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PLEASE CONSIDER
Lancet’s number of documented deaths in Iraq, upon which the respected medical journal based its Iraqi mortality study, is but a mere 0.0835% of Lancet‘s estimated post-invasion death total.
The “estimate” part of Lancet’s equation is 99.9%.
UPDATE. Donald Berry, Chairman of the Department of Biostatistics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, says the study is unreliable:
The last thing I want to do is agree with Bush, especially on something dealing with Iraq. But I think ‘unreliable’ is apt. (I just heard Bush say ‘not credible.’ ‘Unreliable’ is better. There is a certain amount of credibility in the study, but they exaggerate the reliability of their estimate.)
Click for more.
UPDATE II. A claimed London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine epidemiologist and former WHO staffer comments:
I think that there is a humanitarian disaster continuing in Iraq but this paper is ultimately flawed and worse it is actually misleading if not downright dishonest.
UPDATE III. A Blair’s Law moment: the John Birch Society sings Lancet’s tune.
That puts their phantasmagorical iceberg into real perspective - a tiny Rockall above a sea of indolence and assumption, with naught but the mephistophelean machinations of the malovent miragery below.
Truly reality based. Theirs is the purgatory of Pincher Martin - a dearth of ideas and disconnection from the world of inconvenient facts.
Posted by Simon Darkshade on 2006 10 12 at 02:23 PM • permalinkI’m wondering if 2.5% of Iraq’s population has been killed/died as a direct result of the war, shouldn’t there be millions and millions more of lightly and heavily wounded victims walking (hobbling?) around or stats existing of huge increases in hospital admissions? So, has (say) five times more or 12.5% of Iraq’s population of the past four years been hospitalised or crippled along with the 2.5% dead? Where are all of the wounded?
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 10 12 at 02:43 PM • permalinkJane Galt has a good post at asymmetrical information
Posted by procrustes on 2006 10 12 at 02:52 PM • permalinkAs the great statistician Wilson Pickett sang, 99-1/2 just won’t do.
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 10 12 at 03:59 PM • permalinkActually, as far as percentages go, it’s the sample size that matters, and not the population size relative to it, so the small percentage sampled isn’t of itself a problem. A thousand people represent all US voters with no problem.
The particular procedure here is likely to have failed in a great number of ways, however. Usually common sense serves as a check rather than a headline.
In WW2 the allies reported inflated figures for German fighters downed because you could have ten or twenty gunners on several bombers blasting at a German fighter and they all claimed the kill.
That would appear to be one (but only one) of the sources of error if you go around asking people how many people they think have been killed. Apart from that it just seems to be the Goebbels Big Lie technique at work.
You see, Merlin, after we killed all those people, we slipped them into the mass graves via hidden tunnels so that they cold be “discovered,” and the blame pinned on Saddam. Fortunately the Dept. of Defense has a huge supply of Paco Industries™ Brand Marine-Corpse (Now With Instant Rotto!), which makes the bodies appear years younger.
from the Lancet article:
From January, 2002, until the invasion in 2003, virtually all deaths in Iraq were from non-violent causes.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 12 at 05:13 PM • permalinkOK, OK I confess. All of the serious scrutiny put forward by the Lancet has broken me, I must unburden my conscience.
We were ordered to kill as many Iraqis as humanly possible and, being the soulless killbots we are now revealed to be, we set about our grim task with abandon. The corpses were then shipped to Kuwait by truck to be rendered into-you guessed it-OIL!!! That accounts for the curious lack of graves noted here.
The lefties were right all along: it really was blood for oil.
Seriously-the population of our AO was about 100,000 people. Given the Lancet’s numbers 2,500 more of them should be dead than expected. In the year that we were there that would be around 700 or roughly two a day. I can account for about 1/10th that many killed in our time there and 90% of those were killed by suicide bombers or IEDs (cause Haji is not real particular about who he offs).
But most of them were Kurds and I doubt the Lancet would care to spend much time talking with them-they might disabuse them of their illusions about Saddam.
Yes, there must be something wrong with this study, but it would be a mistake to criticise it on conceptual grounds. It appears to use the same basic methodology as all good polls and surveys.
When you read that, say, a couple of million people watch a certain TV show, do you think that anyone actually asked 2 million people? The actual number of people surveyed was probably around 400. The rest is extrapolation, but the figure is reliable if the survey is properly conducted.
The problem arises if the survey is not properly conducted, and it would be very difficult to do this in Iraq. There are legitimate grounds to criticise the study, but its basic concept (extrapolation) is not one of them.
Some of the secondary questions raised have more validity as criticisms:
Since 90% of the deaths are allegedly supported by death certificates, the authorities must be aware of them, and are thus covering up 95% of violent deaths. Where is the backup evidence for this?
We would expect about 3-5 serious injuries for each death. This would mean that about 3,000 people per day are being seriously injured in attacks. Would Iraqi hospitals back this up?
The Lancet’s first report in 2004 claimed the war had resulted in 100,000 excess deaths.
This new report 2 years later reports 654,965 deaths. So in two years there have been an additional 554,965 deaths.
That is more than 277,000 violent deaths a year, and more than 760 violent deaths per day. Where are these happening and why hasn’t anyone noticed?
Well, at least it’s good to know it’s an illusion anyway, and in theory no civilization exist without knowledge. How the ship is steered with the knowledge for survival is the question, i think the paradigm of culture is out of wack, and inturn may be our own downfall, like Easter Island with the palm trees being cut down for the statues.
#7 steveH
Couldn’t have anything to do with Wronwright’s early toxics disposal company, could it?
(spits out Pepsi)
What?
Look, it’s like I told the New Jersey Environmental Protection Agency, I was not involved with that company. I have no idea how my name got on the incorporation papers for the Particulate Amelioration and Containment Organization. That was a bum rap!
Posted by wronwright on 2006 10 12 at 06:25 PM • permalinkThey actually had a rather large sample size- 12,000 households. However, there are numerous problems with how the data was collected. First, there is experimenter bias - if you have a preconcieved idea about how the results will turn out, this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. There are numerous historical examples of this. One way this happens is that the participants figure out what you want to hear. A second way is that small decisions lead to the exclusion of individuals or groups that are unlikely to fit the pattern. A third way is if your surveyors on the ground believe you have an agenda, they may help it along a bit.
Add to this the problems of conducting a survey in a war zone and you have the potential for huge errors. Yet the researchers proceeded as if Iraq was the midwest, filled with “households” that were willing to sit down over a cup of hot chocolate and tell the truth about recent events in a war. It was likely that the members of those households had a partisan interest in the conflict one way or another, and therefore an interest to lie (in what direction? who the hell knows).
The possibility that the results are simply rubbish is ironically supported by the authors’ claim that there was 92% concordance with death certificates. However, despite this high correlation, the death certificate records do not support the final figure. In fact, they indicate a substantially lower figure.
Sorry about the long post.Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 12 at 06:38 PM • permalinkThe Lancet’s first report in 2004 claimed the war had resulted in 100,000 excess deaths.
