Monday, September 17, 2007

Chapter 1 Questions:

1. One might define democracy as system of government where citizens elect officials and their laws are voted for.

A. The US is the country with a high level of democracy because it is a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
     Saudia Arabia would be a country with a low level of democracy because they are known for having their powerful "king" which relates more to a dictatorship..

B. The most essential difference is that one is a government that relies on checks and balances, and the other one relies on just the power of the king.

C. The concept of democracy is defined as the extent to which a form of government exhibits the characteristics made by the citizens as a supreme and equal power.




2. The ecological fallacy is a classic problem that arises when an aggregate-level phenomenon is used to make inferences at the individual level. An example that illustrates this is asking the classroom how many of them support abortion laws, before adding the rape initiative to it. Many of them most likely wont support it, until an issue like being sexually assaulted arises and a pregnancy occurs. Then people's perception of abortion changes.

3. Random error introduces haphazard, chaotic distortion into the measurement process, producing inconsistent operational readings of a concept. Systematic error produces operational readings that constantly mismeasure the characteristic the researcher is after.


Wednesday, September 12, 2007

TITLE: THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVOR ASSESSMENT (DVSA): A TOOL FOR INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING WITH WOMEN EXPERIENCING INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE




The Domestic Violence Survivor Assessment (DVSA) was developed to measure survivor
movement toward a violence free life over time. This paper reports our testing of the validity and reliability of the DVSA. Exploratory factor analysis (n = 162) found a single factor explaining 66% of the variance. Hierarchical multiple regression indicated that physical abuse severity, survivor and perpetrator substance abuse, economic and citizenship dependency, and children under 18 at home explained 10% of the variance p > .05. A second model examined the strength of interventions for survivors, controlling for influencing factors; R2 was.24 (p < .001). The strongest interventions were individual counseling (p < .001) and resource referrals and other services (p < .05). The DVSA was found to have construct validity, sensitivity to change over time, and reliability




Wednesday, September 05, 2007

His comments in Pearl

- Rudy Giuliani yesterday launched his fall campaign by returning to its most important day - Sept. 11, 2001.He said the terror strike showed that every community must be prepared to confront disaster, even as his own preparedness that day has come under attack.Giuliani proposed a restructuring of the federal Department of Homeland Security, including the creation of new regional directors who would work with state and local officials on training and planning.
Speaking at Hinds Community College here, he said he wants fewer federal dictates and more local control, so communities can cope with the initial 72 hours of any attack or disaster until feds arrive.Giuliani released his proposals in a state hit by Hurricane Katrina, and he linked the storm and 9/11. "When you're preparing for a natural disaster, you're preparing for a terrorist attack," he said. "This would be a terrible mistake for us to assume that the next attack is going to be like the last one. ... It may be another large city. It may be in the heartland of America."After a summer in which he seemed to purposely steer clear of invoking 9/11 too often, Giuliani used the speech exactly one week before the attacks' sixth anniversary to talk of it at length again - retelling how he and his aides managed the chaotic early hours.But Giuliani's response has drawn criticism from the nation's largest firefighter union and some 9/11 families, who say Giuliani's failure to improve emergency radios and put the city's emergency command center in a safe location hurt the city's response.In his talk, Giuliani stressed the importance of emergency management centers and said it was "mind-boggling" that interoperability between police and fire radios hasn't improved more nationwide since Sept. 11.A half-dozen ex-firefighters and 9/11 families critical of Giuliani blasted his new plan last night, saying he was "hiding" behind the new plan to avoid discussing his past failures. "Those who failed us before will surely fail us again," the group said of Giuliani.Giuliani has come under fire from some 9/11 families for having a speaking role at Tuesday's 9/11 commemoration.During his talk, he did seem intent on defusing some of the controversy, praising all the emergency teams who responded to 9/11. "I didn't accomplish anything," Giuliani said. "The firefighters accomplished everything. The police officers accomplished everything."

To me it seems that he is already not practicing what he is preaching... For example the issues of national emergencies and the correct way to handle them. He even failed to improve emergency radios and put the city's emergency command center in a safe location hurt the city's response. Im sure he is a great man and even better leader to some but I feel that things will not be that different if he is elected. Im not favoring any candidate at the time, but I am going by facts for when it is time to vote. Hell, he still might win me over because Im sure he has to do a better job than our current president.........

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