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Demerzel
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quote:
Originally posted by Big Crunch
That is why the first question I would ask is "How was the data collected?". Its more important than the question and the questioner.
TV audience surveys are pretty good, as are most polls by dedicated organisations (MORI, Gallop, etc) |
IIRC, BARB who collect the "TV Audiences" ratings have a mere 115 households as their sampling data. So ~400 people are used to say 15m watched this and 8m watched that, pretty tenuous I'd say esp. when they use the data to cancel a programme I like because some stupid couch potatoes thought it was too "highbrow".
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Andydog
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London
Jan 2001
time: 05:25
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Goodness me there are many posting on this thread who seem to be missing several important points. Here's a Kiwi perspective on things:
It looks ominously like Bush and his cronies are going to war - with or without the UN. Whilst we in NZ are half a world away from this problem in distance we are of course going to be caught up in whatever transpires.
We are feeling just as concerned and insecure as most others around the world. When we saw the terrible events of 9/11 we felt for the victims and their families, and all the other people involved. We struggled to understand why those people were prepared to sacrifice their lives and so many others by flying those planes into the twin towers. We understood Bush's wish to track down and deal with the terrorists who were behind this attack. We sent some of our troops to seek out Bin Laden and his men in Afghanistan. Most New Zealanders supported this because what was done on 9/11 can never be justified and so many innocent lives were lost.
But now we see this imminent threat of war with Iraq and we cannot see the connection. Saddam is undoubtedly an oppressive, cruel dictator, with much blood on his hands. It is a pity his own people haven't been able to rise up against him, or that he wasn't taken out at the time of the Gulf War. But there have been others like him in other countries and the US has not seen fit to attack their countries.
I see little connection proven between Saddam's regime and Al Quaeda - in fact it would appear that Bin Laden has been openly critical of Hussein in the past. The UN inspectors seem to be finding nothing of any substance and, if anything, they seem to be refuting all the claims from the Bush regime that he has all these weapons of mass destruction. And even if he did have some is there any evidence he has any intention of using them against any other country? He got a tremendous beating the last time he tried that - he must know he would be on a hiding to nothing. It seems to me that it's a major arrogance and a great hypocrisy for Bush to be itching to use his weapons of mass destruction to crush another regime that is already on its knees, with so many of its people suffering tremendous hardship from the sanctions in place.
I see Bush as a far bigger problem in the world than Hussein is right now, simply because he is hell-bent on using his war machine to prove his power and gain more control in the world. He says that he must protect the US from terrorism, but he hasn't clearly shown that Hussein or his people are behind the terrorism. It seems that he must make an example of someone - he cannot find Bin Laden, so Hussein will do. Quite frankly I don't think he knows how to deal with terrorists - he doesn't know where they are, or what they are doing, and more importantly, he doesn't seem to understand the factors that breed terrorism. Wouldn't it be great if Bush could use all the wealth and power at his disposal to do more to counter the causes of terrorism in the world - the differences between the haves and the have nots - famine, disease, ignorance, religious oppression, trade sanctions, and so on. Instead he is creating a wider chasm between the different peoples in the world, he is fanning the flames of fear and resentment.
If he strikes Iraq he will be doing more than any other person in history to provoke terrorism, because his actions will be seen by millions around the world as unfair, unjust and the actions of a playground bully boy who can only get what he wants by brute force.
The vast majority of New Zealanders agree with our Prime Minister when she says that we do not support a pre-emptive strike against Iraq by the US and their handful of allies. She has said that the UN should decide what to do about Iraq, once the inspectors have had time to complete their work, and she has said that New Zealand, as a member of UN, will support its decisions on how to deal with the Iraq situation.
If the UN does intervene in Iraq it is likely New Zealand will send in supplies, medical assistance and be involved in peacekeeping, as they have done in other trouble spots of the world. So we are prepared to play our part as a member of the world community, BUT: We are not willing to be dragged into an unsanctioned war.
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devilmunchkin
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first circle of the inferno
Jul 2001
time: 05:25
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here is something that bothers me:
the majority of the WORLD (and that is ALOT of people, to put it mildly) is against war and for peace. How is it, then, that a few old, male farts can pull the entire world's reign's and command that we go create mass destruction and blood shed? what gives this FEW guys this RIGHT? and can it be stopped?
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16-02-2003 21:58
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