Letters to the Editor
ondelette
Published Letters: 2259 Editor's Choice: 19
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Umm...Glenn,
[Read the article: After everything we did for them]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Second, there is dispute over the methodology used in the Lancet study
I hate to put too fine a point on things, but there is no dispute over the methodology for the Lancet study. It is a well recognized methodology that is the gold standard for assessing civilian deaths due to war. Those disputes that are genuine are over two other things:
1) whether the methodology could be successfully carried out. The first Lancet study discussed this at length. The issue is whether the sample was totally representative, due to the danger of going to certain places in Iraq.
2) whether the initial population figures are sufficiently accurate. They derive in part from a censuses conducted by the Hussein government, and there is an allegation that he purposely misrepresented the number of Shi'a for political purposes and doctored the total population figures for the purposes of getting a lightening of the sanctions application.
Just wanted to be clear that the methodology is considered the best, and has been used in many other conflicts.
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A good way of evaluating the Lancet study...
[Read the article: After everything we did for them]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...is to remember that the coverage of it was by the same media organizations that brought you the "flawed" exit polling results of Edison/Mitofsky in 2004, which were the media organizations that were members of NEP which commissioned Edison/Mitofsky.
If you go through the technical literature, you will find that exit polling is considered so accurate that it is used to determine whether there is reason to suspect fraud in the election, and even, in cases where there are international observers for an election, as evidence of fraud. Mitofsky developed the techniques that are so used.
Now, if the most accurate form of checking election results is reported by these media outlets as suspect, what can you say when they report that the most accurate form of determining deaths in war (in the event of lack of a central tally) is controversial and flawed?
The question isn't, as has been politely, or perhaps euphemistically, suggested on the sites that L.W.M. cites, that the media doesn't know how to report results of statistically sound surveys, the question is that they believe that if the results are counterintuitive, or if someone disputes them politically, that they are therefore controversial. The media has ceased to be factual and concentrates on giving equal time to anyone who debates a finding, regardless of the merit of that debate.
In both cases, the implication if one accepts the survey results is that the media failed to obtain and report the facts. So in both cases, the survey must be wrong.
I once lived in a country under martial law. The populace had become convinced that, while the government might and probably would lie to them, the media would not, and would not be wrong. The fact that the government controlled, and in some cases owned, the media, and decided what would be written, never occurred to them. It occurred to me, because my mail and my magazines, having been written abroad, were regularly read and censored.
The media depends for its very corporate livelihood on the perception that whatever else you say about it (choice of stories is horrible, commentators suck) the facts embedded in the news it reports are accurate, and verified. No one in the government or anywhere else needs to tell them to suppress a story that indirectly or directly implicates their fact gathering process as flawed. Simple business survival dictates that they will do it themselves.
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tiberius...
[Read the article: After everything we did for them]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...who is your enemy? Be very specific.
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OT -- The Catholic Court stikes again
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I just finished writing a note to Corporate Headquarters of Goodyear Tire&Rubber Co. I told them that due to their participation in the rollback of worker's rights in the lawsuit decided by the Supreme Court yesterday, I could no longer in good conscience continue to buy Aquatred tires, as I have for the last 17 years. Hope it gets through.
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@WT odd coincidence
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's cultural narrative enough for them, and sadly their own personal narratives -- who they think they are, and how they came to be who they are -- are just as truncated, and just as inflexible. For them, not only is the unexamined life worth living, it's the only life -- short of a conversion experience -- which they can live.
I was criticized yesterday for saying that I would not have such people working for me, because I found it counterproductive to research. I was told that a better approach would be to first nurture curiosity and encourage breaking bonds, in order to push them to become more.
I do believe that the criticism was correct and I was wrong.
(I actually am talking about the topic. The reason the right-wing thinks Valerie Plame wasn't covert is because it was a secret).