Political Thoughts

Two political thoughts for you today...

First of all, statistically speaking a voluntary sample is when you take a poll but the people involved choose to be involved. Usually this creates biased results because the people likely to respond to such a poll are also going to be the people with the strongest feelings about the poll. Someone who has never felt strongly either way about abortion isn't apt to respond to a voluntary poll asking their opinion on abortion.

54% of the population (according to answers.com) voted in the 2008 election. That was a voluntary sample. Statistically speaking that data would be thrown out.

And one more quick thought... Why do we blame everything on the president? The president has increased funding for AIDS research, and yet yesterday people were accusing him of not following through on his promises. He planned to approve the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell but it didn't make it through the senate TO him. So why is he to blame? If everything were Obama's fault this would be a dictatorship, not a democracy.

That's my soapbox today.