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California homicides more than Iraq deaths
- Thread starter Helen
- Start date
And as I pointed out, both of them were speaking of things the article did not say. And that's a key distinction that critical thinkers recognize. The claim was that the article was misleading. The proof offered only references people's conclusions from the articles. Those are two very different issues.
Answer the questions I posted above. So far as I can tell, these are the only factual claims made in the article, and we can very easily test their accuracy.
Is is true that there were "2,394 reported homicides in the Golden State last year"? Yes or no.
Is it true that there were "905 deaths of coalition forces in Iraq, chiefly Americans and Brits, during the same time period"? Yes or no
It is true that 2394 is 265% higher than 905? Yes or no.
Answer the questions I posted above. So far as I can tell, these are the only factual claims made in the article, and we can very easily test their accuracy.
Is is true that there were "2,394 reported homicides in the Golden State last year"? Yes or no.
Is it true that there were "905 deaths of coalition forces in Iraq, chiefly Americans and Brits, during the same time period"? Yes or no
It is true that 2394 is 265% higher than 905? Yes or no.
NaasPreacher (C4K)
Well-Known Member
This answer to all three of your questions is "yes" - I never denied that.
I contend that it was presented with a bias to make thinkgs look better than they are. This is my whole problem with WND, they rarely lie, they normally just state things in a way that non-critical readers would take out of context.
In this regard they are no better than the liberal sources that do the same thing.
I contend that it was presented with a bias to make thinkgs look better than they are. This is my whole problem with WND, they rarely lie, they normally just state things in a way that non-critical readers would take out of context.
In this regard they are no better than the liberal sources that do the same thing.
Humans appear to be consistantly wrong when analyzing risk. An American is much more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than a Moslem terrorist but we don't care about drunk drivers. Why? Because they are us. We don't mind being killed by our own (kind of) people because that is the game we play. We don't want to be killed by some other kind of people.
But when you claim the article is misleading, you are incorrect. It was not the article. The article was truthful in its facts and in the presentation of them. You drew a conclusion based on teh article.
Exactly .. That is your contention, which is far different than saying the article did something. The article didn't do it. You drew a conclusion from it.
Really??? How do you know? There was nothing in the article to indicate that. You drew a conclusion and that rests on you, not the article.
Many on the ground over there claim that things are way better than is typically presented in teh media.
I don't think reasonable person would look at that article and claim that Iraq is safer that California. It would be a virtually impossible conclusion to draw on the basis of the article.
What was the intent? I imagine the intent is to show that the war in Iraq is not nearly as costly as many have concluded. Our servicemen and women are getting a bad rap and it's not fair to them. They are serving in a place far more dangerous than California, and some here are trivializing that because they are injecting their own opinions on an article.
As you agreed, the article actually says nothing wrong or misleading. It is your conclusions that are misleading.
From the article:
The article either deliberately or negligently confused the rate with the raw numbers. Either way, it was misleading.
One point in the article I do not dispute:
The homicide rate is not the same thing as the number of homicides and the death rate is not the same as the number of deaths. As I showed before, the homicide rate is approximately 0.00706% and the death rate is approximately 0.45250% - as anyone not willfully blind can see, the death rate of US/UK military personnel is much higher that the homicide rate in California in 2004.
The article either deliberately or negligently confused the rate with the raw numbers. Either way, it was misleading.
One point in the article I do not dispute:
hillclimber
New Member
While I now agree in part with you Pastor Larry, I think the reason for the article is suspect. Why publish the article at all with it's comparisons of apples to oranges, unless there is an alterior motive?
Again, creative, but talk about misleading.
The "rate" can be a number of things, including the number of people who die in a specific time. A rate is simply "A quantity measured with respect to another measured quantity" ... here the "quantity of deaths" with respect to the "quantity of times." (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rate). Rate certainly can mean what you state, but it does not have to mean that.
And again, you prove my point: You are not talkign about what the article did say, but about your own particular view of the facts presented in teh article.
No, it wasn't. You apparently are unfamiliar with "rate." This is a problem you have demonstrated before unfortunately. You get something in your mind and insist that it is only right thing. That is an unfortunate approach on your part. It is narrow minded.
</font>[/QUOTE]Now, here is misleading. This was not a point in the article. Here is the section that you cite from:
Here, the article has departed from the facts stated to offering opinions about the facts. For you to cite this as a "point of the article" is misleading. It was not a point of the article. It was a perspective about the point of the article. This is, of course, a distinction easily lost on those not accustomed to actual critical reading and thinking.