This new report 2 years later reports 654,965 deaths. So in two years there have been an additional 554,965 deaths
At least it tells us we are getting better at it…
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2006 10 12 at 07:01 PM • permalinkThey have shown with their own results that most of the deaths they recorded were probably reported in official figures (because their results concord with death certificate records). Therefore, somehow, they have selected households with higher than average mortality. Perhaps they were the ones most willing to talk? Maybe there were whole communities, safe communities, that stonewalled the surveyers. The researchers hint in the report that a lot of households did not answer the door to them.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 12 at 07:19 PM • permalink#25 They actually had a rather large sample size- 12,000 households.
The Lancet report: “data from 1849 households that contained 12 801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered”. In one sense they only had a sample size of 47 locations. If deaths tended to affect multiple people in a single street, this would cluster the data, making the results unrepresentative.
#25 the researchers proceeded as if Iraq was the midwest, filled with “households” that were willing to sit down over a cup of hot chocolate and tell the truth about recent events in a war.
According to the Lancet report, only “15 (0·8%) households refused to participate” and “In 16 (0·9%) dwellings, residents were absent;” Even though the survey teams “all were medical doctors with previous survey and community medicine experience and were
fluent in English and Arabic” I find this a suprisingly low non-cooperation result.The survey teams also had the option to reject a site as too dangerous and pick an alternate pre-selected random site. This could have introduced a systematic bias, eg the teams may have been afraid of shiite controlled areas and gone to sunni
alternate sitesOT By the way, Bruce (Rheinstein), in an earlier thread you asked if I could give you the phone number for the GPS gal. I
damn well won’tunfortunately can’t give that up. But I can show you what she looks like. Notice the professional directional gestures.(paco, you should like the music)
Posted by wronwright on 2006 10 12 at 07:24 PM • permalink#26 The researchers hint in the report that a lot of households did not answer the door to them.
Daddy Dave, do you mean in the “Method” section:
Empty houses or those that refused to participate were passed over until 40 households had been interviewed in all locations.
If there’s something else, can you point me to the places where this hint occurs - I didn’t spot any others on my reading. I’m pretty sure the “15 (0·8%) households refused to participate” is wrong. The fact that they report 1849 households, having set out to collect 47 * 40 = 1880 households, and say 31 (=1880 - 1849) were empty or uncooperative shows they did not fully follow this protocol.
Here’s a proposal for the Lancet:
1) Find the number of dead Bosnian Muslims during the late Balkan unpleasantness.
2) Find the number of dead Bosnian Muslims after the American intervention.
3) Extrapolate the number of Bosnian Muslims who would be dead without the American intervention.
4) Apply “carbon-based-life-form-offsets” to Iraqi dead.
From my quick reading of the Lancet report, it says they picked a house at random to start interviews, but doesn’t say how that was done. If they were given a set of sealed envelopes with random numbers, then opened the first in the chosen street and started at the house number that corresponded to what was in the envelope, that would be a pretty random selection.
If they just picked their own preference as to where to start, that’s not random.
Well geez, if Lancet had been to a random house in Iraqi Kurdistan up north, where there is extremely good security and living standards, they could have surveyed an entire neighborhood and maybe found only one or two deaths.
Then they could do their magical extrapolation and insist that only a few hundred Iraqis had been killed since the war started.
Statistics are great.. you can just hypothesise any numbers you are after and then the media will report it if they sympathise with your findings.
I personally believe the Lancet study will be proven grossly wrong after the November election. I really don’t think the study’s authors however care what happens after that, unless the election upset they desire doesn’t occur.
This is pure politics and one of the authors of the study alluded to as much.
What bothers me about the MSM (NPR seems one of worst) is that they will happily spread and discuss such studies as facts. They will not devote nearly as much effort however to exposing them as shams, if such is found to be the case later. But the damage is already done by then. While you can broadcast or print retractions and corrections to a story you can’t recall an election swayed by such a lie.
#31 davidp, when they describe potential sources of error, they say that
calling back to households not available on the initial visit was felt to be too dangerous.
this makes me do a double-take. Why worry about the ones you missed when over 99% of respondents were home when you knocked on their front door? It suggests to me that maybe there were one or two more that they missed that they forgot to mention. I’ve never heard of a survey getting the absurdly low non-response rates that they report.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 12 at 08:43 PM • permalinkI read the relevant bits of the more detailed description of the study (25 pages PDF), which answers some of the questions raised here.
I was initially incredulous, but found myself being persuaded by the report. I think they have taken reasonable steps to ensure accuracy. There may still be some survey bias in there, but other sources of numbers have much more obvious problems.
Where the data can be compared to other sources (e.g. CIA world facts site for birth/non-violent death rates, or the earlier 2004 Iraq study) there seems to be good agreement.
One thing does come through - these are not random civilian deaths. Overwhelmingly the casualties are young to middle-aged males.
OTOH, violent female deaths reflect Iraqi demographics, with 40% of the population under 15 years.
rebecca
seems Charles already has the answer.
Lancet Editor: Certified MoonbatIf the Lancet report is to be believed then Iraq has lost more than 2.5 per cent of its population (25 mill)in only 3 years.
By comparison more than France, Czechoslavia, the United States and the UK lost in the 6 years of WW2.
If it was Australia this would equate to us losing more than 500,000 people in 3 years.
More than 4000 a week. Nearly 600 every day.Without anyone noticing.
Obviously the Zionists have concocted an invisibility spell.
#14- I assume these eanuts haven’t thought to wonder just where these 650,000 stiffs have been interred? there’s no cremation in Islam, so that’s an awful lot of real estate taken up with deaduns; it would be a piece of piss to verify the toll, just count graves.
Why anyone would give credibility to The Lancet is beyond me- medecine is a haven for lefty leech appliers*, just look at the AMA, the most militant trade union in the country; even public servants don’t have the hide to demand socialised payment of commercial rates.
I’ve got to be awfully sick before I darken the doors of one of those malpracticing mongs. (And it’s usually only to get a ‘script for what I already know will fix me up).
*One of my best mates and former blog partner is a rare beast indeed, a right wing quack, and is about as popular in his place of practice as Donald Rumsfeldt at Camp Crawford.
O/T Cinders shehag has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/061012/3/2r8tc.html
Please let the gurning gimp win.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 10 12 at 09:23 PM • permalinkAccording to the Lancet report, only “15 (0·8%) households refused to participate” and “In 16 (0·9%) dwellings, residents were absent;” Even though the survey teams “all were medical doctors with previous survey and community medicine experience and were
fluent in English and Arabic” I find this a suprisingly low non-cooperation result.I had the same reaction. Even the “I don’t know/I don’t care/I haven’t made up my mind” section in a simple opinion poll tends to be at least several percent, and my personal experience is that the percentage of people who just outright refuse to participate is much higher. And these guys got a 99.2% cooperation rate?
BTW, I really wish people would stop jumping on the “they extrapolated 547 deaths into 600,000+” part…the mathematics behind that are perfectly sound, and the inherent uncertainty is captured in the confidence bands, so it’s not the process that’s at fault here (and trying to act like it is plays right into the hands of people like Tim Lambert). The problem is much more simple: Garbage in, garbage out.
