California homicides more than Iraq deaths

[Daisy]

Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
You didn't take the common reading. You created a reading to try to make the article say something it didn't say.

You're simply wrong.

That was your fault.

No, it was to my credit to point out that the article was misleading and to prove it.

The article compared number of deaths in a year in CA to the number of deaths in a year in Iraq for coalition forces.

It sure did, and that was precisely what was so misleading.

According to you, if Farmer A has 100 chickens and half of them (that's 50%) die in January and Farmer B has 75,000 chickens and 50 of them (that's less than point ten percent: .0666%) die in January, Farmer B's chickens have the same death rate as Farmer A's.

In February, if 49 of Farmer A's chickens kick the bucket and 50 of Farmer B's do, then Farmer A's farm has a lower chicken death rate, or CDR, than Farmer B's.

In March, Farmer A's last chicken goes to the Great Coop in the Sky as do three of Farmer B's, then you contend that Farmer B's chicken death rate, 3 out of 74,901, is 3 times higher than Farmer A's, 1 out of 1 or 100%, for March.

For the rest of the year, Farmer B continues to have a high CDR compared to Farmer A (unless Farmer A gets new chickens and didn't fix whatever his problem was).

Most folks would consider that dishonest chicken farm accounting.

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.

Tried and succeeded. Generally, that is how death rates are calculated.

That was not the point of this article, as anyone who reads it can see.

Well yeah, the point of the article was to mislead people into thinking that California was more dangerous than Iraq.

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.

That's right, my point was to be realistic about the relative death rates.

Since when is citing a dictionary definition of a word desperate?

When you use the definition to confuse raw numbers with rate. Desperate and pitiful.

Who said anythign about quantity of times a person dies?

You said "... here the "quantity of deaths" with respect to the "quantity of times." " I ask again, what is the "quantity of times" - your plural, not mine - a person can die?

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.

Good enough to know the difference between raw numbers and rates and to recognise misdirection when I read it.

As hillclimber said, you're comparing apples to oranges. That's just sad.

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.

No Larry, the article specifically compared "death rate" to "homicide rate" for 2004. They used raw numbers, not rates.

Your comparison will work, and is a valid comparions. It simply isn't the comparison that the article was making.

Since the context was relative danger, your and their comparison method is false and misleading, shamefully so.

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.

Right, I took an article that apparently wanted to mislead readers into concluding that Iraq was less dangerous to our service men and women than California was to its general populace and pointed out the trick.

 

[Daisy]

Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
Quite deliberately??? You mean you meant to misrepresent it? Or does "deliberately" mean something else?

I deliberately worded it the way I meant it - I said "in" not "of" because it IS "in" and not "of".

It wasn't a point in the article or of the article.

Of course, it was in the article. Where do you think I got it? That it contrasted so beautifully with the point of the article was where the humor came in.

It was a point of opinion about the facts in the article.

Strangely, the quote was placed in the article. Odd editing, but there it was and there it is.

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?

You misquoted me - did you misread or did you do it to try to make your point stronger? - and now you try to cover it by insulting my writing style. That silly trick will fool no one.

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.

Dang! My irony meter just broke.

 

[Johnv]

Originally posted by C4K:
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.

Though we have been known to respectfully disagree from time to tome, C4K has a reputation for being reasonably objective in his posts, and on this point, I agree with C4K completely.

 

[Terry_Herrington]

Originally posted by KenH:
Where would you rather spend a year as a civilian walking the sidewalks and driving the streets - in California or Iraq?

I would pick California.

This pretty much sums it all up.

 

[Terry_Herrington]

Originally posted by Daisy:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
I would expect this kind of misleading analysis from Daisy. She has been known to be rather biased before.

Yeah, I keep letting those dern facts get in the way </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[Terry_Herrington]

Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
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.

Give me an example.

 

[Bro. James Reed]

It looks like most of us upstanding conservatives are in agreement, for a change, with the "looney liberals" on the BB about this article.

While it may not have expressly said so, this article is supposed to give the reader the idea that Iraq is safer than California. That is simply untrue.

Of course, I'd much rather be in Texas than either Iraq or California.

 

[Pastor Larry]

Here we go again. Daisy is going to try to obfuscate, niggle about the meaning of words, and the like to avoid just saying "I'm wrong." Face it, Daisy. You messed up on this one. Don't drag it ou.

