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Link to the flyer:2015 HS Flyer.pdf
Preview video:
The race is on, and the trail is all coming together well. You can see the conditions (as of 4/18/15) in the video. If you are a mother who has the privilege of going to the races, be sure ask about our appreciation gift at the gate!
As far as track conditions go, they are coming along really well. It has been very windy and sunny lately. I don't think we got any rain at the property Friday. The weather outlook is getting better every time I check it.
The Alligator will be held on Thursday, March 12th this year. We are FTR and SETRA cosanctioned.
Here is a link to the flyer: http://www.floridatrailriders.org/uploads/flyer/15_season/2015-Alligator-enduro-flyer.pdf
The meetings are back on track. They are the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at Louie's Pizza in South Daytona (on the corner of Clyde Morris and Beville). They officially start at 7ish. If you want to eat, make sure you get there early. The Alligator layout started the weekend of the 10th, so make sure you attend to get all caught up.
We are scheduled to have our only December meeting this week, on December 3rd. It will be a work meeting, so please come on out. It is at Louie's Pizza on the corner of Beville and Clyde Morris at 7pm.
The Daytona Dirt Riders are proud to present another Strickland Ranch Showdown, which is scheduled for October 11th and 12th.
Link to the flyer: http://www.floridatrailriders.org/up...R-HS-Flyer.pdf
Link to Holeshot's sign up page: http://goo.gl/tDrHiI
Before I get to the event details, we have some awesome sponsors that are really going to chip in. Fly and WPS are going to contribute $3000 in Fly Bucks. These are great, because not only can you get awesome gear, you can get it locally from your Fly dealer or online. You can find their new gear lineup at: http://www.flyracing.com/ and http://www.wps-inc.com/
Mika Metals and DT1 are supplying us with $500 in gift certificates AND a ton of 40% off discount cards. It's obvious there are going to be a few mudders this year, so get your top of the line equipment cheap. Mika Metals makes some of the best chains and sprockets on the market. They also offer brake pads, handlebars, gloves, and filters. Check them out at http://www.mikametals.com/ and http://www.mxfilters.com/
HBD Motografx, Rekluse and Enduro Engineering are also going to be sponsoring the 2014 Strickland Ranch Showdown. We have so many contingencies, prizes, discounts, etc., that almost every rider should be able to go home with something.
We have made some serious changes from previous years. The big one is that the quads are getting their own course. There are only a few tenths of overlap between the quad and bike courses, and that is just to get through scoring. They will come out into the field at least 3 different times to offer some awesome spectating.
The Saturday bikes will be on the same course that the Sunday bikes will be riding, with the exception of around 3 miles. That means those 3 miles will ONLY be ridden by Sunday bikes. We tried to cut out our roughest sections, and are using land that we haven't had access to since the 2012 Alligator. We have gained access to this land because both DDR and FTR have proven how responsible we are as motorcyclists. We have kept Mr. Strickland's land clean, his woods mostly unburnt, and honored his requests for header wrap on 4-strokes, which still stands for this event. As far as that issue goes, quads are exempt, YZ450s and 250s with backwards cylinders are exempt, and so are bikes with ceramic heat coated headers. Any other questions, PM me.
The peewees are being moved back to the patch of woods in the middle of the campground. They will only be riding the open portions and have a huge grass track. This should allow the peewee parents to keep an eye on their youngsters for almost their entire race. No bikes larger than 50CCs are allowed on this track.
Layout has started for this year's harescramble. We need all the help we can get. To be considered an active club member, you are required to work a minimum of 4 days. Volunteers will be in the woods Thursday nights, Saturdays, and Sundays. If you need more info, feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com.
The meetings are back on track and scheduled for every second and fourth Wednesday of the month at Louie's Pizza on Beville and Clyde Morris in South Daytona. They officially start at 7ish, but a lot of people arrive shortly after 6pm to order food and talk about who's the fastest.
The Alligator has been moved to MONDAY MARCH 10th.
Link to the flyer: http://www.floridatrailriders.org/flyer/14_season/alligator-flyer-2014-final.pdf
This year's Alligator Enduro is scheduled for MONDAY March 10th. It will be located on the Strickland Ranch Property on US-1, just north of Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach, FL.
The race has been rescheduled for 10/26-10/27.
Here is a link to the flyer:
Any questions, feel free to email Brooks Jr at email@example.com
This weekend will be the first real weekend of harescramble layout at Strickland Ranch. If you want to be considered an active members with riding privileges and supercross tickets, you need to work this event as well as the Alligator. If you do not know where to go or who to work with, send an email to: firstname.lastname@example.com
On Saturday the 24th, the Daytona Dirt Riders are having a social event out at Strickland Ranch. Any members, old, new, active, or inactive are more than welcome to come out and bring their families as well. This is going to be the first weekend of lay out, and we want everyone to be familiar with each other, the section heads, and the property. We will be grilling hamburgers, hot dogs, ribs, and anything else you can put on a smoker. It will be served around 7pm. Our only request is that you bring a side dish, and if you have one, an Easy Up. A few extra chairs wouldn't hurt either, but that is up to you. Please RSVP with how many people and what side you are bringing by Thursday, the 22nd so we can figure out how much food to buy.
Respond to email@example.com
Thank you.
If you weren't sure whether you really want to race it or not, this should point you in the right direction.
There are still good rows available for anyone interested in racing the Alligator this year. Don't hesitate to enter because they are going faster than a AA rider with the points lead.
It's time to stuff some envelopes for the Alligator. Due to some errors on the flyer, everyone gets the additional opportunity to eat some pizza and fold some paper.
The race is almost here. Preview videos have been posted, and the final touches are being added.
Sunday course preview by Steve Pettenger:
Pewee course preview by Brad Pettenger:
There is only one meeting in July, and it was held on July 11, 2012.
The next meeting is scheduled for the second Wednesday in August, and the usual every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month routine will then come back into effect.
Header wrap is required on four stroke bikes, but not quads. It needs to be wrapped all the way around the bend, until the header straightens out.
Must have spark arrestors on any race bike/quad participating.
96db sound limit.
NOTE: Any rumors going around saying this race is going to be cancelled or not are not true. If you hear a possibility about anything like this, then please contact one of the club leaders to confirm it before spreading it on to anyone else.
4-22-12: Rained almost all night, and some during the day. Track conditions should be great the day of the race!
GPS Coordinates: 29.151187, -81.081687
Alligator Enduro 2012


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Second man dies after collision
By Michelle Mondo : December 18, 2012
More Information
Man killed in head-on collision
A Kingsbury man who was critically injured in a crash last week has died, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Colton William Sanders, 22, was eastbound on U.S. 90 in Guadalupe County on Thursday afternoon when he reportedly veered into the westbound lanes and collided with a truck driven by James Willis Rand, 56, also of Kingsbury.
Rand was killed in the head-on collision. Sanders and his passenger Curtis Lee Smith, 24, of Luling were taken to University Hospital.
Sanders died that same day at the hospital, DPS confirmed.