The last thing I want to do is agree with Bush, especially on something dealing with Iraq.
The last thing I want to do is agree with Wilson, especially on something dealing with Germany.
The last thing I want to do is agree with FDR, especially on something dealing with Germany and Japan.
The last thing I want to do is agree with Truman, especially on something dealing with Korea.
The last thing I want to do is agree with Johnson, especially on something dealing with Vietnam.
The last thing I want to do is agree with Clinton, especially on something dealing with Bosnia.
kilo, can you help me out? I’m stuck in a rut here.
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 10 12 at 09:41 PM • permalink99.4% is the percentage of the shared genetic code between man and chimpanzees.
0.6% can, therefore, still be a statistically significant number.
Or maybe not in the case of the editorial staff at the Lancet.
Posted by pommygranate on 2006 10 12 at 09:43 PM • permalinkPW:
IMO there’s sufficient reason to doubt even the originating numbers. It means less than nothing if they used to proper algorithms to extrapolate end result from the base if the base was invented, as I tend to suspect.
The only persons capable of wandering those streets and knocking on doors and surviving had to be known as friendlies by the murderers.
I seriously doubt a door was actually knocked on. It would be much better to simply invent some numbers and then apply the algorithms to reach the desired end product.
I have no evidence for this opinion but I do ask this question. How many of the canvassers died collecting this data? How many were kidnapped and held for ransom? How many?
This entire operation is driven by propagandists, so why on earth would anyone assume it has any foundation in reality at all?
PW and Grimmy are right in that if you want to rubbish the report, you have to question the competence and/or honesty of the survey teams, not the statistical method.
But if it is a fraud, it is very skilful one. Way out of the Dan Rather/Lebanese Ambo league. Where you can check against other demographic data, the numbers look right. Also if you want fake anti-US propaganda, why inflate just the young to middle-age male casualty numbers?
An extraordinary claim needs extraordinary evidence.
A random sampling in violence prone areas then calculated out across the whole country just doesnt cut it.
Those that havent checked the link by davo at 40. should do so. It is a piece of partisan politics by a man who is supposed to be a respected editor of the lancet.
Why this dipshit thinks he should inflate the numbers is beyond me. I dont suppose the survey could have fitted in a “killed by who, and doing what?” in its info?Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 10 12 at 10:31 PM • permalinkIt suggests to me that maybe there were one or two more that they missed that they forgot to mention. I’ve never heard of a survey getting the absurdly low non-response rates that they report.
Surveyor: “Here’s a home. [knocks on door] Hello! We’re here looking for homes that have suffered deaths since the invasion!”
Voice Behind Door: “No one here.”
Surveyor: “Hmph. Another non-responsive house.”
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 10 12 at 10:33 PM • permalinkif you want to rubbish the report, you have to question the competence and/or honesty of the survey teams, not the statistical method.
No, they may have done a superb job. Probably did. You merely have to question (as everyone seems to be doing) the soundness of the data collection method itself. As the statistician Tim linked to said, cluster sampling is really tricky, and hard to get a representative sample. Collecting data in a war zone is tricky. If you have an agenda means, you can subconsciously affect the results (experimenter bias), in more ways than I can be bothered explaining.
The guys on the ground can be honest and competent and the survey still be junk.Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 12 at 10:38 PM • permalinkI think we cannot rule out the possibilty that the 16 dwellings where “no-one was present” may in fact have had occupants who had been freshly slain by Iraqi PM Dr Iyad Allawi.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 10 12 at 10:48 PM • permalinkOh lordy, lordy…what have we here…
...Game, Set and Match.
‘Nuff said, Stay At Home Patriots.
Army chief declares war on Blair: ‘We must quit Iraq soon’
By TIM SHIPMAN
Last updated at 23:53pm on 12th October 2006
The head of the Army is calling for British troops to withdraw from Iraq “soon” or risk catastophic consequences for both Iraq and British society.In a devastating broadside at Tony Blair’s foreign policy, General Sir Richard Dannatt stated explicitly that the continuing presence of British troops “exacerbates the security problems” in Iraq.
[Oh lordy, lordy, here’s another idiot who copied and pasted in a long url that broke the page formatting, which is against the Rules and has resulted in his link to the every-reliable Daily Mail website to be removed by The Management.]
#60 Thanking you. Most kind, my head was really beginning to hurt.
Say, you don’t suppose we could discover a hidden code in the Lancet numbers that reveals verbal hermeneutical knowledgey wisdomish type stuff?
A sort of Edoc Icniv Ad?
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 12 at 11:39 PM • permalinkI promised myself I wouldn’t.
Someone, anyone?
It says kilo, but I think the contents may have settled during handling.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 12 at 11:42 PM • permalinkUh oh! Security breach detected at Leftist Mental Asylum. Patient is considered unstable and immune to facts.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 10 12 at 11:44 PM • permalinkNope, I can’t.
Hey kilo, did you read the whole article?
You still want to crow about Dannatt and his opinions? All of them?
Seriously—DID YOU READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE?
Maybe all that “exacerbating” is affecting your eyesight.
Complete.Utter.Twat.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 12 at 11:47 PM • permalink#39 - dipole, figure 2 of the study you cited is interesting. It shows violent death estimates by governate (province) throughout Iraq. As the paper notes, the highest death rates are in the Sunni Arab provinces, as expected. So does this mean that the majority of have been committed by the Sunnis or both have been slaughtered in demographically pro-rata ratios by the Coalition? Or what?
In this respect thefm’s comment at #59, “I dont suppose the survey could have fitted in a “killed by who, and doing what?” in its info?” is far from flippant and should have been asked. Further, the following data should been obtained at the point of collection and analysed in the report:
For all interviewed in each province, what was the proportion of Sunni to Shia, to Kurd, to ... and does this correspond to the actual demographic mix within the province?
If they don’t correspond then the data may be biased. If proportionally, far more Shias were interviewed than Sunnis then a whole of country extrapolation would give higher figures. Because it appears that the majority of those killed in the attempt to start a civil war are Shias.
Something to do with some local religious squabble over a millennium ago.
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 10 12 at 11:49 PM • permalink“Game, Set and Match” indeed! You can’t even get the first serve over the net, you fucking parrot.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 12 at 11:50 PM • permalink#67 - Wouldn’t mind betting he’s some kind of “Ball Boy” though!
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 10 12 at 11:53 PM • permalinkKilo, I’d reply to your post, but I’m almost certain that it’s going to get deleted by the admin, so there’s no point. People will wonder who I’m talking to.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 12 at 11:53 PM • permalink#65 - Complete.Utter.Nondescript.Twat
It’s a better acronymn
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 10 12 at 11:57 PM • permalink#56 Grimmy when I said they probably did a superb job, I was talking about the Iraqis they employed to go door-knocking, not the actual researchers themselves. They did not do a superb job. They did a pathetic, weaseling, slimy, ignorant, dishonest job. I hope that clears up any confusion.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 13 at 12:03 AM • permalinkOne thing I keep coming back to is the part where they explain how they selected the streets they were surveying, namely by randomly selecting a “main street” from a list of all main streets, and then going to a randomly selected residential street off of that main street.