Originally posted by Daisy:
You're simply wrong.

Out of everything I have learned here, I have learned not to trust you.

No, it was to my credit to point out that the article was misleading and to prove it.

But you failed. You didn't point out that the article was misleading (you merely asserted it). And you didn't prove it. You need to learn the distinction between assertion and argumentation. You asserted something. You didn't prove it. And when you tried, you fail miserable short.

According to you, if Farmer A has 100 chickens and half of them (that's 50%) die in January and Farmer B has 75,000 chickens and 50 of them (that's less than point ten percent: .0666%) die in January, Farmer B's chickens have the same death rate as Farmer A's.

To be a good analogy, you would have to use the articles representation, which you won't do. The article said nothign about percentages. It was not comparing that. It was comparing numbers of deaths in a year. Get that through your head, Daisy. In fact, your whole illustration here is a bad attempt to make the article say somethign that the article was not saying.

Get this Daisy: The article was comparing numbers of deaths, not the percentage of the population that died. I don't know how you confused that. I imagine you read too quickly, and didn't stop to think, and aren't willing to simply apologize and let it be over.

Most folks would consider that dishonest chicken farm accounting.

And most folks who read the article would realize that you are talking about somethign completely different.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />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.

Tried and succeeded. Generally, that is how death rates are calculated.</font>[/QUOTE]Not in this article. Remember, "death" rate can mean various things depending on the intent of hte article.

 

[Pastor Larry]

Well yeah, the point of the article was to mislead people into thinking that California was more dangerous than Iraq.

How do you know this? Will you admit that you are simply offering an opinion and that you have no proof to back up what your assertion fo the "intent of hte article" was?

That's right, my point was to be realistic about the relative death rates.

You have yet to show what was wrong with what the article actually said. What you have done is show that there is another way to calculate death rates for another purpose. But even you, Daisy, have to admit that the article was exactly right in what it said. You won't admit it, but you should because you know it is true. You are just picking a fight now ... one that you will lose again, just like you have before.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Since when is citing a dictionary definition of a word desperate?

When you use the definition to confuse raw numbers with rate. Desperate and pitiful.</font>[/QUOTE]I didn't confuse raw numbers with rate. You know better. Daisy, you are better than this.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Who said anythign about quantity of times a person dies?

You said "... here the "quantity of deaths" with respect to the "quantity of times." " I ask again, what is the "quantity of times" - your plural, not mine - a person can die?

</font>[/QUOTE]Here again, just silly misreading on your part. The comparison is quantity of deaths (2300+) with quantity of time (year). I can't make it much more simple Daisy. There was no discussion about how many times a person can die. That would be the only possible conversation that could be dumber than this one.

Good enough to know the difference between raw numbers and rates and to recognise misdirection when I read it.

Apparently not, at least not that you have shown.

No Larry, the article specifically compared "death rate" to "homicide rate" for 2004. They used raw numbers, not rates.

No, Daisy. If you can't understand this, then there is no reason for you to try to be in this conversation. This is so totally embarrassing for you it is remarkable. I have tried to handle it in a way that would save your dignity and give you a chance to trackback here, but you refuse. By the dictionary, a rate is a comparison. This article compared "homicides/year in CA" vs. "coalition deaths/year in Iraq." That is a distinct rate. You want to use a different rate calculation to show a different issue. That's fine. But that is not what this article was trying to do.

Since the context was relative danger,

Really?? When did you decide this? I see nothing in the article about "relative danger." Are we reading the same article? Here is the link to the one I am reading. http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47680 In it, I see nothing about "relative danger."

your and their comparison method is false and misleading, shamefully so.

Then show us how. So far you have miserably failed.

Right, I took an article that apparently wanted to mislead readers into concluding that Iraq was less dangerous to our service men and women than California was to its general populace and pointed out the trick.

And where did you get this conclusion from? It isn't in the article, is it, Daisy? Be honest now. Where in the article do you see this assertion?

I deliberately worded it the way I meant it - I said "in" not "of" because it IS "in" and not "of".

Okay ... whatever.

You misquoted me - did you misread or did you do it to try to make your point stronger? - and now you try to cover it by insulting my writing style. That silly trick will fool no one.

