OT Is anyone really surprised?

On Jan 14, 10:25 am, Bill C wrote:

Dude, I can make up death certificates.

Hmmm. So you're saying you can make up death certificates and spread
them across a country the size of Iraq so that some time in the future
they can be found by researchers who are doing a sampling survey?
Since the researchers only asked to see those death certificates after
a death had already been reported, you have to coach everyone in the
households you've planted those fake certificates in to remember the
details so they'll match.

Dude, if you can do that, then you're obviously out of my league.
OTOH, if you can't do that then I'd think you're just tossing up knee-
jerk objections to muddy the water. Which is exactly what the wingnuts
want you to do.

On Jan 14, 1:52*pm, "Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote:
"Bill C" wrote in message

...



And when we pull everyone, for all practical purposes, out like we did
in SE Asia who's gonna put a damper on the sectarian war we allowed to
get started, and enabled?

Enabled? Why is it that you don't seem to notice that the implication here
is that all of the Iraqis were MUCH better off under Hussein.

Tom we blew the post war planning brutally, even the administration is
starting to admit it. Tons of military folks, who were, and are good,
could see that coming just based on the troop levels Cheney insisted
on, just for a start.
Our military does it's real job better than anyone in the world, for
the most part. It's the politcal BS, and the brutal misapplication of
the military that keeps getting us smack into the middle of disasters
with no good way out. Saddam, over time slaughtered many more people
than the Serbs did in Bosnia, but Clinton wanted that war, so they
still support that, despite the fact that there was far less reason
for it, from a humanitarian point. We're still stuck there, and it
looks like it could boil over again. I don't here any complaints about
endless missions, except from military folks.
Saddam was grandstanding to try and regain "face" in his world, Bush
was spoiling for a war, the UN is next to useless, or worse, The
administration seriously cooked/cherry-picked the intel and sold it to
even the left/center Democrats. Tons of players wanted a war on Saddam
so they invented one, just like the Spanish American war.
Now we're all paying for it. We shouldn't have gone to Bosnia, we
shouldn't have gone to Iraq the second time based on what we know now,
and if we do fight Iran it should be on the Bosnian plan with little
to no boots on the ground, but with the exploding nuclear
proliferation, ands the UN being corrupt and useless we can't fight
everyone, everywhere, so we should just go back to making it clear
that if you hit us, we will crush you, and leave it at that, with no
cleanup afterwards either.
None of these folks have the power to seriously threaten the US,
except the Russians and Chinese and they aren't suicidal.
Even a nuke, or dirty bomb in LA or NYC doesn't seriously damage the
US ability to survive. 9-11, historically was a bloody nose, nothing
more.
We are in way too many places for way too small reasons, and the
results just aren't there. Time to bring most of the folks home,
except from our latest disaster, and we'll be abandoning them shortly
unless McCain wins.
Bill C

On Jan 14, 2:15*pm, wrote:
On Jan 14, 10:25 am, Bill C wrote:

Dude, I can make up death certificates.

Hmmm. So you're saying you can make up death certificates and spread
them across a country the size of Iraq so that some time in the future
they can be found by researchers who are doing a sampling survey?
Since the researchers only asked to see those death certificates after
a death had already been reported, you have to coach everyone in the
households you've planted those fake certificates in to remember the
details so they'll match.

Dude, if you can do that, then you're obviously out of my league.
OTOH, if you can't do that then I'd think you're just tossing up knee-
jerk objections to muddy the water. Which is exactly what the wingnuts
want you to do.

Robert, say three people are killed in an attack. The family is told
to call it ten to use as propaganda against the people who did it.
Then they fill out the forms.
Casualty figures have been brutally manipulated in every war there
has been, both up and down, eventually, decades later we might get a
better handle on what really happened, but not immediately or during.
Talk to some historians about the validity, and accuracy of reporting
"history" as it is happening, or has just happened.
There's always tons of stuff that is found to be incomplete/
inaccurate.
What's so hard about coaching a family to say there were 10 people
killed when the investigators want to believe that?
Have you been following the trial with France network2 on the Al-Dura
footage? **** is faked, by what are supposedly reliable sources all
the time, by all sides.
You only seem to think that things are faked and spun by the right.
You're not stupid, so that's dishonest, or you're brainwashed.
Bill C
Bill C

Kurgan Gringioni wrote:
If the sons and daughters of Congresspeople/Presidents are getting sent
off to war too, perhaps they'll be more circumspect in engaging in various
conflicts around the globe.

Some presidents fathers were rich enough to get them off
in the past.

On Jan 14, 11:35 am, Bill C wrote:
On Jan 14, 2:15 pm, wrote:



On Jan 14, 10:25 am, Bill C wrote:

Dude, I can make up death certificates.

Hmmm. So you're saying you can make up death certificates and spread
them across a country the size of Iraq so that some time in the future
they can be found by researchers who are doing a sampling survey?
Since the researchers only asked to see those death certificates after
a death had already been reported, you have to coach everyone in the
households you've planted those fake certificates in to remember the
details so they'll match.

Dude, if you can do that, then you're obviously out of my league.
OTOH, if you can't do that then I'd think you're just tossing up knee-
jerk objections to muddy the water. Which is exactly what the wingnuts
want you to do.