I’m really curious to know what constitutes a main street in that context. If it’s a wide definition (e.g. in most US cities, you can probably consider every fourth street a main street), then the sampled streets would be reasonably random, but if it’s a very narrow definition (e.g. if Baghdad only had 20 streets classified as main streets, and none in the outer, less densely populated areas), you’re bound to oversample areas with above-average destruction, simply because boulevard-type streets ought to have a greater presence both of Coalition troops as well as terrorists. And they could well spill over into the people who live adjacent to those main streets.
#72, daddy dave:
No confusion. Where I’m coming from in my questions is from a possition of no facility with math, numbers or number related issues lol.So all I can do is look at the pattern established by the players and vet that against what I was taught to look for in sorting propaganda and misinformation way back when I was still into learning stuff.
The point I still believe is missed by y’all numbers people is the fact that no one wanders the streets for any reason in these areas and survives for long.
That is, unless they have a seriously large and capable bodyguard, in which case they’ll attract IEDs like magnets
or
They have a pass from the local murderers because it is understood that they are doing the bidding of the murderers.
IraqTheModel has an article on the Lancet article:
When the statistics announced by hospitals and military here, or even by the UN, did not satisfy their lust for more deaths, they resorted to mathematics to get a fake number that satisfies their sadistic urges.
Posted by daddy dave on 2006 10 13 at 12:13 AM • permalinkIs it surprising that kilo can’t post a link correctly, or was he simply so overeager to post his vaguely related article that he didn’t figure out how to do so properly?
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2006 10 13 at 12:25 AM • permalinkOmar Fadhil is a credit to his people and to freedom loving dentists and non-dentists alike the world over—he was, is and will be —today, yesterday and tomorrow—a hero.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 13 at 01:15 AM • permalinkHe is indeed. His passion and courage are an inspiration and provide an excellent counterpoint to the nattering nabobs of negativism. (Thanks Mr. Agnew)
Posted by Simon Darkshade on 2006 10 13 at 01:27 AM • permalinkHeh, just came across a pretty interesting angle by a commenter on another blog:
1) The Lancet points out that the passive counting method, which has given us about 50,000 deaths, misses many deaths in a conflict area, because not all deaths are reported.
2) To confirm that people weren’t making things up, the Lancet study asked for and received Death Certificates in over 80% of cases.
3) It apparently has not occurred to the Lancet that if Death Certificates are available in 80+% of cases, then passive methods (i.e., counting up Death Certificates) should in fact be quite accurate.
Based upon recent statistical sampling and some rather conservative interpolation, I estimate the approximately 600,000 American League pitchers fly aircraft into skyscrapers per year.
Posted by Shaky Barnes on 2006 10 13 at 01:51 AM • permalink654,965 deaths since the end of the war which is roughly about 1200 days ago gives us somewhere in the order of 500-550 deaths (by bullet or bomb) per day. Given the tide of death would ebb and flow there must have been days when simply thousands were blown or shot off their mortal coil.
The journo’s in Iraq are crap if they can’t find that many people being knocked off daily! Surely they have heard/seen/had reported to them by an insurgent, mass slaughter of thousands in a single or even several events on “River of Blood” day(s). Have I been alseep and missed it?
Where are all the bodies? Don’t tell me the insurgents are cleaning up after they are done. Are the insurgents killing them, and than snatching the bodies (those evil bastards). Is there an Arabian rug somewhere with a very big lump in the middle?
79. Amusement value only. That and the absolute debasement of yet another 100 year old institution.
After all el-baredi (UN Nuke inspector) won it last year so how much lover could the bar be set?
There must be some one celled organisms that would be in with half a chance if cindy could win this year.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 10 13 at 02:02 AM • permalinkDuring the 2nd World War the 16.4 million men and women enrolled in the Armed Forces. They lost just over 6,600 each month. Less than half the apparent loss amongst the Iraq civilian population (15,000 per month blown up or shot, apparently).
The dead to wounded ratio was 1.65, which is to say for every 100 killed there was 165 injured. If we applied the same ratio to the Iraq estimates we have 1,080,700 wounded (Vietnam War ratio of 2.64 gives us 1.7 million wounded).
Even if the insurgents and yanks were incredibly efficient (ie 1 dead - 1.12 wounded) we should be seeing somewhere in the order of 730,000 people wounded by gun or shrapnel.How are the hospitals coping with this influx of wounded on top of the normal every day sick etc?
I really don’t know why the Texas professor used the term “unreliable” when he should have used the term “flawed” in describing the methodology here. It is an embarrassment to statistics. Firstly in the comments above many people compare the methodology to polling. This is not a suitable analogy. Bombs and bullets do not act like opinion forming information in any way.
When polling takes place it seeks to measure the impact of widely known information on the opinions and or voting patterns of a representative population. An effective poll takes into account the need to have a sample that reflects the whole otherwise it is worthless.
A violent killing is not in any way like a tv ad. Firstly, statistically bombs and bullets have an extremely localised impact. 10 people can die in one house and no one else in the entire suburb. In addition many neighbouring suburbs may suffer no casualty at all. If you extrapolate the results of 10 per suburb over all suburbs you will wildly distort your results. This is the main statistically invalid assumption of the study. The second problem is that a tv ad does not make people move to another locality but violence does. This means that the rate of mortality in violent areas is often very high but the absolute numbers low ie the smart people “got out of town”.
I think that for the Lancet to publish a study this weak shows that they may be good doctors but piss poor statisticians or transparent lobbyists.
Completely OT:
Canada troops battle 10-ft Afghan marijuana plants
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy—almost impenetrable forests of 10-feet (three metre) high marijuana plants.I blame George W Bush for overthrowing the peace-loving and tolerant Taliban who surely would have cracked down on the cultivation of such substances.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 10 13 at 02:51 AM • permalinkA major issue with the marijuana jungles is that the plant acts as a good thermal screen and reduces coalition forces ability to target murderers hiding in them.
So options will tend to be either burn them out or load up for “close” and wander around in the thicket until you trigger an ambush and just hope you kill more of them then they do of you.
kilo, what do you know about it? How many times have you roamed the streets of Baghdad and witnessed the carnage you claim as fact? How many Iraqis have you personally spoken with? I ask you again, what do you really know about any of this?
I already know the answer, everyone here does. Nothing, zero, zero and nothing.
So shet-up.If Cindy Sheehan has earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her - how do I describe it? - her performance, then I should get the Literature Prize for my shopping lists.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 10 13 at 03:54 AM • permalinkHeres the lancet boss writing an article in that lovely little rag, the gaurdian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1920005,00.html
From his own article.
“In 2004 The Lancet was criticised for publishing a number that seemed to have a high degree of uncertainty. The best estimate then was 98,000 deaths. But the uncertainty meant that it could have been as low as 8,000 or as high as 194,000.”His solution to a low level civil war? Remove the largest source of security, and everything will will be fine.
