People, read my flipping link. You’re making this way too complicated. The person who composed this email is comparing monthly deaths in Iraq with yearly deaths in Washington at the peak - 482 in 1991. That’s 482 for 600,000 people in one year as opposed to about 1600 a year for 160,000 people. It’s that simple.
I’m guessing that about 1% of the people who get this e-mail will actually put some thought and/or research into it and conclude that it is bullshit.
The other 99% will shake their heads and say, “Stupid liberals! Why do they hate America so much?” They will forward the e-mail to everyone in their address book, leaving at least six generations of headers intact. They will then do likewise with their next e-mail, which is the video of the monkey pissing in his own mouth.
DoctorJ, my father is one of those 99%. He is a Bush-loving, Cheney-embracing (literally, as in actually gave the guy a hug), Republican and he sent me this email a year ago. Despite my best attempts to point out it was full of BS, he insisted that these “statistics” proved that living in Iraq was no more dangerous than living in a typical American city, and that we were all being fed disinformation by the liberal media about the war. :rolleyes:
Since then, I’ve found it hard to believe that his seed concieved me. I’m either adopted or mom got it on with the mailman.
What?
Am I missing something here?
2,112 deaths * (100,000 / 160,000) = 1,320 deaths per 100,000 soldiers. It is not equal to 60 deaths per 100,000 soldiers. Unless the Faux News crowd has decided that we need to replace basic math with Intelligent Arithmetic.
Looks like they divided 1320 (death rate per 100K soldiers) by 22 (months) to get the per-month death rate per 100,000 soldiers.
Which, as everybody and her sister have pointed out already, they then compare with the per-year D.C. murder rate.
There are more ways to die in Iraq than at the hands of a firearm. IEDs account for 1/3rd of American deaths.
I think you guys have rejected this proposal too quickly, simply because there was no logic involved in the argument. Okay, perhaps the statistics are rigged. Okay, perhaps the conclusion does not follow from the premise.
But, come on! Pulling out of Washington might still be a good idea. Especially if it was adopted in large numbers by the people who put forth this kind of drivel. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water.
Tris
So what you’re saying is, the “other dollar” is actually in Baghdad. Now it makes sense.