Top Story

Yeah, Obama will give a vital speech on Afghanistan.  Yeah, the economy sucks and jobs are hard to come by.  But the top story is Tiger Woods, if you follow the cable TV spewmeisters (NYTimes today had it on D1, where it belongs). 

But what about the "Golf Media?"  Wouldn't they be all over this story with pathbreaking journalism?

Not really, says this columnist.

When it comes to what people know, often we get caught up in the truly trivial.  This is one of those occasions.

Home for the Holidays

Good study out by those amazing people at Pew on the recession and young adults returning home -- and not just for the holidays, but to stay.  Times are tough, and mom & dad always have a place for ya to crash.  As they put it:

Census Bureau data confirm that proportionately fewer young singles are living solo now than before the recession. Overall, the proportion of adults ages 18 to 29 who live alone declined from 7.9% in 2007 to 7.3% in 2009. Similar drops in the proportion of young people who live by themselves occurred during or immediately after the recessions of 1982 and 2001.

F$%&@ing Furlough

Yep, today (Wednesday) is a furlough day, one of six my university requires to help balance the budget.  Essentially, that's a pay cut, so I wrote this post on Tuesday (and set it to post today) because technically I'm to do no work or go anywhere near the office on a furlough day. 

With the Thanksgiving holiday stretch coming, I will not be posting much at all -- furlough or not -- for the next few days.

Sarah Palin -- Superstar (for now)

The book, the book tour, the cheering crowds, the praise of Sean Hannity and the derision of Jon Stewart.  It all adds up to Sarah Palin -- Superstar.

Is she peaking too soon?  Or is she solidifying her position early for 2012?  Dunno.  The tactics and strategy of political campaigning are not what this blog is about.  Rather, I'm interested in what people know about Palin and whether or not it matters. 

So let's do the numbers.

Among "independents" her favorable rating has climbed from 33 percent to 49 percent.  Her unfavorable rating has shrunk from 55 to 38 percent.  To be fair these numbers come from a poll generated by Palin-fawning Fox News, so take them with a grain of salt.  Overall, regardless of political affiliation (or lack thereof), Palin -- according to Fox -- has increased from 38 percent to 47 percent favorable.  A CBS poll over roughly the same period has her favorable rating at 23 percent.  Bias in polls?  Katie Couric playing with the numbers?  Well, ABC/Washington Post has her at 43 percent favorable, so you'd be right to wonder about those CBS numbers.

What's interesting is that Palin's numbers continue to climb as Obama's numbers continue to decline.  Soon they will meet, which demonstrates all the difference between governing and campaigning, at least as presented on television and as it plays in the public mind.

When Polls Mislead?

Some are suggesting that polls of everyday folks on really complicated or emotional issues are misleading at best, probably useless at worst.  Recent examples of this argument can be found by Mark Blumenthal and Joe Klein.  Some agreed with this position but focused more on how "the media" report the polls (or even the kinds of poll questions "the media" ask) rather than the polls themselves.  The topic is, of course, health care, and what the American public really thinks about a complicated piece of legislation that is longer than most Harry Potter novels, and a helluva lot less interesting to read.

Maybe most of us could just wait for something simpler, something a bit more cheesy.  A Twilight novel version?

We swerve awfully close to elitism when we ask how much the public really understands of the topics its polled on, but to be honest most research suggests the public offers answers to survey questions without really, truly, understanding what its being asked.  So elitism?  Yeah.  But also reality.

Science vs Advocacy: The Breast Cancer Debate

It's been an interesting week of debate and finger-pointing and political gamemanship, of science vs advocacy vs. political posturing.  Of course I'm talking about the breast cancer policy suggestion (read about it just about anywhere, so I'm skipping the details), the subsequent attacks on this policy recommendation, and the political maneuvering of some to point to this as part of a darker, deeper plot to hurt health care.

I'm not going to get into the debate and which side is right or wrong.  I don't know the science, but I do know enough to say that one person on a TV "news" show drawing from personal experience is very different than the data.  Never generalize from an N of 1, my research methods teacher always cautioned.  Besides that, I think the debate has been good in that it probably pushed the topic to the front of people's minds and, hopefully, increased knowledge about breast cancer.  That's always a good thing.  Might be interesting if someone had a knowledge survey before this debate and then did one afterward to see if the constant blabbering on TV made a difference in what people know.

Test Your Global IQ

The fine folks at Pew challenge you to test your global IQ.  Sadly, I managed only 5 of 12 correct.  My global IQ sucks.