Dumb: Poll Concludes That Church-Goers More Likely to Be Obese

Good grief.

I have a hypothesis: Democrat politicians are more likely to be tax cheats than the general population. Seems plausible enough on its face. One would think some enterprising research group out there might want to connect the dots on that one. I mean, scientifically.

But no. Instead, we get a steady stream of inane studies like this.

No doubt, you know who is taking copious notes.

The more you go to church, the more likely you are to be fat.

That’s the conclusion from a new study from Northwestern University, which found that young churchgoers who go to services weekly, or more, were much more likely to become obese in their middle-age years than those who rarely, or never, attend.

What’s to blame? One of the authors said a culture of eating, as well as a focus on more obvious vices, could be the culprit.

“Churches pay more attention to obvious vices like smoking or drinking,” Matthew Feinstein, lead author of the research and fourth-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, explained to CNN. “Our best guess about why is that…more frequent participation in church is associated with good works and people may be rewarding themselves with large meals that are more caloric in nature than we would like.”

Sounds like Mr. Diligent University Research Student pulled that wild guess out of thin air.

Hey, maybe church-goers like to sneak extra wafers during communion. Who knows? It could be anything! I'm just brainstorming!

“There’s certainly a church culture around eating,” Erik Christensen, a pastor at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square in Chicago, told CNN.” What I see among congregants in their 20s and 30s is they are very fit and what I see among congregants in their 50s and 60s is disproportionate obesity.”

Of course, the pastor could just as easily be talking about a random sample of humanity there.

And what are we to make of this this beastly heathen? I guess he's just an outlier.



Via The Blaze.

Cross-posted.

Useless Poll of the Day

With virtually every national poll of registered voters now showing the presidential contest in a dead heat, the Washington Post today releases perhaps the most meaningless poll this election cycle.

Democrat Barack Obama holds a two-to-one lead over Republican John McCain among low-wage workers but many are uncommitted to either presidential candidate, to according to a new poll by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University.

Obama's advantage is due largely to overwhelming support from African Americans and Hispanics, but even among white voters, the Illinois senator leads McCain 47 percent to 37 percent, The Washington Post reported in Monday editions.

The poll found that one in six white workers polled remains uncommitted to either candidate, the Post reported.

Most of the respondents were pessimistic about the impact of the November 4 election. A majority of those polled, both white and minority, said that no matter who won their personal financial situation would be unlikely to change, it said.

The poll included interviews with 1,350 randomly selected workers 18 to 64 years of age who put in at least 30 hours a week but earned $27,000 or less last year, the newspaper said.

Not registered voters, not likely voters, but randomly selected workers.

The national poll was conducted June 18 to July 7 among randomly selection low-wage workers. The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.

A poll of randomly selected workers conducted a month ago does not reflect current trends.

And it only stands to reason that since most of them are minorities, they'll go overwhelmingly for Obama. Nor should it come as any shock that low-income workers tend to vote Democrat. After all, which party promises all sorts of freebies while promising to tax the rich?

It's as if this poll released yesterday where McCain leads Obama 56-24% accurately reflect the entire nation.

Naturally, with this attempt at manipulating the news, they overlook this poll where a majority says Obama was being racist with his dollar bill remarks last week.

Gateway Pundit links. Thanks!

At Least We're Still More Popular Than Osama...

We have another absurd "global survey" from the America-haters at Pew, designed to make us look bad while propping up corrupt cesspools like the U.N. This one is so laden with anti-American sentiment, it's no surprise the Reuters story is written by someone named Andy Sullivan.

The United States' image is plummeting in many corners of the globe, but China and other large powers are falling from favor as well, according to a global survey released on Wednesday.

The 47-country survey also found global warming and other environmental problems are seen as the top threat in many places, ahead of nuclear proliferation, AIDS and other dangers.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project has documented wide anti-American sentiment since it was launched in 2002 but found those attitudes deepening this year.

The United States' favorable ratings declined in 26 of the 33 countries for which a comparison was available, with negative views particularly strong in the Middle East.

Gee, I wonder why? Could it be Islamofascists are ingraining their populace with propaganda, perhaps?

Only 9 percent of those surveyed in Turkey had a favorable view of the United States, while 13 percent did in the Palestinian territories. The United States fared better in Lebanon, where 47 percent responded positively.

So we have a 13% favorability with the Palestinians. All the more reason to keep throwing money at them.

Great policy.

Sadly for Pew, some of their icons fared badly.

Leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who challenge the existing order found few admirers. Osama bin Laden was viewed favorably only in one place, the Palestinian territories, where 57 percent said they had confidence in him.

I guess challenging the existing order via murder and mayhem isn't quite resonating.

Shocking Poll: Americans Under 30 are Leftwing Numbskulls

Let's see. A New York Times/CBS News/MTV finds younger Americans actually "lean left" and this is news?

Of course, that would be the case if they get their "news" from the New York Times, CBS or MTV.

Of course, they couldn't identify with any Democrat presidential candidates outside of Obama and The Pantsuit, and we're supposed to believe this is an informed age group?

Perhaps some of them are, but for the most part, the come off as rather ignorant.