Wingnutty poll

Last year, I mocked this extraordinarily stupid joke and the radio host who told it. I guess the radio personality was still feeling the sting — either that, or he wanted the traffic — since he brought it up again today, and also complained about the way I ridiculed the Maine Republican party platform (Remember that one? No gay marriage, global warming is a myth, Austrian economics, immediate arrest of all illegal aliens, etc.?)

So now he wants to know what you think of that teabaggin’ Republican platform. He thinks it is just ducky. Most of his listeners agree. I think he’s about to discover that the rest of the world thinks he’s a lunatic.

Does This Sound Wingnutty To You?

Count me as a wingnut — that all sounds fine by me!
84.34 %
These tea-bagger ideas are crazier than Ron Paul is — and THAT’S pretty crazy!
15.66 %

Prayer Poll

This is a poll from the mind of Wayne Laugesen, crazy fundie editor from Colorado Springs. As usual, he’s complaining about those damned atheists on his lawn.

Is it OK for government leaders and legislative bodies to proclaim a National Day of Prayer?

Yes, this is perfectly appropriate and legal
50%
No, this is inappropriate and quite possibly illegal
46%
I don’t know
0%
I don’t care
4%

I think we should go give him something more to complain about.

If only Obama would declare a National Day of No Prayer to be fair…then watch Wayne squall and screech.

Poll: Should comedians be rude?

Catherine Deveny seems to have hit a nerve. She made a remark about a child star over twitter — “I do so hope Bindi Irwin gets laid” — which triggered the “Think of the children!” reflex and got her fired from her job writing for the Melbourne Age newspaper.

This subject might be a bit contentious, since people are already wrangling over it in the endless thread. I’m going to have to side with the people who say it was out of line, it was incredibly rude, and…it’s exactly what a comedian should be doing, pushing the boundaries and making people uncomfortable. I felt a bit torn when I read it, too, but this was at an awards show, where women (and in this case, a girl) are tarted up and expected to parade about in fancy fashion in a role that the men are not. It was a very edgy remark since it made the sexualization of an 11 year old blatant, but that was the point!

And it got Deveny fired. I guess The Age wanted a bland, safe, unchallenging comedian.

I am wondering, though, how a comedian can be fired, but Cardinal Pell gets to keep his job. If Australians were so concerned about Protecting The Children, shouldn’t the old idjit been kicked out of the country long ago? Maybe it’s because he wasn’t even trying to be funny.

Anyway, there’s a poll. I don’t expect it to get pharyngulated in the usual way, since the godless vote will be split.

Were Catherine Deveny’s Logies Tweets out of line?

Yes, she picked on a little girl

60%
No, that’s her style of humour

40%

Poll to support lurid display of naked breasts on government documents

i-d3d5766eb4e39c75bf81e38a6a7fcebf-virginia.jpeg

That’s the official state seal of Virginia. A few people don’t like it, for the expected prudish reasons, including the Attorney General for the state of Virginia.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli apparently isn’t fond of wardrobe malfunctions, even when Virginia’s state seal is involved.

The seal depicts the Roman goddess Virtus, or virtue, wearing a blue tunic draped over one shoulder, her left breast exposed. But on the new lapel pins Cuccinelli recently handed out to his staff, Virtus’ bosom is covered by an armored breastplate.

When the new design came up at a staff meeting, workers in attendance said Cuccinelli joked that it converts a risqué image into a PG one.

The epidemic of young men publicly masturbating to the display of the state seal must be a real problem in Virginia, requiring such action. Or perhaps it’s just that prevert Cuccinelli who feels a disturbing flutter below the belt whenever he sees a 200+ year old icon. Or maybe he’s acting to prevent earthquakes.

There is a poll, but it looks like Virginians already see Cuccinelli as a bit of a nut.

What do you think of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s decision to issue lapel pins of the state seal with a covered breast?

