 comments
Why Do They Hate Americans? (I know, I know it is very close in title to the post below, but differs in content).
Prior to September 11 I had really mixed feelings on the policies (foreign and domestic) of the U.S. of A. (and I still do), but this article was read on a talk radio show as I was driving to work. Not to sound sappy, but it really did move me. Best part of all, its not written by an American.
posted by sharksandwich
on Oct 13, 2001 -
36 comments
The Day America Grew Up. "Let's hope this is what future historians write about yesterday's events. If not, we won't be here -- and won't deserve to be."
posted by mw
on Sep 12, 2001 -
143 comments
The American Institute of Graphic Arts offer a selection of useful symbols in eps and gif formats
for free download. Are there any other sites offering similar symbols?
posted by ecvgi
on Sep 10, 2001 -
15 comments
I did a brief search through the archives for Scientology because I know there have been a number of varying posts about it in the past. I didn't, however, see anything directly relating to the page I'm linking, so here goes.
In the past I've heard and read comments about how horrible the Church of Scientology is, but not having anything to judge these comments on, I never paid much attention. But after watching
all of these Real Audio streams of an indepth interview about a young woman who tells all about her experience with the church, I'm absolutely shocked and horrified that these kinds of things happen. It's completely ruining these people's lives.
posted by lizardboy
on Sep 3, 2001 -
30 comments
America @ 225. We're still working out all the kinks, but the "Gang of 50" keeps on chugging along. The
Fourth of July for me is the day where we can extol the virtues of nationalism unabashedly...
posted by owillis
on Jul 4, 2001 -
53 comments
Should all of America pay for Davenport? If a community has the ability to avoid a natural disaster and chooses not to, are the rest of us responsible? How many times. Apparently, Davenport benefits economically from the great view, unobstructed by a floodwall. Maybe it should use some of those benefits to clean up the mess?
posted by anapestic
on Apr 25, 2001 -
40 comments
how to buy the new republican party "The tax cuts will make the economy grow. As people do better, they start voting like Republicans--unless they have too much education and vote Democratic"
[this is the recently launched newyorker online]
posted by palegirl
on Feb 14, 2001 -
25 comments
Some of us made jokes in the days after the election about "Gore stealing votes from Nader", to ape those who said the reverse. But we didn't read
the Libertarian Party's press release, wherein they said the same thing, and they were both serious, and believable. [quote inside]
posted by baylink
on Nov 19, 2000 -
5 comments
