If animals could talk?

Many people in the world are meat eaters and have accepted that it is the way of the world that animals are reared and then slaughtered for food.

In developed countries the number grows of people who out of personal choice, and not for any religious or economical reasons, choose to be vegetarians.

We ask those of you that still eat meat if you would still eat meat if animals were able to effectively communicate with humans?

Participate in this weeks open survey If animals could talk?

Did Al Gore deserve to be awarded the Nobel peace prize?

Former Vice President and near US President Al Gore who post election devoted himself to environmental issues has been awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised both “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.”

Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" that highlighted the consequences of climate change won the 2007 Academy Award for best documentary was criticised by many US conservatives as alarmist and exaggerated.

On receiving the award Mr Gore said “I will accept this award on behalf of all the people that have been working so long and so hard to try to get the message out about this planetary emergency,”

Does this award vindicate Al Gore's message and do you think he is a worthy winner?

Participate in this weeks open survey Did Al Gore deserve to be awarded the Nobel peace prize?

Should Hollywood ban smoking in films?

Anti smoking groups have been campaigning hard for a ban of images of tobacco in all but films with R or NC-17 ratings.

Unsatisfied by an earlier promise that the movie industry’s trade group made to consider tobacco use as a factor in film ratings, the six largest studio owners have been patching together individual responses to those who want cigarettes out of films rated G, PG or PG-13.

The anti-smoking lobby argue that on screen smoking implies that more people smoke than the actual percentage of the population that do smoke and that with product placement incentives smoking and tobacco products that appear on the movies is on the rise.

The issues relating to smoking may only be the beginning as Hollywood is now facing the opening salvos of other groups campaigning to rid movies of portrayals of gun use, transfat consumption or other behavior that can be proved harmful to the public.

Universal Pictures is to implement the wishes of its parent company General Electric, that, with few exceptions, “no smoking incidents should appear in any youth-rated film” produced by the studio or its sister units, Focus, Rogue and Working Title Films.

Bill Condon who writes and directs films has argued that movies are supposed to reflect reality and to ban on screen smoking is to remove a detail that is one of the more defining aspects of a lifestyle.

Do you think that the depictions of smoking actually encourages the young to smoke? Will the absence of smoking detract from a movies realism?

Would the classic movie Casablanca still have been a classic without the smoking?

Participate in this weeks open survey Should Hollywood ban smoking in films?

CCTV Crime deterrent or just another example of Big Brother?

The local authorities and Transport for London operate over 10,000 Close Circuit Television cameras (CCTV) that are estimated to have cost the tax payer an estimated £200 million.

Despite the unrelentless drive towards installing more and more cameras figures recently released suggest that CCTV does little to prevent or solve crime.

The report highlighted that when comparing areas with saturated CCTV with areas where few cameras were installed the police clear up rate was almost identical and in some cases worse, with four out of five boroughs having the most cameras reporting below average crime solving rate.

Some critics of CCTV argue that the report confirms previous studies that have thrown doubt on the effectiveness of CCTV cameras.

For many years some organisations have said that money spent on cameras would be better used on street lighting, which has been shown to cut crime by up to 20 per cent.

Are CCTV the thin edge of a police state wedge? Would CCTV cameras put you more at ease or do they only offer false comfort?

Are the criminal element no longer deterred by the presence of CCTV, often knowing it is impossible for the authorities to continually monitor the cameras and that with the minimal disguise they appear to be of limited use in identifying the majority of perpetrators.

Should the reliance on CCTV be curbed and they only be installed where there is undeniable evidence that they are effective?

Participate in this weeks open survey CCTV Crime deterrent or just another example of Big Brother?

DNA Testing for all?

The British police can currently store DNA samples from anyone arrested in England or Wales for a recordable offence which typically can lead to jail.
Any DNA sample taken currently remains indefinitely on the police database even if later someone is not charged and is subsequently released.

Do you think that a country's police force should be allowed to keep such information?

Should each country move towards having the whole population and every visitor's DNA added to a national DNA database?

Participate in this weeks open survey DNA Testing for all?

Survey Galaxy Enhancements Roundup

A number of enhancements to the Survey Galaxy website were released recently, this entry highlights some of them.

