Looks like we have our first western suicide bomber in Iraq:
MIREILLE, who was born in Belgium to a white, middle-class Christian family, blew herself to pieces last month in a suicide attack against American troops near Baghdad. In one of the most extraordinary tales of Islamic radicalisation, she is thought to be the first white Western woman to carry out a suicide bombing.
Belgian investigators, who arrested 14 people associated with her, are keeping the 38-year-old woman’s true identity secret, but details have started to emerge. She was from the southern Belgian town of Charleroi, married to a Moroccan and converted to an extreme form of Islam.
“This is how she came into contact with the organisation which allowed her to become a fighter for jihad,” said Glenn Audenaert, the federal police director. Her Belgian documents show that she travelled with her husband to Iraq. On November 9 she blew herself up in a car bomb attack on a US military convoy, killing — according to conflicting reports — either only herself, or six people. Her Belgian passport was near by. Her husband was killed by American troops in a separate incident.
Disturbing.
Vlad
I saw Charleroi, and my mind immediately went somewhere else.
MI
I know it’s different, maybe not much or maybe profoundly, I’m not smart enough to tell..but I wonder if we look at suicide bombers with a little more confusion than we should. Lots of people go on rampages and then kill themselves, whether it’s at their school or at the post office. I’m sure if a group like this had gotten a hold of the columbine kids, they could have gotten them to walk into a mall and blow themselves up.
I’m not sure these people are evil, they’re just disturbed, and where normally that would have meant various forms of destructive behavior, it’s now being channeled into an extremist form of religion. I bet there are tons of people walking around any American city that you could get to do anything.
err..I’m not exactly sure what my point is, as with most things I pontificate about here, I’m far from an expert. I guess I’m saying that we look at suicide bombers with a certain foggy gaze, when really it’s not all that complicated….for whatever that’s worth.
Krista
That is disturbing. And I could be completely off base on this, but it’s kind of pathetic that she was warped enough to think she was doing something noble and just, whereas the extremists who indoctrinated her, upon learning of her death, probably just shrugged — she was just a white woman, after all.
Mr Furious
It’s disturbing, when you take it only in the context of a Beklgian white woman. Her husband was killed by US troops—that offers a pretty good explanation, and on that is unique and not indicative of some kind of threshold crossed or trend.
You have to remeber how assymetric this situation is, and how vulnerable she probably was. If you lived in an occupied country and that army killed your spouse, what would you want? Revenge? How would you get it? She had the motive, it seems Islamist extremists were happy to provide the means.
How can the accounts on a US convoy vary so widely?
Paddy O'Shea
She bang.
Hate to change the subject from yesterday’s tabloid titillation, but the first Bush poll numbers are in since yesterday’s bullshit fest and they ain’t good for Sir Cokealot. 1/3 of these numbers came from last night’s calls and it looks like the country ain’t buying Georgie’s warmed over manure.
Approval: 46% to 44%
Disapproval: 53% to 56%
That, my friends, is a big old 5% swang.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm
MI
Krista, yeah I think you’re spot on. It’s like a much much much much much more extreme version of an unpopular kid doing something stupid/dangerous to impress the cool kids, urging him/her on, with zero concerns other than getting some laughs. It’s makes it even more depressing/pathetic, it’s that possible.
MI
Mr Furious, I’m not sure it’s clear that her husband’s death was a motivating factor. The article makes it sound (to me) that she was well into this before he was killed.
Perry Como
They were going to ask her about her motivation, but when they approached her, she went to pieces.
BIRDZILLA
Blew herself to bits for nothing but a bunch of fanatics
John Cole
I am flagging Perry Como for a personal foul for that last bit…
15 yards and loss of down.
Geek, Esq.
In other news, Michelle Malkin called for all Americans of Belgian ancestry to be put in concentration camps.
MI
Geek, Esq.
ha!
Krista
Freedom Waffles for everybody!
Jon H
“Disturbing.”
Only if you’ve had yourself convinced that there’s some deep inherent difference between “Westerners” on the one hand and “Arabs” or “Muslims” on the other.
We’re all made of the same stuff, and we can all end up in the same places. Like it or not, them’s the facts.
