Free Hand Thinker

So, while looking at the wires at Breitbart.com, I came across a poll that says that a majority now support a public option. It showed that 52% of Americans now support a public option. Of course, when it come to any poll, you want to make sure they are legit. And the best way to do this is too look at the methodology.

We have a right to question what polls might say with CBS and others polling more Democrats in order to get a more favorable result for their programs. So, it is only logical that one might see these results as fishy. Especially with other pollers showing much different numbers. So I followed the actual wire and guess what I found... only this:

A picture:



And only what they talk about in the wire:

In the AP-GfK poll, the differently worded questions on the public plan each had a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. The poll interviewed 1,502 people from Oct. 29-Nov. 8 with an overall sampling error margin of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

Nothing about their methodolgy. Nothing about who they interview; their voter status; or even who they interviewed them. Was it a phone interview or a sit down with random college students from the Stanford campus? I have looked everywhere, and I haven't found it.

Are they hiding the methodology so that people with focus on the results rather than the methods used to get the result they wanted? I don't know. This only fuels the skepticism that the American public has for the media.

I finally got around to finishing Dan Brown's newest book The Lost Symbol. The book was long and interesting like all of Dan Brown's book, but this one is probably at the bottom of my likability scale, which is tough for me to say. I have read all of Brown's book, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed and reread every single one of them. But, this book, was definitely not one I would read again.

The book follows Brown's most popular character Robert Langdon, the esteemed symbologist from Harvard who has been used in matters of religious background. Langdon has had an interesting life, first being used by the Vatican to help unearth a plot to destroy the Catholic headquarters and second being caught in an mad man's attempt to uncover the Church's biggest secret. In this book, another mad man seeks to use Langdon to uncover the long hidden secret the Freemasons have long protected until the world of was to receive it.

My first problem with the book is the recycled plot line Brown has seemed to have suck himself in. It was a good idea for the first to books, but it seems like a person whose only real skill is deciphering is ancient, religious symbols is finding that his specialty has few customers and even fewer exciting uses for his talent. Or maybe Brown is not using his talents creatively. There is a lot of potential for a character like Langdon. Why not have him uncover some lost civilization? Solve some ancient, cross racial/religious grudge? Who knows? Brown needs to branch out from Christianity.

My second problem is the length and pace of the book. It didn't have the thriller feel that Brown had in all his other books. The chapters were short as you might expect from a thriller, but their pace was drawn out. And there seemed to be a lot of information that wasn't required for the book to progress. All this caused me to take at least a week to read the book rather than the average day or two Brown's other books take me to read.

What I like about the book was Brown's approach to religion that Brown has become known for. Brown seems to want his readers to see the problems of fundamentalism in religion. This, as everyone knows, created a lot of negative publicity--which might be why his book became so popular--around his book, The DaVinci Code.

Overall, the book was okay. But not what I expected from a suspense writer from like Dan Brown. If there was a star system, I'd say 6 out of 10 stars.

So, here we are. Over eight years later after the worst mainland attack in the United States, we find ourselves in a wondrous position. We have the masterminds of the attacks in a military prison. The country and more importantly, the families of the dead have moved on with their lives while still holding to the memory of those taken of them. Everything is relatively kosher for a people who have witnessed one of the world's worst tragedies. That was until today.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that they will be putting the masterminds behind 9/11 on trial in New York City. In the interest of justice, the Obama Administration has decided to take the mad men back to the city the crimes were committed and try them in civilian court.

Now, I ask a question that all of us are probably asking: Why? Why now? Why a civilian trial and not a military tribunal? Why waste the resources at all? They confessed to the crimes (if you can call them that) and requested to be executed. As a prosecutor with a full confession and a perpetrator with the willingness to receive the maximum sentence, this shouldn't even go to trial.

