Fetus Fetishists Ladies' Auxiliary responds to KLRVU poll stomp

Oh dear, our relentless beatdown of the propagandalicious Klrvu poll has Andrea and Brigitte at "ProWomanProLife" beaking off:

As the girls no doubt know (but I'd hardly expect them to admit), the attention garnered by the ludicrous KLRVU poll hasn't been about the poll itself as much as the subterfuge and dishonesty surrounding it. A sham "poll" was done for the express purpose of producing propaganda -- the only irony is that anti-choicers obstinately refuse to see what's right in front of their faces.

As for where we get the idea that being anti-abortion means wanting to control other peoples' sex lives, we need look no further than the anti-contraception propaganda spewed by these same people. Given that contraception is the only thing short of abstinence that prevents unwanted pregnancy, it seems like an odd position for an anti-abortion person to take... unless... unless... bingo! Unless they wanted to control other peoples' sex lives!

Speaking of "other peoples' sex lives", I wonder if Andrea's still with the "Institute for Marriage & Family", who eventually gave up their fight against equal marriage (or so they said), but still publishes articles with alarming titles like "Bringing the State Back Into the Bedrooms of the Nation". (Yeeow! Can you say "Nanny statist"?)

Pissed off that your poll was outed as a sham? Tough. We're onto you people. Take your sanctimonious platitudes and stuff them.

Panic, MASSIVE POLL-style

After her long-winded defense of phone-spam polling on Monday, SUZANNE's been thinkin'. Today, rather than defend the KLRVU poll with backup data on its methodology, she tries to poke holes in the methodology of the Ipsos-Reid and Angus Reid polls that found 2/3 of Canadians were good with the Morgentaler OC. Too much weighting, or not enough. Over-representation of pro-abortion demographics. Then she concludes:

""The media and the left-wing bloggers accepted these polls without question, without looking at the methodology.""

Gee... I wonder why that might be. Ya think the reason we "accepted these polls without question" might be because we could find Ipsos-Reid and Angus Reid in the phone book, or on the internet, or on some roster of polling companies, or through Industry Canada, in the event that we did have questions? Or because Ipsos-Reid and Angus Reid are proven pollsters with years of experience? Or because the questions asked were unbiased? Or... I could go on, but you get the gist.

SUZANNE still doesn't seem to get that, as John Counsell said on his radio show last week, the stats mean nothing if it's not a legitimate polling company. And that has certainly not been proven. Although a website was cobbled together under duress, it still doesn't even have its own phone number, still sharing an unpublished number with LaserCut Engraving and who knows what other little cottage-industry businesses.

There's nothing inherently wrong with hiring a guy to do some kind of a poll using phone spam technology. Just don't trumpet the results as if they were anywhere near being on the same playing field as those produced by legitimate pollsters with long-standing reputations and business portfolios. They're not. That's been put to bed. KLRVU itself does a great job of explaining why we shouldn't believe their polls.

But while we're still on this increasingly tiresome subject, something that hasn't been put to rest is the question of how CLC hooked up with KLRVU in the first place. It took us days to come up with information on the company -- how did CLC manage to find them, with no phone number, no website, no listing in any business roster? Or did they just dial random phone numbers until they came up with a "polling company" that just happened to be run by the brother of one of their pet anti-abortion MPs? Serendipity?

Canada is an adamantly pro-choice country. Get over it and stop trying to prove otherwise with "polls" that are no more than lame-ass propaganda.

UPDATE: Someone from Angus Reid weighs in at SUZANNE's:

"Suzanne,

Please don't fall into the "bigger is better" trap. Angus Reid has conducted surveys on a wide variety of topics (including two that showed support for Bill C-484) and called 21 of 22 parties within the margin of error in five provincial elections using its online panel.

It's not a quesiton of contacting 13,000+ Canadians or dialing a million numbers. It's about the quality of the sample and the options available to respondents.

From a methodological standpoint, the problems with what we have seen from the KLRVU poll are:

a) No breakdowns for age, gender, household income, education or federal political preference. All we have are percentages of respondents who said "No". We can't tell if only men, only women, or even if minors answered this poll.

b) Apparently, no "Not sure" option. A poll must give a respondent the option to state that he or she does not know, and the pollster must register these answers.

c) Misleading press release. The question used is: "Do you believe abortionist Henry Morgentaler deserves the Order of Canada?" Yet the press release headline reads: "56% Oppose Morgentaler Order of Canada." A person may feel that Morgentaler does not deserve the Order, but that is not the same as actually voicing opposition to the fact that he will get it.
MCG | Homepage | 07.31.08 - 10:39 am | # "

Sounds reasonable. Shorter SUZANNE's response:

"LALALALALALA I can't heeeeeeear yooooooou, Angus Reid Pollster!"

Are we done here? Yep, I think we're done here.

Okay, this is just weird

Answer me this. How did this:
sneak into a website that's all about this:
???

MASSIVE POLL -- the beatdown goes on...

