one poll showed that 47% of doctors will retire if this bill goes into affect.I think I found the poll in question and since I am such a stats nerd, I had to analyze it. The poll was conducted and published by a newspaper called Investor’s Business Daily (IBD). Their report on it can be found here.
Our questionnaire went out Aug. 28 to some 25,600 doctors nationwide. Of that substantial sample, we got 1,476 responses. One hundred of those were retired, leaving 1,376.This makes their response rate 5.8% (1,476/25,600), which is an unacceptably low rate. For perspective, a good rate for a mail survey (I’m assuming theirs was a mail survey but they don’t specifically say) is around 70%. Trying to make assumptions about a population with only a 6% response rate is impossible and so this poll ends up meaning absolutely nothing. This doesn’t even bring up other possible things wrong that they didn’t discuss, such as how they acquired the list of 25,600 doctors to begin with, how they worded the questions (since they didn’t provide a sample questionnaire), etc.
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.Except that Stephen Hawking has always lived in the UK and receives treatment from their National Health Service. Hawking later made a statement defending the NHS saying that he is alive still because of them. This mistake at least gives the impression that IBD is more interested in disparaging health care reform than they are in the facts. Since this incident predates the attempted poll in question, it is likely that many doctors disregarded this request when it was received it in the mail (explaining the very low response rates). Those that would respond would likely be those more sympathetic to the views of the newspaper, creating an extremely large percentage of them to respond in similar ways.
I'm confused why some of this stuff (like employers required to provide health insurance, or expanding coverage by 30 million) makes people so angry, since that is what we all want for ourselves. . . . So what's with the mobs? Do they even know what they're mad about?I'm confused about this, too. I just wonder where all of these protesters were when George W. Bush raised our national debt exponentially, green-lighted domestic wiretapping, etc. But I do believe that a good portion of the anger has been created and encouraged by many Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators, who have been very good at stirring the pot of divisiveness and fear among their constituents and audiences with over-the-top rhetoric and by loudly parroting scary catchphrases to rebrand aspects of the health care debate that they oppose (or simply just made up: see Sarah Palin and death panels). So the reconciliation process becomes the "nuclear option" and public-funded health care becomes "socialized medicine," just as in a separate example, the federal estate tax becomes the "death tax." Stephen Colbert actually had a good segment on this "define and conquer" tactic on his show a couple weeks ago.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word - Define & Conquer | ||||
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"Civil Rights? Civil Disobedience? What are they going to do? Sit-in at their insurance company and demand to be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition? March and sing "We shall overcome the extended coverage for our children?"Well played, JoJerome. Well played.
A new CNN Opinion Research poll, conducted over the weekend as the House debated Obamacare, finds that 59 percent of Americans now stand opposed to the health care legislation in Congress. Just 39 percent of the poll’s 1,030 respondents said they favored the bill.This CNN Research Opinion poll is given as proof that Democrats are in trouble and that Republicans will takeover in the midterm election because the majority are on their side. What they fail to mention is why the 59% of respondents oppose this bill. It turns out a good portion of those individuals interviewed oppose the bill because they think it is not liberal enough (13%). So in reality, only 43% oppose the bill because they believe it is too liberal while 52% either support the bill or think it should be more liberal. Hardly the picture that is portrayed by the right.
The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time.On a related note, I am in the market for a non-fugly alarm clock. Below, I have gathered a collection of candidates from around the Web. Thoughts? I'd buy that small font clock in a heartbeat, except that I couldn't justify spending $380 on something I'd likely thrash while violently fumbling around for the snooze button in the morning.
Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle). It modifies time and tells us more about its nature; namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight. It is a saving daylight kind of time. Because of this, it would be more accurate to refer to DST as daylight-saving time. Similar examples would be a mind-expanding book or a man-eating tiger. Saving is used in the same way as saving a ball game, rather than as a savings account.
Nevertheless, many people feel the word savings (with an 's') flows more mellifluously off the tongue. Daylight Savings Time is also in common usage, and can be found in dictionaries.
Adding to the confusion is that the phrase Daylight Saving Time is inaccurate, since no daylight is actually saved. Daylight Shifting Time would be better, and Daylight Time Shifting more accurate, but neither is politically desirable.
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