Thats a doctor???Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 10 13 at 04:33 AM • permalinkUPDATE II. A claimed London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine epidemiologist and former WHO staffer comments:
I think that there is a humanitarian disaster continuing in Iraq but this paper is ultimately flawed and worse it is actually misleading if not downright dishonest.
He also wrote at the other site:
“For the record I was opposed to the Iraq war not least because I have worked in healthcare among conflict and displaced people and know that any social destabilisation on this scale leads to a big increase in civilian deaths.”
I got a hell of a lot of respect for a bloke like this. Too often these days, facts ares not simply presented - they are spun and manipulated and censored. And sadly, even very well educated people who like to think of themselves as sophisticated and honourable will do it without seemingly batting an eyelid. (I mean, we’ve all seen the endless “Men of No Appearance” in Fairfax as they censor and spin week after week after week…)
For this guy to just come right out and basically say “I’m anti-war, but I refuse to lie to support my position” earns him a hell of a lot of respect in my book.
Missed a bit on my last post on the lancet boss.
Why would you give the same team the job as last time if you wished to maintain an air of impartiality?“The same team from Johns Hopkins University worked with Iraqi doctors to visit over 1,800 homes in Iraq, selected randomly to make sure that no bias could creep in to their calculations.”
Except that if they fibbed a bit last time why wouldnt they again?Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 10 13 at 04:40 AM • permalinkIts not that bad: If you take out of the 600,000 all:
- American and coalition occupiers
- Iraqi defence force and police collaborators
- Media and foreign civilians
- non-aligned Iraqi civiliansIt probably leaves a small number of heroic Iraqi and foreign freedom fighters killed. So why the big deal? All them others had it coming didn’t they?
Why doesn’t Lancet just look at the bigger picture? This is the price of fighting the Great Satan.
#61 Kilo.
You utter twat. Did you read the whole article? The British General may believe the Brits should get out of Iraq, but he also suggested that British society and its christian culture was being undermined by Islamists.
Let me pose a hypothetical question for you, Kilo: Would you accept a Western withdrawal from the Middle East, if it was conditional on an end to Middle Eastern immigration to the West?
Care for a little hypothetical horse-trading, Kilo?
“For the record I was opposed to the Iraq war not least because I have worked in healthcare among conflict and displaced people and know that any social destabilisation on this scale leads to a big increase in civilian deaths.”
So the proper option in this man’s mind would have been to allow the murderous regime to continue slaughtering its own people in the most horrifically creative ways imaginable?
Yeah, war is bad, especially when some of the folk that would have gotten soaked in a bath of acid or fed feet first through a wood chipper get shot or blown up instead.
This man’s nothing but a moralizing coward.
Some of the report authors from a brief web search
The boss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Roberts_(epidemiologist)Nup no potental bias there. For god allmighty limping on a crutch’s sake HE NOMINATED TO RUN AS A DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE AND STILL MIGHT!!!
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 10 13 at 05:29 AM • permalinkO/T
Bangladeshi Muhammad Yunus was today awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Grameen Bank, which means “rural bank” in Bengali, was also given the award jointly.
Yunus and the bank were cited for their efforts to create economic and social development from below in Bangladesh by using innovative economic programs such as micro credit lending.
How good! This is one in the eye for Islamist misogynists. This dude lends money mainly to women because recognises that Bangladeshi men are irresponsible and waste their household’s income on booze, cigarettes and whores.
Dick Cheney - Merchant of Death 200,000 at his hands.
Wow, the left are really starting to wig out.
Posted by Hank Reardon on 2006 10 13 at 05:49 AM • permalinkBy all means burn down the stands of hemp to expose the bastard Taliban dogs.
But I am of the opinion that hemp is the most realistic alternative to opium cultivation in Afghanistan.
Before you all jump on me: No, not for its THC, though pharmaceutcal THC is of value in a number of therapeutic applications.
Because it is indisputably (well, if not, let’s dispute it) one of the most useful plants that G-d has seen fit to provide to humanity.
Its qualities are manifold, from cottage textile and other fibre products to large-scale industrial applications, such as extremely high quality paper—to cite just one example—requiring no bleaching agents which are the bane of wood pulp paper production.
It will grow easily in the Afghani climate and topology with minimal water and no fertiliser.
Biofuels such as biodiesel and alcohol fuel can be made from the oils in hemp seeds and stalks, and the fermentation of the plant as a whole, respectively.
30–35% of the weight of hempseed is oil containing 80% of the unsaturated essential fatty acids (EFAs), linoleic acid (LA, 55%) and linolenic acid (ALA, 21–25%). These are not manufactured by the body and must be supplied by food. The proportions of linoleic acid and linolenic acid in hempseed oil are perfectly balanced to meet human requirements for EFAs, including gamma-linoleic acid (GLA). Unlike flax oil and others, hempseed oil can be used continuously without developing a deficiency or other imbalance of EFAs. Hemp also contains 31% complete and highly-digestible protein, 1/3 as edestin protein and 2/3 as albumin protein. Its high quality Amino Acid composition is closer to “complete” sources of proteins (meat, milk, eggs) than all other oil seeds except soy.
As you can see, I have been giving this a bit of thought (since the ouster of the Taliban, in fact), and sincerely believe the rehabilitation of Afghani agriculture would be well served by replacing opium cultivation with hemp.
Ok, have at me.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 13 at 06:16 AM • permalink#104 Well, gee, I guess I just assumed…well, nevermind then.
Not even a wee bit of controversy, then?
No dissenting opinions? None?
All done (hammer falls).
Hemp for Afghanistan, freedom, the common weal and (whatever sort of pie they like to eat)!
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 13 at 06:43 AM • permalink#97 Grimmy
“This man’s nothing but a moralizing coward.”
Grimmy, disagree with his anti-war position if you will - I do. But given the huge numbers who think like him, and the substantial subset who are willing to lie and manipulate to further their views, I have no problem giving due respect for integrity and honesty when I see it, regardless of what they believe in.
I mean, take Christopher Hitchens for example. The guy is an ex-trostkyite and over the years, generally a leftist. But his adamant refusal to toe-a-line and speak the truth as he sees it has won him respect across the political divide (as well as derision from former allies).
You don’t change peoples’ minds or persuasively create political converts by telling everyone who thinks differently to you that they are sick bastards.
Do you want to persuade your political opponents, or just insult them? Personally, I’d prefer the former.
#101 Murph.
I agree. Good news. Change in muslim societies will work best if generated from within. Grassroots approaches like this that measurably and obviously improve the living standards of rural muslim peasants across the world may be the best defense against the alluring call of the local hate-filled dickhead in the Madrassa who wants to seduce those masses that all their problems are “because of the West” and a quick trip back in time to Sharia will solve everything.
#103 Mental Floss.
Interesting! You made some good points there, but I gotta admit I’m still giggling at the Canadian troops battling through the blazing pot plantations. Even if the incinerating the plants doesn’t work as a military tactic, if it forces the local Talabanis to inhale the smoke, they might just chill the fuck out and stop fighting! Well, we can only hope. ;-)
#103 MentalFloss. The finest hangin’ ropes of the old west were made from hemp. I’m sure they have use for such an item in Afghanistan.