It’s the right call
6%

It’s a bad idea
89%

No opinion
5%

Teabaggers want to know what we think of them, via a poll

I don’t think the current results are quite right, and they need a little godless input. It’s cunningly designed to split our votes, alas…but do what you can.

What Do You Think About the Tea Party?

Believe they are white racists
2%
Believe they are ignorant-uneducated people
1%
Believe they are true American patriots
45%
Frustrated with government-just as they are
41%
Considering joining the Tea Party
11%

Note also that they have a cute little American map that breaks down the results by state. I wonder how they’ll deal with a sudden flood of furriners?

An Orange County poll

Hey, I’m going to be at the Orange County Freethought Alliance conference on 8 May; how convenient that the OC Register is running a silly little poll already.

Does religion make us better people?

Opinion 1: Religion makes people behave better. 32 %

Opinion 2: Being religious has no effect on your behavior. 25 %

Opinon 3: Religion makes us behave worse. 43 %

It’s actually a fairly even-handed article by a rabbi starting a new weekly religion column. He even gives reasons for each of the three possibilities. For #1, he cites Rick Warren and Tom Coburn. For #3, he cites Gregory Paul, a scientist.

A statistical study by Gregory Paul shows an even more astonishing result. He reports that, in general, higher levels of religion correlate with higher rates of homicide, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies. While this does not prove religion is the cause, the link between religion and bad behavior indicates that, on average, religion makes us behave worse.

You know, even if I didn’t have a prior bias, the article would have convinced me that the evidence favors the third option.

In his follow-up article, the rabbi is surprised at the result so far. I think it’s about to get a little more surprising…for him.

Republicans: petty and stupid

Yesterday, I linked to an offensive poll by Minnesota Republicans in district 42 (that’s one of the Minneapolis suburbs, by the way). My readers marched in, voted against their support for Arizona’s racial-profiling, anti-immigrant law, and completely skewed the results to be against the desired Republican outcome.

This happens often enough; the point is that these kinds of internet polls do not reliably produce accurate results, and it’s easy to twist a poll in a contrary way. Most often these polls are put up as a kind of exercise in self-affirmation, because, for instance, very few non-Republicans read the SD42 Republican web site, and what we do is subvert that backpatting purpose of the poll.

What typically happens then is that eventually the poll is archived or closed, and everybody moves on. It’s a freakin’ internet poll, you know — it’s inconsequential. Only…the Republicans of SD42 just can’t let it go. It’s apparently very important to them that they preserve their illusion that their readers support their policies in every possible way.

So what did they do? Multiple resets of the poll, throwing out all of the votes — for a while, they were resetting it every 10 minutes. Attempts to lock the poll: they’d let votes accumulate for a few minutes from a fresh start, and as soon as their side showed a slight edge, freeze it there (some of the readers here discovered an alternate path to the polling service and worked their way around it). Rewriting the answers, first to remove the stereotypical language, then to reverse the sense of the answers (we were not fooled), and now…and now, look at what they’ve done.

Do you believe in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws?

Yes. An orderly immigration policy is essential to maintaining a free society.
Yes. And that is why I support Arizona’s immigration law.

That is amazingly pathetic.

I declare this pharyngulation a total victory, the most complete demolition of a poll that we have ever accomplished. They are in a shambles, reduced to displaying meaningless noise that doesn’t even have a pretense of giving voters a choice.

Imagine if these clowns were actually running our real world election system…oh, wait. They are.

Shall we mess up a local Republican poll?

You may have heard that Arizona has a draconian new immigration law that essentially legalizes racial profiling, and requires immigrants to carry their registration documents at all times…and by default, then, you better not be caught brown in Arizona without proof of citizenship, no matter what your legal status.

One of our local Republican districts has a poll on this issue. You will not believe the wording on it.

President Obama called the new Arizona bill banning illegal immigration “misguided”. Do you agree?

