Magic Statistics

The race for President of France has now begun in earnest and the candidates are seeking votes wherever they may be found—even in the banlieues where the nightly riots and car-burnings of late 2005 originated.

Young people branded "scum" in 2005 this year offer an electoral prize, as an approaching presidential election draws politicians to France's riot-hit suburbs on the hunt for votes.

Even conservative presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy — who dismissed angry youths as thugs — has joined Socialist Segolene Royal in hiring rappers and actors to court young voters from France's poor neighborhoods, the 'banlieues'.

But it will take more than music to win over people in the ethnically diverse estates, where youths angry about poverty and unemployment torched thousands of cars 14 months ago.

"I'm a bit fed up with politics. Nothing's changed since the riots," said Karim Yassine, 20, hanging out with his friends on a parking lot in a bleak estate north of Paris.

Both Mr Sarkozy and Ms Royal have backed away from uncompromising denunciations of lawlessness in an attempt to moderate their former tough images.

Sarkozy, sharply criticized for calling rioting youths "scum" and for vowing in 2005 to "clean out" the suburbs, has adopted a markedly softer tone.

He invited a group of youngsters to his ministry last month, telling them they were "French like any others … but as you have certain difficulties, we must help you more than others."

Royal too has been rebuked by suburban youths, angered over her tough law-and-order proposals that included a plan to send young troublemakers to military-style boot camps.

Since, she has promised more money for schools in tough neighborhoods and launched a campaign to get out the youth vote, securing the help of popular rapper Cali.

Millions of French slum-dwellers have not even registered to vote.  Activists claim that one-third of residents in some poor neighbourhoods are not on the voters’ lists and, of those that are, about 50% don’t actually vote.

h/t: Covenant Zone

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Last June, 17 Canadians were arrested in the Toronto area and charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act.  An 18th suspect was apprehended in August.

The first proceeding is underway in Brampton, where a preliminary hearing involving four young offenders began yesterday.

Four meek-looking teenagers, one in shackles, arrived at a heavily guarded Brampton courthouse yesterday to kick off what will likely be one of the most closely watched trials in Canadian history.

More than seven months after 17 suspects were arrested in a high-profile anti-terror bust in the Toronto area, preliminary hearings began for four of the accused, all of them young offenders.

Security at the Brampton courthouse, where bail hearings for the suspects had also taken place last year, was far tighter than normal. In addition to the metal detectors at the front entrance, another metal detector was set up outside Courtroom 107, which is now almost exclusively reserved for this case.

Three of the four were granted bail last year and arrived with family members.  The fourth, still in custody, was brought to the prisoner’s box in shackles.  The Crown has applied to try the four as adults.  The preliminary hearing is expected to take two months, but it will take years for justice to run its full course.

The charges against the eighteen include attending a terrorist training camp, conspiring to blow up buildings in Toronto, and planning an attack on Parliament Hill.

The judge has imposed  a publication ban on all evidence presented at trial, but perhaps some enterprising American blogger(s) can keep us informed regardless.

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Rev Don Flumerfelt was an Anglican priest for 29 years and served as Rector of Holy Trinity, Yellowknife, from 1999-2004.  Next month, he will be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest and will lead a church in the Sahtu region of the Northwest Territories.  (Sahtu is in the middle of the Mackenzie Valley and encompasses Great Bear Lake, Norman Wells, and Fort Good Hope.  Here’s an interesting map.)

When he is ordained in February, he will become the territory's first Catholic priest who is married with children.

Flumerfelt said he made the decision after taking a break from his Anglican ministry to deal with family issues, including his daughter's illness and mother's death.

During the difficult time, Flumerfelt said he received a lot of support from the Catholic church and began to feel a strong connection to the faith.
. . .
N.W.T. Bishop Denis Croteau took Flumerfelt under his wing, taking his case all the way to Rome, where permission was given for the ordination of the married man.

The CBC story doesn’t give Rev Flumerfelt’s exact reasons for deciding to become a Roman Catholic, but the report implies that it’s connected with recent theological innovations in the Anglican Church of Canada.

Last year, Rev Flumerfelt received a Master of Theological Studies from Newman Theological College, Edmonton.

A new public-opinion poll by Decima Research purports to query Canadians on their environmental policy preferences, but Decima’s political bias destroyed whatever value the poll might have had.  I also submit that the question is fundamentally flawed on technical grounds.

