I have taken a multitude of political quizzes recently. The results follow.
The first is from politicalbrew.com. I rated as a strong conservative (91 of 100) on fiscal issues and a moderate conservative (71 of 100) on non-fiscal issues. This was a very comprehensive test and I feel the results were accurate.
The second is from theadvocates.org. I rated as a libertarian: 90% on personal issues and 100% on economic issues. I think this test is inaccurate because it is too small, and its questions are too specific with too few possible answers.
The third is from 3pc.net. I matched up most with the Libertarian Party (78% agreement), followed by the Constitution Party (70% agreement) followed by the Republican Party (61% agreement). These were the 3 parties I agreed with on over half the issues. This is a comprehensive quiz, but again, only being able to select 1 of 3 answers impacts this quiz negatively.
The fourth was first seen in USA Weekend but is provided by madrabbit.net. I scored a 36 of 40 - just to the right of Bob Dole, but left of Ronald Reagan. This quiz allows you to contradict yourself, but if you know what you are doing, it can be accurate. We begin to see a pattern with this quiz, however: limited options when answering the questions posed.
The fifth was interesting, courtesy of politopia.com. I "live" in Centerville, but lean towards more personal freedoms and free markets. Your options in answering questions are good (you get 5 answers for most questions) and it is fairly comphrensive.
The sixth is derived from http://www.politicalcompass.org/. A positive number means right-leaning and a negative number means left-leaning: I finished 3.25 economically and 2.97 socially. This test was very comprehensive but also quite unfair. I felt there were too many leading questions.
The seventh comes from idealog.org. I fell into the conservative quadrant, having departed from freedom 7 times in the name of order and once in the name of equality. Only two options per question here, but this was very solid, regarding pressing issues of today.
The lesson is that there are many types of tests out there. They can't all be right, because they all have a different nature that will lead to variations in the final results. They merely serve as ways to guide you to your views.
Go ahead and take a few, and comment about your results! Where you stand, how it varies by test, if you were surprised . . .
Sunday, April 02, 2006
What a Nuisance!
Well, Daylight Saving Time (DST) started early this morning. What a useless invention.
Basically all it does is confuse us. How many times have you had plans to go somewhere the first Sunday of DST and realize you were an hour late because you had forgotten about moving the clocks forward?
In this article from 1998, the author explains that losing an hour of sleep is similar to losing three hours to jet lag. You might as well have flown from New York to Los Angeles.
According to Wikipedia, "the disruption in sleep patterns . . . correlates with a spike in the number of severe auto accidents."
And if you're a farmer, you probably despise it. As Wikipedia states, animals do not change their behavior to correspond to DST (although you probably could have figured that out), so changing the time twice a year only serves as a major inconvenience in agriculture.
This was all Benjamin Franklin's idea. For a brilliant man, this was sure a lame one.
Basically all it does is confuse us. How many times have you had plans to go somewhere the first Sunday of DST and realize you were an hour late because you had forgotten about moving the clocks forward?
In this article from 1998, the author explains that losing an hour of sleep is similar to losing three hours to jet lag. You might as well have flown from New York to Los Angeles.
According to Wikipedia, "the disruption in sleep patterns . . . correlates with a spike in the number of severe auto accidents."
And if you're a farmer, you probably despise it. As Wikipedia states, animals do not change their behavior to correspond to DST (although you probably could have figured that out), so changing the time twice a year only serves as a major inconvenience in agriculture.
This was all Benjamin Franklin's idea. For a brilliant man, this was sure a lame one.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Response to a Comment
The following is a response to a comment made about the earlier article, "The Government Perpetrated 9/11 Attacks? BS". My inability to edit comments has led me to creating a separate post regarding the issue.
The pages provided to support my claims comes from the site of the magazine Popular Mechanics. This is a magazine owned by the privately owned Hearst Corporation, and thus has no ostensible connections to the U.S. government.
In addition, a look at the sources used by the magazine shows that the government was indeed rarely asked for explanations--thus issues of whether or not the government can be trusted are not really appropriate to use when trying to argue with this site. For example, issues such as the manner of the collapse of the Twin Towers and the question of what hit the Pentagon were not resolved by the article through the government, but rather independent organizations.
There is plenty of other arguments countering conspiracies ignored by the still overwhelming information provided in the article: if indeed there was a massive cover-up, it's almost ridiculous to believe that every one of thousands of people would cooperate and not say a word. Someone's conscience would have been activated by now. But the article uses evidence, not conjecture, and thus still overwhelms any conspiracy theorist's ideas.
And again, personal insults against those who may be sympathetic to conspiracy theorists, or may be such theorists themselves, were driven by those who expressed obvious ignorance on an Internet forum. These were people who merely posted a link to someone else's reasoning and then insulted those who disagreed.
The pages provided to support my claims comes from the site of the magazine Popular Mechanics. This is a magazine owned by the privately owned Hearst Corporation, and thus has no ostensible connections to the U.S. government.
In addition, a look at the sources used by the magazine shows that the government was indeed rarely asked for explanations--thus issues of whether or not the government can be trusted are not really appropriate to use when trying to argue with this site. For example, issues such as the manner of the collapse of the Twin Towers and the question of what hit the Pentagon were not resolved by the article through the government, but rather independent organizations.
There is plenty of other arguments countering conspiracies ignored by the still overwhelming information provided in the article: if indeed there was a massive cover-up, it's almost ridiculous to believe that every one of thousands of people would cooperate and not say a word. Someone's conscience would have been activated by now. But the article uses evidence, not conjecture, and thus still overwhelms any conspiracy theorist's ideas.
And again, personal insults against those who may be sympathetic to conspiracy theorists, or may be such theorists themselves, were driven by those who expressed obvious ignorance on an Internet forum. These were people who merely posted a link to someone else's reasoning and then insulted those who disagreed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)