Thank you, America!

[yesman065]

Originally Posted by tw

Yesman065 has disparaged American soldiers and still will not apologize for his naive fubar. (incorrect) If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck .... So classic of those who know only because Limbaugh told them it is so. So classic of those who blindly support a lying president and who always know without even grasping (or posting) supporting facts, reasons, and the numbers. This is the reason for "Mission Accomplished" and a latest contemptible spin - 'stay the course' also called 'go long'.

There you go again - quoting your buddy Rush again and making accusations. I don't, nor have I ever listened to Rush, but if he is the Anti-tw then I think I'll start. Anything is better than your bullshit. You think you know it all and the reality is that you don't know shit. Just what your sources or friends(if you have any) tell you to think. Ya know, your useless banter was almost entertaining at first, but now you are just a tiresome bore.

Originally Posted by tw

Notice the latest Yesman065 reply. Deny and accuse. Deny and accuse. (incorrect) Yesman065 still does not post an apology for justifying American troop deaths using highway statistics. (incorrect) Deny and accuse without facts and numbers. (incorrect) That brown shirt tactic is also a characteristic of Limbaugh logic. Even Limbaugh would backhand apologize for his attacks on Michael J Fox. Yesman065 still will not post an apology to America and the troops ... because is walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

Your grammar needs help too - you should pay more attention to it.

No denial nor apology needed - especially to you. I thought this was a worthwhile thread to exchange ideas, philosophical thoughts and opinions. A place where those with differing points of view could maturely discuss and debate them. It actually was - till you started posting tw. You and your "I am RIGHT-eous and you are wrong" attitude. There are a lot of descriptive phrases for people like you - one of which is "threadkiller" and another of which is pompous ass. Then again, I am sure that you've heard the latter in some form many times already.

[Shocker]

Originally Posted by yesman065

There you go again - quoting your buddy Rush again and making accusations. I don't, nor have I ever listened to Rush, but if he is the Anti-tw then I think I'll start. Anything is better than your bullshit. You think you know it all and the reality is that you don't know shit. Just what your sources or friends(if you have any) tell you to think. Ya know, your useless banter was almost entertaining at first, but now you are just a tiresome bore.

If you look through most of tw's posts, you will find that if nothing else, he is consistent. I mean, look at how many times he recycles the same arguement to fit whatever position he is taking. I think his favorite thing is to try and label people as operatives of Rush Limbaugh, even done it to me (though I work all day, couldn't possibly catch his show if I wanted). But not only does he recycle his arguements, he also likes to throw things around that don't logically flow with the thread to begin with. For the most part, I've learned to take anything tw say's with lots of salt, and I know that trying to challenge him with any sort of fact and he will just start to attack you personally as if you are just the stupidest p.o.s. to ever walk the earth. You can't change his mind, and you can't dispute his 'facts'. It is an excersize in futility. In over 3700 posts, find one tw changed his mind in or submitted that someone else knew more than him in any capacity.

*edit* and yes, I realize that by posting this I have no doubt incurred the wrath of tw. Check back soon to see his rebuttal!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Wrath? Oooowww, can I have some too?

Yesman, I understood your point. And yes, even with Dana's numbers, the dead in Iraq aren't humongous in the grand scheme of the Universe. Nor do they surpass the million(s) of deaths Saddam caused, directly and indirectly.

That said, my position is we have no business being there, so we shouldn't be causing any deaths at all.
We shouldn't be wasting our resources, including soldiers, international good will and our grandchildren's wealth, in the middle east.

[Undertoad]

Peer review says the second Lancet study is bogus as hell and probably even fraud

This is the first time I've mentioned the second Lancet study.

I thought it was very obviously bullshit, but it's good to see the status of the Emperor's clothes is finally covered in major media.

I pat myself on the back, as they ask the same question I did on day one.

Dr Garfield also queries the high availability of death certificates. Why, he asks, did the team not simply approach whoever was issuing them to estimate mortality, instead of sending interviewers into a war zone?

