frandroid | (no subject)

ziola]

"This report summarizes the main findings of the poll conducted for BBC World Service by research agency Synovate in October 2006, exploring the views and opinions of young people aged 15 – 17. In total, 3,050 youths were interviewed in 10 key cities." Those ten cities are: New York, Jakarta, Moscow, London, Nairobi, Cairo, Lagos, Rio, Baghdad, and Delhi.

Questions include: "Regardless of whether this is already the case in your country; do you think women should have the same rights as men?", "Would you consider cheating to get into university?", "Have you heard of climate change or global warming?", "Do you believe in God or a higher being?", and more.

Although probably within the margin of error, Rio and Delhi were higher than NYC in thinking that women should have the same rights as men, and those three cities were significantly higher than London in thinking so.

91% of Delhi respondents thought that gov'ts should limit offspring, far more than anyone else.

Respondents in Rio seem to be more progressive on most questions than people living in NYC and London.

Baghdad residents are off the conventional map in some aspects, particularly climate change.

Muscovites are the only young people to agree with abortion in a majority. Once you filter out men, women are more likely to consider an abortion--except in Moscow and Baghdad.

Surprisingly, other than New Yorkers and Muscovites, Baghdadis are the least likely to want to move elsewhere to secure a better future.

Lagos respondents are those that worry the least about Terrorism and the most about Education. On the same "what do you worry about" issue, when the focus is shifted from global to personal, education and careers get more emphasis, more spectacularly in NYC than anywhere else.

The last question, a veiled version of "would be a suicide bomber?" got 25% in favour in London, which has alarmed the polsters enough that they have included a comment on it underneath. I find that amusing.

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I'm surprised 80% of Rio is against abortion, they're so left in every other category.

Probably has something to do with the fact that 74% of the country is Catholic...

Offtopic, but in response to your question a couple weeks ago about government and opposition in Alberta. Not sure how much you've heard about the "two-minute tory" phenomenon outside this province. From a column in today's Calgary Herald:

   Klein has been premier for a record 14 years — the longest-serving of any current premier. In the absence of a strong opposition, it's a safe bet his successor, Ed Stelmach, will be there for years, as well. "We view this ... as being really an election of the premier, as well as being the election of the leader of our party," said the Tory chief returing officer Sonny Mirth.
   Tories were more than happy to welcome new "members," even if they were one-night stands. In fact, it's easier to become a member of the Tory party than it is to join Costco. Anyone 16 or older who has lived in Alberta for the past six months could go to a polling station on Saturday, fork over $5, and take the new membership card to the voting booth.
   The easy entry lifted PC memberships from 13,000 before the leadership campaign began to more than 133,000 by saturday's vote.

I, for one, readily admit to being one of those 120,000 two-minute tories (my support for the federal PC notwithstanding, I do not generally support the provincial variant). My membership runs out in 26 days.

All kinds of interesting ramifications, really...

Have money? Can vote!
The Alberta Progressive Conservatives: commercializing the fundamental tenet of democracy since 1992!

The federal Tories did the same in the 1999 race: I remember Orchard's campaign posters around Vancouver, featuring a $5 bill with Orchard's face on it. I was curious enough that I actually went to see him speak somewhere, and subsequently was entangled on his mailing list for years.

The Liberals are the last party to hold out on one-member, one-vote. Some people say that such elections give more power to the party leader and disempower the party base, since two-minute-members end up deciding what's happening and the actual members don't matter as much. That's possibly why the Liberals decided to hang out to the delegate model...

I must say that I have some admiration for Orchard's dogged determination to try to matter in federal politics. I went to see him talk at York last year, where I finally bought his book (hehe) and as soon as he heard my name he started practicing his French on me, and telling me that he was going back to Québec City for more immersion. He could not give me a single good reason why he wasn't joining the NDP. :]

> federal Tories did the same in the 1999 race: I remember Orchard's

Hmmm... I don't remember that, but then I was spending a lot of time in the USA around then.

Either way, one-member, one-vote is one thing; swelling the party ranks by over 1000% for the purposes of the election rather another. I mean, the voter turnout for this party election was 15% of the turnout for the last general election...

That was my point.

I think we're talking about the same thing, but I'm not sure. What I wanted to emphasize was that by having the membership grow this much, the people who choose the leader have little to do with the actual party, so it hampers actual party democracy.