Create Survey From Template

We have always provided you with the ability to use templates to create your surveys but we have now added a field to the 'Create a New Survey' display to allow you to pre-populate a new survey with all the items from a selected template.




This option is in addition to Survey Galaxy's ability to allow you to select specific elements from any number of survey templates so that you can insert single or multiple items into your survey exactly where you want them.

Our Enterprise subscribers enjoy the benefits of having templates that are shared across the account making it ideal for ensuring that there is a consistency when it comes to look and feel as well as increasing productivity such as having the organisation's specific department and disciplines already setup to use.

If you are not familiar with what the real benefits of using Survey Galaxy's templates are you may find the Import from Template Library tutorial of interest.

Styles

We have added a number of styles to the system styles to help you customise the look and feel of your survey. You are still able to fully customise the survey to your own requirements such as change the colours, fonts style and size; check out the Customizing Styles tutorial for more detailed information.


CC Email Responses

Many of our members are realising the benefits of using surveys as forms throughout the organisation. They are creating surveys based on existing hard copy forms and use the Edit Details option for the survey to set the 'Email Responses' to 'Yes'. The respondents answers are then emailed to the publisher as soon as the respondent completes the survey, thus making it ideal for forms such as room booking and holiday requests and all the many ad-hoc forms that spring up throughout an organisation.

We have now added an optional 'CC' facility that will provide a courtesy copy to a number of people improving the chances that a formal requests will always be received and acted upon in a quick and timely manner.

The other major benefit of using surveys as forms is that a record of requests is always maintained and can be analyzed at any time using the standard survey reporting tools. If you can look around and see a lot of paper forms why not consider setting up one or two through Survey Galaxy and see for yourself?

Export Results

We would always recommend in the first instance that you use our own online Results Analyzer to analyze and query the survey data but have nevertheless always provided the facility to allow survey results to be exported for use in applications such as Excel and SPSS.

If your knowledge of Excel is limited, and even if you are an expert to save you time, we have for a long time included with all export orders an Excel spreadsheet containing macros to help display the information as a Pivot table and also generate charts, we have now consolidated all the Excel macros that we provide into a single spreadsheet.

Please note a few things about the macros we provide:

• The Excel macros are provided 'as is' and do not form any part of the Survey Galaxy purchased services.
• The macros are documented, visible and unprotected so if you are technically minded you can always view the code and have confidence that they contain no malicious code.
• The Excel macros are only certified to run on Windows XP and Excel 2003

We are not precious about the macro code so your are able to modify and extend the functionality if required.

We have recently included a macro that will transpose the exported data that is provided in rows, into columns; a word or warning though, Excel 2003 is limited to 256 columns so not all surveys can be transposed.

New Quit Survey Button

We have introduced a new facility that will allow you to include a 'Quit' option on your survey and you may wonder why this would be of benefit to you.

The value of having the Quit button will depend entirely on the type and purpose of your survey but it does give you the opportunity to find out why people are not completing the survey.

The Quit button is introduce by specifying a URL to be called if the Quit button is used. This can point to a simple 'Thank you for your time' page, can take the respondent to your home page or it can be used to link to another survey to ask the repondent why they quit the survey thereby providing you with valuable information.

If no Quit URL is specified, then the Quit button is not displayed.

Thank you

Well that is about it for now, we would however like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who provided us with feedback and enhancement requests.

If you have a feature you would like us to consider, or find an existing facility confusing or difficult to use please let us know as it is really useful for us to know what the features are that people require and where we need to channel our development efforts.

Is 9/11 still killing the rescue workers and survivors?

When Arab Islamist terrorists hijacked airplanes and crashed them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City causing the buildings to collapse almost 3,000 people died.

Since 11 September 2001 a large number of rescue and recovery workers and local residents are suffering sickness and in some cases death caused due to what many believe was a result of all the toxic substances released into the environment.

Many of those people, who at the time were described as heroes by President Bush and the then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, are now being left to suffer aliments that include cancer, pulmonary fibrosis and respiratory disease.

Some critics have suggested that it was for economics and the desire to reopen Wall Street that may have resulted in Christie Todd Whitman, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, lying to the emergency services personnel and recovery workers when she told them that the air was safe to go back to work.

