Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Math is Hard

At least for the wingnuts over at the World Net Daily. Whoever wrote this piece over at the WND is not busting the bank when it comes to brains or fact checking.

The brain childs over at WND are claiming that the homicide rate in Iraq is 265% higher for residents of California than it is for US troops in Iraq. They used 2,394 reported homicides in California last year compared with 905 deaths of coalition forces in Iraq. WND would be correct if we had 34,000,000 troops in Iraq.

We don't

We have, give or take with non-US troops, 150,000. That means there was one death for every 166 soldiers on the ground in Iraq.

On the other hand, there are just under 34 million people living in California (not counting illegals). That means there was one death for every 14,202 people in California.

Hmmm... where would you take your chances? 1 in 166 or 1 in 14,202?

I would hate to be the waiter who relied on tips from whoever wrote the WND article. 15%... .00015%... it is all the same to them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not any different than this guy
http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2005/12/never-mind-what-president-said.html
who seems to think military members aren't citizens.

At least some of the newspapers changed the headlines after called on it.

Stupidity is bipartisan.

Dingo said...

I won't argue with that... but of course I am going to pick on the right wingers. That is my role.