William
John,
Small correction to your headline
The first (documented) western suicide bombers were in fact the British born London underground bombers. Mireille is the first western female suicide bomber.
Cheers.
Mac Buckets
Yeah, it’s all because she lived in an occupied country…so who’s occupying Belgium, again?
Mac Buckets
Wait, I thought he was at 35% or 37% last week. Guess I can’t trust the Daily Show to get my news anymore.
Lines
When do we invade Belgium and then find out which countries provide the terrorist Belgians with money through waffle purchases and invade them too?
For years I have cautioned against singling out brown-skinned Arabs as the only “terrorists”. I have continually been disgusted when I hear some radio wingnut claim that poor grandma WhiteWoman was almost strip searched in the airport while Hadji walked right on through, so no one else would get on the plane. Pathetic and short sighted bullshit. Welcome to reality, white people can be just as fanatical.
Mac Buckets
Now that should’ve been everyone’s headline! Well done, PO’S!
Steve S
It’s situations like this which show the stupidity of racial profiling.
Aye. I was reading in a Russian history book, that in the time following the peasant revolution of 1905, there had been 4,000 some people killed by terrorist bombs. Tsar Alexander II had been assassinated by a suicide bomber in 1881.
And Basque separatists… IRA bombers… Japanese kamikaze pilots… nothing new. We’re all the same.
DougJ
One more reason to ban Michael Moore’s pro-suicide bombing screeds.
Steve S
Different polls have slightly different results because of sampling and question differences.
If it makes you feel better, you can cherry pick just the ones that sound good. That’s the Bush way, after all… cherry picking the data.
Mac Buckets
Yeah, but you’ve gotta play the %ages at the airport.
Arab male suicide bombers — 1000
White women suicide bombers — 1
So we should search an equal number of white women? Silly.
DougJ
Paddy and Mac: a pox on both your houses. A 2% drop means nothing, it’s not statistically significant, even if one assumes the polls sample properly which they don’t.
Mac, you’re a complete idiot for not realizing that there is more than one poll in the world.
Mac Buckets
It’s certainly the Daily Show’s way, obviously. I never care about polls, but I think Bush is still in trouble for his re-re-election bid.
DougJ
I’m with you on the profiling, though, Mac. But you’re in the idiot box for a month for your “one poll” theory of politics.
Mac Buckets
More than one?? No. Freaking. Way. Tell me some more about these “polls” of which you speak. First, though, turn on your snark detector. (You might have to set it on high, since that was admittedly weak.)
Seriously, though, if two polls are asking (allegedly) the same basic question at the same time from samples of the same (allegedly) basic population, and end up with a 8-10% difference…that tells you something about getting too wrapped up in poll numbers in general.
Al Maviva
>>>If you lived in an occupied country and that army killed your spouse, what would you want? Revenge? How would you get it? She had the motive, it seems Islamist extremists were happy to provide the means.
At first, I thought that was a really stupid comment, then I realized, the US has a roughly 600 person detachment at NATO HQ in Brussels, it’s been there for a half century or more. So Belgium is, indeed, an occupied country. This explains why the US is so hated there, and why this woman tried to give our troops a blow job.
>>>Welcome to reality, white people can be just as fanatical.
Then there was this jewel. Little did I know, we are in a war with brown skinned people. Funny, that, considering many Arabs are Caucasians. I guess if the Arabs qualify as non-white, the Italians and Spanish are in bad trouble too, not to mention highly tanned German tourists vacationing in Spain or Italy. Here I was all along thinking that we were in a war with people adhering to a particular radical interpretation of a particular religion. Little did I know it was just George Bush’s Racist War™.
Welcome to reality, white people can be just as fanatical.
DougJ
I agree that polls are overrated. But if you average them all together you do get a measure that seems to be meaningful. The pollkatz guy and mystery pollster do this and find their work interesting (pollkatz is a dem, MP is a Republican).
Sorry for calling you an idiot.
Lines
Hey Al, ever listen to the right wing mouthpieces complain about how a brown skinned arab man was able to walk onto a plane but a grandmother was practically strip searched? Ever read Malkin? Do you realize that there are many right-wing hawkish types that lump all muslims/arabs/ into the same group, a group that they think needs to be locked up or destroyed?
