|
|
|
Opinions April 3, 2008 |
|
Opinions
Is Information from Survey Used in the City’s Annual Report Accurate and Reliable?
By Brian AddisonIs it worth $5,000 simply to find out how 189 people answer a set of questions? My answer to that question is, no. When you pay to have a polling survey taken, the value of the survey is to accurately and reliably project the way the larger population would answer the same survey questions.
ORBIS Group recently conducted a survey for City of Baker City. ORBIS surveyed 189 Bakerites and asked for responses to a list of questions in order to get a sense of how the whole 10,000 of us feel on a variety of city related topics. The information gathered from the survey was used throughout the 2007 Baker City Staff and Management Annual Report.
The city has just released the Annual Report and the first sentence sums up the intent of the city’s Annual Report as, “a thorough, frank and factual public document.”
On this same first page of text, the final sentence, a footnote explaining that the (statistical) analysis of the ORBIS survey was not complete and is not provided in the Annual Report.
The information from the ORBIS survey should not have been used in the city’s Annual Report without also providing the survey analysis. For $5,000, the citizens deserve to know that the numbers they are looking at are accurate and reliable and there are simple procedures (based on complicated mathematical/statistical formulae) requiring only the pressing of a few buttons on the calculator to produce iron clad proof that information being presented from a survey is accurate and reliable.
One commonly held misconception regarding polling surveys is that you have to poll many people to get truly accurate projections. Rather, it doesn’t take very many survey participants to get accurate projections of the whole (trends begin to establish after polling a minimum of 30 survey participants and with the ORBIS number of survey participants at 189, there is enough information to draw within near-exactly how the entire 10,000 would answer).
Accuracy in a survey means that projections drawn from that survey must fall within an acceptable range. Accuracy in a survey is partially defined by plus or minus the margin of error.
In order to accurately project the sentiment of the greater population of Bakerites, the ORBIS survey first needs to show the Margin of Error, a measurement that most of us are used to seeing under political polls on television. Margin of error is just a way of showing how accurate survey findings are; a narrow margin of error means that you have narrowed down your findings to within an acceptable range (i.e., political polls usually show a margin of error no greater than plus or minus 4). It is not enough to provide only the margin of error because this gives only half the story on the way to proving survey accuracy and reliability.
Reliability in a survey means being confident that if the survey were repeated and given to a different group of respondents, you can expect to get the same results that the first group gave.
Once the margin of error is provided, the next number to ask for in determining whether the findings presented from a survey are reliable is the survey’s Confidence Interval. The confidence interval tells how many times you can expect to get the same results that were found on the initial survey if the same survey were given over and over again to different groups each time; another way to say it is, the confidence interval tells how confident we can be that survey results are repeatable if the same survey questions were asked of a different group.
A survey with a confidence interval of .5 means that, if you gave the exact same survey over and over again you could expect the same results only 50-percent of the time. A confidence interval of .5 is basically a toss of the coin and any survey with a .5 confidence interval is an unreliable survey and the information from such a survey cannot be trusted.
By lowering the confidence interval (reliability), the survey may produce a narrow margin of error to give the appearance that findings are pinpoint accurate. Again, it is possible to give the appearance of accuracy (narrow the margin of error) at the expense of reliability (by lowering the confidence interval) of a survey.
A confidence interval of .9 is acceptable, but it would be better to back a survey up with a .95 confidence interval (which means survey results would hold up 95-percent of the time if the survey were repeated). The worth of any survey (just as in science) is measured by being able to replicate findings.
The information from the ORBIS Group survey should not have been included in the Baker City 2007 Annual Report without the survey analysis, there has not been enough information given about the survey to determine whether or not the findings are accurate or whether the survey as conducted and reported is reliable.The public should demand these measures of accountability; to some of us, $5,000 is a great deal of money.
