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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Real politik.

    Saudi Arabia is a useful ally to have in the region, a fellow enemy of Russian ally Iran, a good customer for the defense industry, and an alliance makes the US less reliant on Israel. That’s a win-win.

    Elements in the Saudi government may have helped orchestrate 9/11, but after 2003 attacks in Saudi Arabia they drastically and often violently curtailed the influence of the Wahhabi establishment. The aristocracy clamped down on the power of the clergy. They also offered significant and valuable intelligence cooperation with the US

    So if elements in the Saudi government did help orchestrate 9/11, it’s easier to sweap it under the rug. There are more important issues to worry about.

    Twenty years ago? Other decisions should have been made and not made.

    Now? The world and the regime in Saudi Arabia has changed.














  • You don’t need to poll everyone to get relatively accurate polling results.

    I have a related degree, it is possible with the necessary caveats, margins of error and confidence intervals. Statistics is a wonderful thing.

    This being said, I actually read the full 77 page document they linked to, and if I’m not mistaken the 55% comes from a 2021 telephone poll. Obviously phone only polls are likely to be biased, even if you correct for demographic factors like age.

    Then again, inflation is a problem.


  • I have a related degree.

    The study was conducted for CNN via web and telephone on the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative panel of U.S. adults ages 18 or older recruited using probability-based sampling techniques.

    BUT…

    In a January 2021 poll taken just before Trump left office and days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, 55% considered his time as president a failure.

    Relevant bit:

    Unless otherwise noted, results beginning with the August 3-6, 2017 survey and ending with the April 21-26, 2021 survey are from polls conducted by SSRS via telephone only

    TLDR: doubt those polls are representative.