Okay, there's no doubt that the bell has rung on the MASSIVE POLL's credibility, given that after 7 days, in spite of relentless hounding, we were unable to beat any backup data or explanation of the poll's methodology out of its supporters. And no, "Duh... 150,000 households were called..." doesn't make the "methodology" cut. Geez! It's safe to say that the MASSIVE POLL has been completely and utterly, totally and thoroughly discredited, and lies in flaming ruins.

However, there's always someone who wants to run back into the inferno to save the family goldfish, as Lifeshite ably demonstrated with its retaliatory article about the MASSIVE POLL yesterday. But "Pro-abortion bloggers!" and "blatant media bias!" unfortunately don't make up for backup data which is the only thing that might possibly prove the poll's legitimacy. It's not much to ask -- it's the same information that comes with any legitimate poll, massive or not.

But unlike last week's news about the massive poll, which was feverishly blog-bursted, not many conservative bloggers seem interested in picking up yesterday's news about how "blatant media bias" sunk the poll. In fact, some of them are a little torqued about the controversy around the MASSIVE POLL, and they want answers. From FD:

Wow! Phew. Good synopsis of the MASSIVE POLL scandal there, including links to the clips from the Counsell show that buckets posted. Good questions. Now stand back, here's the first response:

To "shorter" that response: "But Mom, THEY (and their activist judges) DID IT FIRST!!!" D'oh!

Gluttons for Punishment

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! What fucking idiots!!!

Oh no! The MASSIVE POLL is getting POLED by the Canadian media! (Thanks to pro-abortion bloggers!)

Why won't the media talk about the Massive Poll? Well let's run it down here...

1. Because there's no data detailing the poll's methodology.

2. Because the question asked in the poll was biased, undermining the poll's credibility from Square One.

3. Because it took DAYS to find any information on KLRVU, the company who conducted the "poll". The information had to be dug up by bloggers, and we still have NO IDEA how Campaign Life even found KLRVU, given that it was for all intents & purposes nonexistent until last Thursday.

4. Because the more we've found out, the less legitimate the "pollster" looks -- it's a phone spam company. Phone spam, no less!

5. Because the one MSM-type person who's actually talked about the MASSIVE POLL, someone who'd normally support the poll if it was legit, thinks it's just as hinky as we do!

6. Because it doesn't matter anyway! Two real polls, done by real polling companies, were taken earlier this month, and they both had the same result: the vast majority of Canadians (2/3) are okay with Dr. M's Order of Canada. The MASSIVE POLL doesn't change that, or even effectively challenge it.

But hey: if the MASSIVE POLL's supporters want to push the issue and force the MSM to have a closer look at it, that absolutely works for me!

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Buckets explains how KLRVU explains why you shouldn't believe their poll.

BBW breaks silence on KLRVU: "LALALALALALALA!"

Finally! We were starting to think that maybe SUZANNE had taken a Vow Of Silence on the MASSIVE POLL scandal -- yes, scandal, because until there's some proof of how the results of this "poll" came about, that's what it is, a Scandal of monstrous proportions (okay, now I'm hyperbolizing... but Mom, they did it fiiiiiiirst....).

In response to the many questions about the poll's legitimacy, SUZANNE has posted what amounts to a defense of IVR automated surveys. Although this obviously doesn't answer the actual questions, to be fair, she's indicated that she'll address other points of contention in future posts. (Which we'll be waiting for.) However, it's surprising that she didn't answer CC, who was first out of the gate with what seems to be the simplest question of all:

"How do you know all of the above? Seriously, how do you know, beyond any doubt, that all of the above is exactly what happened? Please try to answer that question without resorting to, "Because they said so.""

Exactly -- how does anyone know, without seeing the poll's backup data, that the poll happened as indicated in the CLC press release? Or for that matter, that the results were reported accurately? Because KLRVU said so? Wrong answer. The Right Answer would be something like: "Because I have a copy of the backup data right in front of me, and can email it to anyone who's interested".

The defense of IVR technology is beside the point. The question is how legitimate is an IVR poll, done by a company that's been as hard to nail down as Jello to a wall? The issues around KLRVU alone have been enough to de-legitimize the poll, and that's without even considering the gory details like the question that was asked (skewed), and the methodology (a mystery). This is not a hard concept. CFRA's John Counsell gets it, and said as much on his program last week. But never mind that -- the poll got the results that SUZANNE and her fellow travellers in CLC wanted to see, and that's where it ends for them.

Counsell pointed out on his show that not one mainstream media outlet had picked up the news about this poll; it was reported on lifesite and anti-abortion blogs, period. The media reported on the Ipsos Reid and Angus Reid polls, so why wouldn't they report on the KLRVU poll? Maybe because they wrote it off as invalid when they had trouble finding out anything about the company who conducted it.

So the questions remain. How can anyone know that the information released about the MASSIVE POLL is true? Where are the details explaining the poll's methodology? Why has KLRVU been simultaneously described as a new company, a 2-year old company, and a company operated by someone who's been offering research services for 2 years (a subtle difference from being a company which has been offering those services itself)? How did CLC find KLRVU in the first place, given that there was no way to track it down?

