Tag Archives: Political

Politically related topics.

Poltical Online Survey Dangers..

Political,

I would like to remind my friends that Online Surveys to determine if you are Liberal or Conservative, or which Politicians you are aligned with, can be misleading. Even worse, it can be used as a ploy to focus you on a particular candidate or group of candidates that the website wants you to “think” you agree with more. Always be skeptical and sometimes answer differently to see what the results might be.

For example, in a survey I just took for the Florida Governor Race.
There are several questions that don’t have Alex Sink’s answers.

This causes an unfair bios toward Richard Scott, where either he is “For” the option selected, however she does not show For or Against that option.

Let me try to explain:
Question #5: “Assault weapons..legal/illegal?” You select if you are For or Against a ban. The survey then shows which candidate you are aligned with on that question and also your percentage alignment on all questions.

This question doesn’t have Alex Sink’s answer. So..
If you are for a Ban; then no one is aligned with your view and the vote is ignored, giving bigger weight to the remaining questions.
If you are against a Ban, only Richard Scott gets the vote, giving more weight to him.
If Alex was pro-gun, she does not get credit that both candidates agree with you.
If Alex was anti-gun, she gets no credit that she agrees with you.

This was not just one little mistake.
In the survey, almost every way I tried; I always agreed mostly with Rick. This was because several of Alex’s answers were either aligned with Rick or it showed no answer.
Not that Alex Sink doesn’t have an answer; you can easily Google it. Her missing answers from the survey; simply skews the results, leading you into thinking she is against whichever opinion you have selected about Assault weapons yourself.

So be careful everyone.

Lie of the year.. 2009

Political

PolitiFact readers overwhelming chose Sarah Palin’s claim that the health care bill contains “death panels” as Lie of the Year. A resounding 61 percent of our 4,864 voters picked death panels as the top lie. No other finalist in the field of eight statements came close.

Here are the runners-up:

• With 12.3 percent of the vote, a claim by conservative talk show host Glenn Beck that John Holdren, President Barack Obama’s top science adviser, “has proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population.”

• With 8.7 percent of the vote, a claim by Orly Taitz that a birth certificate showed that President Obama was born in Kenya.

• With 7.1 percent of the vote, President Obama’s statement that “preventive care saves money.”

Rounding out the rest of the finalists:

• 5.8 percent: The shout of “You lie!” by Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., in response to President Obama saying health reform would not insure illegal immigrants.

• 3.2 percent: The claim that Page 92 of the House health care bill “says specifically that people can’t purchase private health insurance after a date certain,” said by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

• 1.7 percent: The claim that “When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft,” said by Vice President Joe Biden, when fears of swine flu were prevalent.

• 0.5 percent: The claim that an amendment to the House health reform bill “puts new restrictions on women’s access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market even when they would pay premiums with their own money,” said by Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

And the runners-up …
By Angie Drobnic Holan
Published on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 5:13 p.m.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/dec/18/lie-year-runners-up/