Iraq : DC :: Apple : Orange

[BurtWorm]

From sadlyno.com:

http://sadlyno.com/archives/002846.html

Just How Stupid Are NewsMax Readers?



Very stupid, if they believe crap like this:

...

Appearing with Westwood One radio host Monica Crowley on Saturday, King said that the incessantly negative coverage of the Iraq war prompted him to research the actual death numbers.

“I began to ask myself the question, if you were a civilian in Iraq, how could you tolerate that level of violence,” he said. “What really is the level of violence?”

Using Pentagon statistics cross-checked with independent research, King said he came up with an annualized Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.51 per 100,000.

While that number sounds high - astonishingly, the Iowa Republican discovered that it’s significantly lower than a number of major American cities, including the nation’s capital.

“It’s 45 violent deaths per 100,000 in Washington, D.C.,” King told Crowley.

Let’s compare apples to apples, shall we?

According to the Brookings Institute, the annualized murder rate for Baghdad last year was 95 per 100,000 people. Brookings notes that these numbers may be low, since “many murder victims are never taken to the morgue.”

Let me also add that a violent death rate of 27 per 100,000 people for an entire country is incredibly bloody high. Just for comparison, the murder rate for all of America in 2004 was 5.5 per 100,000. Now, that isn’t the same as a violent death rate, but it’s safe to say that our violent death rate doesn’t come anywhere near 27 per 100,000, since we don’t have to deal with multiple car bombings on a near-daily basis.

[Zynx]

1. Exactly. Comparing Baghdad and Washington would be much better.