That reminds me back when I was a kid, my brother (being the 60’s jackass hippy punk he was back then) decided it would be a good idea to cultivate several hundred marijuana plants on the back side of my grandfather’s farm in East Texas. The funny thing was that my dumb ass brother forgot to take into account the fact that my grandfather had grown up on a hemp plantation and had little difficulty distinguishing marijuana from corn. Oh the beating my brother got! It was a joyous time. Well, it was for me anyway.
Ah, memories.#107, ekb87:
You don’t change peoples’ minds or persuasively create political converts by telling everyone who thinks differently to you that they are sick bastards.
Do you want to persuade your political opponents, or just insult them? Personally, I’d prefer the former.
There are plenty of people who think differently than myself (thank God!) that I do not consider sick bastards. You being one of them.
For me, it is very easy. Right is right, wrong is wrong, weak is weak and strong is strong. I dont do shades of gray. That’s why I believe it a good thing that folk such as yourself exist.
If there’s someone needing convincing, have at it. Not my job.
All I can do is say it like I see it. If that causes conflict with someone, me and him can either part ways or fight.
Ahem, re: fibre hemp.
A few years ago I worked on an agricultural campus. A PhD or Masters student was studying hemp for fibre. Around the same time a headless, handless corpse was found in a creek up the road. Turned out that he O/D’d in the largest nearby town at a druggie’s house and they tried to dispose of the body.
Anyway, someone broke into the glasshouse and nicked the hemp plants. Unfortunately the joke was on the thief as these plants have no or very little THC (tetrahyrdocannabinol) so wouldn’t get anyone stoned. Black humour of the time said that we’d find the thief in the local creek sans head and hands when the people sold the ‘dope’ discovered it wasn’t any good.
#109 You mistake me. Help Karzai and those who seek a free, prosperous and globally engaged Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and kill any Arabs or run them out of the country—then turn the swords into plowshares and grow hemp.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 13 at 07:18 AM • permalinkI gotta admit I’m still giggling at the Canadian troops battling through the blazing pot plantations. Even if the incinerating the plants doesn’t work as a military tactic, if it forces the local Talabanis to inhale the smoke, they might just chill the fuck out and stop fighting! Well, we can only hope. ;-)
#107, you haven’t been watching Samurai Champloo have you?
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2006 10 13 at 07:27 AM • permalinkWell, I’m late to this party, having just discovered this blog through David Frum over at National Review, but I’d compiled some of my own observations here:
and I notice that most of them have been covered up above by contributors to this thread. I wasn’t stealing ideas, I swear. Anyway, I thought some of you might like to see the way I worded my concerns, though you aren’t likely to see much new.
I still hold to the opinion that no one can actually prove that actual data collection ever even occurred.
It is my view that they simply took existing data plots and charts and manufactured numbers that fit within the general shape and pattern and then magnified them to generate a new baseline from which to apply the appropriate formula so as to arrive at their desired end results for purposes of propaganda.
I do not believe it to be possible for the data to have been collected by randomly knocking on doors as they claim without most, if not all, of the data collectors ending up either executed or kidnapped, unless those posing as data collectors were known allies or members of the local murder cults.
Grimmy
I think that they did conduct the survey and have been truthful about the data they collected.
They didn’t skew the data, they skewed the experiment.
The trick that they have pulled is setting the baseline (2002) death rate at 5.5/1000 pa. They then “discovered” that the 2006 death rate is about 13/1000 pa. From this they came up with the bullshit figure of 655,000.
To put this in perspective, the death rate in the EU is about 10/1000 pa. So what The Lancet is trying to say is that the pre-war death rate in Iraq is half that of the EU. This is, of course, complete bullshit.
I disagree. I cant prove it, of course, so it’s just my opinion and nothing else but I see nothing in what they wrote or the pattern of their actions that includes even an attempt at integrity.
Also, we never heard of any of their people being killed or kidnapped. If they were out and about, randomly knocking on doors in those neighborhoods as advertised, it most certainly would have occurred and these Brits would have been loud about it.
I do not believe any real attempt at sampling ever even occurred.
I believe the base line was created out of thin air for purposes of propaganda.
I bet that the Birchers are secretly pissed off at the Coalition for putting fluoride in Iraq’s water thus polluting their precious bodily fluids.
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 10 13 at 01:29 PM • permalinkThe key question is how “main street” is defined. The study counts violent deaths among people living on residential streets that cross main streets in Iraq. On main streets (or nearby) one expects military convoys, IED attacks, ambushes, police stations, snipers, insurgents and their bases. Violent deaths would occur at much higher frequency per unit population in the vicinity of main streets, and that would translate into a grossly inflated figure for the whole population.
The study reports that more than 90% of violent deaths are male - most likely, local insurgents killed in ambush attempts, or by their own IED’s.
3) It apparently has not occurred to the Lancet that if Death Certificates are available in 80+% of cases, then passive methods (i.e., counting up Death Certificates) should in fact be quite accurate.
Heh! Thanks for the link, PW…..the study is being flogged to death, and rightfully so.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 10 13 at 03:31 PM • permalinkBack in my undergraduate days, wild hemp grew next to a lot of the railroad tracks. It was a leftover from attempts (maybe successes, I don’t know) to grow hemp for rope in the WWII days. Some hippies harvested it, dried it in the large dorm driers and sold it to the locals (I heard they also mixed in some dried horse manure from the ag farms of the university, which was about the right color and consistency). It was a pretty good business, I understand. Plus, if the customer complained that “this shit wouldn’t get a fly high” they could honestly reply, “oh yes it can. It does all the time.”
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 10 13 at 04:10 PM • permalink“The key question is how “main street” is defined. The study counts violent deaths among people living on residential streets that cross main streets in Iraq. On main streets (or nearby) one expects military convoys, IED attacks, ambushes, police stations, snipers, insurgents and their bases. Violent deaths would occur at much higher frequency per unit population in the vicinity of main streets, and that would translate into a grossly inflated figure for the whole population.”
Wow, excellent point, and one I completely missed. I’m currently compiling a list of excellent points made by others (than my own excellent points, of course) and will put this near the top of the list (with proper attribution of course) at my lonely blog.
Thanks!
Dear Kilo, if you want to continue commenting here you will refrain from breaking the page formatting by refusing to make a link as is outlined in the FAQ, a link to which is conveniently available above the commenting box. Because if you don’t you will experience something like the way all your careful research on UK tabloids has gone for naught, as I have removed the offending link from this comment of yours.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 10 13 at 07:46 PM • permalinkYay, so I’m not the only one who thinks that “main street” definition might be a big source of bias.
Kudos to the Nobel Prize committee (or whatever they’re called) for their selection…I didn’t check the news at all today and that was quite a pleasant surprise to hear about their selection just now.
#122 JorgXmcKie
Back in my undergraduate days, wild hemp grew next to a lot of the railroad tracks. It was a leftover from attempts (maybe successes, I don’t know) to grow hemp for rope in the WWII days.
