Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Off-to-the-gym open thread.


Play nice.
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7 comments:

Simon said...

Given the latest, extensive, mortality study (from Johns Hopkins epidemiologists) published by the Lancet claiming that there have been roughly 655,000 excess deaths in Iraq since the invasion, can we all agree to stop claiming that "tens of thousands" of Iraqis have died?

Certainly one could point out that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died (who otherwise wouldn't have had the U.S. not invaded) and still be offering a conservative estimate.

12:56 PM
CC said...

What is your point, Simon? That all these right-wing wanks should finally, objectively consider the evidence that's in front of their eyes?

Remember, these are folks who will, in the face of overwhelming evidence, still reject biological evolution but, at the same time, they're absolutely convinced that angels exist.

You're fighting a losing battle here, dude.

1:14 PM
Simon said...

CC, I'm with you. Frankly, I've long ago given up on the wankers. I'm actually hoping more to influence progressives to not appease said wankers by massively understating the toll of Operation Kill Brown People by playing along with Bush and the woefully misleading Iraq Body Count by claiming that "tens" of thousands have died.

I think it matters. Then again, I'm just a lefty pinko commie with a bachelor of mathematics.

1:32 PM
Anonymous said...

Tens of thousands is still terrible.

Though given the passage of three years and the increasing extent of the carnage, even dubya would have to accept that he's brought untimely deaths to over 100,000 people.

3:55 PM
Simon said...

"Tens of thousands is still terrible".

Sure, but in other news, dozens of people perished in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

4:44 PM
Simon said...

As is often the case, Glenn Greenwald hits the nail on the head:

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/#postid-updateG3

7:02 PM
Anonymous said...

Though given the passage of three years and the increasing extent of the carnage, even dubya would have to accept that he's brought untimely deaths to over 100,000 people.
by: thwapp

No, he still thinks 50,000. I don't know what to say, as soon as I read that I wanted to leave immediately to find GWB so I could slap him. It's absolutely ludicrous and callous.

At a White House news conference Bush said, "I don't consider it a credible report. Neither does General (George) Casey (top U.S. commander in Iraq) and neither do Iraqi officials."

Casey, at a separate
Pentagon briefing, said he had not seen the study but the 650,000 number "seems way, way beyond any number that I have seen. I've not seen a number higher than 50,000. And so I don't give it that much credibility at all."

Bush said, "I do know that a lot of innocent people have died, and that troubles me. And it grieves me." But he called the study's methodology "pretty well discredited." Last December, Bush estimated 30,000 Iraqis had died in the war.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters, "The report is unbelievable. These numbers are exaggerated and not precise." Iraqi government officials put the total Iraqi death toll since the war started at 40,000
yahoo news

8:52 PM

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