subset: commoncrawl


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Mood Indigo
Film runs
Fri, Jul 25
Thu, Aug 7
Mood Indigo
Michel Gondry, 2013
France/Belgium | English and French with English subtitles | 95 minutes
Eminently inventive Michel Gondry finds an ideal counterpart in Boris Vian, whose novel Foam of the Daze provides the foundation for this manic, visionary love story. Romain Duris plays wealthy bachelor Colin, whose hobbies include developing his pianocktail (a cocktail-making piano) and devouring otherworldly dishes prepared by his trusty chef Nicolas (Omar Sy). When Colin learns that his best friend Chick (Gad Elmaleh), a fellow acolyte of the philosopher Jean-Sol Partre, has a new American girlfriend, our lonely hero attends a friend's party in hopes of falling in love himself. He soon meets Chloé (Audrey Tautou) and, before they know it, they're dancing to Duke Ellington and plunging headfirst into a romance that Gondry rapturously depicts as only he can. Nominated for three 2014 César Awards: Étienne Charry (Best Original Music), Florence Fontaine (Best Costume), and Stéphane Rozenbaum (Best Production Design). A Drafthouse Films release.
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, 2014
"An experience that's at once emotionally potent and visually delightful." -Violet Lucca, Film Comment
"This is Gondry at his most liberated and inventive" -Andrew O'Hehir, Salon
"Has an energy all its own...Gondry's voice is always welcome" -Bilge Ebiri, Vulture


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Tuition will rise about 8.5 percent, on average, next year at Mississippi's eight public universities.
The increase was approved Monday by the College Board, finalizing an amount that was discussed last month.
In-state students taking two semesters of full-time classes will pay an average of $5,906 for the 2012-13 school year. That amount will be $459 higher, on average, than this year.
Some students pay less than full price because of scholarships or financial aid.
Officials said increases are necessary because state appropriations continue to shrink. The system's overall budget will go up slightly next year, but those increases are earmarked for financial aid, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and some other special items. Universities will see their general appropriations shrink by 1 percent, according to an allotment approved Monday by college board members.
"We are a fairly efficient organization," said Higher Education Commissioner Hank Bounds. "We've made a lot of cuts. At some point, you can't do more with less. At some point, less is less."


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The ADAPT Shop offers children with disabilities and their families individualized adaptive supports that can be identified, designed and/or fabricated just for them and for their specific needs.
There are several ways you can support the ADAPT Shop!
- Donate online or send in a check
- Volunteer in the ADAPT Shop
- Donate supplies such as gift cards, tools and equipment
Gift Cards
Tools and Equipment
- DeWalt DW616PK 1-3/4 Horsepower (maximum motor HP) Fixed Base Plunge Router Combo Kit with Dust Port
- VELCRO 1 inch wide; self adhering sticker backing in white
- VELCRO dots; self adhering sticker backing in white
- Laminator sheets (letter size)
- Work lamps with clamps
- Safety glasses
- Masking tape (all sizes)
- General purpose masking paper (all sizes)
- ScotchBlue Painter's Tape (all sizes)
- 3M Hi-Strength 90 spray adhesive
- UFP Technologies (Mini-Cel L-200 48" x 80" sheet)
- Dynamic Systems, Inc. (Sunmate foam 37" x 82" x 1" sheets in medium soft & in medium density)
For questions about donating supplies to the ADAPT Shop,
please contact Tina Martin at (602) 633-8686 or email@example.com


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Incredible Hercules #120 Preview
By G-Man Comments
Will the God Squad Survive?
Here's a look at this Wednesday's Incredible Hercules #120 courtesy of Marvel.
I'm still wondering how long this title will last. Is Hercules going to keep having his own title? Will Hulk come and re-claim the numbering? That doesn't seem likely since the Hulk title will be shared between Red and Green Hulk now.
Will any of the characters here survive long enough to put in another appearance in Herc's book?
"SACRED INVASION" reaches its cosmos-shattering climax! Hercules leads the ragged remains of his God Squad into desperate battle with the unimaginably powerful Skrull pantheon -- and if they lose, Earth dies!


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– Apparently some type of reality television show has been filmed out of Hulk Hogan's restaurant in Tampa, Florida recently. The show might not necessarily be a Hogan vehicle directly, as a lot of filming has been done as the restaurant without Hogan being there.
– TNA iMPACT! Wrestling tonight will feature the revelation of the new members of the Main Event Mafia. Also, Jeff Hardy vs. Joseph Park and AJ Styles vs. Kazarian in Bound For Glory Series matches.


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Adaptable Storage Solutions for Long-Term Storage
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To ensure that you have the right lockers for your space, Patterson Pope is happy to provide you with a custom space planning analysis. Contact us to talk about your storage needs, and one of our storage experts will analyze your facility. From the number of units you need to the amount of floor space you can dedicate to lockers, we'll design a custom locker setup that will meet all of your needs.
Don't let personal storage become a problem for your business. With a steel locker system from Patterson Pope, you can have a solution that will stand the test of time. Give us a call today to find out if lockers are the best solution to your storage concerns.


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Reader comments on sltrib.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Salt Lake Tribune. We will delete comments containing obscenities, personal attacks and inappropriate or offensive remarks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. If you see an objectionable comment, please alert us by clicking the arrow on the upper right side of the comment and selecting "Flag comment as inappropriate". If you've recently registered with Disqus or aren't seeing your comments immediately, you may need to verify your email address. To do so, visit disqus.com/account.
See more about comments here.
Ex-Market Basket CEO decries 'onerous' terms
Boston • BOSTON • Three independent Market Basket board members are again calling on the supermarket chain's protesting employees to return to work, and customers to return.
The directors also say they are available to negotiate an end to a battle over control of the company.
Last week, they said they had proposed fired CEO Arthur T. Demoulas and his management team return to help operations get back to normal without taking control of the company as talks continue on his bid to buy out family members.
Demoulas rejected that as "disengenuous" and said his purchase offer has been met with counterproposals "laden with onerous terms."
The power struggle that began after the board fired Demoulas in June has led to protests by thousands of employees and a boycott by customers. It has led to a steep drop in sales at the chain with 71 New England stores.
The offer for the private company has not been disclosed, but an industry publication estimates the company's value at up to $3.5 billion.
Arthur T. Demoulas said his offer was made at a "pre-crisis" valuation of the company. His spokeswoman said he hopes the rival family faction will reach an agreement "before it is too late to save this company."


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Celebrity Buzz
Your daily dose of hot news & gossip.
Posts filtered on Tag
Ten lines taken out of context that almost make 'Anna Nicole' watchable
The Lifetime original movie "Anna Nicole" debuts at 7 p.m. this Saturday night. Before the film, check out these ten crazy lines from the film: 10. "Come on, y'all, respect the court." 9. "Get the hell out of here. You're stinking up my seafood." 8. "You suck at being a mama, Mama." 7. "Your occupation […] [Read More]
Fla. gov won't reappoint Anna Nicole Smith coroner
Gov. Rick Scott rejected a recommendation this week to reappoint the longtime South Florida medical examiner who made headlines after several high profile deaths, including model Anna Nicole Smith. Dr. Joshua Perper said he was stunned when he learned Scott would not appoint him to another three-year term, saying he wished the governor's office had […] [Read More]


