Verbosities

A long read, but worthwhile.

informationliberation - Iraq Body Count: “A Very Misleading Exercise”

Two questions arise: Why is it important for IBC — providing an "irrefutable baseline" based on data collection — to challenge the methodology and conclusions of epidemiological studies published in the Lancet which go far beyond data collection and which do not in any way challenge their baseline as a “cautious minimum”?

Secondly, while IBC's self-described task does indeed require only "care and literacy", does not the task of challenging peer-reviewed science published by some of the world's leading epidemiologists require very much more? Does it not, in fact "require statistical analysis or extrapolations," and much else besides? Despite IBC's claims, nowhere in their discussion do they deal with the problem that journalistic reporting of violent deaths can decrease as violence increases, particularly when that includes violence against journalists, as is very much the case in Iraq.

[snip]

More to the point, as data collectors, IBC are not in a position to comment authoritatively on the impact of violence on the capacity of journalists to report accurately from Iraq. As data collectors, they have no more insight, no deeper understanding, than anyone else.

The reasonable response to the question of political impacts on their database is not for IBC to authoritatively suggest that they "have dealt with" the problem of lack of journalistic coverage — to conclusively declare: "The death toll could be twice our number, but it could not possibly be 10 times higher" — but to openly acknowledge that their task is limited to the monitoring of media reports.

For leading mainstream journalists, and for IBC themselves, to present IBC as an informed and credible source on political realities on the ground in Iraq is highly inappropriate.

[via Information Liberation]

The Corner on National Review Online

The new poor [Mark Steyn]

Over the weekend, I posted a couple of things re Graeme Frost, the Democratic Party's 12-year old healthcare spokesman. Michelle Malkin reports that the blogospheric lefties are all steamed about the wingnuts' Swiftboating of sick kids, etc.

Sorry, no sale. The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man's job, then the boy is fair game. As it is, the Dems do enough cynical and opportunist hiding behind biography and identity, and it's incredibly tedious. And anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you're welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended and, as happened with Master Frost, politics dwindles down to professional staffers writing scripts to be mouthed by Equity moppets.

But one thing is clear by now: Whatever the truth about this boy's private school, his family home, his father's commercial property, etc, the Frosts are a very particular situation and do not illustrate any social generality - and certainly not one that makes the case for an expensive expansive all-but universal entitlement.

A more basic point is made very robustly by Kathy Shaidle: Advanced western democracies have delivered the most prosperous societies in human history. There simply are no longer genuinely "poor" people in sufficient numbers. As Miss Shaidle points out, if you're poor today, it's almost always for behavioral reasons

Shorter Steyn: I'll kick a second-grader in the shins if I want to, especially if it makes the Democrats look bad. Oh, and our prosperous free market society doesn't really have an underclass of poor people. That's all a construct of the antiwealthofaggofascist Left. If you aren't making the choice to cover your kid with health insurance, that's your choice, and that's what makes America great.

Even Shorter Steyn: If you're poor, you deserve whatever you have coming to you.

Christ, what an asshole.

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Instapundit.com -

IMPORTANT ADVICE FOR THE POLITICALLY DISAFFECTED:

The people who came to the United States to bomb the World Trade Center were wrong. . . . How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny. How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes.

I say to you, all of you, . . . there is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government. There is nothing heroic about turning your back on America, or ignoring your own responsibilities.

Read the whole, er, thing.

Ah... the double-reverse B-B-B-B-B-But Clinton! argument. See, what Professor Reynolds is trying to do here is point out the irony that EVEN THE ATHEIST JESUS BILL CLINTON once said (in a speech in 1995) that hating your country is unpatriotic.

Of course, you should note that even though he encourages reading the "whole, er, thing," he's using ellipses to cut out some pertinent details.

Like, for instance, that those of us who disagree with the handling of the Great Global War On Terror And Brown People Who Want To Kill Us And Put Our Women In Burkas believe that the terror problem can't be solved with a broad war against a non-state sponsor of terror who didn't attack us first. Actually, we think it's a law enforcement problem. Here, then, is a quote from in between what the Professor jumped over with the dot-dot-dot:

(W)e must respond to this threat in ways that preserve both our security and our freedoms. Appeasement of organized evil is not an option for the next century any more than it was in this century. Like the vigilant generations that brought us victory in World War II and the Cold War, we must stand our ground. In this high-tech world, we must make sure that we have the high-tech tools to confront the high-tech forces of destruction and evil.

That is why I have insisted that Congress pass strong anti-terrorism legislation immediately -- to provide for more than 1,000 new law enforcement personnel solely to fight terrorism; to create a domestic anti-terrorism center; to make available the most up-to-date technology to trace the source of any bomb that goes off; and to provide tough new punishment for carrying stolen explosives, selling those explosives for use in a violent crime, and for attacking members of the uniformed services or federal workers.