ORBIS Group is scheduled to present the survey findings at the April 22 meeting of Baker City Council and, if these numbers are to be used to gain support and to make decisions based on the sentiments of the whole Baker City community, all 10,000, then there is an expectation of accuracy and reliability.Bad Moon Rising
By Steve CulleyMore decades ago than I want to think about I wrote my first political letter to the editor in the local daily. I can’t remember what it was about, but I suspect it might have been on the Second Amendment. The Clinton years were good for a few thousand column inches defending my right, duty, obligation and desire to own firearms. I and the rest of the nation’s gun owners argued the Second Amendment wasn’t about duck hunting. It is about safety, for the nation, the states and personal. That argument had implications for the nation far and beyond what the average American is aware of. NPR radio carried a story about how Al Gore would have been president had he not sided with the gun control lobby. John Kerry swift boated himself with middle America on his famous wild goose chase where at the last minute he tried to show his love for guns. Instead we got George Bush and Iraq.For 217 years middle America knew we, the people, had a right to keep and bear arms. The founders wrote the Second Amendment into the Constitution as a government removal tool just in case the people ever became apathetic and let their government change from being a servant of the people to one where the people serve the government.
Thomas Jefferson is my favorite founder when it comes to firearms quotes. “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of firearms” and “Those who would beat their guns into plow shears will plow for those who don’t” and “An armed man is a citizen, and unarmed man is a subject.” The original straight talk express. The guy was full of gun powder quotes. He understood what a well regulated militia was. He saw one at Bunker Hill and Lexington and Concord. National Guards didn’t exist at the time. The militia was the armed populace called out in time of emergency. I often quoted Jefferson when talking to banning bunnies.
But all arguments on the Second are over as far as influencing politics and the future. The leftwing has finally painted us into a corner. On Tuesday, March 18, 2008, the last arguments that mean anything were given before the U.S. Supreme Court. Sometime in June they will hand down a decision and that decision will be the law of the land. The question before the court is really quite simple. It has to do with a transfer of power. Do the people retain the ultimate power of an armed populace, the ultimate in term limits, or does the government have a right to regulate? It is a momentous decision because if the court tries to walk a middle ground, as I expect them to do, an absolute right has been transformed into a privilege and privileges can be revoked. If the court says there can be “reasonable restrictions” we are on a path to eventual civil conflict because in the minds of those who actually believe that controlling guns will make us safer there are no restrictions that are not reasonable.
We all know that Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Clair McCaskill, Nancy Pelosi and Ginny Burdick being urban females who have never actually fired a gun don’t like them very much and are a constant source of anti gun legislation. Their male counterparts like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer make us all wonder what has happened to our male gender. We tend to just shake our heads and write it off as having something to do with being a Democrat. Most don’t pay enough attention to know that the banning disease has infected George Bush and John McCain too. It is a time of great confusion for those of us who grew up with the smell of gun powder in our noses. We have a local blogger, Chuck Butcher, who has nailed it. The conflict is between freedom loving individuals and authoritarians. They know no party.
Recent developments confirm my fear that America will come to understand the “well regulated militia” part of the Second Amendment. I think they might actually see them drilling on the village green again. We have two boarder agents who are serving long prison terms for shooting a confirmed Mexican drug dealer in the butt. A small percentage of America have heard of Campeon and Ramos. Their sentences are a result of using a gun in what a Bush administration prosecutor, Johnny Sutton, calls a gun crime. It is a result of the NRA trying to compromise with the left.
The Virginia tech massacre resulted in another gun bill that could conceivably result in soldiers seeking help at the VA for post traumatic stress disorder being denied the right to own a gun. The ultimate injustice. Being asked to defend the country with a firearm only to return home and be denied the right to defend yourself with one. Again the NRA tried to compromise with the enemy. They tried to be “reasonable.”
Years ago I watched a Clinton appointee, a Mr. Jeffries the then head of the ATF, on C-Span Washington Journal and had cold chills run up my spine. I knew that gun banning had become institutional. The ATF in my mind had become a crusading agency with one mission, the control of guns and ultimately the people.
Lou Dobbs carried the Olofson story a week or so ago. In a nutshell a guy loaned an AR15 to a friend who fired it 800 times at the range. It malfunctioned and fired two rounds with one trigger pull before jamming on the third. Within hours the ATF raided his home, broke down the door, confiscated his guns. None were found to have been altered into a “machine gun,” but a jury convicted him and he could be on his way to prison. This guy just returned from Iraq and is or was in the army reserve. He’s a felon now. I don’t often disagree with Lou Dobbs, but I do here. Dobbs says he respects the ATF, but disagrees with them this time. I fear them and if I were president I would immediately disband the organization and offer them new jobs down on the border where they might actually defend America and do honest work. Like the Campeon and Ramos fiasco I don’t expect much help from the Bush administration on the Olofson situation.