I'm not holding my breath for answers. I am, however, holding my nose as the bullshit around the MASSIVE POLL piles ever higher, and the acrid stench intensifies.

KLRVU, call the office!

There's another poll that needs a do-over:

"The legal recognition of same-sex couples continues to split views in the United States, according to a poll by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. 32 per cent of respondents would allow homosexual partners to legally marry, 33 per cent would permit them to form civil unions, and 29 per cent would grant them no legal recognition.

In addition, 56 per cent of respondents would oppose amending the United States Constitution to ban same-sex marriage." (emphasis mine)

Although equal marriage is still a divided issue in the US, according to Angus Reid, this new poll shows that acceptance is growing.

D'oh! Fundies, poled again!

KLRVU/CLC -- What Counsell said

The MASSIVE POLL story has sprouted little legs and is starting to run around AM talk radio. Buckets has posted clips from Thursday night's John Counsell radio show on CFRA 580 in Ottawa, and it's getting ugly. Counsell, who describes himself as a "passionate supporter" of Campaign Life Coalition, questioned not only KLRVU, but the poll itself. Via buckets, the money quotes from Counsell:

"Why even do a poll and publish the stats if the polling company is questionable? It does more damage than good. And [I am] a supporter of campaign Life Coalition!"

and

"Campaign Life Coalition has to do some damage control in telling people who KLRVU is, what other polls they've done in the past. … The stats mean nothing if this is not a legitimate polling company."

Yeeeowtch!!!

The second quote was from a discussion Counsell was having with "Wanda", a representative of CLC. There were a couple of interesting things in that convo -- among them Counsell's assertion that the credibilty of CLC, KLRVU and their poll are "taking a beating" and "getting creamed" on the internet because of their inability to prove the legitimacy of KLRVU, and by proxy, their poll. "The left-wing pro-abortion blogs are carving up Campaign Life because of what looks like a bogus polling company!" says Counsell. (Heh.)

And how did Wanda respond? Like any good little propagandist: "150,000 households were polled..." yada yada yada. Counsell interrupted her to say "The stats mean nothing if it's not a legitimate polling company!" But that didn't stop Wanda from bringing it up again a few seconds later: "150,000 households..." only to be interrupted and brought back to reality again. Listen to the clip -- Wanda is quite instructive in demonstrating the kind of mentality we're dealing with from these people. Just keep repeating the propaganda, over and over and over and over and...

Something else: In the first clip, Counsell tells his audience the question that was asked in the poll, with one subtle difference -- he stumbles over the word "abortionist", and instead says "Doctor Henry Morgentaler". Maybe he recognizes that the wording of the question itself undermines the poll's credibilty?

Anyway, the upshot of it was that "Wanda" was supposed to "make some phone calls" to CLC on Friday morning... and I'm sure she did, just as I'm equally sure we'll never know what transpired during those calls. ("Dive! Dive! Dive!")

I want the CLC's honchos to either prove the poll is legit by providing its backup data, or issue a very public mea culpa and admission that the poll is meaningless. I think we've more than established that the appropriate response to the queston of the poll's credibility isn't "Because KLRVU said so". We're listening, CLC... and remember: the truth shall set you free.

(image from johncounsell.com)

Can you take a little more Stupid?

Sure ya can!

Now that the MASSIVE POLL has been beaten to a bleeding pulp, while we wait for the doctor to take its pulse and declare it D.O.A., let's check out another fetus fetishist site, "4 My Canada".

"4 My Canada" is ostensibly a "youth" site for up-and-coming fetus fetishists (okay, "up-but-not-coming") -- you can tell by the use of "4" instead of "for". There's imagery of young people doing young people stuff like standing around with red tape over their mouths,

and articles about activities of interest to da yoot, like prayer sieges and anti-abortion Facebook groups. Movie recommendations? Ben Stein's "Expelled" is not to be missed! You can sign up for a 24/7 Prayer Siege (4 time slots still available, guys: please pray for calorie-negative chocolate), and get ready to Party Down at a big prayer shindig in Ottawa on August 28 (mark your calendars "INcoming!!!").

One of 4MC's initiatives is "OPERATION MOCO" -- "Morgentaler Order of Canada Outcry". They have protest postcards all ready to go, like this totally sane and sensible one for the Governor-General:

"Mass murderer" -- no hysterical hyperbole there. But never mind that, there's another postcard for... the Queen!

"Morgenaler? Order of Canada?" Fetus fetishists? Spell much?

And... whoops! Hold the phone! What's this!?

"The largest telephone poll in Canada's history"!?? That wouldn't happen to be the MASSIVE POLL that's lying crumpled and lifeless out in the parking lot after a 3-day non-stop pile-on shitkicking and chain-whipping at the hands of the reality-based blogging community... would it?

To call these people cretins would be an insult to cretins everywhere.