Since 9/11 many, once fit firemen, paramedics and detectives have had to retire from their jobs due to ill health and have not received any help, compensation or acknowledgment for their apparent sacrifice.

Do you believe that the number people who died on 9/11 will be far eclipsed by the number of people who will die directly because of their exposure at Ground Zero?

Should the government have done more to anticipate the consequences of working at Ground Zero and provided medical support and compensation to all those who helped in the immediate recovery and rescue operation?

Participate in this weeks open survey Is 9/11 still killing the rescue workers and survivors?

The British leave Basra, handover or retreat?

The beginning of September 2007 saw the British troops that were formally based in the centre of Basra relocate to the airbase outside the city.

The official view from the Ministry of Defence was that the action was one of a number of "successful handovers" and that the troops were to remain on hand in the wings to support Iraq's most senior army officer in Basra, General Mohan al-Fireji, in his attempts to persuade Shia militias to lay down their arms.

British forces had first entered Basra on April 6 2003 and in an attempt to put the locals at ease and in stark contrast to their American colleagues patrolled the streets wearing soft berets and not hard helmets.

Their Northern Ireland experience may have better prepared the British troops over the American GI, but the 'hearts and minds' policy that was initiated from the off appears to have been far from an overwhelming success.

Many critics would argue that if Basra is considered calm today it is only because the religious parties in Basra now control the city. Only while the local militia can protect their own individual interests will the status quo be maintained, but once those interests are threatened the city is ready to burn.

Having been given a poison chalice by the politicians, the British army may have assessed that they are in a no-win situation and that a dignified withdrawal is better than perpetuating a myth that peace in Iraq will eventually prevail.

We ask if the handover is an inevitable step in a war that many would argue was ill-conceived right from the very start? Will the Americans have to sooner or later face reality and follow suit? Have the British cut and run leaving even more death, destruction and hardship for the average Iraqi?

Participate in this weeks open survey The British leave Basra, handover or retreat?

How patient are you?

Is the pace of modern life getting the better of you and do you find that you are often less tolerant of others or are you the sort of person who glides through life with remarkable ease?

Participate in this weeks open survey How patient are you?

Free 2 Weeks Subscription Offer

Survey Galaxy have changed the way that new Members are able to trial the websites. The previous method of providing a single free survey voucher has been replaced with a free two week trial subscription.

The free offer allows for an unlimited number of surveys to be published containing up to thirty question and comes with all the standard subscription features including the Results Analyzer and unlimited detailed results downloads.

The free subscription comes with the full personal subscription monthly allowance of 1,000 responses, with any excess responses being charged at the Subscribe 30 rate.

If within the trial period new members wish to publish larger surveys, or surveys for a longer period then they will be able to use the free trial offer as a credit against a larger order.

At the end of the trial period they are able to revert back to Pay-As-You-Go or take out another subscription.

Which Heroes super powers would you most like?

Heroes is an action-packed TV drama that follows the lives of ordinary people who discover they have extraordinary abilities.

There is a politician that can fly, a high school cheerleader who is indestructible and a Las Vegas stripper who has an alter ego who has superhuman strength. They are joined by an artist who discovers that he can paint the future and a police officer who can hear other peoples thoughts and a Japanese computer programmer who can freeze time, stop time and teleport from one place to another.

After leading mostly plain and unexciting lives they all individually have to gradually come to terms with their powers and somehow all unite as it is their destiny to save the world.

Which of the Heroes superpowers would you most like to have?

Participate in this weeks open survey Which Heroes super powers would you most like?

Are neckties on the way out?

With or without a formal suit the necktie has for years established itself as a firm fashion accessory, with some establishments even going so far as to make it a condition of entry.

We ask if the necktie has now become outdated and how influential the wearing of neckties is to you when you meet business people for the first time?

Participate in this weeks open survey Are neckties on the way out?

Which classic movies should never be remade?

The movie industry likes a remake and can take a foreign classic like the Seven Samurai and turn it into a classic western like The Magnificent Seven. Sometimes they are just content on updating films like The Thomas Crown Affair and Ocean's Eleven.

Are there any classic movies that are too sacred to touch or is everything up for grabs?

We list some classic movies that have to date not been remade and ask you if they should be left alone or are ideal remake material?

Participate in this weeks open survey Which classic movies should never be remade?