Robert, say three people are killed in an attack. The family is told
to call it ten to use as propaganda against the people who did it.
Then they fill out the forms.
Casualty figures have been brutally manipulated in every war there
has been, both up and down, eventually, decades later we might get a
better handle on what really happened, but not immediately or during.
Talk to some historians about the validity, and accuracy of reporting
"history" as it is happening, or has just happened.
There's always tons of stuff that is found to be incomplete/
inaccurate.
What's so hard about coaching a family to say there were 10 people
killed when the investigators want to believe that?
Have you been following the trial with France network2 on the Al-Dura
footage? **** is faked, by what are supposedly reliable sources all
the time, by all sides.
You only seem to think that things are faked and spun by the right.
You're not stupid, so that's dishonest, or you're brainwashed.
Bill C

Pinhead, listen up. The households are chosen randomly across the
entire country. You don't know which households are going to get
sampled sometime in the future. That means you'd have to have spread
out millions of fake death certificates so that only hundreds of them
would be found. Plus, standard mortality survey practice doesn't
require that interviewers ask to see death certificates so you would
have had to have anticipated a low probability event years in advance.
See the problem yet? Here's a hint: it's you.

On Jan 14, 2:23*pm, Bill C wrote:

Just as an add on Bush is STILL at it.:

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/106391.html


Newsweek: Bush 'disowned' NIE to Olmert

Published: 01/14/2008


President Bush reportedly "all but disowned" the recent National
Intelligence Estimate in private talks with Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert.


A little more there. Should be a good read coming up.
Bill C

On Jan 14, 2:45*pm, wrote:


Pinhead, listen up. The households are chosen randomly across the
entire country. You don't know which households are going to get
sampled sometime in the future. That means you'd have to have spread
out millions of fake death certificates so that only hundreds of them
would be found. Plus, standard mortality survey practice doesn't
require that interviewers ask to see death certificates so you would
have had to have anticipated a low probability event years in advance.
See the problem yet? Here's a hint: it's you.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You've at least made enough of a case for me to go do some more
research into this. Can you deny the points I've made in regards to
casualty figures, propaganda, coercion, manipulation, etc...?
I don't think you can honestly because we, and the Vietnamese BOTH
did it in Vietnam, so did the French when they were there.
I'm willing to admit that you might be right here, and Fox once again
wrong, but you believe that who's paying for a study, and the results
they want are totally insulated from those results of the study? I
don't for the most part.
I'll also have to look more into the multiple survey results
correlating. If they correlate as well as you say that's significant.
I also have no idea why this wouldn't be coming out from the study
folks and reported in places that lean left like the Guardian.
Personally, the exact number killed doesn't mean ****, as others have
pointed out. The propaganda uses of that DO matter. Before you get
things in a bunch, proven facts can be used for propaganda too.
What do you question coming from the left?
Bill C

On Jan 14, 12:00 pm, Bill C wrote:

You've at least made enough of a case for me to go do some more
research into this.

Fair enough. Thanks.

Can you deny the points I've made in regards to
casualty figures, propaganda, coercion, manipulation, etc...?

Nope. However, I think that casualty figures counted contemporaneously
by combatants are a different thing than casualty figures counted
retrospectively by household surveys.

but you believe that who's paying for a study, and the results
they want are totally insulated from those results of the study? I
don't for the most part.

Depends on how tight the link is. Tom and Greg pay for my work but the
link is pretty insulated. That the Burnham study was commissioned and
underway before the Open Society Institute gave some money to MIT for
public education efforts suggests that link wasn't terribly direct,
either.

I'll also have to look more into the multiple survey results
correlating. If they correlate as well as you say that's significant.
I also have no idea why this wouldn't be coming out from the study
folks and reported in places that lean left like the Guardian.

Because it takes someone who knows what they're doing to realize this.
Most journalists don't know how to deal with the arcana of demographic
estimation and survey sampling. Hell, most demographers don't,
either.

What do you question coming from the left?

Ergomo power estimates come from the left.

In article

egroups.com,
wrote:

Depends on how tight the link is. Tom and Greg pay for my work but the
link is pretty insulated. That the Burnham study was commissioned and
underway before the Open Society Institute gave some money to MIT for
public education efforts suggests that link wasn't terribly direct,
either.

It does not matter when they gave the money. They
paid for the study. Heck, maybe they waited to see if
it shaped up to be what they wanted, and would not
have paid for otherwise. You seem to have sufficient
expertise to assess studies for accuracy. I do not. I
pay attention to what `conclusions' I am supposed to
draw from numbers that somebody paid for and pays to
have widely disseminated.

--
Michael Press

On Jan 14, 3:25 pm, Michael Press wrote:
In article

egroups.com,

wrote:
Depends on how tight the link is. Tom and Greg pay for my work but the
link is pretty insulated. That the Burnham study was commissioned and
underway before the Open Society Institute gave some money to MIT for
public education efforts suggests that link wasn't terribly direct,
either.

It does not matter when they gave the money. They
paid for the study. Heck, maybe they waited to see if
it shaped up to be what they wanted, and would not
have paid for otherwise. You seem to have sufficient
expertise to assess studies for accuracy. I do not. I
pay attention to what `conclusions' I am supposed to
draw from numbers that somebody paid for and pays to
have widely disseminated.

The Open Society Institute did not pay for the study. MIT paid for the
study. The OSI donated money to MIT for public education purposes.