The gun hating wing of the country likes to quote the Miller case, the only real Supreme Court case on guns going back to 1939. What that case really illustrates is the fact that the Supreme Court had small minds in it even then. The real damage to the Second was the 1934 Firearms Act. That law didn’t outright ban the fully automatic gun since the Congress knew it was unconstitutional, they just required that a “reasonable restriction” would be to require a stamp for any such weapon that fired multiple rounds per trigger pull and then neglected to issue very many stamps and when they did the government wanted to know where they were at all times.
Your typical gun banner thinks that fully automatics actually exist in great numbers outside of Hollywood. They know they hate assault weapons, but couldn’t describe one if asked to do so. What is really behind the situation is guys like George Soros of Move on dot org who would like to piecemeal disarm America. They pulled it off in Australia and got 700,000 semiautomatics ground up and melted down. The ATF seems to be the front organization trying to implement this policy in America. We now have an agency that employs many people making sure that government removal tools are well regulated.
The Supreme Court heard the arguments and the mainstream media finally caught on that something important was happening. They were too late to ask any questions during the presidential “debates,” and so far have neglected to ask any of the “candidates” how they feel about Washington D.C. vs. Heller. I tried to throw one to Ron Wyden on his recent visit to Baker City, but he didn’t bite. Democrats don’t like to talk about guns during an election cycle. The media failed to report that he failed to answer.
Under the old rules of campaigning guns would be a major issue this summer. The Heller case, decided in June, would have been fodder for the Republicans. Normally there would be crucified Democrats lining the campaign trail to the White House, but this time John McCain is the presumptive nominee of that party and he is vulnerable to ads showing him closing “gun show loopholes” should he catch on that Conservatives think it is important and try to bolster his standing with them. That and ads showing him calling other Viet Nam vets who volunteered their time down on the borders “bigots” really means that we might avoid any real discussion about two major issues in this country, guns and borders or in other words, sovereignty and freedom.
Right after the Heller case was heard CNN interviewed some people about their reactions. The Washington D.C. chief of police with more stars on her shoulders than a full army commander told us the usual left wing propaganda about how more guns mean more deaths. The facts don’t bear that out in D.C. Since their total ban on guns the crime rate went straight up. With her was the mayor telling us the only reason it didn’t work was because of all those other states where the yokels actually can buy them supplying their gangs with guns. It’s not hard to see that from his point of view that if you just stopped those boys in Oregon from having guns Washington D.C. would be safe. And of course our very own left coast New York Times, the Portland Oregonian, is telling us that the Second Amendment and government removal tools might not actually be an individual right, just a government right.
Barack Obama talks about hope, but I’ve lost mine. After years of being an activist I see little hope in these three front runners and am canceling my Internet service as of the end of the month. I just lived through a right wing “uniter” and think I’m about to endure a left wing one. When all three people who want the White House tell me that my sovereign country really doesn’t need borders or that the thing that counter-balances the emerging police state is subject to the whims of those who are supposed to be controlled by guns I see a bad moon rising.
The open borders globalists and authoritarian gun banners will never quit until they force a confrontation. In the meantime the grand kids seem to be saying smarter things than I hear on the news or campaign trail. It’s spring time. There are outside things to do. Since history, the plainly written words of the Second Amendment, and reason seem to take a backseat to contrived arguments from the disarmament crusaders I’m just going to wait for the next shot heard around the world then join up with the local militia. It’s the American thing to do.
Letters
Support Hofmann For OTEC Board Director
To The Record-Courier:
I support Chuck Hofmann for the position of Director on the OTEC Board.
Chuck understands the economy of Eastern Oregon, and knows that all segments of natural resource based economy are under dire cost-inputs pressure. Continued tight control of electricity costs is essential to the agriculture base of our economies.
Chuck is a proven leader – having served on the Baker City Council as well as having been Mayor. He has quickly risen to positions of leadership and responsibility on the OTEC Board after he was appointed to fill a vacancy a year ago.
I urge you to join me in voting to retain Chuck Hofmann as a Director on the OTEC Board.
Tim L. Kerns
Haines, Ore.