Terrorists change tactics. Thats a given. Focusing efforts on “swarthy arab types” endangers everyone.
Pb
Don’t be sorry, DougJ–Mac Buckets is still an idiot here, especially for mouthing off about polling when it’s obvious that he knows nothing about the polls and pollsters involved. And I don’t feel like holding remedial courses in polling, pollsters, and methodology for his ungrateful ass, so he’ll just have to educate himself, or continue to be ignorant and thus sound stupid on the topic.
scs
Approval: 46% to 44%
I think the confusion is that Mac B thinks that the 35% and the 46% poll quoted above were taken at the same time, which WOULD have a point spread making it very unreliable. However, I think the 46% number is new. If that figure is accurate, that’s a huge improvement for Bush. Contrary to what a poster said above, approval poll nums in the mid 40’s are average, not bad. Anything above 50% is decent and above 60% is stellar. Just remember only about 48% voted for Bush in the first place, so his poll numbner should hover around that number mostly.
Paddy O'Shea
Then I guess you guys won’t like this one either:
CNN/Gallup Poll: Most doubt Bush has plan for Iraq victory
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/30/iraq.poll/index.html
John S.
People only like poll numbers that support their position, so you can be sure that on any given poll a fair number of people won’t like it.
Pb
scs,
Argh. Looks like I’ve got two candidates now for my hypothetical remedial polling class.
Here’s a hint, guys: polling results and polling methodologies differ amongst pollsters. Notably, Rasmussen, for one. Blindly comparing his poll numbers to anyone else’s numbers is like comparing apples to oranges.
For more recent poll numbers, check out Polling Report, for one. It’s a good source of raw data. Also, it might give you a feel for how much different pollsters can vary. Also, as DougJ already mentioned, both Mystery Pollster and Pollkatz aggregate polling data (and plot averages/regression lines etc.) to more readily spot trends.
Krista
I invite you to ask people to give a verbal portrait of an Arab suicide bomber. I’ll bet you $20 that most people will describe someone who resembles bin Laden, not someone who resembles Matt Lauer. A dark-skinned man with a beard. That’s the image that’s been put into most peoples’ heads. So it’s very startling to them when a suicide bomber turns out to be the antithesis of that image. It’s not right, of course. But people do tend to lump other people into categories. So when someone comes along who doesn’t fit nicely into a category, it screws with everybody’s heads.
Perry Como
The only accurate poll out there is the Newsmax/WorldNetDaily poll. It has consistently shown that Bush’s approval rating is at 1,000,000,000% +/- 0.05 MOE.
Lines
the 35% vs 46% are due to different questions, I believe. I think the 46% is general approval while the 35% is Bush’s handling of Iraq.
Mr Furious
Mac, Al, others:
I based my first comment on the info in JC’s post, not the entire article. I assumed she and her Muslim husband lived in Iraq, he was killed, she was traumatized and indoctrinated into a suicide plot.
Seems not to be the case. Did she and her husband travel to Iraq for the purpose of attacking troops and he bit the dust before he could do it? Perhaps. That is a whole different ball of wax than what my cursory observation led me to.
That would be disturbing. But it is my sense that war supporters/excusers have a harder time with this than others.
DougJ
No, they’re not Lines. The 35% is what Bush got in a CBS poll. He also got a 34% in a Harris poll. In fact, all of the major polls have him in the 34%-39% range right now. The most accurate poll is probably Survey USA which has him at 37%. The Bush index (an average of several major polls) at pollkatz is 36.4%.
No one poll means that much typically — not because of the standard error but because there are all sorts of issues of methodology and sampling — though I think SurveyUSA is pretty good, so it might.
The bottom line is that Bush is extremely unpopular, the most unpopular second termer ever other than Nixon. (Note:Truman and LBJ don’t count as second-termers since they won one election each).
The other striking thing in polls is that Bush registers very, very high levels of “strong disapproval.” Like it or not, the Chimpy McHitleburton — to use John’s words — view of Bush is now mainstream and soon may be a majority view.