Not to mention the trouble the prosecution will have just taking this to trial. There is no telling how hard it is going to be to find an impartial jury in a city where everyone knows someone who died in those attacks? Let's not forget about the Defense's right to discovery. They are going to have access to undercover agents lists, intelligence reports, classified documents, the list goes on. Any prosecutor in their right mind, especially one that does not wish classified information to fall in the hands of overzealous lawyers, would NOT want this to go to trial.

I question the motives of this decision. Especially the timing of the trial. Four years? It seems odd to me that this president with his extremely ambitious list of things he wants to get done wants nothing of what he wants to get done to take effect until his second term in office. Health care, if passed, won't go into effect until 2013. This grand trial of the mastermind behind 9/11 won't be until 2014?

What are they hiding I wonder?

In a world of the brainwashed American, it is commentary like this that keeps me going.

Well done, Sonja Schmidt. It is becoming more and more obvious that the truly strong, self-respecting women that should be lifted up to role-model status in America call conservatism home. While the weak and dependent are Democrats.

"Damn this age of technology, quick recall, and brain stimulating drugs" is probably on the mind of Nancy Pelosi. A few weeks ago, after Obama released the CIA memos that started this debate on enhanced interrogations, Pelosi took to the microphone and said Congress was never told about the methods Bush and the CIA used. Well, it didn't take too long for the truth to start coming out.

Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.

In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings, intelligence officials said that Pelosi and then-Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) were the first two members of Congress ever briefed on the interrogation tactics. Then the ranking member and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, respectively, Pelosi and Goss were briefed Sept. 4, 2002, one week before the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Who cares, right? Just another politician telling lies to get what she wanted. That is just the game, right?

I am sick beyond cure of these people. Why must we listen to these "leaders" decry the practices of Wall Street as selfish and immoral, while they, themselves, blatantly lie to us when it suits their political agenda?

If this country hopes to recover from this and any future economic mess, we are going to need a good dose of morality from the top, down. We need to step back to those basics that we teach our children and our leaders talk about daily: Don't lie, be nice to others. You know, those Judeo-Christian principles everyone is so glad we were not founded on.

Thank God we have a president that "believe[s] in the power of prayer". Oh... wait.

So it seems like Jeb Bush has joined the populist chorus line that the GOP should shed its conservative, Reagan roots and try to attract moderates. I don't disagree with the premise that the GOP (or any political movement) has to enlist the help of some moderates to get what they want. My disagreement is with the premise of attracting moderates by being moderate!

Let's say you are a media consultant working for a presidential campaign. Your client asks you to make a commercial geared toward moderates. What would your commercial be? What issues do moderates care about? As a matter of fact, what do moderates think about certain issues? Let me make it simpler. What would a commercial about health care say in order to attract moderates? In short, nothing.

That is because moderates--by definition--have no opinion! This is why 90% of the ads for presidential and other political candidates are negative. They are trying to attract moderates. A candidate doesn't want to say what his positions are on an issue, because it might offend someone with moderate tendencies--which are neutral in nature. Instead, the candidate attacks his opponents extremist side to point out the non-moderate nature of their opponent. It is a vicious back and forth of "I'm moderate and he's not" that is modern politics.

The fact is, you can not attract moderates by being moderate. There is nothing attractive about being moderate. A moderate presidential candidate seems weak and indecisive. They seem out of touch and favors the status quo.

Look at John McCain. Last election, the GOP nominated the most moderate and bi-partisan individual they had to offer. And he lost! He didn't attract moderates. He repelled them. To them, he seemed weak and unfit for the job. The economic crisis showed these moderates that they didn't want a man of moderation. They wanted a man of action! They wanted someone who was going to take big steps to fix the economy and fix Washington. Basically, they wanted an extremist!!!!

There is only one way to attract moderates, and that is the way Reagan did it. He did it by being conservative. He said, "this is what I stand for." And the moderates like it. They liked it so much, he won with forty-nine state landslides and elected him twice. Be conservative and Moderates will come. If they don't, either they don't get the message, or they are not moderate.