Politics Watch

It was not far since I mentioned about Harper's blunder move on cancelling long-form census on my last post, that Angus Reid released a survey about the political parties and their percentage. Conservative has lost 3 percent and Liberal gained 2 and the differences between two top runners became just 4 percent. One more big mistake and we might have a new election.

A blunder move by Stephan Harper!

Today, finally Stephan Harper started talking about the long-form census and as it was expected by activists, he defended the decision of his cabinet member for making long-form census voluntary than mandatory. Today, two groups, Francophone and Acadian, will bring the federal government to the court for violating human rights as the consequence of cancelling long-form. The real issue is that whether one is in favor of individual interest, or societies interest. In other words, protecting individual privacy versus collecting individual private data for the greater good. While, there is no philosophical reason for either of the cases, I favor on societies interest simply because in a long run I believe most individual would benefit from it. This is just among my morale discipline. I use the same tactic and support for mandatory schooling. Of course, my list is limited and I never defend compulsory voting as Australians do.

I try to read Harper's rationale behind the pure fact of cancelling long-form census, and beside protecting people privacy information. Seems to me he is after getting attention of ordinal people for the next election which might happen anytime soon. Unfortunately, the survey by Ipsos, revealed that people are split on the issue and sounds like he couldn't reach them. By the same token now he has more oppositions among different religious groups, researchers, activists etc etc for making such a blunder move.

Statistical mistake of 2010 Arab Survey Report on Attitudes Toward Iran

Today, Brookings Institute, upload the results of 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll on the web. Interestingly enough, the short report on attitudes toward Iran is exactly the opposite of what the survey is saying. Brookings claims that:

"A majority of the Arab public now see a nuclear-armed Iran as being better for the Middle East."

Let me explain the true report of part of this survey that is aimed at attitudes towards Iran by exploring the survey looking at the detail of report.

There are two main parts in the survey, those who believe Iran is seeking a peaceful nuclear energy and others who state Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon. In order to evaluate the Brookings statement we need to concentrate on the answer of people who believe Iran is going to acquire the nuclear weapon.

There is one main question that needs to be investigated.

Question: "If Iran acquire nuclear weapons, which of the following is the likely outcome for the middle east region?

More positive

Wouldn't matter

More negative"

In fact, the majority of the Arab public in this survey including: Jordan, Lebanon, UAE and KSA who believe Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, think it is "more negative". Egypt and Morocco are the only countries who think it is "more positive".

The answer of another question confirmed the above question. Here is the question: "There is international pressure on Iran to curtails its nuclear program. What is your opinion?

Iran has right to its nuclear program

Iran should be pressured to stop its nuclear program"

People of Jordan, Lebanon and UAE who believe Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon are in favor of putting more pressure on Iran. Egypt and Morocco again are the only countries who say Iran has a right to its nuclear program and people of KSA are split on the issue.

I guess I need to add that majority of people in the survey believe Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapon (57) than conducting research for peaceful purposes(35).

So the true report is that: majority of people who believe Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon think acquiring the nuclear weapon by Iran would have a negative outcome on the middle east region.

I keep the cause of Brookings's mistake to myself for now, and last thing not the least, I am not judging about the content of survey but just evaluating the report itself.