Sí, señor!
22%
No Way, José!
77%

They really need to add a cute little icon of the Frito Bandito to that, just to add a little more class. It’s especially funny because Minnesota is experiencing a growing influx of Hispanic workers, who are getting stuck with the essential but menial jobs of our agricultural economy. It seems like a bad idea for Republicans to be mocking a growing part of our electorate, but hey, if they want to shoot themselves in the voting booth, go ahead.

By the way, read it carefully. They are not asking if you approve of the immigration bill, they are asking if you approve of Obama’s dislike of the bill. If you think the bill is misguided, vote yes; if you think we need to crack down on the rising brown tide, vote no. I actually wonder if the current small vote for yes is the result of Republicans unable to puzzle out the question.

The Rethuglicans noticed. The poll has been reset, and the ridiculously stereotyped answers have been changed to a simple yes and no now. I guess we embarrassed them.

Poll: Only Christians should be exposed to ethics?

This is odd. In Australia, school kids can opt-in to take scripture classes, and the kids who opt out get to sit in the school during those hours doing nothing, which seems a bit of a waste. So the schools have a new plan: while the religious kids are off memorizing bible verses, the secular kids will get classes in ethics which will “cover topics including respect, bullying, animal rights and questions about life and death.”

That sounds reasonable to me, and a good use of time. Guess who doesn’t like the idea, though? Church leaders! There is actually a rule that prohibits secular students from any formal learning during that special scripture time. The Catholics are whining that giving non-Christians an introduction to ethics could “jeopardise the future of religious education”. Ministers are complaining that it’s unfair to give an introduction to ethics without input from their religious point of view. Apparently, if you’re not a Christian, you’re expected to spend your time working on coloring books or perfecting your thumb-twiddling, rather than actually learning something.

So now there’s a poll on this subject. It looks like a lot of people in NSW are in favor of enforced idleness for secular kids.

Should ethics classes be introduced into NSW primary schools?

Yes
(32.6%)

No
(67.4%)

Enter this sweepstakes!

It’s a trivial little contest from JetBlue — it does require that you give them your contact information, which may be more than you want to surrender…but you can win fabulous prizes! Look at what you can get:

  • A vacation in the Dominican Republic!

  • A vacation in Costa Rica!

  • A vacation in the Sonoran Desert!

  • A Vespa scooter (they’re giving away 10 each week)!

  • The Grand Prize: A complete kitchen makeover with a set of appliances from Amana, and a $5000 gift card!

And that’s not all! There’s an ULTIMATE PRIZE. Looking at that list of pricey luxury items, you know this has got to be good. It’s got to be the kind of stunning I-can’t-believe-they’re-giving-that-away kind of prize that make the rest look paltry. Brace yourself for it, this has got to blow you away…

The ULTIMATE PRIZE is…

The prize that has to be better than 10 grand worth of appliances is…

The one thing that will send you running to that page to enter is…

…a meeting with Deepak Chopra?!?? Seriously?

Win a one-on-one meeting with the renowned author and mind-body expert, Deepak Chopra, M.D. and rejuvenate your spirit with his Seduction of Spirit Retreat at the Chopra Center. Dr. Chopra is a global force in the field of human empowerment and the prolific author of fourteen bestsellers on mind-body health, quantum mechanics, spirituality and peace. Time Magazine heralds Dr. Chopra as one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century and credits him as “the poet-prophet of alternative medicine.”

Holy crap.

They have got to be kidding. The very worst prize in their whole list is what they’re calling the “ultimate” prize? It’s a good thing they didn’t push it any further and offer a mega-super-duper-colossal prize, which at this rate would involve a hot date with a starving, rabid wolverine.

I entered anyway for the tiny shot at howling at Chopra face-to-face for a little while. Maybe that’s the logic behind this “ultimate” prize — it’s more like getting to confront Chopra with a rabid wolverine. One thing that would be almost as satisfying as winning that myself would be if some other skeptic won — so spread the word, get lots of woo-critics to enter the sweepstakes. Let’s make Chopra sweat a bit over this one, by worrying that he’ll get someone who won’t bend over and take his quantum nonsense compliantly.