This was the point that stuck hard in my craw. If civil society has not declined to the point where bodies are not buried and death certificates not signed, that is one thing. But it never did. But the study specifically asked for death certificates as proof. If there are certificates, there is somebody official printing and signing them. Why not just go to that source and ask how many? Did it take ten toner cartridges or only one?

Another critic is Dr Madelyn Hsaio-Rei Hicks, of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, who specialises in surveying communities in conflict. In her letter to The Lancet, she pointed out that it was unfeasible for the Iraqi interviewing team to have covered 40 households in a day, as claimed. She wrote: "Assuming continuous interviewing for ten hours despite 55C heat, this allows 15 minutes per interview, including walking between households, obtaining informed consent and death certificates."


Does she think the interviews were done at all? Dr Hicks responds: "I'm sure some interviews have been done but until they can prove it I don’t see how they could have done the study in the way they describe."


Professor Burnham says the doctors worked in pairs and that interviews "took about 20 minutes". The journal Nature, however, alleged last week that one of the Iraqi interviewers contradicts this. Dr Hicks says: : "I have started to suspect that they [the American researchers] don’t actually know what the interviewing team did. The fact that they can't rattle off basic information suggests they either don’t know or they don’t care."

The first Lancet study was released a week before the 2004 elections. It didn't rattle very hard until after the election. The second Lancet study was released a month before the 2006 elections. Did you smell something? One of the article's authors certainly understands the US election cycle:

If you factor in politics, the heat increases. One of The Lancet authors, Dr Les Roberts, campaigned for a Democrat seat in the US House of Representatives and has spoken out against the war.

[Happy Monkey]

"a Democrat seat"? I guess the Times is a Murdoch paper (checks- Yup).

Not that that has anything to do with the validity of the study, but it's funny.

[BigV]

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dail..._date=20070225

[Undertoad]

I would not expect that the Times' British readership is aware of US partisan code-speak.

[Happy Monkey]

So they'll assume that's the way it's supposed to be said.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

So they'll assume that's the way it's supposed to be said.

I had no idea it was officially the Democratic Party. We have a Liberal Democrat Party and I just assumed it was along the same lines.

But aren't party adherents called Democrats? Meaning that the seat would be a Democrat seat?

Learn something new every day I guess. Like the fact we call the Conservatives "Tories" when they haven't officially been called that for about 200 years.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

So they'll assume that's the way it's supposed to be said.

Brits will get the name wrong! Oh, how *horrible* THAT will be!

[Happy Monkey]

It's not horrible when it happens in the US, let alone the UK or anywhere else. It's just annoying and petty, and deliberately so. It was started by McCarthy, as a way to needle Democrats, and has enjoyed a resurgence in the past decade.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

But aren't party adherents called Democrats? Meaning that the seat would be a Democrat seat?

A Democratic congressman from the Democratic Party is a Democrat and holds a Democratic seat. Democrat is the noun; Democratic is the adjective.

[Undertoad]

Followup: the Johns Hopkins University professor responsible for the Lancet studies on Iraqi deaths has now been censured for refusing to disclose basic facts about his research.

"This violated the standards of science, seriously undermines open public debate on critical issues, and undermines the credibility of all survey and public-opinion research," said Richard A. Kulka, the association’s president.

[classicman]

If one wants a polling study conducted on a much larger scale than the Lancet one, the Iraq Family Health Survey data published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year would be a place to look. It estimated a violent death toll of anywhere from 104,000 to 223,000 between March 2003 and June 2006. Even that range of figures, however, includes a significant amount of guesswork: the authors of the study increased the number of reported deaths in the survey by 36% to compensate for estimated under-reporting by poll respondents. But unlike the Lancet’s shotgun statistics, the data upon which these estimates were made are at least available to someone other than the study’s own authors.

From UT's link - very interesting read.

[TheMercenary]

Damm.... dug from the depths.