Funny, I don't see the words "Saddam" or "Iraq" in there anywhere.

He also adds, "We can do this without undermining our constitutional rights," which is another one of the atheoliberalappeasosympathetofascist arguments against this administration. That being said, Clinton was being very specific about the people who he accused of pretending to love America. Again, from somewhere inside the ellipses:

I want to say this to the militias and to others who believe this, to those nearby and those far away: I am well aware that most of you have never violated the law of the land. I welcome the comments that some of you have made recently condemning the bombing in Oklahoma City. I believe you have every right, indeed you have the responsibility, to question our government when you disagree with its policies. And I will do everything in my power to protect your right to do so.

But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy. I know from painful personal experience as a governor of a state who lived through the cold-blooded killing of a young sheriff and a young African American state trooper who were friends of mine by people who espouse the view that the government was the biggest problem in America and that peopole had a right to take violence into their own hands.

So I ask you to hear me now. It is one thing to believe that the federal government has too much power and to work within the law to reduce it. It is quite another to break the law of the land and threaten to shoot officers of the law if all they do is their duty to uphold it.

It is one thing to believe we are taxed too much and work to reduce the tax burden. It is quite another to refuse to pay your taxes, though your neighbor pays his. It is one thing to believe we are over-regulated and to work to lessen the burden of regulation. It is quite another to slander our dedicated public servants, our brave police officers, even our rescue workers who have been called a hostile army of occupation.

This is a very free country. Those of you in the militia movements have broader rights here than you would in any other country in the entire world. (Applause.)

Do people who work for the government sometimes make mistakes? Of course they do. They are human. Almost every American has some experience with this -- a rude tax collector, an arbitrary regulator, an insensitive social worker, an abusive law officer. As long as human beings make up our government there will be mistakes. But our Constitution was established by Americans determined to limit those abuses. And think of the limits -- the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, access to the courts, the right to take your case to the country through the media, and the right to vote people in or out of office on a regular basis.

But there is no right to resort to violence when you don't get your way. There is no right to kill people. (Applause.) There is no right to kill people who are doing their duty, or minding their own business, or children who are innocent in every way. Those are the people who perished in Oklahoma City. And those who claim such rights are wrong and un-American. (Applause.)

Note the key here is that Clinton said that he respects those who would criticize the government and work within the construct of society to make change. Again, one of those little complaints we rebels have against the Bush administration. However, there's a salient point here which I think the Professor is missing:

LEFTIES AREN'T CREATING MILITIAS AND KILLING LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL OR GOVERNMENT AGENTS ATTEMPTING TO CARRY OUT THE GOVERNMENT'S POLICY.

It's quite a leap for the Professor to make, scoffing at the supposed irony between what the Great Liberal Jesus Clinton says and what his flock supposedly does. But it's obviously lost on those that continue to blindly follow Captain 28% over the cliff that verbal opposition is about loving your country.

Clinton said, "Freedom of political speech will never justify violence--never."

Show me where the liberaldefeatocratfrancosurrendermonkeyKosfascists have gotten remotely close to violence in order to advocate their opposition to this administration.

The only irony here is the irony of what the Professor is missing. Clinton was correct in his opposition to terror, and he had what those of us who sit in opposition to this administration feel were sensible policies to combat it.

Frankly, I'd like to thank the Professor for highlighting what an utterly reasonable and thoroughly supportable approach to handling terror - both foreign and domestic - would look like.

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Power Line - Busted!

A Freeper took the trouble to investigate the 12-year-old who gave the Democrats' weekly radio address last week, and whose family ostensibly is too poor to pay for medical insurance, and therefore wants to use your money instead. The results are hilarious. Mark Steyn has more here.

Why is it that the chance of any mainstream media reporter doing easy internet research to check the accuracy of the Democrats' story, as this Freeper did, is exactly zero?

This means what, exactly?

That only Democrats use "central casting" to find people willing to advertise their ideology? Like when the Democrats said Jessica Lynch held off a terrorist battalion with something like a pocket knife and her MacGyver-esque West Virginia wits before being captured and tortured, then rescued on TV?

That somehow this proves that poor kids don't want or need "socialized medicine?"

That vetoing SCHIP was the President's way of telling Pelosi she should pick a new spokeskid and be more authentic next time?

I bet that little fucking thirdgradofrancoliberalfascist eats baguettes and wants our troops to lose! Someone get the truth on this kid! I want to have evidence of bedwetting by Tuesday morning!

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