> > > The survey was conducted by John Hopkins and published > > > in the Lancet. I wonder why an American study > > > wouldn't be published in an American publication? > > > Maybe because no one would publish this garbage? > > > >Admittedly, I'm not going to run off and spend time to make sure you > >don't have a thread to hang onto. I have been following the subject of > ... > >What this "new information" you have tells me is that two (2) > >respectable institutions were involved in publishing that report, not
> >just one. This makes the report all the more trustworthy. > ... > > Bill, I know you're very frustrated with the war in Iraq. > But, for your own sake, don't let that completely blind your reasoning. > Usually, the best way to win others over to your way of thinking is to show you're > rational. What you said above hurts that case. For one, you seem to imply > you have no interest in examining a critique of a report you "believe". > Next, you imply you have a 'blind trust' in the 'two (s) respectable > institutions'. This makes you sound unreasonable IMO. Point taken, but I read - and think/reflect - a lot more then I've mentioned, even including periodic 'dips' into, say, WSJ editorials. I just don't have the time to catalog and then report on it all, i.e. write tomes. I'm already in trouble with work and money partially because this situation has taken more time and attention then I had to give it. > The site Michael mentioned (below), does a good job explaining the > weaknesses of the study (unfortunately, I think it also > whines too much about "Liberal" media - but you can easily skim past that): > > http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/10/13/054042.php > > There is no registration required, and it's not very long. It > should only take you 5-10 minutes to read. If you read it, you might be > able to see something that better supports your original document. Or, > you may see problems with the original report. I read it - and have seen similar critiques. Okay, to better explain my POV, I'm thinking casualties of war and the sheer magnitude of the big picture. Not just the count of dead but the overall impact of the casualties of it all. It's arguable that the dead are better off then the maimed, whose number are some multiplier above the dead. And then, beyond the count of dead and maimed is the impact of malnutrition and disease. The point I have no doubt about is that the big picture of casualties we've caused has been grossly under-reported. So, I feel that if the 650,000 number is high, the disparity is well compensated for by the number of casualties in the other categories, i.e. the total is epic in proportion, and not the low numbers (30,000) we've been led to believe. BTW, here's an example of my not trusting the sources that produced that number, such as the Iraq body count website. > In any event, this episode should be a reminder to all of us that the > Internet and information therein cannot be blindly trusted. > No matter what the source is. If you're really after the truth, you need to > latch on to articles that provide exhaustive, detailed, sources of data. > Anything other than that should only be viewed as 'opinion' and potentially > flawed and false (perhaps intentionally, perhaps not). For me, even before the > critiques about the Lancet report responded, I had doubts about the > methodology. Surveys are not reliable in 'counting' type > analysis, they are for 'feeling' or 'impression' type analysis (as a general rule). > > I don't recall if I posted this before, but here is another > example of deliberately spreading false information (not necessarily on > the Internet). It would be a good idea to listen to this: > > http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp > This is not a one-sided thing. Conservative web sites/press > can do the same distortion as Liberal ones. So the same standard of > skepticism should be applied to any site. Bill, I think you had hopes of the > Internet becoming a "good" information feed to people. I'm afraid that is > impossible - the Web pretty much reflects the personality of the people feeding > it. And, by far, that means the information is definitely biased. I don't > think we'll be able to change that unless some incredibly harsh penalties > and regulatory restrictions are put in place on Internet content. And I > don't think most people would want that. So, in the meantime, you gotta look > at the stuff you read on the Web as essentially 'unsubstantiated' until > you yourself trace down the facts. If the website doesn't give you enough > info to do that, you may as well put it under the "opinion" category as > opposed to "fact" category. This goes right to the genesis of my working career and also my pet project at Prodigy. My first customer, in 1972, was a magazine publisher, which got me involved with subscription mgmt, then small town newspapers, and even USPS certifications. From this standpoint, and curiosity, I learned something about the power of the press and it's role in our society. But the more I learned, the less I liked it. Fair to say it's the other stymieing point about my business today: that I want to bust up the very businesses who I've written software for. Saving grace is that the mechanics are absorbing, so I don't have to think about that contradiction all the time. Anyway, the on-line world is like the free-for-all Wild West, and people do see that. From here it can get better by development of a new breed of editors, or it can get worse by "controls" designed to tame it - but whose real purpose would be to keep the power where it is. We must encourage the editors-approach and fight the controls-approach. Having said that, the omnipresent human-condition nature of the 'opposites' means there will never be one right way and one wrong way, but contrast and balance - the very thing I think you're saying. Well and good, and be that as it may, there still remains the context, the framework in which all this happens. We can encourage freedom, and mistakes, and build despite the mistakes, or we can succumb to those who tell us that we have freedom - while they chip away at it. We don't like monopolies, hegemonies, Big Gov't, Big Military, Big Media - while at the same time allowing them to get bigger and more powerful. We're not too far from the point where we're going to look up and realize we don't have freedom anymore - that we gave it up for protection. And all of this is being ushered in by those at the helm of our "trusted" information supply. I'm saying bust it up - that we're far better off by taking our chances with the Wild West Internet and the natural forces that will shape it. Take commondreams, an example of what I call a new breed of editors. The guy who runs that site, in Maine, picks and chooses articles from a variety of sources around the world and re-prints them. Now suppose he had a private agenda that he intended to further by putting up stories that are lies, distortions and half-truths. Don't you think that at some point down the road people would start to realize that's what he's doing? Of course. This is why I jumped ship on the WSJ, and I'd sure as heck do the same with him. > Wading through the junk on the Web to get to the truth is extremely > difficult. Even the article that critiques the Lancet survey > is missing supporting references for its data (e.g. the percentage of the Iraq > population that lives in rural/small town areas). Maybe that > listed in the Lancet report - but if it wasn't, this article should have provided a > reference to where he got the percentages from. This is where I would be critical of new information sources, including commondreams. I think they do have a responsibility to show the pros/cons of issues, including links to competing points of view. But I also think this is the natural progression and that people will 'vote with their feet' towards information sources arranged this way versus those who stick with the one-side-or-the-other model. > In any event, as the Bible says, there's nothing new under > the sun. The Internet has just provided a different vehicle of what we've > always had. Or, to update a quote from Mark Twain, "If you don't read the > newspaper (watch TV news, read the Internet), you are uninformed; if > you do read the newspaper (watch TV news, read the Internet), you are misinformed." I believe the Internet gives us the potential to solve this problem, but that we must go forward with it in the spirit of freedom, not controls, because for the long run people will naturally go towards the light, not the darkness. This is a bet on the positive side of human nature, but if we can't make this bet then we might as well bomb away. Bill > -Charlie _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
