Samuel's Blog

Election Poll: Week Three

After almost a year, we finally have a new poll. The plan at this stage is to have this poll repeated each week for the remaining three weeks of the election campaign. Results will be released on a week-by-week basis, with a full comparison of results on election day.

July 31st, 2010 at 07:34pm

Penny Wong’s Nickname

Water and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is in desperate need of a nickname, and I’m in desperate need of a new poll, so let’s attack a plural of stones with a singular bird.

I was leaning towards “Water Princess” for a while because I like the sound of Princess Penny…but in many ways that is just a rip off of Princess Pelosi (US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi), and somewhat confusing seeing as I already call Clover Moore the Queen Princess of Sydney, so I’ve shifted to the “Water Witch”.

I’d love to know what you think…or if you have a better (non-defamatory) suggestion, leave a comment. I should point out though that I may decide to use any nickname of my choosing, and not necessarily the one indicated by the poll.

Incidentally, off-topic, but I was reminded to write this while I was having a shower and thinking about another topic which I intend to write about soon. You’ll probably work it out when you see it.

Samuel

3 comments September 11th, 2009 at 11:22pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Tasers

Results from previous polls can be viewed at https://samuelgordonstewart.com/weekly-poll-results.

Samuel

June 15th, 2009 at 11:26am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll Results

I don’t have a new poll ready yet, however I do need to close the old poll due to both the fact that it has been up for well over a week, and the possibility that new votes may be taking more than the first hundred days in to account. As such, I will post the results now, and put up a new poll tomorrow.

A very interesting spread there. I suppose one way to interpret this would be the votes indicating “approve (“A” and “B”), “disapprove” (“D” and “F”) and “neutral” (“C”), which produces the following breakdown:

Approve: 13 (42%)
Disapprove: 14 (45%)
Neutral: 4 (13%)

For the record, I gave Mr. Obama a “D”, because my official grade for his first hundred days is a “D-“…it wasn’t a complete failure, but it would have struggled to be much worse, and it didn’t show many signs of promise. I’m sure he will be pleased to know that, if I had to grade the days since then, I’d probably give him a “C” or “C-“.

Anyway, a very interesting range of opinions in that poll. I’m pleased that I’m not alone, and it’s always nice to have someone to argue with! (well, almost always)

Samuel

May 17th, 2009 at 12:09pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Obama’s first hundred days

The Mike Jeffreys fiasco really threw my week out because I had to hold off on launching a new poll at the beginning of the week in order to keep the Jeffreys story at the top of the front page. This posed a slight problem because I had been planning on giving the boat people poll a good run, and running this poll today. Unfortunately I need to cut the boat people poll off today, but it’s had a good response so I’m not too phased by it.

(And the award for superfluous paragraph of the week goes to…)

Anyway, Barack Obama’s first hundred days are over, and I’d like to know what you thought of it. It took me a while to decide how to phrase the possible answers, and in the end I decided on a simple grading system (the good ole’ A-F scale…not the bizarre A-E scale used by ACT schools):

If you would care to explain the reason for your grade in the comments below, that would be great, but you are under no obligation to do so.

The last poll came up with the answer I was expecting:

Not an unsurprising mix of responses by any means.

Results from previous polls can be viewed at https://samuelgordonstewart.com/weekly-poll-results.

Samuel

May 1st, 2009 at 08:02am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Boat People

Boat people (I’ve settled on that description for now) are a hot issue at the moment. I’ve made my views clear, but I’d be interested to hear yours. Poll below, and comments more than welcome.

The last poll (it lasted a bit more than a week…sorry about that) was more adamant in its resolve than I expected.

I’m glad to see that I’m not alone in thinking that an international airport is a great thing for Canberra!

Results from previous polls can be viewed at https://samuelgordonstewart.com/weekly-poll-results.

Samuel

April 28th, 2009 at 08:12am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Canberra International Airport

…”where the big jet engines roar“. Oh, sorry, that’s LA International Airport. Still, seeing as my editorial on the matter is now delayed until some time over the next few days, you can probably put up with one sentence of confused textual singing from me.

The question should be fairly self explanatory, although if you want to see the news articles about the upgrades, see here and here.

The results from last week’s poll are as follows:

No real surprises there, especially considering that from a legal standpoint, similar behaviour from any of us would see a nice policeman waiting for us at the next stop.