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2.23.13 WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: Hillsdale Charges Past Cavs in Second Half
Women's Basketball, 2013-02-23
After a closely contested first half of play, visiting Hillsdale was able to pull away in the last 20 minutes for a 70-57 victory over Walsh in Alumni Arena Saturday afternoon. The Cavaliers (7-17, 4-16) were down just three at 28-25 after a last-second jumper by the Chargers (11-13, 8-13) just before halftime.
Neither team had a lead larger than seven in the first half. That changed in the second as Hillsdale slowly extended its lead to double digits following an 8-0 run in the early part of the second stanza. From there, the Chargers led by as many as 18 points.
The Cavaliers forced 28 turnovers for the Chargers, but were hurt on the glass as Hillsdale held a 50-31 advantage on rebounds. Walsh also had trouble finding its shot as the Cavs shot 32.8 percent from the field.
Maggie Berry (Jr., 6-0, Cleveland, St. Joseph Academy) played a strong game as she finished with a game-high 17 points on shooting 8-of-14 from the floor. On the defensive end, Berry was able to make four steals. Tracy Payne (Sr., 5-5, Danville, OH/HS/Notre Dame College) added 10 points to be the Cavs' other double-digit scorer.
The Chargers were led by Megan Fogt with a double-double effort via 15 points and 15 rebounds.
Walsh returns to action this Wednesday when Wayne State visits Alumni Arena. Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. with the game being broadcast on Teamline.
North Canton, Ohio 44720
800.362.9846 | 330.490.7090
Visiting Walsh / Need Directions?
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Boise State University has named Dr. Richard Osguthorpe dean of the College of Education after a national search. The appointment is effective May 26.
Osguthorpe, who has been with Boise State for a decade, has been chairman of the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Foundational Studies since 2012. Under his leadership, the department created two new academic programs, secured large external grant funding, supported faculty initiatives in teaching and research and more.
He is deeply committed to strengthening ties between public schools and higher education, in order to both enhance teacher training programs at Boise State University and increase the number of high school students who 'go on' to pursue a college degree," said Martin Schimpf, provost and vice president for academic affairs.


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Today's NewsYesterday's News
Rick moved to Arkansas with
his family in late 1982 from California. Having lived in the great state of Arkansas for over 30 years, he now claims to
be a "naturalized Arkansan". A place, he's happy to call home.
A graduate of UCA, he has been a part of Little
Rock radio for 25 years, having worked on a variety of Little Rock radio stations.
The proud son of an Air Force Retiree, he is also the husband of an ARMY
Reserve Vet, and a combat Vet himself having served in the Marine Corps Reserve
with I Co. 3/23 at Camp Pike and was activated with his unit for Operation
Desert Shield/Desert Storm on 1990-1991.
A staunch supporter of the military, with a soft spot for
Veterans and their families, Rick helps in any way he can with Veterans causes.
Listen to Rick@Night from 7 til midnight, Get Lead Out @ 8,
who's wearing an orange onesy, with Then There's This and The Rock of 80's, the
best hour on the radio.
Send Rick an email to email@example.com


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Teen Mom
16 and Pregnant's Kristina Head Gives Birth to Her Second Baby Boy!
Congratulations to 16 and Pregnant's Kristina Head! This gal gave birth to her second child (a baby boy!) on January 8th, and she couldn't be more thrilled. Give a warm welcome to the newest member of MTV's growing family, Tommie Joseph, the sweetest bundle of joy this side of Mississippi. "Love him so much," Kristina posted on Instagram along with the cutest picture of Tommie ever.
Kristina was featured on 16 and Pregnant after getting knocked up by her baby daddy, John Todd Hight Jr., who tragically drowned while swimming with Kristina off the coast of Galveston, Texas with Kristina and while she was still pregnant. Their adorable baby, Lukas Todd, was born prematurely on Sept. 26, 2011, and we have no doubt that he's going to be a great big brother!
Nowadays, Kristina is happily married to her hubby, TJ Head, who popped the question in December 2011. They made it official on March 8, and haven't looked back since! Congrats on the new addition to your family, ya'll!
Source: Instagram


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Hockey Cats respond to Friday loss with 2-1 win over Friars
What a difference a day — or in this case a night — can make. Just 24 hours after a defeat embarrassing for how they played rather than to whom they lost, the No. 10 Vermont Catamounts struck back with … Continue reading
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Hockey Cats put a wrap on incoming freshman class of 11
The incoming freshman class for the University of Vermont men's hockey team has finally been solidified, though not officially announced. Eleven players are expected to join the Catamounts in September: Six forwards, three defensemen and two goaltenders. The forwards will … Continue reading
Tagged Alex Coulombe, Anthony Petruelli, Brad Ryan, Brady Shaw, Brendan Bradley, Chris Muscoby, Craig Puffer, Drew Best, Dylan Plitt, Haralds Egle, Ian Spencer, Malcolm McKinney, Mario Puskarich, Michael Stenerson, Mike Lee, Mike Santaguida, Patrick Feeley, Rob Hamilton, Robert Darrar, Thomas Forgione, Travis Blaneil Comments Off
Ice chips: Updated look at future Catamounts
While college hockey teams are playing the games on the ice, the coaching staffs are also engaged in a year-round game of another sort: recruiting. So it is for the University of Vermont staff of head coach Kevin Sneddon and … Continue reading
Ice chips: How future Cats are doing, injuries and looking for goals
As the University of Vermont Catamounts come out of final exams and head toward a brief holiday break, it's time to take a peek at future Catamounts. To date, 10 student-athletes have made commitments to attend UVM in the next … Continue reading
Canadian forward commits to UVM men's hockey
Forward Malcolm McKinney of West Vancouver, British Columbia, has committed to the University of Vermont hockey team for the 2013-14 season, according to his junior team's Web site. McKinney, who plays for the Coquitlam Express of the British Columbia Hockey … Continue reading


