Sex

[mudesi]

Now that I have your attention.


Source

It is December the 8th. Five soldiers have died thus far in December.

Did you know? Of course not. Because the media is not reporting it.


Is the surge working? The last two months had 38 and 37 deaths. Sounds good, doesn't it? Of course it does if you're an idiot who listens to Rush or BillO. Here are the months where there have been 43 or fewer deaths, which is statistically equivalent.

May, 2003: 37
June, 2003: 30
September, 2003: 31
August, 2003: 35
December, 2003: 40
February, 2004: 20
June, 2004: 42
March, 2005: 35
March, 2006: 31
July, 2006: 43
October, 2007: 38
November, 2007: 37

Not clear enough? Here is a picture.


Nothing has changed. Nothing. The Democrats are about to allow Mr. Bush to continue this war. Again.

Maybe you want to kick and recommend. I'm sick of the way the Iraq war has been forgotten.

IT'S THE WAR, STUPID.

[Stump]

1. K&R n/t

[NMMNG]

2. But that guy in that store didn't say "Merry Christmas"!1!1

K&R

[Maven]

3. K/R

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. K and R and the next Iraq Moratorium is Friday , DEC 21.

http://www.iraqmoratorium.org/

Everybody please do SOMETHING.

[nightrider767]

5. I recommend this but it doesn't matter anyways.

We've lost our will to be good and descent people.

The war will continue.

All that's left if for people of character to choose their side so that when the final reckoning comes, which it probably won't, the good will be separated from the chaff and a fair accounting will be done, but don't hold your breath.

[MetaTrope]

19. The "war" is over, the Occupation continues

[babylonsister]

6. I recommend, it DOES matter, and every last one of you I hope rec'ds this.

If only for outrage. Or to feel like you're doing 'something'.

[frogmarch]

7. K&R nt

[Usrename]

8. kick n/t

[rhett o rick]

9. K & R. nm

[blondeatlast]

10. Word. K&R. nt

[Perry Logan]

11. What are you going to do about the fact that you've turned us all on?

[bonito]

36. Your a sick bastard! n/t

[rockybelt]

12. Hey Congress

These figures below are as of 10/1/2007 (Same source as abv. iCasualties.org)

U.S. wounded and medical evacuations
Non Mortal As reported by the DoD as of 10/01/2007

Wounded - No Medical Air Transport required 19,871
Wounded - Medical Air Transport Required 8,580
Non-Hostile-Related Medical Air Transport Req. 29,584
Non-Hostile Injuries Medical Air Transport 7,768
Diseases/Other Medical Air Transport 21,816
Medical Air Transports(Hostile & Non hostile) 38,164

Suicides (u.S.) 130

Iraqi deaths since 2005

2005 8,266
2006 18,769
2007 19,059

Yeah, the surge is working. These are staggering numbers and I would guess not the complete numbers. However, these numbers are going to my reps today! I urge everybody to send these numbers to their reps immediately. You know that they do not read about the statistics. Let's shove them down their throats.

[alfredo]

13. Now a lot of the guys going out on patrol, go out and hide.

Patrolling does nothing but present a target for insurgents.

[tomg]

14. K&R nt

[Gregorian]

15. Multiply that by at least ten.

And you'll have the death toll for those who we all seem to not care about. The Iraqis.

[Truth2Tell]

38. Try multiplying by

between 100 and 500. X 10 will give you one week of dead Iraqis.

[tularetom]

16. I believe US commanders in the field have pulled back their troops

to safer areas in order to avoid confrontations, lower casualties and thus give the impression that the surge is working. Conditions in Iraq HAVE improved if only because we are no longer such inviting targets. Imagine how much better it would be if we weren't there at all. Viola - NO deaths!

[Turbineguy]

17. The mission for some time

has been simply cutting down on losses. Both sides can benefit. Bush has no intention of leaving anyway.

[Flatulo]

25. I'd agree with that assessment. Bush isn't leaving, and neither is

anyone else except Kucinich or Paul.

Might as well do everything possible to minimize our losses.

[hurricaneric]

18. Great Post!!!

Thank you for illuminating this for all of us. I (we) have such short attention spans these days, there is a need for regular and often reminders about such issues. Maybe it's the computers, TV or work, but whatever it is that is distracting us really needs to be set aside for moments such as these.

[TechBear_Seattle]

20. What I want to see this November is

EVERYONE (with few exceptions) getting voted out of office and replaced. That includes not just the Junta, but also Pelosi, Reed, Clinton, Obama, EVERYONE.

And seeing as this is my fantasy, the spanking new government would get us out of the illegal occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, but also start spanking the traitors who got into those illegal occupations in the first place. Those who authorized torture and other violations of the Geneva Conventions -- directly, through legislative support or by posessing evidence that such violations were occuring and took no action -- would be turned over to the World Court for prosecution on charges of crimes against humanity.






Hey, I can dream can't I? Or has even that become forbidden nowadays?

[Cabcere]

21. Big Brother does not approve of your dreams.

Off to Room 101 with you.

