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Presidential Candidate 'Computer Dating'
engywook writes "On National Public Radio's Morning Edition this morning, there was a story that mentioned the SelectSmart Presidential Candidate Selector. This was described as a kind of 'computer dating service' for deciding which of the remaining presidential candidates match your views most closely. According to the story, it is not limited to just the Democratic and Republican candidates. Might be just the thing to help gel a decision in swinging undecideds!"
it is interesting as you say, but the biggest issue is how do you know that there's no inherent bias built into the system? the only way to decide who to vote for is to make up your own mind. This may be a tool to help you, but please, it's like telling your neighbor/newspaper columnist/random person on the street your views on everything and let them tell you who you should vote for. Fine if it works, but how do you know they don't have a vested interest?
Iran has endorsed
I took this test two weeks ago. IT IS HEAVILY BIASED TOWARDS BUSH. The test is a push poll, a type of poll that askes biased questions in the hopes of directing people in one direction or another.
Specifically, the test's first set of questions dealt with taxes. The question was something like "Are you in favor of more taxes or fewer taxes?" and gave the nod to Bush for being for lower taxes.
This hides the true position of both candidates. Bush and the Republican congress have passed the tax cuts that gave most of the benefits to the richest 1 percent, and barely anything to the middle class or working-class poor.
Kerry has proposed repealing the tax cut (also known as "raising taxes") on the richest 1% in order to pay for important social spending (medicare = healthcare so the very poor and children don't die). Do you want to pay less taxes so children die from not having immunizations, antibiotics when they're sick, fixed broken bones, etc.?
SelectSmart has a good set of polls for other things, but I found this poll to be VERY VERY BIASED and would challenge anyone taking it to consider the way the questions are asked.
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
I missed the last debate, but something i caught reading a transcript and sounded alarms in my head was Bush saying (and i quote):
"...So I tried diplomacy, went to the United Nations. But as we learned in the same report I quoted, Saddam Hussein was gaming the oil-for-food program to get rid of sanctions. He was trying to get rid of sanctions for a reason: He wanted to restart his weapons programs.
We all thought there was weapons there, Robin. My opponent thought there was weapons there. That's why he called him a grave threat.
I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons, and we've got an intelligence group together to figure out why.
But Saddam Hussein was a unique threat. And the world is better off without him in power.
And my opponent's plans lead me to conclude that Saddam Hussein would still be in power, and the world would be more dangerous."
So, in few words, first it was about terrorists, then about WMD, since there were no terorrists there, and now there's no WMD, it's all about Sadaam being an evil, dangerous man. Which is not something i disagree with, but it begs the question: why the fuck did the Bush administration was so eager to rush into war with Iraq - so much that they bypassed the UN completely? To this day, just like you, i have no idea.
Oil? I thought it was far fetched back then. Now i don't know.
What scares me is that so many people over the USA not only accept this, but embraces and defends this actions.