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Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Under the strange Bizarro rules that right-wing pundits use to interpret politics in the United States, election season is the time when no one is supposed to discuss any of the things that might actually have a serious impact on their voting decision. The Mark Foley scandal was dismissed as an election-season "October surprise" cooked up by Democrats (even though the people who exposed it were Republicans, not Democrats). And James Baker announced that his secret plan to help Bush turn things around in Iraq would not be released publicly until "after the election in order to try and take our report out of domestic politics."
Let's ignore for the moment the fact that this curious delicacy about political bombshells in an election season comes from the same people who chose September 2002 — the beginning of congressional midterm elections — as the moment to launch their public push for war with Iraq. Let's humor the pundits and pretend that there really is some reason why people should hold off on discussing matters of pressing political interest during elections. If that's the case, then now is the moment when those discussions ought to begin. Let's start by talking about the dead in Iraq.
Last month there was very little discussion of the study published in the Lancet, a highly respected British medical journal, which estimated that 650,000 Iraqis have died since 2003 as a result of the war. The Lancet study too was dismissed as an "October surprise," and it disappeared from the news within days of its publication. But now that the election is over, can we finally discuss it?
I was shocked myself when I saw the figure of 650,000. It seemed huge, much larger than I had imagined possible. It is approximately four times the Iraqi Health Ministry's recent estimate, and twice the figure of 300,000 that is often given as an estimate of the number of people killed by Saddam Hussein during his 23 years of brutal rule.
The Lancet study, with Gilbert Burnham as its lead author, was conducted by some of the same researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad who conducted a previous study in 2004 which estimated that 98,000 people had died. The earlier study was attacked at the time by supporters of the war and was largely ignored by the mainstream news media in the United States, as John Stauber and I noted in our recent book, The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess in Iraq (for an excerpt, see the Third Quarter 2006 issue of PR Watch). The new study suggests that some half a million additional lives have been lost in the subsequent two years.
As the Lancet paper explains, this number is an estimate based on statistical sampling of Iraq's population, and due to limitations in the number of people surveyed, it has a fairly wide margin of error. The researchers followed standard scientific procedure and reported their findings using a "95% confidence interval" — a minimum and maximum value derived from statistical analysis which finds a 95 percent probability that the two limiting values enclose the true number. The minimum value in their confidence interval was 392,979, and their maximum value was 942,636, which means that although 650,000 is their most likely estimate, the true number could be substantially lower or higher. Even so, the low end of this range is nearly 400,000, while the high end is nearly a million.
Are these numbers credible? I looked at reactions to the Lancet study from several groups: American political pundits, scientists with expertise in health and mortality research, and Iraqis (as reflected in the views of Iraqis with English-language weblogs). Many of the political pundits (even those with anti-war views) either rejected the study or questioned its conclusions and methodology. The scientists, however, gave it high marks, and most of the Iraqis thought the number sounded like it was in the right ballpark.
What the Study Says
The full Lancet study is available online. Although it is a scientific paper, I found it easy to read and jargon-free. However, a couple of terms might need explanation.
The study uses a "cluster sampling" methodology that is commonly used in health and mortality research, especially in places hit by war or other humanitarian disasters such as floods or earthquakes. The methodology is somewhat less precise — but more cost-effective and practical — than simple random sampling, in which individual members of the population being studied are selected and interviewed at random. Rather than individuals, researchers interview randomly-selected clusters of individuals and use standard statistical techniques to reach conclusions about the entire population. As Daniel Engber explains in Slate magazine, "It's the same basic method used for political polls in America, which estimate the attitudes of millions of people by surveying 1,000 adults."
A survey of this type, in which researchers go out and methodically sample the population being studied, is called "active surveillance" as opposed to "passive surveillance," which relies on information collected by external sources such as government or news reports. Passive surveillance generally tends to produce unrealistically low estimates, because they miss cases in which someone has died but the death has simply gone reported. Consider, for example, the difference between the results that you would get if you attempted to estimate the health impact of tobacco smoking using passive rather than active surveillance. Epidemiologists have repeatedly and conclusively demonstrated that tobacco smoking causes several hundred thousand deaths per year in the United States, but individual cases of smoking-related death are rarely reported as such in newspapers, so you would get a much lower number if you attempted to compile statistics based on newspaper reports alone.
Currently the most comprehensive attempt to compile statistics on Iraqi death using passive surveillance is being done by the Iraq Body Count website, which as of this writing (November 2, 2006) has tallied 45,061 to 50,022 deaths — less than a tenth of the Lancet result. As the Lancet paper itself notes, "Our estimate of excess deaths is far higher than those reported in Iraq through passive surveillance measures. This discrepancy is not unexpected. Data from passive surveillance are rarely complete, even in stable circumstances, and are even less complete during conflict, when access is restricted and fatal events could be intentionally hidden. Aside from Bosnia, we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based methods."
Lancet editor Richard Horton made the same point in a commentary published in the Guardian:
Only when you go out and knock on the doors of families, actively looking for deaths, do you begin to get close to the right number. This method is now tried and tested. It has been the basis for mortality estimates in war zones such as Darfur and the Congo. Interestingly, when we report figures from these countries politicians do not challenge them. They frown, nod their heads and agree that the situation is grave and intolerable. The international community must act, they say. When it comes to Iraq the story is different. Expect the current government to mobilise all its efforts to undermine the work done by this American and Iraqi team. Expect the government to criticise the Lancet for being too political. Expect the government to do all it can to dismiss this story and wash its hands of its responsibility to take these latest findings seriously.
Assessments from Scientists
Here are some of the reactions from scientists who work in the field of mortality research:
- Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, told the Washington Post that the Lancet's survey method was "tried and true" and said its findings were "the best estimate of mortality we have."
- According to Professor Frank E. Harrell Jr., chairman of the biostatistics department in the School of Medicine at Vanderbilt University, "The investigators used a solid study design and rigorous, well-justified analysis of the data. They used several analytic techniques having different levels of assumptions to ensure the robustness of mortality estimates and the estimated margin of error. The researchers are also world-class."
- Francisco Checchi, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who has worked on mortality surveys in Angola, Darfur, Thailand and Uganda, said that he found the survey's estimates "shockingly high," but added that dismissing it "simply on gut feeling grounds seems more than irrational." He noted that its "choice of method is anything but controversial" and found its results "scientifically solid" and "compelling."
- In Australia, 27 of the country's leading scientists in epidemiology and public health signed a letter supporting the study, noting that it "was undertaken by respected researchers assisted by one of the world's foremost biostatisticians. Its methodology is sound and its conclusions should be taken seriously. ... The study by Burnham and his colleagues provides the best estimate of mortality to date in Iraq that we have, or indeed are ever likely to have."
Asked about the study at a news conference, President Bush dismissed it out of hand, calling it "not credible" and saying its methodology was "pretty well discredited."
"That's exactly wrong," responded Richard Garfield, a public health professor at Columbia University who works closely with a number of the authors of the report. "There is no discrediting of this methodology. I don't think there's anyone who's been involved in mortality research who thinks there's a better way to do it in unsecured areas. I have never heard of any argument in this field that says there's a better way to do it."
Politicians and Pundits
Most of the methodological criticisms of the Lancet study actually come from people like Bush who have no expertise in epidemiology, and of course the boldest attacks have come from supporters of the war.
Writing in the conservative National Review, for example, Richard Nadler called the Lancet paper a "cooked up study." His only methodological critique, however, consisted of an odd claim that the researchers were guilty of "baseline bungling" because they "chose their 'base-line' for pre-invasion Iraq carefully: January 2002 through March 2003."
The baseline to which he referred is the study's pre-war estimate of the annual death rate in Iraq. The Lancet researchers arrived at that estimate the same way they arrived at their estimate of post-war deaths — by asking the people they interviewed whether any members of their household had died during that period. By comparing the pre-war baseline against the post-war death rate, they arrived at their estimate of 650,000 "excess" deaths in the post-war period.