Should the US Presidency Meet with Enemy States?

In a recent debate that included the two front runners for the Democratic nomination, New York senator Hillary Clinton and the Illinois senator Barack Obam, the candidates were asked if they would meet in the first year of their presidency with the leaders of such enemy nations as Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, and Syria.

Hillary Clinton said that she would not promise to meet with the leaders of enemy nations stating that a new president had to be careful not to be exploited by hostile leaders for propaganda purposes and not to do anything "that would make the situation worse." Before any meeting, she'd have to know "what the way forward would be."

Barack Obam on the other hand said that he thought it a disgrace that "we haven't talked to leaders of the five anti-American countries" and pointed out that despite President Reagan calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire" he still talked to Soviet leaders. "

Do you think that dialogue between hostile nations is the way forward and is an opportunity that is too easily overlooked?

In politics, is last years enemy, this years friend as in the case of Libya's Colonel Gadafy; or last years friend this years pariah as in the case of Saddam Hussein?

Can an end to conflicts like Northern Ireland only be achieved once the politicians have opened up a discussion?

Is the willingness to meet face to face with your enemy a sign of weakness?

Participate in this weeks open survey Should the US Presidency Meet with Enemy States?

Should people drink water from the tap or the bottle?

For many years there have been many studies that have concluded that for countries that have well developed water treatment, bottled water is often no healthier or safer to drink than tap water.

Organisations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature have for many years argued that bottled water is not only environmentally unfriendly but also a waste of money.

However, despite high quality and availability of tap water, the research findings and the high cost of bottled water the developed world continues to consume bottled water at an alarming rate.

The city of New York recently launched an advertising campaign to try and persuade people to give up bottled drinks and consume tap water instead to help protect the environment. New York's city officials have said that they hope that their campaign will save people money and reduce waste.

Environmental groups claim that four out of five plastic water bottles end up on landfill sites and the production process and distribution process, sometimes involving shipping water halfway around the world, causes global warming.

The Bottled Water Association have been reported to say that they think it unfair to single out an industry that is promoting recycling and introducing biodegradable packaging.

According to the Washington, D.C.-based environmental group, Food and Water Watch, Americans drank 37 billion bottles' worth in 2005. Nearly 40 percent of bottled water is in fact bottled treated tap water and the federal government requires far more vigorous testing of municipal water than bottled water.

Is New York city correct to try and promote tap water? Do you currently prefer to drink tap or bottled water and which do you think is better for you?

Participate in this weeks open survey Should people drink water from the tap or the bottle?

For more information on New York City's campaign please visit The Tap Project.

Was Bush right to prevent Lewis Libby from going to jail?

US President Bush created a political storm by intervening to stop the disgraced White House aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, from going to jail.

In March 2004 Libby testified to a grand jury and denied deliberately leaking that Valerie Plame's worked for the CIA.

In October 2005 Libby was indicted by the FBI on five counts: obstruction of justice and two counts each of false statement and two counts of perjury.

In September 2006 the former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage confesses to leaking Plame's name and in March 2007 Libby was found guilty on four out of five charges and given a 30-month prison sentence.

Bush said "I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence is excessive.".

President Bush did not grant Mr Libby a pardon and Libby will still face a $250,00 fine and remain on probation, Bush did however commute Libby's jail sentence.

The announcement from President Bush was prompted by a federal court decision earlier yesterday not to allow Mr Libby to remain at home pending the outcome of an appeal that would have meant that he would have been heading to jail within the next few weeks where he was expected to have served out his time in a minimum security jail.

Critics had suggested that Libby's strategy had until then appeared to be to string out the appeal until January 2009 in expectation of a pardon when Mr Bush left office.

The Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid described Mr Bush's action as "disgraceful" and Charles Schumer, a Democratic senator was to reported to have said "As independence day nears, we're reminded that one of the principles our forefathers fought for was equal justice under the law. This commutation completely tramples on that principle.".

Fred Thompson, a Republican welcomed the decision from Bush, noting Mr Libby's long service to the US.

Has President Bush acted as a democratic leader or a dictator in this matter? Should those that hold positions of high office be held more, and not less accountable, than those that they represent?

Participate in this weeks open survey Was Bush right to prevent Lewis Libby from going to jail?