Of course, you may mean something by "point" that is different than what the context indicates. In which case you will complain about my comments, (you probably will anyway
) ... and claim I misread you. If so, then I apologize. But the fact that even agree with this opinion says much about you and your approach to thinking through the issues. To call the president "conniving and self-serving" is an ignorant opinion. It can only be offered by those who do not know the facts. To call the president "dim-witted" is equally ignorant. It cannot be substantiated by the actual facts.
One of the problems in political discourse is that people confuse their personal opinions (which this quotation you agree with was) with actual facts. You may disagree with the president's methods or conclusions. That is certainly fair. But those are personal opinions, not facts.
I would like to say this surprises me, Daisy. But it doesn't. I have seen enough from you in the past to know that you are simply a political hack, promoting your own opinions with little regard for the actual truth. This is but another example of you getting caught doing it.
[ December 05, 2005, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]
I am not saying that they didn't have ulterior motives, or that it was necessarily a good article. I don't read WND that much and don't really care.
AS I said, I think the point is to show that the situation in Iraq is not as bad as people would like us to believe that it is. That's not to say it is good. But it certainly isn't the blood bath of American lives that some accuse it of. The article simply points out that about 1400 more people died by homicide in California last year than in Iraq.
The question is, Why aren't Daisy and Roger and RSR complainign about the total lack of security in California? Why is this about the president and Iraq? Why isn't it about California?
Can you say "ulterior motives"??? I can ... And I can't help but wonder if they jumped on this simply to try to make the president look bad. (He certainly doesn't need their help since he does plenty of that himself). But this simply isn't a case where that is true. The longer this presidency goes, the more I am convinced that the only thing he has done right is Iraq. His domestic policies, particularly spending, are atrocious. The economy is improving, but that's merely the cycle. As has been pointed out often, presidents don't have much to do with teh economy. But at least in Iraq, there was a clear policy (regime change) for solid reasons (continued rejection of the UN resolutions, virtually unanimous belief that Iraq was pursuing WMDs, continued human rights abuses). There were unexpected successes that led to victory far faster than was thought, and no doubt contributed to some of the chaos. There was certainly bad management in many areas, not all of which can be laid at the feet of hte president since he was not micromanaging this war. But today, there is an infant democracy in a country that has lived under tyranny for generations. With support, this could be the beginning of great changes in the middle east. I believe that history will view the Iraq War much more positively than the present because in 20-50 years, the entire landscape of hte middle east will be changed, provided we don't back out and chicken out.
But time will tell.
No, neither creative nor misleading - just a common reading.</font>[/QUOTE]You didn't take the common reading. You created a reading to try to make the article say something it didn't say. That was your fault. The article compared number of deaths in a year in CA to the number of deaths in a year in Iraq for coalition forces.
You tried to compare number of deaths in CA in a year relative to population to number of coalition deaths in a year in Iraq relative to total number of forces. That was not the point of this article, as anyone who reads it can see.
If you want to write that article, go ahead. You are correct on your point. But your poitn is not the point of the article.
Well now, that is creative...and desparate.</font>[/QUOTE]Since when is citing a dictionary definition of a word desperate?
Who said anythign about quantity of times a person dies? Not only did you not read the article thoughtfully, but you didn't read my post thoughtfully. And you wonder why it is so easy to refute you? It is this kind of thinking that makes conversations with you very easy. For some reason I have never understood, you just pop out with this stuff that makes no sense. Surely you are better than this, Daisy."Quantity of times"....what quantity of times does a person die?
Actually, it is the other way around. I am comparing apples to apples but comparing what the article actually says (death in CA in a year vs. deaths in Iraq in a year). You are trying to introduce the oranges by including population of CA vs. population of Iraq forces.
Your comparison will work, and is a valid comparions. It simply isn't the comparison that the article was making.
In effect, what you did was take an article about apples, and try to make it an article about oranges. As I say, write your own article if that is the comparison you want to make.
Quite deliberately??? You mean you meant to misrepresent it? Or does "deliberately" mean something else? It wasn't a point in the article or of the article. It was a point of opinion about the facts in the article. Sure, your point can work with enough explanation and disclaimer, but it certainly is a stilted way to put it and I can't believe that you really want to rely on this nit picking to substantiate your argument?