It’s never too late to jump ship, Bush supporters. Get on the bandwagon anytime.
Pb
What DougJ said. Also, I’ll just mention that Survey USA (SUSA) is different because they actually poll all 50 states individually as well, and thus have a larger sample size for the US (although this means they also omit DC, so mentally add a teeny amount to the disapproval side :)). It seems they poll 600 people per state, which yields a sample size of 30,000 people for the entire United States–which is huge, statistically speaking.
To put this into perspective–if you survey 500 people, you get a margin of error of +/- 4.4% with a 95% confidence interval. If you survey 1000 people, it’s +/- 3.1%. However, if you survey 30,000 people, it’s more like +/- 0.57%. (Or, +/- 0.75% with a 99% confidence interval, or +/- 0.95% with a 99.9% confidence interval, etc.) That’s pretty darn precise, as polls go.
Lines
Ah, thanks for the correction guys.
Mac Buckets
If that’s the extent of your polling analysis, Pb, I would like to drop your class and get my tuition back. Duh, results and methodologies differ amongst pollsters — but since we almost never get they “whys” and “hows” on those differences, that’s exactly why I tend to ridicule anyone who puts too much stock in one number or another.
For example, according to Polling Report, between October 29 and November 2, Zogby and CBS asked almost the same exact question to approximately the same statistically significant number of people, and Zogby reported a 47% Bush favorability rating and CBS reported a 33% favorability rating. That’s a whopping 14% difference between the two, and the error margin was only +/- 3% for each poll.
As Doug noted upthread, the only difference could’ve been how they captured their sample, but that huge, huge factor is never reported in the news — the numbers are just regurgitated as fact. So CBS reported their poll that the president was wildly unpopular, and I’m sure others reported Zogby’s poll that America was split.
Lines
actually, I think the whole point isn’t so much the actual number, but the delta. The change from point B back to point A. When EVERY poll shows a continuous slide to the bottom, thats pretty indicative something is really wrong. I keep expecting all of these polls to stagnate around whatever their current number happens to be that week, but the next poll just comes in lower and the one after that lower still.
its a good thing he’s not running for re-election, huh? I just worry what he is going to attempt to do to try to gain back at least a little respect. How many two-bit despots can you demonize and create boogie-men out of?
DougJ
Two probs there, though, PB:
(1) the 30,000 are *not* a random sample, since they are drawn 600 from each state. There’s still a method for calculating the standard error but it will be a little bigger.
(2) The real issue here is one of response rate, not just of standard error. Remember that the calculation of standard error is valid only under the assumption that you’re working with a random sample, which you aren’t, since the response rate on polls is now under 30%.
Nevertheless, Survey USA has a great track record on predicting elections.
Mac: Zogby does something funny with their approval/disapproval ratings as well as their favorable/unfavorable ratings. I don’t remember what it is exactly, but I read on some polling site that you shouldn’t look at theirs relative to others since they are often out of whack (they were much lower for Bush in 2004 than other polls and now they seem to be slightly higher than other polls).
DougJ
Okay, Mac, I looked at the questions for CBS versus Zogby. The question are quite different. There’s no way you can compare the polls.
Rule #1 of polling: slight changes in the wording of question makes a *huge* difference in response.
“Is your overall opinion of George W. Bush very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very unfavorable, or you are not familiar enough to form an opinion?”
is very different from
“Is your opinion of George W. Bush favorable, not favorable, undecided, or haven’t you heard enough about George W. Bush yet to have an opinion?”
If you give people the option of approving “somewhat” or having a “somewhat favorable” opinion, you will generally get higher approval/favorability ratings, since many of those who approve/favor “somewhat” would not say that they approved if it came down to approve versus disapprove.
Hope that helps explain what’s going on here.
Steve S
Actually no, what you just said was a really stupid comment.
The NATO HQ in Brussels is an occupation?
Huh?
DougJ
I made little mistake there. Rule *#3* of polling is that a slight changes in the wording of question makes a huge difference in response. The first rule of polling is you do not talk about polling. The second rule of polling is you *DO NOT* talk about polling.
