The immortal "King" and the inside job

[Len Colby]

I don't think anyone here believes Elvis is still alive. Everyone presumably dismisses the notion as completely absurd. Not surprisingly the overwhelming majority of the American public thinks likewise in August 2002 the 25th anniversary of his supposed "death" only 7% and 8% of respondents to CBS and Fox News polls (respectively) said they though he was still alive. Unfortunately the CBS article didn't break down how the other 93% responded but 81% of Fox respondents said they thought "people who believe Elvis may be alive are crazy and 11 percent [were] not sure whether The King [might still have been] around or not". In 2006 the editor of the Hartford Advocate claimed that 11% of respondents to a 2002 poll said "the King" was still alive, 7, 8 and 11 averages out to 8.7. The articles didn't indicate either way but I would presume that belief that Elvis is alive is inversely proportional to educational level, i.e. the LESS well educated a person is the MORE likely they would be to believe this. Unfortunately I was unable to find more recent polls on the subject.

Meager as those numbers were they were higher than the 4.6% of the populace who said they believed "that certain US government elements actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attacks" in a late August 2007 Zogby poll sponsored by 911Truth.org. 26.4% answered LIHOP (Let It Happen On Purpose). Acceptance of the "MIHOP" theory (Made It Happen On Purpose) was pretty much inversely proportional to educational level 6, 9.6, 3.8 and 3 percent of high school dropouts, HS graduates, those with some college and college graduates respectively believe in it*.

A July 2006 Scripps-Howard poll indicated the number of believers in the MIHOP theory was slightly larger but due to their different formants it's hard to directly compare them. When asked a question that encompassed both the MIHOP and LIHOP theories 16% and 20% responded respectively "very likely" or "some what likely", obviously some the latter group would have chosen to support the theory while others would have rejected it if they had to choose between agree and disagree. In the same poll 6% responded "very likely" to the questions "The Pentagon was not struck by an airliner captured by terrorists but, instead, was hit by a cruise missile fired by the U.S" and "The collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings." An additional 6 and 10 percent thought the theories "somewhat likely". Thus it would seem if the same group were asked the question from the 2007 poll some where between 6 and 16% would have chosen MIHOP, 11% the average of the two is the most reasonable compromise.

There are two explanations for the discrepancies between the polls 1) the 2006 one over counted and the 2007 undercounted "MIHOPpers" and the true number is some where in between. Indeed the combined margin of error, 7.1% (4% for 2006, 3.1% for 2007) is less than the 6.4% gap between the polls. The other is that the theory lost support this fits with the fall in traffic at truther sites. See a chart from documenting a "traffic decline" at the site, the site meter was turned off for part of March. Traffic at 911Blogger increased sharply 2006 – 7 but declined 2007 – 8. My best guess is that both factors led to the MIHOP drop. In any case it would be fair to assume that between the summers of 2006 and 2007 about 7.5% of the population believed in MIHOP a little bit below the poll average for those who though Elvis was still alive in 2002.

The low number of adherents to the MIHOP theory is surprising for a few reasons:

- They came at a time when Bush was highly unpopular polls taken from two weeks before till two weeks after the 911truth.org poll showed his disapproval rating between 56 and 65 % and averaged 61.8% thus even among those who though he was a bad president belief in MIHOP was only 7 – 8% if we use the numbers from their poll 12% if we use the average of the 2 polls.

- Due to all their Internet activity I for one would have imagined the was higher

- Related to the above despite the fact that truthers are quite vocal, engage in street protests, produces thousands and thousands of books, websites, documentaries, video clips, "journals" and organization and have gotten a reasonable amount of coverage from the media, the number of adherents to there theory is close to that of Elvis being alive, a theory whose adherents are far less vocal and have no organized movement. Ironically truthers often complain that the mainstream media ignores them when they get far more coverage (not counting the tabloids) than the Elvis is still alive movement.

* I believe that if more subjects would have been interviewed more high school dropouts would have chosen MIHOP than HS graduates. If we factor out those who didn't answer the difference narrows to 8.5% and 9.7% but the main problem is that there were only 17 HS dropouts in the sample.

Article about 2002 CBS News Elvis poll

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/11/...ain518294.shtml

Article about 2002 Fox News Elvis poll

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,60353,00.html

I had trouble opening it. Link to Google cache - http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:kCVEHe...x-a&strip=1

Hartford Advocate editorial

http://web.archive.org/web/20060707193057/...?oid=oid:155595

Results of 8/23 – 27/2007 Zogby poll sponsored by 911Truth.org (see pg 5)

http://www.angus-reid.com/uppdf/911_Truth.pdf

Scripps-Howard Poll results:

Summary –

http://www.scrippsnews.com/911polldata

In more detail including MoE –

http://newspolls.org/question.php?question_id=714

Screw Loose Change blog entries about traffic at 911 Blogger

http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/search?q=traffic+2006

Bush job approval polls - I looked at the polls taken 8/8 – 9/12, 2007

http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm

[William Kelly]

Hey Len,

Have you seen the movie Bubba Codex?

It's a real dry humor film about an elvis impersonator who falls offstage, hits his head and goes into a coma for years. When he comes out, he thinks he's elvis, who had switched roles with the elvis impersonator to see what real life was like.

When he wakes up in a nursing home, he befriends a black guy who thinks he's JFK.

It gets worse after that, but pretty funny in parts.

And I know elvis lives. I ran into him at a truck stop in Omaha. He's doin' okay.