The misquote was an accident and I apologize for that. But the way it was written, led me to believe that I had accurately represented your view. Given your explanation here, it makes more sense then originally. It was an awkward way to make your point.

Dang! My irony meter just broke

What's ironic about it? You have made a habit in this forum of misrepresenting issues to support a particular political view. I really don't care what your political view is. It doesn't bother me in the least. I do care when people misrepresent something to try to support themselves. That is wrong and unethical.

Above where I misrepresented your "in the article," it was unintentional, and true to my word, I apologize to you for that even though it was unintentional. My point is so strongly based in truth and fact that I don't need to do that.

Early on in this discussion, I thought you had merely made a mistake in misrepresenting the article. But now you have gone to great lengths to back it up and that is distressing. It should bother you to stoop to this level. It bothers me to see it.

 

[Pastor Larry]

While it may not have expressly said so, this article is supposed to give the reader the idea that Iraq is safer than California. That is simply untrue.

Since you are one of "us conservatives," where in the world do you get this idea? I have read this article probably two dozen times today, and for hte life of me, I can't figure this out apart from an extreme political bias. All the article says is that a lot less soldiers died in Iraq last year than California. To me, the implication is that Iraq is nearly as bad as the "loony left" (to use your words) says it is.

You guys are reading way too much into this. If you get the author of this article to confirm your view, then I will agree to it. But short of that, I don't see how your conclusion stands.

 

[rsr]

No, not in any accepted sense thay means anything to anyone. "Homicide rate" means something specific to those who look at statistics. To make it mean anything other than "ratio of homicides to a specific population" is to make it meaningless. Which, of course, is what WND did.

I would be embarrassed to write that the unemployment rate of California, for example, is higher than the unemployment rate of Louisiana just because there are more unemployed people in California than in Louisiana.

How many people would accept that example as an acceptable use of the term unemployment rate?

 

[Pastor Larry]

Originally posted by Terry_Herrington:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
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.

Give me an example. </font>[/QUOTE]Two posts above for starters. Other times as well, both publicly and privately. It's no big deal. When I am wrong, I have no problem admitting it. I try to be careful so it doesn't happen. There were times in the CvA forum which is no longer on the board, as well as in these forums last year on a few occasions.

But why do you want to make this about me? I am not that important here. I was just discussing an issue and pointing out something that many here are missing.

 

[LadyEagle]

3-page warning: This thread will be closed no sooner than 3:30 a.m. ET by one of the Moderators.

Lady Eagle,
Moderator

 

[Daisy]

Just a quick point:

Originally posted by Pastor Larry:
To be a good analogy, you would have to use the articles representation, which you won't do. The article said nothign about percentages. It was not comparing that. It was comparing numbers of deaths in a year. Get that through your head, Daisy. In fact, your whole illustration here is a bad attempt to make the article say somethign that the article was not saying.

Get this Daisy: The article was comparing numbers of deaths, not the percentage of the population that died. I don't know how you confused that. I imagine you read too quickly, and didn't stop to think, and aren't willing to simply apologize and let it be over.

Larry, my analogy did compare raw numbers per month to demonstrate why that is a ridiculous approach. That I also gave the percentages was irrelevent to your method as only the raw numbers per month were used to conclude that the chicken death rates were the same in January, higher for Farm B in February and waaaay higher for Farm B in March. It's especially interesting in March because although 100% of the chicken(s) on Farm A died, the CDR was lower using your method.

If you come up with a new objection, I'll answer it; for the repeated ones, you can just reread my answers.

As for all the personal insults you've directed at me, I forgive you.

 

[Pastor Larry]

No, not in any accepted sense thay means anything to anyone.

Sorry, RSR, you are incorrect.

"Homicide rate" means something specific to those who look at statistics. To make it mean anything other than "ratio of homicides to a specific population" is to make it meaningless. Which, of course, is what WND did.

No they didn't. They explained very clearly what they were comparing. The fact that you wished they had compared something else is your problem. Write your own article.

I would be embarrassed to write that the unemployment rate of California, for example, is higher than the unemployment rate of Louisiana just because there are more unemployed people in California than in Louisiana.

You should be embarrassed to write that. You should also be embarrassed to have brought it up here since you are making a completely different comparison. ... Unemployment is the rate of unemployed relative to the population (actually to the working population I believe). What the article compared was different. It compared "homicides/year in CA" vs. "coalition deaths/year in Iraq."