Just once Daisy, be straight up and say, "I screwed up." And let it go. We all misread things from time to time, and I would like to think that is what you did here. I don't like to think that you deliberately missed the point this badly. Your mistake was an easy one to make when you respond quickly without much thought. But the longer you prolong these things, the funnier it gets ... and the sadder. IT makes no sense at all.
F
Filmproducer
Guest
Just once Daisy, be straight up and say, "I screwed up." And let it go. We all misread things from time to time, and I would like to think that is what you did here. I don't like to think that you deliberately missed the point this badly. Your mistake was an easy one to make when you respond quickly without much thought. But the longer you prolong these things, the funnier it gets ... and the sadder. IT makes no sense at all.
Pastor Larry, you take some of your own advice.
Pastor Larry, you take some of your own advice.
F
Filmproducer
Guest
sorry, that should read:
Pastor Larry, you should take some of your own advice.
Pastor Larry, you should take some of your own advice.
I have done that many times ... too many in fact. I hate it when I have to do that, but I pony up and do it and get it over with. It is kind of embarrassing, but we are all among friends here. That is why I try to be very careful before I speak. I don't like having to do that.
Of course, I always have a standing offer: If any one can show where I have been wrong, I will apologize for it. I have done it before and would do it again.
Of course, I always have a standing offer: If any one can show where I have been wrong, I will apologize for it. I have done it before and would do it again.
NaasPreacher (C4K)
Well-Known Member
Sorry Larry - we are just going to have to disagree on this one.
I contend that it was a poorly written article using meaningless numbers to try to get across a point set by a biased news source.
What possible reasoning could there be for comparing the number of homicides in CA to the number of military deaths in Iraq then calling those same numbers "rates" of homicide and deaths?
I don't think Daisy and I have ever agreed, and I am pretty sure that our views on this article come from two totally different viewpoints on the issue.
My issue here is not to make light of anything except WND's dodgy reputation for less than quality reporting.
I contend that it was a poorly written article using meaningless numbers to try to get across a point set by a biased news source.
What possible reasoning could there be for comparing the number of homicides in CA to the number of military deaths in Iraq then calling those same numbers "rates" of homicide and deaths?
I don't think Daisy and I have ever agreed, and I am pretty sure that our views on this article come from two totally different viewpoints on the issue.
My issue here is not to make light of anything except WND's dodgy reputation for less than quality reporting.
But is it possible that your contention is borne out of a biased understanding of the article? Again, I remind you that the article does not say what you have accused it of. And that is a major point. And the complaint was not that "it was a poorly written article." It certainly could have been written better, and like I told Daisy, feel free to write your own to support your own conclusion. The complaint was that it was misleading, and as we have shown that simply isn't true, unless the numbers are wrong. And you agreed that they weren't.
How are the numbers meaningless? And what exactly was the point they were trying to get across? So far, as I recall, I am the only one who has even offered a "point" that they were trying to get across. Perhaps I have missed something or dont' recall what someone else said.
But I think 2300 deaths in California is hardly a meaningless number. And I think 905 deaths in Iraq is hardly meaningless. And when we compare the deaths per year in teh various locations, we see that one is more than the other. That was the point. Nothing more that I can see.
As I have said now twice, getting ready to be three times, to show that the "quagmire" and "bloodbath" in Iraq isn't; to show that the accusations made about the lost cause, the tremendous loss of life, etc, is simply a political notion that is easily disproven.
Those numbers are rates ... Rates of death in a year. Think about it for a minute. We say that a particular person goes on vacation twice a year. That is a rate of vacation. Another person goes on vacation 1 a year. That is a rate of vacation. The first person vacations 200% more than teh second. We don't pull out the population statistics to compare whether or not they vacation in similar size cities, or work in similar size offices. That is not the point.
You guys are trying to read more into the article than is actually there, which goes back to my original contention that the article is not misleading in teh least. It is the bias of the reader that has inferred a conclusion.
Which is irrelevant.
That I don't konw about. I don't read WND very much and don't really compare it. But I can read the article, and I do know what "rate" means, and I can compare that to the accusations being made here and see that they don't match up.
If you disagree, then fine. But when we are discussing something in the realm of facts and ideas, we need to make sure that we don't misrepresent the facts (e.g., the facts of the article) in order to support a biased conclusion (e.g., that WND is "dodgy" in its "less than quality reporting."). Think what you want about WND. But don't read more into the story than is there.