I’ve read about that, and as I understand it, it was successful. There was nothing experimental about it - hemp had been used for industrial purposes, such as rope, fabric, etc for centuries. At early stages of USA’s founding, in some areas it was actually legal to pay your taxes with it!
The hemp industries were only dismantled 10 years previously to WW2, after centuries’ production, both for political reasons (its use as drug, the belief in “reefer madness”, etc) and economic reasons (its replacement by cheaper synthetic substitutes.)
When WW2 broke out, and there were problems with resource supplies. Hemp was again economically viable and re-legalized until after the war.
#110 Grimmy
Grimmy, to be fair your comment was fairly mild, I guess, but my reaction was perhaps more an expression of a growing irritation I’ve had with this site for a little while - (Note: NOT with Tim’s excellent posts, but with some of the more heated comments.)
(Grimmy, my comments below are general, and not specifically aimed at you BTW)
It’s really frustrating when an excellent post about Islam and the West is ruined by silly comments about “ragheads” and “towelheads”. I appreciate most of it is just anger and frustration, and “letting off steam” - but I just think it’s really graceless, distasteful and so counter-productive.
Have people stopped to consider what the effects of this are? I mean, Tim did some brilliant coverage of the Lebanese Ambulance Hoax; not to mention his continuing and persuasive coverage of Fairfax censorhip and bias (the “Men of No Appearance gang”, etc).
Yet if there’s silly racist “raghead” comments around, there’s no way in hell I would link to or pass on such a post to a friend/colleage who I think may find it interesting. There is no way in hell I’m going to let a real-life-friend get the mistaken impression that I’m some latter-day Klansmen, or that I hang out with such.
Which is a pity because Tim’s post are very insightful and persuasive.
And I bet twats like Miranda Divide and kilo/kalli jump for joy everytime a conservative loses his temper and says something intemperate. Here’s a hint - wankers like this want you to behave and talk in an extreme way.
Notice how everyone laughs at “Bush Derangement Syndrome”? Notice how everyone laughs their arses off at DailyKos, Webdiary and their froth-filled invective? And then ignores them as loonies.
Well, that knife potentially cuts both ways. Personally, I have no intention of behaving like a conservative version of Marilyn Shepherd…
And don’t fool yourself into thinking that there are no articulated, talented left-wing writers out there who are just waiting to discredit conservative opinions using any pretext.
Remember when that bullshit-artist Martin Chukov of The Age (Chulov? can’t remember spelling) tried to discredit Zombietime for his exposure of the Lebanese Ambulance Hoax. His tactic was clear and blunt - he dismissed Zombie as a “Callous blogger”. And Zombie’s best defense, and part of the reason so many people got to read it, was precisely because his/her work was so reasonable and well-argued. If Zombie was the type of person to mouth off with extreme statements, then his excellent work would have been seen by a far smaller audience.
Do you think Mark Steyn would be as effective and persuasive if instead of relying on wit, humour, and facts; he simply resorted to crude insults? If he did, I bet he wouldn’t be giving sold-out speeches, with Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers in the audience…
And take Tim, for example. This may not be apparent to some of our US commenters, but Tim is not a “nobody” in Oz. He edited one of Australia’s biggest current-affairs magazines for years, and has often appeared on popular mainstream radio shows. (I heard him a few times on Richard Glover’s show as I recall.)
Now whenever I heard him, he would be introduced by the host as “Tim Blair, witty, satirical conservative blogger and commentator” or something like that.
Now, if you fill the comments in his blog up with crude racist epithets, what do you think he will be described as next time he is on the radio? Perhaps they may one day use it as an excuse not to invite him back? And that would really suck.
Mouthing off might make people feel good (for ten minutes). But like I said - I reckon it’s very counter-productive.
Grimmy: “If there’s someone needing convincing, have at it. Not my job.”
That’s a genuine pity, Grimmy.
———————————————-
Sorry for the rant, guys, but this had been bugging me for a bit.
Now “have at me” as the current zeitgeist would have it. ;-)
#127, ekb87:
Personally, I dont find anything particularly offensive about what you said in that post. You make some good points, actually.
Where you begin to fail, in my opinion, is in your belief that we, as simple commenters, should even consider ever walking in any form of lock step. Also, in your assumption that everyone should work along the same route with the same methedology.
We are in a cultural war. Part of the cultural war is about “discussion” and part is about giving in to fear and weakness.
If you are concerned that me or other commenters are messing up your program in this cultural war, then start a blog and link back to and draw inspiration from those whom you respect.
Me? I’m gonna keep hitting folk between the eyes with sledge hammers and doing my best to help folk over the fear problems and try to counter the creeping weaknesses created by the cult of cowardice that’s held sway for the last few decades in our various societies.
I wouldnt do it otherwise, even if I could, so dont bother arguing the point at me. If you find what I say offensive enough, contact the site owner/moderator and get me banned. I dont say this to be snarky or pissy. I mean it seriously. If you feel I am enough of a detriment, do something about it. If anyone officially associated with the ownership/management of this site asks me to cease and desist or to tone it down, no problem. I can stop posting and just go back to enjoying the reading. But I am not capable of saying other than how I believe it to be.PS. The closest I remember getting to “racial ” names like raghead or towlhead is refusing to capitalize the words muslim islam or arab and the occasional mussie.
PPS. You may well find that pretty much everyone has already picked their side in this culture war and no amount of “reasoning” will win much ground.
Most of this internal strife is driven by different “info realities”. Some just do not have the mechanisms to process information and events in a functional manner.
“PS. The closest I remember getting to “racial ” names like raghead or
towlhead is refusing to capitalize the words muslim islam or arab and the
occasional mussie.”As I said, my comments were general. I was not specifically sugesting you
used those terms.“Where you begin to fail, in my opinion, is in your belief that we, as
simple commenters, should even consider ever walking in any form of lock
step. Also, in your assumption that everyone should work along the same
route with the same methedology.”“If you are concerned that me or other commenters are messing up your
program”“If you find what I say offensive enough, contact the site owner/moderator
and get me banned.”Grimmy, there is no “program”. There is no “lockstep”. I do not have the power nor the inclination to try and get anyone banned - and if I complained, I would be (correctly) ignored. I abhor censorship.
But I am suggesting people consider the consequences of their actions.
“Me? I’m gonna keep hitting folk between the eyes with sledge hammers”
“I wouldnt do it otherwise, even if I could, so dont bother arguing the point at me.”
“But I am not capable of saying other than how I believe it to be.”
“PPS. You may well find that pretty much everyone has already picked their
side in this culture war and no amount of “reasoning” will win much ground.”I can honestly say I’ve found the exact opposite. But you won’t ever find
that out, unless you put down the metaphorical “sledge hammers” you refer
to. You’ve already said that “you don’t do shades of grey”. That’s almost
certainly the explanation for while your “reasoning” apparently didn’t work.Why would your target be willing to be hear you out, and possibly be open to
persuasion, if you are openly, blatantly unwilling to reciprocate?If a lefty walked up to you and said “Hi, I’m here to hit you between the
eyes with a sledgehammer. My views are black and white. This is what I
think, so dont bother arguing the point with me. I am not capable of
anything else. So buddy, care to hear what my opinions on Topic X are?”I mean, honestly, would you even waste your time with such a lefty? I
suspect not.As I’m sure many others here have experienced, it’s already hard enough to have a sensible discussion about these topics without some moonbat screaming “racism!!” at the drop of a hat. I see no point in throwing unneccesary fuel on that particular fire.