To make your unemployment comparison similar, you would have to position as "jobs lost in LA last year" vs. "jobs lost in CA last year." That would be a valid analogy to the article. And due to Katrina, the comparison might be closer than you think. I don't know.

Again, these kinds of mistakes being made here are easily solved by critical thinking. Why is that so hard to come by? When you are going to do statistics, you have to compare the same things. When you are going to complain about statistics, you must first understand what the comparison is (rather than what you wish it was or think it should be). After understanding their comparison, then you are in a better place to comment.

Again, read the article and see what they were comparing: homicides/year in CA vs. coalition deaths/year in Iraq. There was no attempt to make it a per capita rate, but rather a time rate.

We can say it should have been written better, and with that I fully agree. But to say it is misleading mistakes implication for inference. You inferred something; the article is not responsible for that.

This is a surreal conversation. It makes me laugh. No one at WND cares what we think about this article. And it really makes no difference. The point I get from the article is clear: Iraq is not nearly so bad as many are trying to make it out to be.

 

[Pastor Larry]

Larry, my analogy did compare raw numbers per month to demonstrate why that is a ridiculous approach.

It was a valiant and creative effort. It took a lot of thought. If you had put that much thought into the original article, you would agree with me .

Your illustration's fault though, as I pointed out, is that it isn't the same thing. You are still trying to work on percentage, not actual death rates per month. In terms of the number of chickens dying (the death rate over time), you are correct. But you are trying to bring in the percentages to color the argument a different way. Which is fine, if that is the argument you want to make. However, that is not the argument that I see in the article.

Again, the point of the article is that 265% more people died in CA last year than in Iraq (of coalition deaths). Do you deny that? If you don't, then you agree with me. If you deny it, then you are missing the numbers.

Remember, the article said nothing about per capita rates. It was comparing deaths/year.

Perhaps the problem here is more basic. You are reading the article one way (as a negative) and I am reading it another way (as a positive). Therefore, you are attacking teh article as misleading because it didn't quote your particular conclusion.

It's especially interesting in March because although 100% of the chicken(s) on Farm A died, the CDR was lower using your method.

Exactly, and this illustrates the point. The death rate over time (1 vs. 3) is lower, than the per capita death rate. When you read the article, they are talking "over time," you are talking "per capita." In other words, for all your efforts, you are talking about something different than the article.

If you come up with a new objection, I'll answer it; for the repeated ones, you can just reread my answers.

You have yet to answer the original objections, which were all I had. Keep thinking about it. Maybe you will get a better answer. So far, these are completely unconvincing.

In the end, Daisy, the article is right in terms of its comparison. You are making a different comparison. You are right as well. But you will have to write your own article to make that point. This author was making another point.

As for all the personal insults you've directed at me, I forgive you.

There were none. But I forgive you for misreading my posts.

There is no reason for you to have read anything personal at all in this. This is a conversation about ideas, and about how we arrive at conclusions. I think your method is faulty, based on a failure in teh arena of critical thinking, of imposing your own conclusions on someone else's writing. That is not personal. It is a disagreement of method.

 

[rsr]

I can only conclude that your method is faulty.

There is no difference between the two examples.

"Unemployment is the rate of unemployed relative to the population (actually to the working population I believe). What the article compared was different. It compared "homicides/year in CA" vs. "coalition deaths/year in Iraq."

Certainly. But the homicide rate is the rate of deaths relative to the population. The death rate among British/American forces is the rate of deaths relative to those serving.

Really, this simple.

The story would have been accurate had it only compared the absolute numbers; by introducing the concept of rate, it became inaccurate. Crime rate implies a methodology, one that is not borne out by normal scrutiny.

Again, I would ask you to provide another example of statistics — crime, unwed mothers, pregnancy, births, whatever — that use the term rate with raw numbers rather than being adjusted for population.

 

[Gold Dragon]

Originally posted by Johnv:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by C4K:
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.

Though we have been known to respectfully disagree from time to tome, C4K has a reputation for being reasonably objective in his posts, and on this point, I agree with C4K completely. </font>[/QUOTE]Agreed. I commend him for not trying to defend indefensible positions simply because they come from the same side of the political or religious spectrum that he comes from.

 

[LadyEagle]

Closed per 3-page warning.

LE