CNN coverage of the conflict and the protests

Too true. I feel extremely fortunate to have the CBC right now.

none of the uk channels were pointing out that the grenade guy was a relatively recent convert to islam for example.

Retired General Barry McCaffrey, who commanded a division in the Gulf War of 1991, said that in an open battle, the Republican Guard would be "destroyed" within 12 hours (the general is known to be optimistic) by the tanks and in particular the helicopters and aircraft with the 3rd Division.

only to say, well, the big change is that there has not been much of a change, all of this with a 4.5% margin of error...

i still want to see how large their sampling was, who they picked, where, and why.

i actually thought CNN's protest coverage was decent, at least for an american corporate tool like CNN. it's definitely improving, but then again, dissent is increasing.

This is probably doubly distressing with the CBC...even though they're providing more in depth coverage on a lot of aspects of the war, do we really need to hear about it 24/7 at the expense of coverage of everything else going on in the world? You gotta wonder what else is slipping under the radar while all of the lenses are pointing in the same direction. My partner suspects that the war is actually a magician's trick of redirection, so that the US government can pull off a whole pile of really shady things while everyone is busy looking the other way.

That's what I've been posting here for days! Apparently nothing's credible until someone other than hstencil sez it.

3/22/03 Anti-War Rally in Times Square: ~200K+ people.
3/23/03 Pro-War Rally in Times Square ~600 people.

jesus christ!

A poll of 500 randomly chosen individuals is theoretically a more accurate statistical analysis than a poll of 500 people who have specifically gathered together to discuss a certain issue near to their hearts. Ok, look at it this way: say you want to find out what percentage thinks what Enron did was wrong. Who would be more likely to give you a representative sampling of the country, 10 Enron execs or 10 people you grabbed walking around the Mall of America? They're still 10 people, but it's 10 people with a vested interest in whatever's going on.

you pieces of shit

3/22/03 Anti-War Rally in Times Square: ~200K+ people.
3/23/03 Pro-War Rally in Times Square ~600 people.

What does that mean? Let's run some stats! Or better yet, post some flippant remarks that ignore the post. Make sure you make fun of hstencil when you do it too!

(ally oh yes I search on my name all the time - doesn't everybody?!?!?)

Fucking A, we're not even 100% disagreeing with you - it's been pointed out repeatedly the dodgy means the pollers would use to misconstrue evidence slightly to fit a more sellable story.

BUT PLEASE BE CONTENT TO KEEP POSTING THAT RALLY STATISTIC, WE CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF IT! I'M GOING TO PUT IT ON A T-SHIRT AND WEAR IT!

Arguing this makes me want to start a war. Is that flippant enough to get you to ignore everything else that's been said to you so you can point out that everyone's been mean?

The pro-War rally had few attendees because (1)it was labeled pro-War, and who wants to go out and chant "yay war yay war" and (2)the pro-war stance is the mainstream one--it does not need to be 'rallyed' around to gain support for it cuz it already has support and (3)people feel more passionately on the peace side, which also has a big history of holding rallys.

oops, I labelled it "pro-war," but when I got the number of pro-war/support-the-troops(?)/whatever you want to call 'em protesters from the evening news last night (Channel 7, if you're interested), I'm not sure they used the same terminology. I have no idea if the organizers of the rally labelled it as "pro-war" or what.

3. I think this may be a good point, but I'm certainly not expert enough to answer it. I would speculate that the grass-roots within the Republican Party and right-wing of this country is far greater than that of the left, but that again is speculation based on my observation of media outlets, etc.

(a head count at a rally is a less concrete representation of what people are thinking about something than directly asking some people what they think)

(my point about the pro-war stance being the mainstream one: I should've clarified, I mean the mainstream stance held by the media. It has been said that the major point of the rally(s) was to focus media attention on their message. Thus, a pro-War rally is pointless in this aspect)

it's complicated though, everyone says they don't trust polls but then everyone gets upset by them

In the ICM poll, due to be published in the Guardian newspaper Tuesday, 54 percent of Britons said they supported a military campaign to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, compared with 38 percent in a previous March 16 poll.

I don't know if 500 instances is an appropriate sample size for the entire U.S. population, but I do know that determining the appropriate sample size is a very basic statistical equation. The problem, as has been alluded to, is the quality of the sample set. And it's not just a problem of random vs. self-selected, it's a problem of determining what random is. People who are home when the phone rings are different from people who are at work. People who have caller ID and don't take calls from pollsters are different from people who are willing to talk. Oddly, however, 500-600 people is probably all you need to measure 275 million. Then there's the problem of interpretation and reportage...

Not only is the truth not out there, uh, it's not even true...

The CNN coverage has been rather limited in scope and topic and content. I am particularly upset about all of these interviews with the families of the POWs and combat casualties - I feel horribly for them, but I don't consider their answering stupidly phrased and insensitively delivered questions such as "how do you feel now that your son/daughter has died/been injured/taken prisoner?" I am also tiring of all of the "well, we don't know what's happening and so we shouldn't speculate, but maybe ____ is what's happening." This type of speculation is disturbing.

I do wish I could see some coverage of the military action from the arabic world, as I think that the western coverage is too slanted.