We’re at a stage where our media won’t even stand up for rudimentary standards of free speech - a la the Danish Mo-toons, and the Pope-furore.
And if the only people campaigning for free speech talk like Klansmen, then that situation won’t improve.
It’s actually quite easy.
It works like this.I have no respect for anyone that’s still undecided and really dont give a shit about them.
I openly and unashamedly hate my enemy, anyone who supports my enemy, sides with my enemy, speaks in defense of my enemy and consider anyone who thinks they can get by sitting on a fence and not picking a side in this fight to be even lower than my enemy.
Anyone who “hasnt got it” by now is either too stupid, too lazy or too far gone into irrationality or lost to treason to be worthy of any consideration at any level.
Equivocation is nothing but the first step along the road to capitulation.
Now, like I said before, if those that own and manage this forum ask, I’ll voluntarily SFTU, no harm no foul.
If I’ve stepped on too many toes or hurt feelings or offended this forum then I’d expect to be banned.
Otherwise, I’m done yammering on this issue.
PS. Do not make the mistake of assuming that I’ve taken anything you’ve said as a personal slight or offensive in nature and I tell you now, nothing I’ve said on this issue was or is intended to slight you or offend.
From my limited perspective, we’re both on the same side of this fight, just going about it according to our own natures.
You know, I’ve been around a fair few blogs and opionion pages since January (always understood bloggers to be ego-tripping geeks before enlightened by a visit here), and I think I can comment that this is about the only place an exchange such as that directly above could take place in the manner it has.
I am pleased to be e-quaintences of you both.
(by the way, I used to get my mouth washed out with soap for the most innocuous of phrases; but never for singing “Whistle while you work, Hitler is a jerk, Mussolinni pulled his weenie, now it doesn’t work”—funny, that.)
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 10 14 at 09:33 PM • permalinkMentalFloss - cheers mate. :-)
Grimmy - yes, we are on the same side - but yes, we differ in the extreme on methods.
There’s an old-but-true cliche - “A conservative is a liberal who got mugged by reality.” As someone (along with dozens of others here who’ve admitted it, including the blog-owner) who’ve made that journey - well, I try to be that “mugger” for others.
It’s actually “a NeoCon is a liberal that got mugged by reality”.
I’m not really a NeoCon, and at best, barely conservative.
And, you might want to consider the fact that some of us went through different “education” routs than what might be viewed as common place to you.
The route I took, fall asleep on watch and you pay. Pay hard and sometimes pay permanently.
Allow some weak piece of dysfunction to stand next to you in “the line” and it could cost you most dearly.There are times and conditions where kindness, truly is weakness and weakness will be exploited.
We are at war with an enemy. You might understand that at a philosophical level, might understand it at an intellectual level. What you might fail to understand is that it is equivocation and weakness that has brought that war onto us and it is our continued equivocation and weakness that constantly feeds our enemy its motivation and gives it strength.
Something that I would prefer you understood but actually hope you never really have to come to terms with is that those who have not already decided to stand up, full front, and take their place in the line, are in fact, by default, also the enemy.
Funnily enough, I earlier wrote “Grimmy, you sound like you would make an awesome soldier, but you’d be a woeful political activist”. I deleted it at preview because I decided it was unnecessarily confrontational.
But it appears I was very close to the mark.
If your attitude helps you function and keeps you physically safer in the military situation you are apparently in, then by all means, go for it. Nobody expects you to be Winston Churchill when you have a more important, more dangerous, and more pressing duty to perform.
But in a civilian political context, I think you are talking a fair amount of nonsense. (That last paragraph of yours particularly.)
And, you might want to consider the fact that some of us went through different “education” routs than what might be viewed as common place to you.
Agreed. Which is perhaps why you might want to reconsider your apparent view that all those who disagree with you are “lazy”, “stupid”, “treasonous” and “dysfunctional”.
Many of them may have identical values and intelligence to you, they just haven’t been exposed to accurate information - which in this day and age of media self-censorshp and manipulation is not all their own fault.
A lot of people will eventually agree with you, Grimmy, as they mature and as they are become more aware of events around the world. Accusing them of “treason”, dismissing them as “the enemy”, and announcing that they are not “worthy of any consideration at any level” because they didn’t agree with you ‘now’, ‘Today’, ‘ALREADY’ (Eastern Standard Time!) is premature.
Which is perhaps why you might want to reconsider your apparent view that all those who disagree with you are “lazy”, “stupid”, “treasonous” and “dysfunctional”.
I dont hold any such views because people disagree with me. Hell, I often disagree with my self once I’ve had to ponder a bit more on what I have said, from time to time.
Those that fit within that view, from my perspective, are those that have proven themselves broken.
When it comes to such issues as loyalty to your own nation and culture during an actual shooting war, there’s no such thing as shades of grey. It’s absolutely binary. It is either all the way on or all the way off. There’s no such thing as “kinda” in that.
When it comes to someone being willing and able to assume the worst possible to be true about themselves and the people they come from, there’s no grey in that. They are broken. Unreliable and unrepairable.
There is a saying by some guy, you can look it up. It’s in the quote sites but I’m too tired atm to dig for it:
Treason doth never prosper, why? for when it does prosper, none dare call it treason.
This is where we are now. The act of defeatism, sedition, treason etc have become so trendy that no one really wants to face up to what it is anymore.
Now, here is the hard truth. You can argue against it but that means exactly squat. It is as solid as gravity.
We are being attacked and having to fight because we have demonstrated sufficient weakness over the last 3 full decades that we have convinced our enemy that we can be defeated.
That weakness comes directly from those who still, even after all that has happened, either fail to pay attention and take their place in the line or who have allowed themselves to become compromised by the grotesqueries of “philosophical thought” that are so popular this last 100 years.These are the baseline enemy we are besieged by and we still can not find the iron in our souls enough to be honest about it. It is these people that motivate our enemy by constantly allowing themselves to be played against the rest of us by the enemy.
You and I disagree on many thing but I do not consider you enemy. It’s not about “agreeing” or “disagreeing” its about whether or not a man has the basic functionality to understand honor, integrity and loyalty.
There’s no such thing as grey there.Grimmy - There’s no need to leave. That isn’t what I want. All I’m saying is that insulting people (and in particular racist language - by others, not yourself) will drive potential supporters away from a cause we both believe in (and in a local sense, away from this excellent blog).
Kilo - you’re a wanker. Texas Bob (whose post at #90 you are replying to) is as I understand it in the Green Zone in Baghdad. I’ll place a higher value on his view of the situation than yours anyday.
Grimmy again - yes, I appreciate the irony of my calls for not insulting language, and then me insulting Kilo. In my defense, I believe that Kilo is disingenuous troll who does not write in good faith! ;-)
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