Mac Buckets
It seems that the “somewhats” would cancel each other out on both sides, since we could assume that those who disapprove “somewhat” wouldn’t say they disapproved if not given that “somewhat” option, either — unless this is a statistical phenomenon that affects one response more than the other, but I’d need better evidence of that (not saying that you’re not usually gold, Doug, GOLD!)
I just don’t think that a factor that should work both sides can be held responsible for such a wide swing on only one response.
Mac Buckets
Also, Doug, NBC had “somewhats” and that didn’t push Bush’s number up (38% aggregated), while FOX just had up-or-down and Bush was at 45% there.
Mac Buckets
I blame Paddy for hijacking this thread by going offtopic. I think he may be Belgian, trying to change the subject. The Irish handle is a dodge.
Pb
DougJ,
Strictly speaking, you’re right that taking 600 people from each of the 50 states is not the same as 30,000 people drawn from the US at random–that’s why SUSA has both weighted and unweighted figures at the bottom–for the entire US (minus DC) use the weighted figures. In practice what this means is that you might have a slightly better sample size for, say, Wyoming than you would for California. From what I can tell statistically, this doesn’t actually change things much at all (“The sample size doesn’t change much for populations larger than 20,000.”).
You’re right about response rate, but that seems to be a problem with all polling these days, sadly. It should probably also be mentioned that these are robo-polls — not that there’s anything wrong with that.
John S.
Wow, Mac is upset that someone else for hijacking a thread and sending it off topic?
What’s next? Dogs and cats living together? Where will the madness end?
Paddy O'Shea
Now now Mac, let’s take a laissez faire approach to this, shall we? If the topic was interesting people would have stuck with it.
By the way, anybody recall the old Flipper tune “Sex Bomb?”
DougJ
Mac, you can’t look at FOX, they don’t count. I wouldn’t trust an Air America poll or a poll conducted by The Nation, either
You’re right that the polls differ more than they should. It’s because of strange problems with response rates or because they mess with their samples in different ways (some adjust for the “right” number of Republicans and Democrats in different ways — Zogby is renowned for doing this in an odd way, yet has perhaps the best record of the non-robo polls).
The only two polls that are any good on predicting elections the last few cycles are Rasmussen and Survey USA — both robo pollers. Rasmussen consistently polls about 2-7 points higher than Survey USA for Bush approval. I chalk that up to the “somewhat” option. (Obviously, I don’t really know)
You’re right: most of the other polls are strangely divergent. Gallup is especially bad.
Pb
Mac Buckets,
No, it isn’t. But then, you don’t listen. However, you did get what you paid for.
Also, Mac Buckets, if you had used the handy link I provided to Polling Reports, with their summary tables, you wouldn’t have made the rank amateur mistake (or perhaps intentionally deceptive choice) of comparing apples to oranges. Their note on the bottom: “Table excludes organizations (e.g., Harris, Zogby) that use a scale other than approve/disapprove.”
Educate thyself, Mac Buckets.
Paddy O'Shea
Speaking of women in unattractive clothing who blow up (the weapon of choice here being doughnuts rather than plastique), a new Zogby Poll reports that nearly 4 out of every 10 Americans doesn’t think too highly of Wal*Mart.
http://www.zogby.com
Mac Buckets
Stay up with the class. Doug and I already covered that “somewhat” discrepency and I gave examples that it works both ways. Absent evidence from professionals that “somewhat” would affect positives more than negatives (and an explanation why “somewhat” didn’t affect the NBC poll), I’m not buying that this is the factor behind a 14% discrepency. Regardless, that’s only a minor complaint of mine, and you haven’t told me anything I didn’t know.
jg
This guy makes a dumb comment comparing an overall approval rating from last week to a poll of reaction to his speech last night and people spend hours teaching him how polls work. K.
Mac Buckets
Then you’ve got to throw out Time, CNN, CBS, ABC etc…
That’s one of the reasons I don’t trust polls. We all assume out-of-hand that the source, be it FOX or CNN, consciously and purposefully affects the outcomes, because we all assume that it’s easy to do, which goes against the whole notion of accurate polling.
