Its fun to make shit up
 

Contra, every daily newspaper in January.

Yeh, there was a lull during the period prior to the US elections. Hmmmm. Wonder why.

Cite, please.

Its fun to make shit up
 

Yeah, that's sorta my point. Ya' know?

(Still looking for the cite.)

This is what a mandate looks like
 

Weird poll. Same poll gave us this result:

"Ahead of Bush's inauguration on Thursday, six in 10 people said they feel hopeful about his second term and 47 percent said they were worried. Most said they were neither angry nor excited about his final four years in office.

. . . .

Public perceptions of the president's personal strengths are his biggest asset today.

Almost two-thirds of those polled described Bush as likable, strong and intelligent. A majority said he is dependable and honest."

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...s/10660888.htm

Its fun to make shit up
 

Do you mean this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Jan6.html

Its fun to make shit up
 

52. Not Guilty


A crate containing coconuts is wrapped in an old Honolulu newspaper that read that one of the Castaways are being sought in a murder investigation. The castaways become suspicious of each other and decide to recreate the events of the night before they sailed, in order to solve the Randolph Blake murder case.


b: 06-Jan-1966 w: Roland MacLane d: Stanley Z. Cherry


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Its fun to make shit up
 

No, I read an analysis last night - somewhere - that compared deaths in Iraq attributed to the insurgency - on all sides - and compared the same time frame to Chicago murder deaths.

Its fun to make shit up
 

I'd be interested in the time frame, and knowing if the rate in Chicago at that time was representative of the rate in Chicago as a whole. If the time frame seems objectively reasonable as applied to Iraq (only counting deaths after some major event) then presumably it makes sense, but if there was a time period during which deaths were high in Chicago (e.g., a couple of weeks of gang clashes that resulted in an unusually high rate of deaths) then it'd be too easy to fuck with the time periods.

Again, though, there's a difference to me between deaths from regular criminal activity, and deaths intended to influence the social structure. Note that many gang-type deaths I would classify as the latter. Also, I'm not saying that I don't think Iraq is ready for elections. I just am sceptical of this comparison you speak of really being apples/apples, particularly since you are comparing an entire country to a major urban area. I would think the death rates in Baghdad/Falluja would be higher than in Iraq as a whole, just as Chicago's rates are higher than IL as a whole, or than the US as a whole.

This is what a mandate looks like
 

What percentage of these respondents stopped reading after "strong"?

Its fun to make shit up
 

All valid points (and I wish I could find the damn article now) - but the apples-to-oranges thing makes it all too complex - the only point I was going for was that the story of horrible continual killings that we seem to be getting is sort of belied by this comparison, bad period in Chicago or not.

Its fun to make shit up
 

I agree to the extent that killings in Iraq are presented as bad purely because people die, and not because they are being killed for political intimidation purposes.

Anyway, lies, damn lies, statistics; I think I'm going to go get a doughnut or dozen.

Its fun to make shit up
 

Let's compare it to murders last year in Skidmore, Missouri. The Murder rate there was approximately 3,000 in 100,000, which would result in 750,000 dead if Iraq had the same murder rate.

So, obviously, Iraq is safer than Skidmore, Missouri.

What may be more useful to note, since the Bush administration has a policy of not publishing any information on civilian deaths in Iraq, is that there was a lull in US activity prior to the US elections, and that certainly resulted in few deaths of US troops and appears to have resulted, in October and November, in fewer deaths among Iraqi civilians. The cost of that lull was leaving Falluja and other areas under the control of the insurgents. The surge in both US military and Iraqi civilian deaths that began with the US/Iraqi government offensive following the November election has continued during the current offensive being mounted by the insurgents, which should not surprise anyone.

Now, whether we can get these levels down after the election while keeping an elected government is control is the important question.

Ukraine
 

Because I got yelled at by a Ukrainian a few weeks ago: "Ukraine," not "the Ukraine."

The Soviets tacked "the" in front of Ukraine to linguisticly foster the notion that it was a mere territory or region of the soviet union. Ukraine is the name of the sovereign nation.

Ukraine
 

I got yelled at sort of similarly once (and obviously forgot about it) - and then someone (russian) came to my defense, and pointed out that "Ukraine" means "border", and is simply what the old russians started calling their out-in-the-boonies breadbasket area. So, it's all cute for the Uke's to be nationalistically prideful and all, but they're really only dropping one small part ("The") of the fairly demeaning overall name.

It's kind of like, "the rooskies always called us "The Boonies", but we control our OWN destiny now, and so we're changing our name to "Boonies"! Yay, us!"

Its fun to make shit up
 

Big difference. There are no WMD's in Skidmore.

Its fun to make shit up
 

And the majority of murder victims in Chicago are not politicians, clerics, and policemen.