What are the world's favourite buildings?

There are stunning buildings throughout the world, some built in ancient times, some modern day wonders.

Which buildings are your favourite and which of those we have short listed have you visited, or would like to visit?

Participate in this weeks open survey What are the world's favourite buildings?

Was Salman Rushdie's knighthood deserved?

In 1988 the publication of The Satanic Verses sparked worldwide protests when it was condemned by the Islamic world because of its perceived blasphemous depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

It was described by one book critic as a cosmic battle between good and evil that combined fantasy, philosophy and farce.

The book was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities and in 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's spiritual leader, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's execution.

Although in 1998, the Iranian government said it would no longer support the fatwa some groups said that the fatwa was irrevocable.

After many years in hiding Salman returned to public life in 1999.

Fast forward to 2007 and Salman Rushdie was one of over 900 people to appear on the Queen's Birthday Honours list, which is aimed at recognising outstanding achievement.

Iran were quick to criticised the knighthood, saying praising the "apostate" showed Islamophobia among British officials.

Also a Pakistani minister was reported to have said that 'Salman Rushdie contributes to insulting Islam and may lead to terrorism' and the Religious Affairs Minister Ejaz-ul-Haq told his parliment that such 'actions are the root cause of terrorism.

Were the British right to honour Salman Rushdie, did he deserve such an honour and were Pakistan and Iran correct in their criticism?

Participate in this weeks open survey Was Salman Rushdie's knighthood deserved?

Should the EU's Galileo satellite-navigation be scrapped?

Europe's eight-company, five-nation satellite-navigation consortium, Galileo was concocted as a public-private partnership by the European Union in 2002. The aim was to construct a rival to the American built Global Positioning System (GPS) that was originally developed for the US armed forces but is now available for free use worldwide.

GPS is now in everyday use from aviation to private vehicles with sales of GPS equipment exceeding twenty billion dollars a year with about 5 of that being non-civilian use.

As an alternative to America's GPS Galileo was supposed to be accurate to within one metre rather than three. Funding for the project was to be recouped by offering a free GPS-like service, but charge for higher accuracy and other special features.

European fears that America could at a whim turn off their GPS system have diminished since Russia and China have launched their own systems, offering increasingly capable alternatives to GPS and modifications made by the US to their GPS system now allows then to offer similar accuracy to that planned by Galileo.

Original scheduled to be operational by 2010 only one of the planned 30 satellites has so far been launched, the official estimated completion date is now 2012 with most analysts saying it will not be ready until 2014. The project was originally costed at $3.4 and is already some $2 billion over budget.

Transport ministers from the EU's 27 member countries are now due to meet to consider Galileo's fate.They have three options: to set new deadlines for the consortium and pour in more money; to make it a fully public-sector initiative and foot the bill; or to shut it down.Which would you vote for?

Participate in this weeks open survey Should the EU's Galileo satellite-navigation be scrapped?

London's 2012 Olympic Logo Revealed - Good or Bad?

The design agency Wolff Olins won the competitive tender "to refine the brand positioning for the London 2012 Games and develop a Games emblem and associated corporate identity".

After 14 months of brainstorming, consulting, "brand positioning" and costing some £400,000 , they have produced a design and have announced:-

The new emblem is dynamic, modern and flexible. It will work with new technology and across traditional and new media networks.

It will become London 2012's visual icon, instantly recognisable amongst all age groups, all around the world. It will establish the character and identity of the London 2012 Games and what the Games will symbolise nationally and internationally."

Some people have greeted the new design as bold, daring and breaking the mould of previous, and what some have said were more conservative, Olympic logo designs.

Not everyone has been kind, Stephen Bayley wrote in the Telegraph "Mesmerised as if confronting a nasty incident in traffic, we gaze at the Olympic logo. It is a puerile mess, an artistic flop and a commercial scandal."

As shown above there are versions of the logo using different colours and some animated examples have also been on show.

Is the logo a dynamic colouration and daring asymmetry reflecting the rich texture of the world's cosmopolis; or does it represent an outrageously expensive logo that, like the Games themselves, is a dated concept of more interest to politicians than to people?

Participate in this weeks open survey London's 2012 Olympic Logo Revealed - Good or Bad?