BK

I don't think anyone here believes Elvis is still alive. Everyone presumably dismisses the notion as completely absurd. Not surprisingly the overwhelming majority of the American public thinks likewise in August 2002 the 25th anniversary of his supposed "death" only 7% and 8% of respondents to CBS and Fox News polls (respectively) said they though he was still alive. Unfortunately the CBS article didn't break down how the other 93% responded but 81% of Fox respondents said they thought "people who believe Elvis may be alive are crazy and 11 percent [were] not sure whether The King [might still have been] around or not". In 2006 the editor of the Hartford Advocate claimed that 11% of respondents to a 2002 poll said "the King" was still alive, 7, 8 and 11 averages out to 8.7. The articles didn't indicate either way but I would presume that belief that Elvis is alive is inversely proportional to educational level, i.e. the LESS well educated a person is the MORE likely they would be to believe this. Unfortunately I was unable to find more recent polls on the subject.

Meager as those numbers were they were higher than the 4.6% of the populace who said they believed "that certain US government elements actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attacks" in a late August 2007 Zogby poll sponsored by 911Truth.org. 26.4% answered LIHOP (Let It Happen On Purpose). Acceptance of the "MIHOP" theory (Made It Happen On Purpose) was pretty much inversely proportional to educational level 6, 9.6, 3.8 and 3 percent of high school dropouts, HS graduates, those with some college and college graduates respectively believe in it*.

A July 2006 Scripps-Howard poll indicated the number of believers in the MIHOP theory was slightly larger but due to their different formants it's hard to directly compare them. When asked a question that encompassed both the MIHOP and LIHOP theories 16% and 20% responded respectively "very likely" or "some what likely", obviously some the latter group would have chosen to support the theory while others would have rejected it if they had to choose between agree and disagree. In the same poll 6% responded "very likely" to the questions "The Pentagon was not struck by an airliner captured by terrorists but, instead, was hit by a cruise missile fired by the U.S" and "The collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings." An additional 6 and 10 percent thought the theories "somewhat likely". Thus it would seem if the same group were asked the question from the 2007 poll some where between 6 and 16% would have chosen MIHOP, 11% the average of the two is the most reasonable compromise.

There are two explanations for the discrepancies between the polls 1) the 2006 one over counted and the 2007 undercounted "MIHOPpers" and the true number is some where in between. Indeed the combined margin of error, 7.1% (4% for 2006, 3.1% for 2007) is less than the 6.4% gap between the polls. The other is that the theory lost support this fits with the fall in traffic at truther sites. See a chart from documenting a "traffic decline" at the site, the site meter was turned off for part of March. Traffic at 911Blogger increased sharply 2006 – 7 but declined 2007 – 8. My best guess is that both factors led to the MIHOP drop. In any case it would be fair to assume that between the summers of 2006 and 2007 about 7.5% of the population believed in MIHOP a little bit below the poll average for those who though Elvis was still alive in 2002.

The low number of adherents to the MIHOP theory is surprising for a few reasons:

- They came at a time when Bush was highly unpopular polls taken from two weeks before till two weeks after the 911truth.org poll showed his disapproval rating between 56 and 65 % and averaged 61.8% thus even among those who though he was a bad president belief in MIHOP was only 7 – 8% if we use the numbers from their poll 12% if we use the average of the 2 polls.

- Due to all their Internet activity I for one would have imagined the was higher

- Related to the above despite the fact that truthers are quite vocal, engage in street protests, produces thousands and thousands of books, websites, documentaries, video clips, "journals" and organization and have gotten a reasonable amount of coverage from the media, the number of adherents to there theory is close to that of Elvis being alive, a theory whose adherents are far less vocal and have no organized movement. Ironically truthers often complain that the mainstream media ignores them when they get far more coverage (not counting the tabloids) than the Elvis is still alive movement.

* I believe that if more subjects would have been interviewed more high school dropouts would have chosen MIHOP than HS graduates. If we factor out those who didn't answer the difference narrows to 8.5% and 9.7% but the main problem is that there were only 17 HS dropouts in the sample.

Article about 2002 CBS News Elvis poll

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/11/...ain518294.shtml

Article about 2002 Fox News Elvis poll

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,60353,00.html

I had trouble opening it. Link to Google cache - http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:kCVEHe...x-a&strip=1

Hartford Advocate editorial

http://web.archive.org/web/20060707193057/...?oid=oid:155595

Results of 8/23 – 27/2007 Zogby poll sponsored by 911Truth.org (see pg 5)

http://www.angus-reid.com/uppdf/911_Truth.pdf

Scripps-Howard Poll results:

Summary –

http://www.scrippsnews.com/911polldata

In more detail including MoE –

http://newspolls.org/question.php?question_id=714

Screw Loose Change blog entries about traffic at 911 Blogger

http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/search?q=traffic+2006

Bush job approval polls - I looked at the polls taken 8/8 – 9/12, 2007

http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm

[Len Colby]

Hey Len,

Have you seen the movie Bubba Codex?

It's a real dry humor film about an elvis impersonator who falls offstage, hits his head and goes into a coma for years. When he comes out, he thinks he's elvis, who had switched roles with the elvis impersonator to see what real life was like.

When he wakes up in a nursing home, he befriends a black guy who thinks he's JFK.

It gets worse after that, but pretty funny in parts.

And I know elvis lives. I ran into him at a truck stop in Omaha. He's doin' okay

Bill

You meant the Bubba Ho-tep. Yeah I saw that a few years ago, it was pretty funny but a little too self consciously campy. But the guy in the nursing home WAS Elvis, the impersonator is the one who died on the toliet in 1977.

I’m not sure if he’s still playing but if El Vez (“the Mexican Elvis”) makes it to a venue near you should check him out, if not there’s always YouTube. He was in used to be in the Zeros, an early LA Punk band. He is also a total flamer which is part of the act.

Strictly for laughs you might want to watch a Blevis (“the black Elvis”) video.