Nadler's argument is that the period from January 2002 through March 2003 was less violent than earlier periods of Saddam Hussein's rule. If, therefore, the researchers had measured the post-war death rate against an earlier, more violent period, the comparison wouldn't look so bad. Of course, January 2002 through March 2003 wasn't chosen arbitrarily, since it happens to be the period that immediately preceded the actual invasion of Iraq. And if the period immediately before the invasion was relatively peaceful, why was the Bush administration so insistent on the urgent need for war?
Criticism of the baseline mortality rate was also a central element in another criticism of the Lancet, published by Fred Kaplan in Slate magazine. The Lancet estimated that 5.5 Iraqis per 1,000 were dying each year before the war. According to Kaplan, this estimate showed that the study was flawed because it differed from an estimate of 10 per 1,000 published by the United Nations. Moreover, he says, a 5.5 per thousand prewar mortality rate would have been "lower than that of almost every country in the Middle East" (a claim made also by columnist William M. Arkin in the Washington Post).
Australian computer scientist Tim Lambert demolishes this criticism in more detail than I'm prepared to, pointing out that 5.5 deaths per thousand was actually higher than the mortality rate in "all but one" of the other countries in the Middle East. The CIA Factbook also estimates Iraq's mortality rate at 5.37 per thousand, a figure that is very close to the Lancet estimate. Moreover, the United Nations estimate cited by Kaplan was itself just a guess, since prior to the Lancet studies, "No surveys or census based estimates of crude mortality have been undertaken in Iraq in more than a decade, and the last estimate of under-five mortality was from a UNICEF sponsored demographic survey from 1999."
Kaplan's other critique invoked an entirely new coinage and concept — the term "main street bias." He cited a letter published in Science magazine by a British physics professor and an economist who argue that the Lancet team's sampling technique was insufficiently random because it overselected people who live near main streets in Iraqi cities. This would skew the results, they claim, because people who live near main streets would have had higher death rates than the country's overall population.
There are two problems with this criticism. First, the Lancet researchers deny that they oversampled from main streets. The methodology section of the published study states that they surveyed homes selected randomly from "a list of residential streets crossing" a randomly-selected main street (emphasis added). But even if the study did overselect homes located near main streets, there is no evidence other than speculation to support the conclusion that "main street bias" would lead to an overcount.
Another attempt at methodological criticism came from Republican pollster Steven E. Moore, who conducted surveys in Iraq and served as an advisor to Paul Bremer. Moore blasted the Lancet paper, calling it a "bogus study." His criticism focused on the study's allegedly too-small sample size and imprecision. "Survey results frequently have a margin of error of plus or minus 3% or 5%--not 1200%," he wrote. This is generally true — with regard to the sort of opinion surveys that Moore performs (although his research in Iraq left Bremer forced to admit belatedly that "we really didn't see the insurgency coming"). The Lancet study, however, was studying mortality, and its sample size was dictated in part by the limited funds available to finance it and in part by concern for the safety of the Iraqi researchers who conducted the survey. It is true that the results are less precise than the results that would be needed to predict election outcomes in a political opinion poll, but that was not its purpose. As the Lancet paper itself explains, "A sample size of 12,000 was calculated to be adequate to identify a doubling of an estimated pre-invasion crude mortality rate of 5·0 per 1000 people per year with 95% confidence and a power of 80%, and was chosen to balance the need for robust data with the level of risk acceptable to field teams."
Moore also claimed that the Lancet researchers collected no demographic data about survey respondents — a claim that was untrue but that is nevertheless repeated in a separate Wall Street Journal editorial which called the study a "fraud."
Similar vitriol came from Christopher Hitchens, the former Trotskyist turned pro-war polemicist, who dashed off a column that didn't so much critique the Lancet paper as urinate on it. After accusing the epidemiologists of "moral idiocy," Hitchens mocked the name "Lancet," called its editor an "Islamist-Leftist," and went on to claim that its mortality estimate is (1) "almost certainly inflated" and (2) actually justifies the war. Why? The study found that 31 percent of deaths were attributed to coalition forces, while 24 percent were attributed to "other" causes and 45 percent were "unknown" (because either the responsible party was not known, or the surveyed households were hesitant to specifically identify them). From this evidence, Hitchens concluded that insurgents are the true killers in Iraq and that the Lancet study is therefore "a reminder of the nature of the enemy we face."
Iraq Body Count
Other criticism of the study came from a source that may seem surprising: Iraq Body Count (IBC), the anti-war, London-based organization that has been tracking Iraqi deaths since the beginning of the war. IBC issued a news release questioning the wide gap that separates its own numbers and official Iraqi government statistics from the Lancet's much larger estimate. The discrepancy, they argued, is so large as to be implausible. For example, IBC doubts that the number of deaths estimated by the Lancet could have occurred "with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms." A gap that large, they argue, can only mean that either there has been "incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries," or else the Lancet authors "have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data."
Les Roberts, one of the authors of the Lancet study, has responded to these criticisms in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation. Citing examples from other wars, he points out that "It is really difficult to collect death information in a war zone! ... I do not think that very low reporting implies fraud."
It should be noted that IBC's own methodology follows rules that should be expected to lead to a lower count than the Lancet survey:
- Whereas the Lancet study attempts to estimate all deaths — including the deaths of insurgents, police and Iraqi military — IBC only counts civilian deaths and excludes combatants.
- IBC only counts deaths that are reported in English-language news media, and Iraq is not an English-speaking nation. Many more deaths are reported in the Iraqi press in Arabic than in the Western-language wire services.
As for the gap between the Lancet figure and deaths reported by the Iraqi Health Ministry, a number of Iraqi commentators (some of whom I quote below) have noted that conditions in many parts of the country as so unstable as to prevent reliable government accounting. Moreover, the question of how many people have died in Iraq has been politically charged since the start of the war, and the United States has not only avoided issuing statistics of its own but on a number of occasions has also pressured Iraqi officials against doing so. Shortly after the invasion in 2003, Baghdad's medical officials were forbidden to release morgue counts. In December of that year, Iraq's Health Ministry ordered a halt to counting civilian deaths and told its statistics department not to release figures, according to the Associated Press. More recently, following a wave of Shiite-on-Sunni violence in February of this year, Iraqi officials originally estimated more than 1,000 deaths but lowered the estimate to 350 following what an international official described as political pressure. In October of this year, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office even instructed the country's health ministry to stop providing mortality figures to the United Nations.
Complicating things still further, the Washington Post reported in August that Iraqi hospitals themselves have become killing fields where Sunni Muslims are kidnapped and killed because Iraq's Shiite-run Health Ministry has been taken over, along with several other government ministries, by the Mahdi Army, a militia controlled by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The resulting "reluctance of Sunnis to enter hospitals is making it increasingly difficult to assess the number of casualties caused by sectarian violence," the Post noted. As another indicator of the inadequacy of official Iraqi statistics, the most recent United Nations human rights report on Iraq states, "The Ministry of Health reported zero number of killed in Al-Anbar for July, which may indicate an under-estimation due to difficulties experienced in collecting information in that particular Governorate." Al-Anbar is one of the most violent provinces in the country, where the Lancet study found that more than 10 people per 1,000 have died annually in violence.
Iraqis Weigh In
Among Iraqi bloggers, the strongest challenge to the Lancet study came from Omar Fadhil, one of two brothers who contributes to a pro-occupation website called "Iraq the Model" (ITM). Fadhil emotionally blasted the study, accusing the Lancet researchers of
exploiting the suffering of people to make gains that are not the least related to easing the suffering of those people... They shamelessly made an auction of our blood, and it didn't make a difference if the blood was shed by a bomb or a bullet or a heart attack because the bigger the count the more useful it becomes to attack this or that policy in a political race and the more useful it becomes in cheerleading for murderous tyrannical regimes.
When the statistics announced by hospitals and military here, or even by the UN, did not satisfy their lust for more deaths, they resorted to mathematics to get a fake number that satisfies their sadistic urges...
These comments prompted an equally emotional outpouring from dozens of other Iraqi bloggers, who called ITM "a holocaust denier," "sucking up to the Americans," "a traitor," "like the Baathist apologist that they so despise," and "shameful." An Iraqi housewife declared that she was full of "Guilt and anger because the Iraq I always dreamt of has become one big nightmare. ... Guilt and anger because outside these walls are trashbins filled with decapitated bodies of women, children and men. ... Guilt and anger because after all the years of tyranny, people are now wishing for Saddam the criminal to come back. ... The so called freedom that everyone, every single person was hoping and dreaming of has gone."
