Only stupid people answer their phone

I don't believe that. I should speculate that less people are answering their phones these days. These people tend to be higher educated and far more plugged-in than those who do not screen their phone calls. That doesn't sound much better than just calling people stupid. Oh, well, you get the idea.

I heard someone say it. I did a little impromptu questioner on the subject of who answers their home phone any more. I found out several people from my work do not have home land lines. Of those who had a home phone, very few would answer it if the Caller-ID did not report a number they knew by heart.

I heard a statistic the other day that 46% of Americans believe that 9/11 (the events of September 11, 2001) was staged by the CIA or at least some faction of the American government to establish a bunch of new rules and limitations of freedom. I think those people put a lot of faith in the abilities of the CIA. Perhaps these folks are the first to say the CIA is full of crap when talking about a county's weapons of mass destruction.

This got me thinking. "Who answers their phone any more?" My parents screen their calls as far as I can tell. Nat and my home phone has the ringer turned off and no voice mail. You cannot get hold of us that way.

I should ask "Who answers their home phone any more?" Every one has mobile phones and no one would answer a survey if someone called them because they all pay for minutes. People are so in touch, they screen their phone calls, emails, MySpace messages, IM, Facebook pokes, everything. You have a better chance of shouting your message from the top of a mountain because someone will video it and it will end up on YouTube. People are afraid of direct contact because it says that the contractor wants something from you. If you just happen upon something, then the contacter wants the same thing from you that they want from every one else.

Before I can accept any statistics done by contacting people and asking questions, I have to know how they were contacted and I need to know the questions asked. That is not a very good sound bite for the evening news or the commercial break that advertises the evening news.

The next time you hear "__% of Americans think ..." Take it with a grain of salt because the first thing we need to know is what percentage of the sample was made up from stupid people?