:(

[AllyCat]

23. Oh that is a great dream though.

I think the only way to stop this is impeachment, but I believe we need more than that now. Congress is complicit in this whole thing. Not cowardly, but complicit.

Throw the bums out. There are a few good ones (I'll keep Feingold and Tammy Baldwin). Kucinich is good. There are a few others. The rest can go be the has-beens they already are.

[Flatulo]

22. Not sure what you mean by 'statistically equivalent'...

What statistical tests have you run on these numbers? You'd have to look at the derivatives of the data to conclude something or other...

It does look to me that the death rate has declined for more consecutive months than any other year. That should be good news, right?

I added some trendlines to the data - it looks like the death rate of change is in the right direction. 2007 is the only year in which the data trends downward.

[D23MIURG23]

34. A couple critiques

First, you treated the five deaths in December as though they are representative of the whole month, when in fact we are less than halfway through. This could be remedied by multiplying the 5 deaths by 4 since they occurred in the first quarter of the month, but this assumes an even distribution of deaths for the month of December. A better solution would be to omit December 2007 altogether.

Second, you don't give any regression for your trendlines, equations, or any justification for whatever model it is that you are using. Maybe the trend I see in the graphic is real, but just seeing an incidental (unquantified) resemblance to an arbitrary function from excel doesn't necessarily tell me that. I see a lot of chaos and unpredictability personally.

On a separate note, a declining death rate is significant only to the degree it reflects growing stability and contentment in Iraq. If you look at the graphs above there are other periods of decline over arbitrary intervals, which may have corresponded to various military offensives launched over there. The key thing to note is that none of the military offensives launched have addressed the underlying problems in Iraq that are causing Iraqi citizens to attack US troops.

[Flatulo]

44. Some answers...

Even if one uses a value of 20 for Dec 07, or omits it entirely, the trend is essentially unchanged.

I used the standard R^2 least-squares-fit method in Excel using a second-order polynomial fit. The trends do not change if one uses a higher order polynomial - 2007 shows a downward trend while the other years are all upwards. The only thing that happens is that there is a better fit (more peaks and valleys).

Having said all that, I would add that all these deaths were completely needless, but I am nevertheless encouraged to see the trend. I would not leap to the conclusion that the surge is successful, but I am glad to see fewer of our people getting killed.

[sendero]

24. Thanks for posting that..

... right after the "Surge" began, I noticed that media reporting of our casualties, and of the war in general, almost dissapeared.

I had a feeling we were being lied to when I heard a subtly worded statistic quoted on, guess where, NPR. The way it was worded (bogus date range that made no sense for the fact they were claiming) made it pretty clear to me that the "working" meme is just more bullshit.

When this feeble attempt fails I wonder how many more times Americans are going to put up with this crap.

[jjr5]

26. Thanks for this!

Awesome post. Sadly to say, this was actually a reminder for me. Scary to think that I was slipping towards believing that Bush might be kind of right, that the surge is sort of working. All lies!

[ThatsMyBarack]

27. Oomph!

:kick:

[nam78_two]

28. K&R.nt

[sellitman]

29. I wil always vote up a Sex thread.

War is a boner.

[underpants]

30. No sex in your violence, there's no sex in your violence

"Everything Zen" by Bush

(yes the irony is huge)

[D23MIURG23]

31. Brilliant. n/t

[NMDemDist2]

32. u need 2 more Rs to make it 100

great graphic and thanks

[progressoid]

33. Just one now.

[defendandprotect]

35. Had a go with my calculator ----

03 -- 486/Avg 48.6 --- 10 month period only
04 -- 849/Avg 70.75 ---
05 -- 846/Avg 70.5 ---
06 -- 822/Avg 68.5
07 -- 883/Avg 73.58 -- 11 month period only

Total 3886 dead

Avg 777 deaths per year/5 years
Avg 68.175 per month/57 months

------------------------------

This is a record busting year and it ain't over yet!
883 deaths --- highest ever
and first time we have three months/+consecutively with deaths over 100 ---

I'd also guess that we have a scam going on --- they probably halved the figures --
and are hiding it somehow --- ???

And/or, they have found a way to hide ---

And, what of the Iraqi death tolls --- I think that might give us a clue further
down the road . . . ???


AND . . . Happy New Year --- we are entering our 6th year of war --- !!!!

[bonito]

37. Kick and recommended

Thank you for posting this painful truth.

[whistle]

39. Good work, K&R....Dennis Kucinich will end the war and bring the troops home

...and he won't waste a lot of words or give excuses. He will just do it!

[Deja Q]

40. Don't fuck with us. Tell us what you really mean.

BTW: I thought the subject line was supposed to correlate with the message underneath.

[Danger Mouse]

41. Surge is BS.

:kick:

[skyounkin]

42. Sickening......

But I truley believe that the war will never end.........

[NoGodsNoMasters]

43. Nice breakdown...

I like the charts and graphs, ....you're pitch was certainly......unconventional,...but it worked.

[ClayZ]

45. K and R