I spent some time sampling discussions of the Lancet study from among the more than 200 blogs listed at the Iraq Blog Count website. Many of the bloggers there noted that they themselves have seen widespread death due to the war, including the loss of personal friends and family: "I don't know of anyone who hasn't lost at least some members of their extended family," wrote Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar.
Riverbend, an anti-occupation blogger, wrote that she found the figure of 650,000 dead entirely plausible:
For American politicians and military personnel, playing dumb and talking about numbers of bodies in morgues and official statistics, etc, seems to be the latest tactic. But as any Iraqi knows, not every death is being reported. As for getting reliable numbers from the Ministry of Health or any other official Iraqi institution, that's about as probable as getting a coherent, grammatically correct sentence from George Bush — especially after the ministry was banned from giving out correct mortality numbers. ... The chaos and lack of proper facilities is resulting in people being buried without a trip to the morgue or the hospital. During American military attacks on cities like Samarra and Fallujah, victims were buried in their gardens or in mass graves in football fields. Or has that been forgotten already?
We literally do not know a single Iraqi family that has not seen the violent death of a first or second-degree relative these last three years. Abductions, militias, sectarian violence, revenge killings, assassinations, car-bombs, suicide bombers, American military strikes, Iraqi military raids, death squads, extremists, armed robberies, executions, detentions, secret prisons, torture, mysterious weapons – with so many different ways to die, is the number so far fetched?
Similar comments came from a Zeyad at Healing Iraq. Zeyad's reaction is interesting in part because he initially supported the war as a means of getting rid of Saddam Hussein and bringing democracy to his country. After reading the Lancet study, he questioned whether its methodology was appropriate "in Iraq's case, where the level of violence is not consistent throughout the country," and he thought its estimate of 650,000 deaths was too high. "My personal guesstimate would be half that number," he wrote, adding, "but then I have a limited grasp on statistics and I stress that I may be wrong. ... The people who conducted the survey should be commended for attempting to find out, with the limited methods they had available. On the other hand, the people who are attacking them come across as indifferent to the suffering of Iraqis, especially when they have made no obvious effort to provide a more accurate body count." Moreover,
There also seems to be a common misconception here that large parts of the country are stable. In fact, not a day goes by without political and sectarian assassinations all over the south of Iraq, particularly in Basrah and Amara, but they always go unnoticed, except in some local media outlets. The ongoing conflict between political parties and militias to control resources in holy cities and in the oil-rich region of Basrah rarely gets a nod from the media every now and then, simply because there are very few coalition casualties over there. The same with Mosul and Kirkuk, both highly volatile areas. I am yet to see some good coverage on the deadly sectarian warfare in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, which has the highest rate of unknown corpses dumped on the streets after the capital, and which was about to be announced an Islamic Emirate by the end of Ramadan. There are absolutley no numbers of civilian casualties from Anbar. There is no one to report them and the Iraqi government controls no territory there, while American troops are confined to their bases. And much, much less data from other governorates which give the impression of being "stable."
I have personally witnessed dozens of people killed in my neighbourhood over the last few months (15 people in the nearby vicinity of our house alone, over 4 months), and virtually none of them were mentioned in any media report while I was there. And that was in Baghdad where there is the highest density of journalists and media agencies. Don't you think this is a common situation all over the country?
A few days later, Zeyad noted the recent killing of another close friend before adding, "I now officially regret supporting this war back in 2003. The guilt is too much for me to handle."
Of course, no single survey should be regarded as the final word on a topic as important and complex as the death toll from this war. It's possible (although unproven) that Zeyad is correct in suspecting that the researchers may have somehow based their findings on an unrepresentative sample of the Iraqi population. One American who works on health projects in Iraq had a similar reaction, stating that "there appears to be an unintentional sampling bias toward the most violent governorates" and that "there could also be a trend to sample the more violent locations within each governorate. ... I offer these critiques as grains of salt. The report may in fact be accurate. I do not dispute the honesty of the researchers. I know from experience that one never has much control over operations in Iraq, and without a great deal of control, information errors can creep in. ... My own guess is that the death rate in the war is twice as much or more than Iraq Body Count, but probably half as much as reported in this study."
Even so, the results of the Lancet study, combined with what we know about the limitations of other attempts to count the dead, suggest that the war in Iraq has already claimed hundreds of thousands rather than tens of thousands of lives.
It is rather striking, moreover, that critics of this research have mostly avoided calling for additional, independent studies that could provide a scientific basis for either confirming or refuting its alarming findings.
The Lancet researchers themselves have called for such research. "At the conclusion of our 2004 study," they state, "we urged that an independent body assess the excess mortality that we saw in Iraq. This has not happened. We continue to believe that an independent international body to monitor compliance with the Geneva conventions and other humanitarian standards in conflict is urgently needed. With reliable data, those voices that speak out for civilians trapped in conflict might be able to lessen the tragic human cost of future wars."
bassboywonder2003 replied on Permalink
GREAT article
Thank you for a wonderful article! The media has done an excelent job in distorting this issue and spreading unecessary mass-confusion. While requiring a relatively thorough and careful analysis, Mr. Rampton shows that understanding of statistical estimation is not beyond the reach of a lay reader.
The convolution of "counts" vs. "estimates" has been beyond negligent. IBC makes no secret of the fact that their count is likely a vast undercount on their website, due to the under-reporting of casualties. The fact that the mainstream media neglected to add this qualification is bad enough, however, I see no excuse for the omission of what it is that is actually being counted! "Civilian casualties" vs. "excess deaths" alone should be expected to result in a much larger number, let alone the HUGE difference between a "count" and an "estimate". Also, given the mainstream media's LOVE of "experts", I found it interesting that most sources did not seek out expert opinions, perhaps due to the near unanimous support the study enjoyed.
The dismissal of this excelent John Hopkins study, not exactly a Micky Mouse institution, was infuriating to me. I subjected almost everyone I encountered in the following days to a lesson in elementary statistics, venting this frustration! Should the issue come up in the future, I definitely will point them to this article. Thanks again!
Thomas Love replied on Permalink
Counting the Dead
The method used is good for other questions, but in this case, it led to a very low count. There were cases where entire families were killed and no one left to report their deaths.
Thomas Love
Roger Migently replied on Permalink
The Greasy Pole
When I first heard Bush (and Australian PM, John Howard) dismiss the report out of hand as "not credible", simply on the grounds that it couldn't be true, surely, (because it didn't feel right?), I remembered the textbook on how to discredit a report and it was in the BBC-TV comedy, Yes Minister's "The Greasy Pole" episode.
The strategy to suppress a document was explained by Sir Humphrey:
- Stage One: You list reasons in terms of the public interest:
•Security considerations;
•Results could be misinterpreted;
•Better to wait for a wider and more detailed study over a longer timescale.
- Stage Two: Discredit the evidence you are not publishing (using press leaks):
•The evidence leaves some important questions unanswered (presumably the ones that were not asked);
•Much of the evidence in inconclusive;
•The figures are open to other interpretations;
•Certain findings are contradictory;
•Some of the main conclusions have been questioned (if not, then question them and then they have).
- Stage Three: You undermine the recommendations:
•Not really a basis for long-term decisions;
•Not enough information on which to base a valid assessment;
•Not really a need for a rethink of existing policies;
•Broadly speaking, it endorses current practice.
- Stage Four: Discredit the writer of the report (of course off the record):
•The writer is harbouring a grudge against the government;
•The writer is a publicity seeker;
•The writer used to be (or wants to be) a consultant for a multinational company;
•The writer is trying to get a knighthood, chairmanship, vice-chancellorship, etc.
It's not only that it couldn't be true "surely", but that it mustn't be true because what Prime Minister or President could live with themselves if it were proved they were responsible for the deaths of so many innocent civilians. The "unavoidable" casualties must be moderate for the action to be defensible as "collateral" and the numbers in the Lancet report were very immoderate indeed.
I refer to casualty numbers from time to time and even I understate the probable numbers because, frankly, I fear that readers will discount everything else I say because they think I am an exaggerator.
