Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

QUICK TAKES

-- Wesley J. Smth - "Mainstreaming Animal Personhood"

 We should be alarmed at the vigor with which animal personhood is being promoted in professional journals in the august fields of law, politics, science, and bioethics. So what, you say? Let radicals bloviate. Animal personhood will never be adopted through democratic means.

That’s almost surely true, and animal rights activists know it. That is why they are seeking to attain their goal by court fiat.  [more...]

--  Gallup's 2015 poll: The most and the least religious States in the U.S.

                  Most religious (in order):  Mississippi,  Alabama, Utah, Louisiana, Tennessee,  Alabama, Georgia, So. Carolina, N. Carolina . . . 

                  Least religious (in order):  New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Rhode Island, New York . . .  [See full list and discussion]

  --  David French - "In Defense of Football" vs. George Will, "Superbowl's 60 Minutes of Damage"

SEN. TED CRUZ SPEAKS AT THE VALUES VOTERS SUMMIT

The 2,200-plus who attended the 8^th annual Values Voter Summit took a presidential straw pol which Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won with 42 percent of the votes.  Dr. Ben Carson finished second with 13 percent, with only one vote separating him from former Sen. Rick Santorum. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) came in fourth, with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) right behind at six and five percent respectively.  (Click here for a complete list of straw poll results.)  Senator Cruz's speech to the Values Voter Summit follows:  (Note how deftly he handled his opponents' interruptions). 

 

PEW RESEARCH: GLOBAL ATTITUDES TOWARDS HOMOSEXUALITY

Pew Research offers interesting analysis of attitudes towards homosexuality worldwide.  

 Changes in opinion since 2007 - 

I was particularly surprised by the low tolerance for homosexuality in Russia.  Most of us think of Russia as atheistic and somewhat amoral.  And yet we learn from the polling data that it is traditionalist and resistant to Western sexual decadence in regards to homosexuality.  From the Associated Press today:

MOSCOW (AP) — A bill that stigmatizes gay people and bans giving children any information about homosexuality won overwhelming approval Tuesday in Russia's lower house of parliament.

Hours before the State Duma passed the Kremlin-backed law in a 436-0 vote with one abstention, more than two dozen protesterswere attacked by hundreds of anti-gay activists and then detained by police.

The bill banning the "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" still needs to be passed by the appointed upper house and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, but neither step is in doubt.

The measure is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values instead of Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and theRussian Orthodox Church see as corrupting Russian youth and contributing to the protests against Putin's rule. . . .

The legislation will impose hefty fines for providing information about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community to minors or holding gay pride rallies. Those breaking the law will be fined up to 5,000 rubles ($156) for an individual and up to 1 million rubles ($31,000) for a company, including media organizations.

Foreign citizens arrested under the new law can be deported or jailed for up to 15 days and then deported. European gay rights activists have joined Russians in trying to hold gay pride rallies in Moscow in recent years.  [more . . .]

POLLS AND THE PRESS

BLOOMBERG POLL: AMERICANS DECIDEDLY GLOOMY ABOUT ECONOMY, IMAGE OF THE U.S., AND STRENGTH OF OUR NATION

Larry Doyle reports on a Bloomberg National Poll of 1002 people the following results: (The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.1%)

The Value of Your Investments
A lot better 6%
A little better 25%
Same 22%
A little worse 29%
A lot worse 17%
Not Sure 1%

The Overall U.S. Economy
A lot better 4%
A little better 25%
Same 13%
A little worse 23%
A lot worse 34%
Not Sure 1%

The Businesses in Your Community
A lot better 2%
A little better 14%
Same 28%
A little worse 33%
A lot worse 21%
Not Sure 2%

The Value of Homes in Your Community
A lot better 2
A little better 12
Same 28
A little worse 31
A lot worse 25
Same 2

The Image of U.S. in Other Countries
A lot better 11%
A little better 16%
Same 19%
A little worse 21%
A lot worse 30%
Not Sure 3%

The Strength of Our Nation
A lot better 7%
A little better 18%
Same 24%
A little worse 25%
A lot worse 24%
Not Sure 2%

THE POOR QUALITY OF STEM-CELL POLLING

Update  3/11/09:  - Yuval Levin offers more insight

(Original Post) - Ramesh Ponnuru - [bolding mine]

It would be hard enough to get an accurate read of public opinion on policy questions involving stem cells if the only difficulty were that most people don't know much about the subject.  But the fact that pollsters have almost invariably worded the questions badly has not made it any easier. Over at Polling Report, the latest numbers cited are from a Gallup poll taken in February. The question is whether the current "very limited funding" should be kept or expanded "to allow more stem-cell research." Your typical respondent is going to think that the question concerns whether to spend less or more money.