A Corporation Is Taking Control Of Baker County
To The Record-Courier:
A Corporation, backed by powerful Eastern investors, is gaining control of, and locking up, a huge percentage of the natural resources in Baker County. This Corporation has already secured the single purpose use of thousands of acres in Baker and Union Counties and pays no taxes to support anything in Baker County. This Corporation maintains a full-time staff of lawyers who have sued and threaten to sue anyone who may get in the way of their control over the use of Baker County resources. This Corporation has the ear of local government officials who are fearful of being sued by these corporate lawyers. The Corporation’s goal is to lock up Baker County’s natural resources for their own special use, and to keep the local population from using these resources. It sounds unbelievable doesn’t it? Well, you better believe it, because it is happening! The corporation is called Hells Canyon Preservation Council, Inc. (HCPC).
And you may ask, what is this special use? It’s wilderness. HCPC has a goal of eventually denying most human commerce and use of natural resources, especially from National Forest land. Even with over 600,000 acres of the Wallowa -Whitman National Forest (WWNF) already officially set aside for wilderness, it is not enough! They have been very successful in suing their way to dominance over how the Forest Service manages the part of Baker County that was reserved from homesteading. Not only have they virtually stopped logging and mining on the WWNF, but the Forest Service is also refusing to stock many grazing allotments.
The 1897 Organic Act established how the Forest Service was to manage the Reserves (National Forests). You might think that the 1897 Organic Act is an old law that no longer has any bearing on what happens on the Forest, but you would be wrong! In 2006, HCPC, Inc. brought a lawsuit against the Forest Service for obscure violations of the 1897 Organic Act, and HCPC, Inc. prevailed in that lawsuit.
The Organic Act is a powerful law, and it applies to our National Forests in Baker County. It states, “Public forest reservations are established to protect and improve the forests for the purpose of securing a permanent supply of timber for the people. The Secretary of Agriculture may permit, under regulations to be prescribed by him, the use of timber and stone found upon such reservations, free of charge, by bona fide settlers, miners, residents, and prospectors for minerals, for firewood, fencing, buildings, mining, prospecting, and other domestic purposes, as may be needed by such persons for such purposes; such timber to be used within the State or Territory, respectively, where such reservations may be located.” The Act also clearly states, “The pasturing of live stock on the public lands in forest reservations will not be interfered with, so long as it appears that injury is not being done to the forest growth”.
Baker County needs to wake up and realize how far the use of our National Forest has already been compromised. Baker was a county long before the National Forests were created. Eastern Oregon people allowed the creation of the “reserve” because their rights were protected under the law. Ranchers could graze livestock, local people could use the forest resources without charge, and the Forest Service would manage the Forest for timber production to support the local Communities. There were far more people enjoying and using the Forest and its resources 30 years ago than today, and yet there is still a pressure group who would like to close off more use and access.
Letting an elite corps of lawyers, financed by rich Eastern foundations, determine the future of Baker County’s resources should be a concern to everyone.
Ken Alexander
Unity, Ore.
Spring Fever
To The Record-Courier:
Well, here it is— the signs of spring. Most things a have a way of coming alive in due time.
Not too long ago, I noticed our first spider in the house making its way around my computer. Then of course there will be the flies. I guess it is a matter of time before we get out that trusty old fly swatter for its use, not to mention fly strips. I noticed one fly coming alive in my home, my oh my.
I am wondering how our bug population will come out this year. Maybe it should be a toss up between the ground hog and the bugs in predicting spring for us.
I am sure many of you have noticed a few in your homes as well and can relate to this in more ways than one. A couple of ears ago we saw a couple of preying mantis in our yard, which is pretty rare. Then, don’t forget the little frog I mentioned in one of my letters. I wonder if he will make his comeback visiting us again.
I suppose we will really know it is Spring when we start seeing the wonderful ducks and geese floating down the river, and crossing the streets around 17th. That happened to me at least once during the summer and you literally had to stop to let them pass. It is cute with their babies alongside them. Don’t they know what crosswalks are for? Given the traffic, it pays to pay attention no matter what crosses our paths.
Don’t jump too soon in our change of weather because we could easily still get another of that wonderful winter blast on us. I imagine the huckleberries that most of us like could be out in full force this year too. Something to wait and watch to see how things multiply this year given the weather.
Coffee anyone?
Brenda Dickison
Baker City
|
|
|
