Paul, you have to learn to stop when someone is yanking the hell out of your chain! The good news is, I can almost guarantee you don’t have an aneurysm in any of your cerebral arteries, cause if you did, you would have blown it out by now…!

ROFLMAO

Ah, pedro comes through. We can always expect the “I was only joking/Get a sense of humor” defense when a right wing idiot is finally, incontrovertibly backed into a corner by the facts.

I have to admit, pedro that I admire the extent of your hypocrisy. You defend Dugger even though you know that his comparison of Los Angeles County to Iraq is statistically invalid. Such a public display of ideological cravenness could only be an inspiration to all the right wing idiots out there who now can only aspire to the depths of your intellectual dishonesty.

Indeed, you, Frank and Dugger all ought to be proud of the ignorance and dishonesty you’ve displayed here. Your right wing idiot brethern will no doubt salute you.

And never forget Dugger that you’ve allowed ideology to trump facts here. I know I won’t. Iraq is more danferous than Los Angeles County. The numbers prove it. Your gut didn’t.

Dugger, what the fuck are you talking about? You compared LA County to Iraq, not me. You said LA County is more dangerous than Iraq. It isn’t. I don’t know how many times you have to have this explained to you or how many people have to do it. Your inability to accept to this conclusion only proves that you’re either one of the stupidest motherfuckers on the planet or you are being deliberarely obtuse because you’ve committed yourself too much to a lie to back down now.

I can’t say it any plainer than this: Iraq is a radically more dangerous place than Los Angeles County. It doesn’t matter how much “safer” Iraq is compared to other wars. That doesn’t change the fact that your statement comparing LA County to Iraq is totally wrong, demonstrably, empirically wrong.

Just to see whether you are either stupid or lying, let’s take the politics out of it and present the question as a simple word problem:

Your company has offered you a promotion which will require you to move your family to either one of two towns. Town A has a population of 100 and 10 homicides per year. Town B has 20 homicides per year but has a population of 1,000. Which town is safer?

Just answer this question Dugger and we’ll know where we stand.

One can only take so much of your scatter-brained ravings. See you in another thread

And never forget, more homicides in Democratic run LA County than US deaths in Iraq.

Dugger

Holy fuck, Dugger. You do realize that Rex laid out the exact same statistical comparison that Zython laid which I have been trying to explain to you since my first post. You do understand that Rex arrived at the same conclusion that Zython, myself and any sane, non-idiot person looking at this question would arrive at which is that Iraq a hell of a lot more dangerous than Los Angeles County. You get that, right? That Rex just proved you wrong? Jesus it’s a wonder you can remember to breathe. So fucking dumb. It’s astonishing.

I accept your fine tuning of my example.

Zython, If you will read about 2/3s the way up, we have aready been through endless iterations of rate versus gross total. Your argument boils down to rate. To which I have responded, that progressives measure Iraq’s failure or success based on gross totals – 2.500 dead! So I took a state side political entity and showed that its gross homicide total is higher than Iraq. if you want to got to rate soley,then look at my numbers for Iraq versus other wars.

frame, No, I accept that rate is an alternative viable argument to be made – versus gross – I just don’t accept the conclusions you draw therefrom. Seems to me if YOU use rate to evaluate LA County, why not use rate in Iraw veruss other wars. I know why you don’t. You would find the death rate for Iraq ia much lower than any extened war we have fought this century – Viet, Korea, WWI, WWII.

Duugger, Pick One or the Other, or you’ve got no point

Let me make one thing clear. I have only ever challenged Dugger here on one point: His claim that Los Angeles County is more dangerous than Iraq. I don’t give a fuck about any other point he thinks he’s trying to make because the first thing he wrote in this thread was the following:

“Well, I ve already shown that, as far as homicides go, Iraq is safer for our on-site military than if they lived in Los Angeles County.”

That’s the assertion he made when he began his contributin to this thread and it’s dead fucking wrong. It’s absolutely untrue and the numbers bear me out. And yet Dugger has refused to accept this basic, empirically provable fact as true. Why? I put forth the hypothesis that it’s the result of brain damage caused by prolonged exposure to Rush Limbaugh. Do you have a better explanation Rex?

A valiant effort. But what can you do when someone like Dugger is willing to lie and distort to make an ideological point? Either that or he is a total idiot. Judging from his last point, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s got brain damage. Shows what conservative thinking will do to you over the long haul …

It is evident that you do not have a clear understanding of basic algebra.

The only reason more people get killed in LA than soldiers do in Iraq is because there are more people living in LA than there are soldiers in Iraq.

Ok, right now, there are approximately 135000 U.S. soldiers currently stationed in Iraq, and at least 2500 have been killed. So dividing the number of killed soldiers by the number of total soldiers gives us the ratio, and by relation chance of a soldier getting killed in Iraq for the duration we’ve stayed (~1.9%). Divide that by 3 years gives us the per-annual rate (~0.62%). Now, the homocide rate of LA county was 10.5 for 2003, which is equal to (h/p)*100000, where h is the number of homicides there that year, and p is the total population, so dividing both sides by 100000 gives us the chance of being killed in LA count (~0.0105%).