Decima Research asked people to choose between two hypothetical election promises - a $1,000 Conservative tax break for every household and a $1,000 Liberal break limited to households that took pro-environment action.

Fifty-one per cent of respondents said they would prefer the Liberal promise versus 28 per cent who preferred the Conservative pledge, say the survey results provided to The Canadian Press. Twenty-one per cent were unsure.

Decima’s choice of parties indicates political bias.  The Liberals are cast as the pro-environment party, and the Conservatives as champions of purposeless tax cuts.

The policy choice itself is patently biased toward the Liberals.  The personal financial gain offered by the two alternatives is identical—$1000—but the second choice offers as well the subjective good feeling of doing something positive for the environment.  No wonder the second option garnered the largest share.

As a professional statistician, I’m surprised a prominent public-opinion research firm like Decima would even ask that question, for it violates one of the cardinal rules of the trade: To ensure unambiguous interpretation of results, each question must ask one thing and one thing only.  Decima’s question, however, asks about two things: It conflates a preference about political parties with a preference about environmental policy.  It is impossible to know whether or to what extent the pattern of responses reflects preference for the Liberals or preference for the environmental tax break.

Way to go, Decima. Your political bias ruined your own poll.

Even if the names of the two parties were to be removed from the question, in my opinion it would still be poorly worded, casting additional doubt on the value of the responses.  “Pro-environment action” covers a gamut of actions that impose a wide range of costs and inconvenience on households who undertake them.  Are we talking about recycling pop cans, or eschewing travel by aircraft, or refraining from heating one’s home, or selling the family car and buying a bicycle as one’s sole means of transportation?  All of those actions supposedly help the environment by cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions, but I venture to guess that most Canadians would consider only the first to be worth a $1000 tax break—even if offered by the Liberals.

To ask a question about a government policy with potentially limitless ramifications without specifying the cost of said policy is poor polling practice.

Decima’s website appears to have no technical information on the poll, only links to news stories reporting on it.

h/t: Binks, Officially Screwed, and Political Staples.

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A Bavarian court has upheld a prohibition against wearing of headscarves by teachers, and the Belgian city of Antwerp has banned municipal counter clerks from wearing headscarves at work.

The southern German state of Bavaria barred teachers from wearing the hijab to work in 2005, and the Islamic Religious Community challenged the policy in court as an unconstitutional restriction of religious freedom.  The Bavarian Constitutional Court rejected the claim.

The government and the state parliament had argued that a teacher wearing a headscarf could not credibly impart or represent the state's educational goals, in particular the equality of men and women.

The rule comes amid moves by Germany to improve integration of the country's 3.4 million Muslims.

Meanwhile in Antwerp, the city's new policy has Muslims and women's groups up in arms.

A head scarf ban for municipal counter clerks in the northern Belgium port city of Antwerp has raised protest from Muslims and women activists, officials said today.

The city council decided late yesterday that civil servants dealing directly with the public should not wear visible religious symbols like a Muslim head scarf or a Christian cross. Some 150 mostly Muslim women protested the decision late yesterday, and the organisers said they were considering further action.

I don’t know why the city considers the hijab a religious symbol.

The niqab, or face veil, is another story, however.  Many observers, including Muslims, maintain that the origins of the niqab are cultural, not religious.    A recent example: The Egyptian minister of religious endowments has forbidden his female staff to wear face veils while counselling the public for exactly that reason.

The Egyptian minister of religious endowments has forbidden his ministry’s religious counselors from wearing the face veil, or “niqab,” the press reported on Monday.

“I totally reject the appointment of fully veiled women working as counselors meant to guide people in religious matters,” minister Hamdy Zaqzuq told the daily Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper.

Zaqzuq’s ministry oversees religious affairs in this predominantly Muslim country as well as managing religious properties, and has appointed around 50 of these counselors across the country.

The minister said fully veiled women working as counselors would just promote “the culture of the niqab”.

“The niqab is a matter of custom and not the faith — it has nothing to do with the religion,” he added.
. . .
The Egyptian government is increasingly starting to speak out against the the [sic] face veil, and has banned it from a number of government offices.

In November, Culture Minister Faruq Hosni came under intense criticism for describing the veil as “repressive.”

The minister said that employees who insist on wearing a face veil will be reassigned to administrative duties.

h/t: Religion News Blog and Big News Network.com - Breaking Religious News

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