So I think Sheldon is right. There ought to be another survey done as soon as possible.
Dissident93 replied on Permalink
Main street bias
Hi Sheldon,
I wondered if you could comment on a response to your article (by myself) at Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/44459/
Gilbert Burnham (Lancet study co-author) has stated that:
"As far as selection of the start houses, in areas where there were residential streets that did not cross the main avenues in the area selected, these were included in the random street selection process, in an effort to reduce the selection bias that more busy streets would have." (My bold)
In other words, Burnham seems to be acknowledging that there is a bias from sampling close to (or on) main streets. (Apparently contrary to what Les Roberts and yourself imply: that there is no evidence for such a bias).
Burnham's statement also contradicts the description of the methodology published in the Lancet:
"The third stage consisted of random selection of a main street within the administrative unit from a list of all main streets. A residential street was then randomly selected from a list of residential streets crossing the main street." (My bold)
The latter (from the published methodology) is precisely what the main street bias criticism addresses. (It holds that the study is unrepresentative of the population of Iraq since it surveys only houses that are "located on cross streets next to main roads or on the main road itself" [my bold]) http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0610/S00436.htm
Given your intention to clarify criticisms of the Lancet study, do your comments on main street bias (in light of the above) not strike you as unsatisfactory (if not misleading)? I'd be grateful if you could investigate further and perhaps supply an update on main street bias.
I notice also that you imply scientific approval of the Lancet study has been unanimous ("The scientists, however, gave it high marks"). However, Debarati Guha-Sapir (director of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels) says that Burnham's team have published "inflated" numbers that "discredit" the process of estimating death counts. And Jon Pedersen, director of the ILCS study (which you omit to mention in your article, even though it uses a methodology similar to the Lancet study's) says the Lancet figure is "high, and probably way too high". http://tinyurl.com/yygn5z
Sheldon Rampton replied on Permalink
Main street bias
I didn't go into more detail on the topic of "main street bias" because my article is already quite long. However, "main street bias" is unlikely to have significantly skewed the Lancet results for the following reasons:
- In the previous 2004 Lancet study, the researchers randomly selected locations in Iraq by using a GPS device to begin at a randomly-selected longitude and latitude. For the 2006 study, they felt that this completely random system was impractical because going around the country with an electronic device in their hand was likely to be interpreted as military activity, so they used the "randomly selected main street" technique as a means to approximate random selection of a location. It's not perfectly random, but it's a reasonable attempt to achieve randomness given the practical limitations posed by the level of violence and suspicion in Iraq. Can you suggest something better?
- The researchers didn't limit their visits to homes which were on the "residential street ... crossing the main street." Rather, they began at a randomly-selected address on that residential street and then visited the 40 homes closest to it, which would have taken them onto homes on other streets. Since the home on the residential street that served as the starting point was randomly-selected, there is no reason to expect that it would have been even close to the main street that the residential street intersected. It could be many blocks away. Calling this "main street bias" is in itself a misnomer. The correct term would be "streets that cross main streets bias."
- No one has presented any evidence, other than pure speculation, to suggest that people who live on main streets (or on residential streets that cross main streets) have been more likely to die than people who live on streets that do not intersect with main streets.
- The details of the Lancet results suggest that most people have been killed away from home anyway, which would vitiate any main street bias. For example, the male-to-female ratio shows that many more men than women have been killed: 3.4 male deaths for each female death, and 9.8 violent male deaths for each violent female death. If people were being killed at home, you would expect a higher percentage of female deaths, particularly since women tend to stay at home more than men.
- Even if we set aside all of the above considerations and assume that "main street bias" exists, I find it hard to imagine that it would have been significant enough to substantially alter the study's outcome. Can you give me any meaningful estimate for how much more likely you think it is for someone to be killed who lives on a street which intersects with a main street in Iraq, as opposed to someone who lives on a street that doesn't happen to intersect with a main street? I find it hard to imagine that the ratio could be so much as 2:1, and even if there was a 2:1 sampling bias, you'd still be left with an estimate of 300,000+ Iraqi deaths.
As for Jon Pedersen, his methodology was not similar to the Lancet study, as he himself notes in the URL you provided. For starters, his survey asked about a wide range of health and living conditions, whereas the Lancet study focused exclusively on mortality. That difference alone is in my opinion more likely to produce a discrepancy in outcomes between the two studies than any skewing due to "main street bias."
The bottom line in all of this, though, is that we should be having more research like the Lancet study, from other research teams in addition to the Johns Hopkins group. If you question the methodology of the Lancet study, fine; then let's have additional studies that address your methodological concerns. In science, no single study should be presumed definitive, and the question of how many people are dying in Iraq (and what they're dying from) is important enough to deserve multiple studies.
Dissident93 replied on Permalink
Main street bias, etc
Hi Sheldon,
Thanks for your response on main street bias. I'll deal with your points in reverse order...
Firstly, I agree we need more research into conflict mortality - including multidisciplinary studies reviewing application of epidemiological methods to conflict mortality (since this application is not well-validated). The work on main street bias is one such study, and its authors call for more studies.
The ILCS study is probably the closest to the Lancet study in terms of methodology (cluster sampling, etc), and its sample of the Iraqi population was far greater than the Lancet's. So if we're interested in different studies on Iraqi mortality, we should be looking at ILCS. As you mention, ILCS's Jon Pedersen states that the focus on mortality (in the Lancet) compared to the more general focus of ILCS is a difference - although Pedersen doesn't accept this explains the large discrepancy in mortality estimate between Lancet and ILCS for the overlapping period.
My point about the similarity (in methodology) between ILCS and Lancet is that if one's support of the Lancet figure rests to a large extent on the "established", "standard" nature of the cluster sampling methodology used, then one can't ignore or dismiss the ILCS study without applying double standards. If you discount the ILCS findings because of the focus of its interview questions (etc), then you should equally be able to discount the Lancet estimate on similar bases (ie subjective, unquantifiable bases). Clearly supporters of the Lancet study should not accept this, if they wish to remain consistent.
So, the ILCS should be discounted no more lightly than the Lancet study. And yet the ILCS does seem to be ignored or discounted (or at least it's not discussed in many articles on Iraq mortality - including your own lengthy piece).
Now, onto main street bias. You say that "even if there was a 2:1 sampling bias, you'd still be left with an estimate of 300,000+ Iraqi deaths."
In that event, I assume you'd be in favour of people being informed that the corrected estimate is 300,000? Sampling bias does matter (even if it affects the estimate by less than your above example). It's also important to remember that small biases introduced in the sampling procedure can lead to very different estimations.
You state: "The details of the Lancet results suggest that most people have been killed away from home anyway". To my knowledge, the Lancet study didn't record details of where people were killed. So this is at most an indirect inference. Furthermore, there is no distinction in the Lancet study between civilians and combatants - the ratio between male and female violent deaths may reflect this (ie predominantly male combatants). Either way, no inference from these ratios (including that females are more likely to stay at home) removes the possibility of bias from sampling close to busy streets. Gilbert Burnham in fact accepts that efforts should be made to avoid such a bias.
I'm puzzled by the claim that main street bias is refuted by the fact that a start house could be anywhere on a cross street (and that the next 39 houses would take the interviews around the block to a few other streets). Main street bias (as I understand it) is about network distance (not physical distance per se) from main streets. Cross roads are one link away from a main street, the side streets connected to the cross streets are two links, back alleys connected to these are three links etc. Given the methodology (as published) whole sections of neighbourhoods would be excluded in the sampling process. For example, see:
On the other hand, Gilbert Burnham has elsewhere stated that:
"As far as selection of the start houses, in areas where there were
residential streets that did not cross the main avenues in the area
selected, these were included in the random street selection process, in
an effort to reduce the selection bias that more busy streets would have." (My bold)
This is a departure from the published methodology. The question remains: how often did they depart from the methodology, and exactly how did they depart from it? If one is interested in accuracy, surely these questions deserve to be answered.
Finally, you ask me for "something better" than the "randomly selected main street" technique. How about a completely random selection process such as that conducted by Jon Pedersen in the ILCS survey of Iraq?