Now for your data sample. multiplying each of the two percentages by 100000 (the number of hypothetical soldiers you presented), we see that in 1 year in Iraq, 620 soldiers would die, whereas in LA county, 10 (well, 10.5) soldiers would die. So in 36 months (lets make this a bit easier and keep this in years), 1860 soldiers would die in Iraq, whereas 31 soldiers would die in LA county.

Raw data and rates are both needed in order to paint the full picture.

Lets do keep it simple. You now admit that if we sent 100,000 soldiers to Iraq and they fought a war for 39 months and sent another 100,000 to LA County just to live there, with no war, for 39 months, more would die in LA County.

…no, wait a minute, thats not right… ok for the Iraq part, since we now have, what, 250,000 troops over there? and the current toll is just over 2,500 thats a ratio of 100:1, which would mean in this hypothetical situation that 1,000 soldiers in Iraq wold die. Conversely, introducing another 100k into LA to live increases the civilian population. Now while the average annual murder total is 1,000ish so for about 3 years lets go with 3,000 total in that time frame, but thats out of a group of, now, 9.1 million, which more widely disperses the number of who will die. So given that the odds of being murdered are 1 in 3,000ish (its late and I cant be bothered to math too specifically right now) that means that, of that set of 100,000 soldiers/citizens, that only *whips out calculator* that only about 33 would probably be likely to be killed, not counting for other modifiers like their body armor and weaponry skewing those figures… and also the possibility that I have entirely missed a number or something… but still those numbers are nowhere near each other. 1,000 in Iraq v 33-ish in LA, so like, wayyyyyy more would die in Iraq. Like 30 times as much.
Dugg, if your point is actually here to argue that the number of our war-dead alone is not itself an indication of failure in Iraq because raw numbers can be misleading, then I think in a roundabout way youve accomplished as much (and apparently infuriated 8 flavors of living hell out of frame in the process), but seriously, there is absolutely no correct way read the numbers that suggest LA is a worse place to be than Iraq right now.

What if every county was as dangerous for American troops as LA County? But then some are in Red States and run by Republicans.

Dugger

More homicides in LA County than US deaths in Iraq: True.

LA County is more dangerous than Iraq: Untrue.

You cannot arrive at the second statement from the first.

Wrong again, asshole. You are playing on my turf because I fucking live in Los Angeles County.

I find it telling that you are now dodging, rather lamely, my actual charge as you avoid repeating your original assertion. You obviously know that you’re wrong but you’re in too deep to to admit it.

You claimed that “Iraq is safer for our on-site military than if they lived in Los Angeles County.” This is false. Absolutely untrue. You seem unable to understand that you cannot compare the relative safety of two places using gross death toll figures. You can only make the comparison using a ratio that takes into account the population of the areas you are comparing. That isn’t asking asking for “context”, that’s basic Statistics 101. It’s simple reality. Here’s how one study does it.

Now is it asking too much that you follow accepted, proven, standard methods for making statistical comparisons? Apparently it is, especially when reality conflicts with your ideological purposes. And what is that reality? Iraq is radically more dangerous than Los Angeles County.

Of course you are right about technology, but that very factor, that our technological edge makes the human price of war much less costly than before, casts a differnt light on modern wars deosn’t it. Look at the trend. Deaths per day keep going down. And I believe you are right about the last vfew months, but the overall long term trend in Iraq is down – but it should be.

And frame, no matter what, more deaths in La County. Your problem is that you are playing on my turf. Don’t you understand that? I set up the comparison and selected LA County. You guys were talking about gross death totals in Iraq without context. So I gave you a Democrat controlled entity in the US with a higher gross death total – and NOW you want CONTEXT. Indeed.

Sorry about that 100th post thing. Inconsiderate of Rex.

Dugger

I’ve structured this so you get post 100. Not denying either statement. Never have. What you done is taken one way to interpret data and ignored the other. My statements were based on gross totals – same as progressives use to score the war in Iraq. You use rate and say otherwise. I say if you are going to use rate in LA County which is Democrat run, use rate for the Republican run Iraq war versus other wars (and I’ve shown you what that looks like – you don’t like it).

Dugger, A Pillow of Integrity

Wrong, Dugger. The only point I have been disputing here is your claim that Los Angeles County is more dangerous than Iraq. This interpretation of the data presented is factually, demonstrably wrong. It is, withtout question, invalid. In fact, the data shows that Iraq is much, much more dangerous than Los Angeles County. Indeed, if you look at the crime rates, Iraq is some 20 times more dangerous than Los Angeles County.

You can introduce any number of different comparisons you want, it won’t change the fact that this statement of yours —  I ve already shown that, as far as homicides go, Iraq is safer for our on-site military than if they lived in Los Angeles County” — is 100 percent false. That is the only point that I have made, and have had to make repeatedly, to you, Frank and Pedro throughout this thread. Your inability to accept statistical, mathmatical, concrete reality — or, you inability to simply admit that you were wrong — is what has lead to length of this thread.