As millions of Beninois and others prepare for the annual voodoo festival of offering prayers and animal sacrifices, do we really understand what voodoo is? .... or care?
Once banned, voodoo is now an official religion in Benin, where the practice was born. About 60% of the country's 7 million people practise the religion. Forms of voodoo also exist in Togo, Ghana, Haiti and Brazil, and New Orleans.
Followers believe in a generally pissed off supreme God, dolls and pins, and spirits who link the human with the divine.
Spirits are thought to exist in many things - from the earth, wind, thunder, giant baobab trees and pythons, and pints of Guinness. But for centuries the religion has been associated with black magic used for evil purposes and based on animal and human sacrifices.
Is voodoo a force for good or evil? Is there a place for voodoo in modern Africa? Does voodoo play an important part in your family? Do you have any UNCLAS voodoo stories to tell us?
"good" .... as in human sacrifices? BBC please explain.
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You'll likely be hearing orgasmic Democrats and the MSM crowing about this AP Ipsos poll which has the headline "Voters Seem More Ready To End GOP Control Of Congress". The poll shows the following:
Wrong Track - 65%/Right Track - 32%
Bush Approval Rating - 59% Disapprove/40% Approve
Who Do You Want To Control Congress - 49% - Democrats/36%- Republicans
Sounds bad, huh? Well, as we've said before you (and the GOP leaders) shouldn't use these polls as any kind of indicator as to what could happen in 2006, which is certainly how the MSM will spin it.
But here's what you won't see in the news stories. - the demography of the poll respondents
First, only 81% of respondents were even eligible to vote, and there's no indication of how many of them actually went to the polls in 2004..
1. Party Leanings - The poll is slanted 52-40% towards Democrats, even though the voters in the 2004 election were split evenly at 37% between Republicans and Democrats.
2. Religion - Next, a whopping 19% of respondents had "no" religion, while in 2004 only 10% of voters had "no" religion, and they voted overwhelmingly for Kerry (+36%).
3. Age of Respondents In this poll 31% of the respondents were between 18-34, even though the 18-29 year olds (a slightly smaller demo) only made up 17% of the electorate in the 2004 election. I think it's pretty safe to say that by including 30-34 year olds that number would still not have come close to the IPSOS sample.
4. Income Level of Respondents - This one is amazing. In this poll 15% of respondents made under $15,000 per year. In 2004, only 8% of voters were in this income bracket, and voted 63-36% for Kerry.
5. Marital Status - In this poll, only 56% of respondents are married. In 2004, 63% of voters were married, and voted 57-42% for Bush.
6. Geography - In this poll, only 17% of respondents were from "rural" areas. In 2004, 25% of voters were from rural areas, and voted 57-42% for Bush.
7. Race - In this poll, there were 71% white respondents and 12% Hispanic respondents. In 2004, 77% of voters were white, and only 8% Hispanic. Bush won the white vote 58-41% and Kerry the Hispanic vote 53-44%.
We're not saying the GOP is going to have an easy time in 2006, but when you read slanted polls like this you really wonder if the purpose of conducting it was to get good results, or push an agenda. Given the history of the AP/Ipsos poll, my bet is on the latter.
#1
OF course they don't include the 8' tall veil or curtain between the walkways - that might impede the rapist lions of Islam from doing their religious duties [of raping women who dare to show an ankle].
#3
Anon, I put very little stock in most poll except the one that is held every two years in November. I remember back in late November 2004 how the LLL was touting a poll that claimed the nation was on the wrong track. This was about two weeks from the election when the right/wrong track should have been decided. The LLL still cling to the exit polls of the 2004 election as proof that Kerry should have won even after the pollster denounced their own poll. No poll is perfect but it seems they (the MSM) go out of their way to create a slanted poll to further the lefts agenda. I hate to wave the conspiracy flag but I do believe they are trying to turn public opinion through tainted news and polls. The best example in almost all polls people think that economy is poor or very poor. This is contrary to any measurable economic standard used in the past 100 years that shows that the economy is both booming and on sound footing.
#4
The dems are really in trouble - cause all they seem to have left are bogus polls trying to hide the fact that their ship is sinking and the Democrats are bailing the ship.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