Results from previous polls can be viewed at https://samuelgordonstewart.com/weekly-poll-results.

Samuel

April 9th, 2009 at 01:15pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Prime Ministerial Outbursts

It’s time for a new poll (it’s been that time for a long time according to Mr. Wolf), and thus, here’s a topical poll:

As usual, if you would like to elaborate on your vote, feel free to do so in the comments section below.

The results from the previous poll:

From personal experience, I think the “not going to make a difference” vote is spot on, but I must say that I found the pessimistic mood interesting, with only 19% of voters saying the buyout would be good for customers.

Results from previous polls can be viewed at https://samuelgordonstewart.com/weekly-poll-results.

Samuel

April 3rd, 2009 at 11:07pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Westpac and St. George Bank Merging

It’s all done and dusted, and I can even use Westpac ATMs without being charged an “other bank ATM” fee which saves me from navigating the maze of construction works in Cooleman Court, but I’m still not entirely sure what to make of the merger between Westpac Bank and St. George Bank. So, I’ll ask you:

The results from last week’s poll were fairly split:

That said, if we treat “OK” as a neutral answer, then we have 16 people satisfied with the Rudd Government’s performance, and eight people unsatisfied. A 67%-33% split is pretty good in my books.

Davky also noted in the comments on last week’s poll that, for a first term government, they’re doing well on the “unity” front. I’d agree with that, although I probably do err on the side of “OK-Bad, but no worse than anyone else”, and I think I voted for the latter.

Results from previous polls can be viewed at https://samuelgordonstewart.com/weekly-poll-results.

Samuel

December 2nd, 2008 at 11:19am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: The Rudd Government’s Performance

Kevin Rudd’s Labor government have been in power for a year, which leads me to pose the question:

Any reasoning to go with your answer is welcome in the comments.

Samuel

1 comment November 22nd, 2008 at 02:37pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Results

It’s probably about time that I close the old poll which has been running since August:

November 21st, 2008 at 03:00pm

Samuel’s Blog (not quite weekly) Poll: Proper English In Text Messages

As tempted as I am to run a guaranteed vote-grabber poll along the lines of “How interested are you in the Olympic Games”, I will restrain myself and run a more interesting poll.

In the last few days I’ve been wondering whether I am alone in my quest to use proper English in text messages and instant messaging. With a few minor exceptions, I tend to use full sentences and words, plus punctuation, in text messages and instant messaging. I’m fairly certain that, in doing so, I’m placing myself in a very small minority, but I’d be interested to see whether this is true. As such, the poll for this week:

August 18th, 2008 at 07:48am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: The effect of aeroplane issues

Another feature returning to Samuel’s Blog from a lengthy absence is the weekly poll.

This morning one of the top news stories is an unfortunate story about a plane crash in Minnesota claiming at least eight lives. The news comes while stories of Qantas’ recent problems are still fresh in the minds of most Australians and still doing the rounds in the media. As somebody who has only flown a couple times, it got me thinking:

Personally, it makes me less inclined to fly, although it’s entirely possible that is simply because I’m not a huge fan of flying anyway. I’d be interested to see how this poll turns out…and if you’d like to provide a more detailed response, please feel free to leave a comment below.

A list of previous poll results can be seen here.

Samuel

August 1st, 2008 at 06:19am

Samuel’s Blog Weely Poll: Involving The Police

Last week I mentioned a peculiar incident involving traffic cones scattered across one of Canberra’s busier streets at night and how I called the Police for assistance with moving the cones off the street as they, with their flashing lights, would be able to make the job much safer, and this would avoid any chance of me being blamed for the problem if the Police turned up half way through me moving the cones off the road.

I believe calling the Police was the right thing to do, but others have argued that I wasted police resources. So, my question for you this week is as follows:
See https://samuelgordonstewart.com/weekly-poll-results/ for results

Last week’s poll was:

February 26th, 2008 at 04:52am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Living in Natural Disaster Zones

At the time of writing this, Western Australia’s Pilbara coast is preparing for yet another cyclone. Cyclone Nicholas, currently a category three storm, is getting closer to the coast, and people between Mardie and Exmouth, including those in Mardie, Onslow and Exmouth are bracing for impact. It has me wondering why anybody would want to live there as it seems to get a cyclone every few weeks.

So, with that in mind, this week’s poll is:

1 comment February 18th, 2008 at 03:31am