Next up is a Time poll. It stacks the deck in three ways. It highlights the potential benefits of the research in a misleading way — for example, it claims that stem cells could be used to "treat or cure" Alzheimer's disease, something actual researchers, even those supportive of the research, have long considered a fairy tale. It says that the human embryos used in the research have been "discarded from fertility clinics." And it doesn't mention that the research destroys the embryos.

And on and on it goes down the page. I'm sure I wouldn't be happy about the news contained in an accurate, well-worded poll, but I'd still like to see one.

Adam Keiper adds significant information:

Before signing his executive order overturning President Bush’s stem-cell policy, President Obama today delivered a speech explaining his decision. The implications of the policy will be widely debated here and

AT THIS TIME LAST YEAR, WHO WAS MORE POPULAR? OBAMA or BUSH?

Peter Wehner:

Here’s an interesting data point comparison: Barack Obama’s approval rating in the Gallup Poll today is 61 percent, with 28 percent disapproving (the Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls has his overall job approval rating at 59.8 percent). A March 5-7, 2001 Gallup poll found President Bush's job approval at 63 percent as well, with only 22 percent disapproving. So George W. Bush, at a comparable  time in his presidency, was in marginally better shape than Barack Obama is right now, at least based on the Gallup Poll survey.  (my emphasis)

This runs counter to conventional wisdom that Obama is tremendously popular, and that Bush (based on the divisive nature of the 2000 election) was not. In fact, according to the Gallup Poll data, what President Bush did was rise in the esteem of the public during the first five weeks of his presidency, while Obama has lost a bit of altitude.  (more . . .)

Zogby Polls - Treat with Caution

I wrote once before about Zogby polls.  Once again there is reason to  hold them at arm's length.  Click here.     (HT: John Podhoretz)

POLLS - IS THE SAMPLING BROAD-BASED AND FAIR?

I've written on polls before [here] and today I see the need to do it again.   You gotta watch'em closely -- How are the questions phrased?   Who are the people being polled?, etc. etc.    Here is Kathryn Jean Lopez making an important point:

I've never been a math whiz, so I usually leave poll analysis to others, but take a look at  "Newsweek poll puts Democrats far ahead in Congress " — should anyone be shocked that Dems come out ahead when only 28 percent of your poll is made up of Republicans, and 35 percent Democrat, is it surprising that dems fare better? (Of those sampled, 282 identified themselves as Republicans, 349 as Democrats and 330 as Independents.)

CHRISTIANITY ON UPSWING IN JAPAN

The most recent Gallup poll of Japanese youth and adults produced fascinating results, not the least of which is that 7% of Japanese youth consider themselves Christians.   Few would have predicted that high a figure.  Sadly, Japanese teens in general seem far more nihilistic than American youth.

While 22 percent of U.S. teens in previous Gallup surveys often wondered why they existed, the number for Japanese teens was 85 percent.   Similarly, while 76 percent of U.S. teens always see a reason for their being on Earth, only 13 percent of Japanese teens agreed with the statement.   A surprisingly high 11 percent of Japanese teens wished they had never been born, a figure that comes in at 3 percent for U.S. teens.

DON'T PUT ANY STOCK IN ANY JOHN ZOGBY POLLS

A recent John Zogby poll of the troops in Iraq claims that 72% want the war ended in 2006.   As has been pointed out, “The poll was paid for by anti-war activists and the methodology is secret. Yet this lie is sailing around the world through the ravening wolves of the media who chew on anti-Bush agitprop like a dog chews a bone."    Hugh Hewitt, a man who has been around and knows the ropes, said this:

“The "poll" is quite obviously crap when one sees the questions, and Zogby's refusal to answer basic questions that do not go to security underscores his defensiveness.  The survey instrument is shot through with absurd choices while missing obvious questions…  I think he's a shameless self-promoting pretend pollster, that's all…  You can trust John Zogby as much as this poll. Which means, not at all… Criticism of Zogby is not new, nor confined to the center-right. See Chris Mooney's "The Creative Polls of John Zogby," from the February 1, 2003 American Prospect.

And don' t forget his performance on Election Day, 2004.