Was William Shakespeare Gay?

According to The Times of India and other sources, the sexuality of William Shakespeare has again been called into question by leading scholars, it has been reported.

Sir Brian Vickers, a visiting professor at University College London, started the academic debate by claiming that a “Times Literary Supplement” book review was wrong to state that Shakespeare’s sonnet 116 was written in a “primarily homosexual context,” Daily Star reported.

The British academic asserted that the sonnet did not give any indication about his love life and argued that Shakespeare was talking about a type of love that had nothing to do with sexual attraction.

However, scholar Arthur Freeman stated that no “responsible editor” would dismiss the possibility “of homosexual, as well as heterosexual passion” being behind the sonnets.

Prof Stanley Wells, honorary president of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, also took issue with Sir Brian writing and mentioned that when a poet whose name is William writes poems of painful and unabashed sexual frankness which pun on the word “will” 13 times in Sonnet No 135, it was not unreasonable to conclude that he might be writing from the depths of his own experience.

However, it has been widely acknowledged that Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway when he was 18 and that he had three children.

Differing Reports On U.S. Soldiers In Liberia

Some sources are claiming that the U.S. soldiers being sent to Liberia to help stop the spread of Ebola are only getting 4 hours of training. This number seemed to originate with The Daily Beast, which stated:  “Soldiers preparing for deployment to West Africa are given just four hours of Ebola-related training before leaving to combat the epidemic.”

Other sources like Newsmax or The American Thinker are quoting the Daily Beast.

At the same time, Slate is claiming that they get two weeks of training.

Slate:  “They undertook a two-week, 14-session course to prepare specifically for Ebola, beginning with lessons on what it is, how it’s spread, and what its symptoms are.”  Slate also states, “Refresher courses will be given throughout the mission.”

The UK Daily Mail claims the soldiers only get 4 hours of training, but adds a word to describe it: “hazmat.”

“U.S. soldiers are being flown to West Africa to combat Ebola following just four hours of hazmat training…”

Does this mean the 4 hours refers to hazmat-only training?

Most publications agree that there are between 500 and 600 American troops on the ground in the West African region now.  However, some sources state that “at least 700 members of the division will deploy” soon.

USA Today (from October 17th):  “There are 547 U.S. troops there, primarily in Liberia though some are in Senegal, according to the Pentagon.

USA Today (from October 9th):  “At least 700 members of the division will deploy to Liberia starting next week as part of the U.S. military’s 4,000-soldier humanitarian mission, which is expected to last up to a year and is aimed at building 17 100-bed Ebola care centers and training hundreds of health care workers.”

The Daily Mail:  “So far, there are 547 U.S. troops in West Africa, serving in Senegal and Liberia, where they have reportedly been holing up in improvised quarters in hotels and local government facilities.”

The Daily Beast:  “There are just over 500 military service members in West Africa, serving in Senegal and Liberia.”

Slate:  “The American operation is the largest military foreign aid effort in the region to fight Ebola: Congress has so far approved $750 million for the mission, and about 600 military personnel are already on the ground.”

The total number of troops to be sent seems to vary from 3000 to 4000.

Slate: “Some 3,500 to 4,000 American troops are being deployed to Liberia to help efforts to quell the Ebola outbreak devastating the region.”

The UK Daily Mail:  “Yesterday, it was reported that the U.S. Army is preparing to provide as many as 3,000 troops to help combat the Ebola epidemic.”

USA today gives a number of 4000 total troops:  “At least 700 members of the division will deploy to Liberia starting next week as part of the U.S. military’s 4,000-soldier humanitarian mission, which is expected to last up to a year and is aimed at building 17 100-bed Ebola care centers and training hundreds of health care workers.”

There seems to be a general consensus on the mission:

Again, USA Today states that the mission “…is expected to last up to a year and is aimed at building 17 100-bed Ebola care centers and training hundreds of health care workers.”

Stars and Stripes states the same thing.

The Daily Beast:  “A major part of their mission is logistics and construction: The U.S. military is  building a 25-bed hospital and 17 Ebola treatment units, as well as training health-care providers in Liberia.”

The Uk Daily Mail:  “This is while the military builds a 25-bed hospital, ‘life support areas’ and 17 treatment centers in Liberia, where they can train local professionals to care for and conduct tests on potential victims.”

How exposed will the troops be to the virus?

The UK Daily Mail:

“Despite the trainers’ apparent shock tactics, the Army maintains that the risk of soldiers contracting the virus is minimal because it is airborne and they will not have contact with sick patients.

‘It’s been shown that this disease is most manifest when handling bodily fluid—blood, other sorts of fluids, said Major General Darryl Williams, who leads America’s operations center in Liberia.

“‘There is no plan right now for U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to do that’.”

USA Today:

“The soldiers, with specialties in areas such as combat hospitals, aviation, logistics, transportation and engineering, will not be providing direct treatment or having contact with Ebola patients, so the risk is considered to be low, said Lt. Col. Brian DeSantis, the 101st Airborne’s spokesman.

“But at Thursday’s safety training, soldiers were briefed on how Ebola is spread and what symptoms to look for. They were told to seek medical care at the first sign of trouble and not to shake hands or touch residents. They were told not to eat or drink anything that wasn’t provided by the U.S. government.”