Mac Buckets
Speaking of a dumb comment. Paddy gave last week’s poll numbers in his post, too, to show the movement. That’s what I was comparing to, clearly. Think before you snark.
John S.
Ah, the old “FOX is just balancing out the liberal bias all the other major network news outlets have” rhetoric.
I haven’t seen that one trotted out in a while.
Incidentally, I only pay attention to polls that come from actual polling organizations, and even then, only slightly.
Paddy O'Shea
Gents? Rasmussen publishes daily numbers, not weekly. Every ding-dong day they do it. The drop we’re seeing today is a near-instantaneous reaction to the bilge set loose by Junior’s lip-flappings of just 24 hours ago.
A 5% swing away from the Shrub that would be, lads. Here’s hoping he keeps yapping about his run-amuck family vanity war.
DougJ
Come on, Mac. You’re smarter than that. You know damn well that Fox is a propaganda outlet for the far right whereas the others you mention do actual reporting.
You’re not a nitwit, as your discussion of polling showed. There’s no way you really think that Fox presents real news.
The proper comparison for Fox would be Air America or possibly the Daily Show, although, truth be told, the Daily Show is more reliable in terms of presenting truthful information.
DougJ
No it’s not Paddy. It’s probably random noise.
Paddy O'Shea
Well now Dougie, it would appear we have a divide in opinion here. Guess we’ll just have to wait for tomorrow’s numbers. I did cite a CNN/Gallup finding that purports 55 percent of the American populace do not believe that the Kennebunkport Cowboy really has a plan that will bring us victory in Iraq. That in spite of the Liberace-style stage setting of yesterday’s presidential address, believe it or not.
Personally I suspect that Georgie’s handlers have yet to figure out that every time he opens his plugged gob about Iraq his numbers will go down. But they’ll catch on soon.
It just isn’t his issue any more.
But then again, what is?
Pb
For whatever reason, Fox consistently skews to the high side, but they aren’t the only ones (also on the high side: Time, CNN, Gallup, WSJ…), and they have been historically consistent in their pro-administration bias–their numbers for Clinton were on the high side as well. Newsweek is at the center of the pack, and Zogby is on the low side–FYI.
Oh, and Mac–feel free to “buy” whatever explanation you like–I don’t really care what your delusions are. IMO, DougJ had it right the first time–“slight changes in the wording of question makes a *huge* difference in response”.
Pb
Paddy O’Shea,
That’s the problem with a daily tracking poll. It’s impossible to tell whether or not a particular new data point is anomalous, or the start of a new trend, until you get more data. I’m with DougJ on this one–“probably random noise”–but you can’t really be sure without more data.
However, my opinion is that if Rasmussen was going to show a collapse, he should have done so already. I’m guessing that he’s still weighting by party ID, and its fluid nature is throwing him off. Sure, many self-identifying Republicans are still supporting Bush, but more people don’t want to self-report themselves as Republicans. That’s my theory, anyhow–maybe Rasmussen should do a poll on it. :)
Paddy O'Shea
Uh-oh, Time reporter Michael Ware went on CNN today and claimed that Shrub lied his little preppy fanny off about the role played by Iraqi troops at Tal Afar. Apparently Mr. Ware was at this battle as an embedded reporter.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/01/embedded-time-reporter
Paddy O'Shea
Pb: I was just stirring shit, of course. But Rasmussen did show a 5% swing away from the Nitwit In Chief today. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s up with that, eh?
John S.
It’s part of that magical phenomenon known as response bias.
Anyone who doesn’t sleep through Statistics 101 should know that.
Al Maviva
>>>>Actually no, what you just said was a really stupid comment. The NATO HQ in Brussels is an occupation?
Sarcasm. Irony. Humor. Critical thinking awareness of the “blame the U.S. first/why do they hate us” school of foreign relations.
Try any one of them sometime Steve. Things might make more sense that way.
John S.
Yes. Sarcasm. Irony. Humor. These are the weapons that the “Blame everyone else/The U.S. is infallible” school of foreign relations bestows upon you.
Use them wisely.
scs
Yeah, when do we get to debate Wal-Mart on here? Not one post by John and Tim yet.