July 27, 2007

You know, there is a chance that Barry Bonds won't break Hank Aaron's record. July has not been a good month for Bonods, who only has 9 hits for all of July, 3 of them being homeruns. I guess at this rate he will beat the record in late August (Bonds is 2 short of tying and 3 shy of owning the career homerun record). I am still hoping that he pulls his hamstring and will be done for his career before it happens, but it seems inevitable that he will soon oen the record. I know that retribution will come in the same form as Mark Maguire - denial into the Hall of Fame.

I received another email from the chairman of the RNC. He is boasting about how the "President"'s polls are on the rise while Congress' is on the decline. What Mr. Duncan fails to point out is that there isn't much farther that Bush's numbers can fall. In other words, all he can do is go up. I think the latest polls will put him around 31%. Somebody needs to let Mike Duncan know that 31% approval rating is nothing to boast about. If this were an election year, Bush would find himself on the losing side (again!).

The polls that Duncan uses to illustrate support for Iraq are flawed (as are most polls). First, he considers anything coming out of Fox News as reliable. As any even semi-educated person knows is that Fox news is nothing more than the voice of the White House. I like to call it the "White House Press Release." Next, the questions are very leading (or misleading).

1) Do you support Americans leaving Iraq immediately? The problem is "immediately." Not even members of Congress opposed to American involvment in Iraq favor immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

2) Would Iraq be better or worse off if US left Iraq and how? This poll is based on Fox News data, therefore it is unreliable and biased.

3) Overall data on Iraq: A majority (51%) say that troop increase has improved Iraq. Again, Fox News data. Since this data is skewed, the 51% is inflated. So in reality, the actual data would be less than a majority.

4) Should Congress wait for General Petraeus' report before deciding on Iraq?
According to USA Today/Gallup 55% would prefer waiting while Fox News says 64% (see inflated). If I am correct, all proposals have to do with after September. So what does this question really mean to ask?

A quote I like to use regarding statistics: "There are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."