According to Slate:

“Though troops are prepared to suit up to keep them from contracting Ebola, the scope of the military operation is intended to limit their direct interaction with patients. Their mission is to help build infrastructure and care facilities and to work with public health organizations on transportation. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Health Organization, and the Liberian government are taking on more of the responsibilities of training local communities and public health workers and testing, isolating, and treating patients.”

The Daily Beast:

“The first 500 American troops in Liberia are so far living in improvised quarters in hotels and government building, according to congressional and military sources.

“’The hotels are fairly well controlled in terms of access… They have a fairly well-structured screening process going in and out,’ a Senate aide briefed by the Pentagon on the military’s procedures told The Daily Beast. ‘It sounds like they have an adequate level of screening and protective measures in place. That being said, once they move to a self-contained quarters, that will probably be better.’

“The military maintains that American service members have only limited interactions with locals on the ground. But some American soldiers are working with the Armed Forces of Liberia on a day-to-day basis, and others are training health-care providers on how to combat the virus.

“Further, the military acknowledges that it is currently sharing hotels and businesses with foreign nationals.

“‘We are here with the permission of the Liberian government and we do not clear out local hotels and businesses during our stay,’ said an Army spokesman. ‘We chose hotels with the safety of our service members in mind, and the hotel staffs monitor all employees and guests and allow us to conduct safety inspections of their facilities to ensure they meet our safety criteria.'”

“Soldiers based in Liberia have their temperature measured several times per day, and are not permitted to shake hands. They are also are required to frequently wash their hands with a chlorine solution. Some locations even employ chlorine mats that service members are required to wipe their feet on in order to enter.

“’The facilities that we’re in have been vetted by our doctors. [They] have gone through the facilities to make sure that they’re safe for our soldiers,’ Army spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Indovina said. ‘We’re very confident. We’ve had very good luck from the time when we’ve arrived on the ground.’”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2798194/u-s-soldiers-flown-liberia-just-four-hours-hazmat-training-ebola-death-toll-hits-4-546.html#ixzz3Gbu0vKR1

Politics USA: Rasmussen Polls That Show Mitch McConnell Ahead In KY Are Biased

In May 2012, Rasmussen Reports showed Romney beating Obama 50% to 42%.

Rasmussen released a poll of the Kentucky Senate race that showed Mitch McConnell leading Alison Lundergan Grimes 52%-44%.

In 2010, The New York Times also found Rasmussen polls biased, claiming:

“Moreover, Rasmussen’s polls were quite biased, overestimating the standing of the Republican candidate by almost 4 points on average. In just 12 cases, Rasmussen’s polls overestimated the margin for the Democrat by 3 or more points. But it did so for the Republican candidate in 55 cases — that is, in more than half of the polls that it issued.”

The Rasmussen poll that has Mitch McConnell leading Alison Lundergan Grimes by eight points comes with more than a few statistical red flags that should give anyone who bothered to look some serious cause for concern.

Rasmussen poll gave Mitch McConnell a positive job approval rating of a net (+2) 49%/47%. The same poll gave Grimes an unfavorable rating of a net (-4) 46%/50%

For the last few years, Mitch McConnell has been one of the least popular senators in the country, so any poll that shows McConnell with a positive approval rating is clearly oversampling Republicans.

The Rasmussen poll also has Mitch McConnell getting 24% support from Democrats, which Politics USA felt was high.

In both 2010 and 2012, Rasmussen was at the bottom of 538’s pollster rankings because of their high margin of error, and Republican bias. Rasmussen has had a margin of error as high as six points, and they have maintained a four-point bias towards Republicans.

Nate Silver determined that Rasmussen’s polls were off by 5.9 points and had a 3.9 point bias in favor of the Republican candidates in 2010:

“Polls branded as Rasmussen Reports missed by an average of 5.9 points and had a 3.9 point bias. The polls it commissioned on behalf of Fox News had a 5.1 point error, and a 3.6 point bias.

“Rasmussen showed Barack Obama’s disapproval rating at 36 percent, for instance, just a week after his inauguration, at a point when no other pollster had that figure higher than 20 percent.”

According to Politics USA:

“Another problem is that Rasmussen does not poll cell phone users. Instead of polling cell users, they use an online panel and landline phones to compile their data. The problem with not polling cell phone only users is that the poll leaves out younger voters who are more likely to support Democrats.”

Nate Cohn said this:

“Many of the surveys to date have been conducted by firms that use automated phone surveys and combine deficient sampling with baffling weighting practices….last week, one automated polling firm, Rasmussen Reports, released a survey of likely Georgia voters that was significantly younger than one would expect for a midterm election. A hefty 34 percent were 18 to 39, while voters over age 65 represented just 17 percent of likely voters….There were other peculiarities in the Rasmussen survey.

“Voters of some ‘other’ race — neither white nor black — represented 12 percent of the sample, which would smash the record 8.7 percent of voters who were of ‘other’ race in 2012. More realistically, ‘other’ voters might be expected to represent 5 to 7 percent of voters this November. On the other hand, just 24 percent of voters were black, a number likely to be too low.”