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03/24/02Steve Love
Plain Dealer Reporter
Cuyahoga County can't plan economic development for its 59 communities. What it can do, though, is provide a model.
On the strength of a report by the Center for Regional Economic Issues titled "Older Central Counties in the New Economy," the county is considering how it can influence development as it once did at Playhouse Square and Gateway.
Paid for by a $60,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce and done in collaboration with the Cuyahoga County Planning Department, the report looked at 60 of the country's other older counties but concentrated on Cuyahoga.
"One of the lessons of this report," said David Beach, director of EcoCity Cleveland, a nonprofit environmental planning group, "is that place matters."
And the place that still matters most is downtown Cleveland.
Study author Paul Gottlieb, associate director of the center at Case Western Reserve University, reaffirmed that an old or core economy of manufacturing and an emerging high-tech economy not only co-exist, but also complement each other, including in a stronger-than-obvious downtown that extends to the city's Midtown area.
The power of information technology in Cuyahoga County is difficult to quantify because many workers perform IT functions for traditional companies rather than IT firms.
But those IT firms that do exist are more often located downtown (65) than anywhere in the county except along Rockside Road in Independence (67).
Server "hotels" for telecommunications have filled the upper floors of some downtown buildings that suffer from vacant storefronts. Some of the region's stronger IT firms, including Flashline.com and Thunderstone Software, have downtown addresses. Athersys Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, and Biomec Inc., a biomedical product developer and manufacturer, are in Midtown.
Gottlieb suggests that county planning decisions that contribute to economic build-up in the right places can foster the emerging economy. The report recommends that the county:
Retain downtown high-tech employment through infrastructure support.
Create amenities, from skateboard parks to a Shoreway that opens the waterfront to well-designed neighborhoods near desirable high-density employment.
Ensure access to high-tech jobs through training and education.
Paul Alsenas, County Planning Commission director, wants to turn the report into action. So does County Commissioner Tim McCormack. Some action may be direct: For instance, the county's possible participation in a job-training, job-securing center near downtown, McCormack said.
Other action may be indirect, such as adopting a countywide green-space plan that can be integrated with employment centers and neighborhoods.
To reach these goals, a community cannot be "spatially agnostic," says Robert Jaquay, an economic-development program officer with the George Gund Foundation. A community must recognize that the services it provides and where it provides them affect businesses and the lives of those who work there.
Jaquay led a county planning department study of telecommunications and economic development in 1993. For that report, planners looked at regional dynamics: How, for instance, the former Ohio Bell's wiring decisions, which would affect where information-economy businesses located, could be integrated with other infrastructure decisions, such as those concerning roads.
"Partnerships or collaborations with the county and state or even with neighboring governments better our opportunity to retain businesses," said Ron White, Independence's economic development executive assistant.
A well-wired Independence has added to its advantage of being at the juncture of I-77 and I-480. It isn't downtown. But it is an edge city that, if properly supported, may "postpone further sprawl to outlying counties," Gottlieb wrote.
Too often, critics say, Cleveland and county officials have ignored the consequences of enlarging the economic chess board while playing with the same number of business pieces.
Trevor Jones, chairman of Biomec, has questions for those trying to develop a Cleveland cluster of bioscience businesses:
"Where is Invacare?
"Where is Steris?
"Where is Philips Marconi?"
Invacare Corp., maker of home medical products, is in Elyria. Steris Corp.'s infection and contamination prevention work is done in Mentor. Philips Marconi, a Highland Heights maker of imaging equipment, is in Cuyahoga County but not Cleveland.
"The intelligent people who run these companies made a decision not to be in Cleveland," Jones said. "Cleveland should not have permitted that to happen."
Sometimes, such decisions can't be prevented. Company size may not match available space, especially in an area considered fully developed like Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.
"We are working with commercial real estate agents, having quarterly breakfasts with the mayor to talk about the challenges of finding places within the city of Cleveland to relocate businesses," said Tim Mueller, the city's chief development officer. "If we give our best shot to relocate a company and it isn't good enough - well, at least we've returned the phone call. That hasn't always happened."
The city also has been receptive to creating more places where people both live and work. Chris Ronayne, the city's planning director, says, "It is not inconceivable that there could be 10,000 new homes built in the downtown area over the next 10 to 20 years."
Ronayne and the city, like Alsenas and the county, are creating plans that connect neighborhoods to one another by paths and trails.
For Beach, EcoCity Cleveland's director, such live-work spaces help the community get better when it can't get bigger.
"There's a tremendous interest in recapturing the great, old neighborhoods," said Beach, whose organization is involved in creating one around the West 65th Street transit stop. "But a lot of land-use regulations and zoning make it difficult. The old-fashioned neighborhood is illegal in most communities."
County planners can't change that. City planners and officials must. But county planners can, as they have with cell-phone towers, create model ordinances good from Lakewood to Solon.
"We need policies that cross our boundaries," said Beach.
The county commissioners came to the rescue in Playhouse Square, by providing money for the Ohio and State theaters. County voters did the same with alcohol and tobacco taxes for Gateway, and the county provided even more money to back construction loans. Will the county begin to operate again on this larger scale?
"Within our means," County Commissioner McCormack said, "we need to be more aggressive at spurring a sense of hope through redevelopment."
Contact Steve Love at:
firstname.lastname@example.com, 216-999-5029
© 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
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text:
How I Moved the Football During Euro 96
2014-06-01 10:23
You may remember how I moved the ball from a helicopter to make Gary McAllister miss a penalty during the Euro 96 England Vs Scotland game (I since apologised to Gary).
Ally McCoist recently told The Scotsman how he saw the ball move:
SEVENTEEN years on, Ally McCoist is still smarting over the missed penalty that cost Scotland at Wembley, writes Andrew Smith. The missed kick has been subject to some outlandish theories, notably illusionist Uri Geller's claim he made the ball move before McAllister struck it. McCoist adds: "Listen, I am telling you right now I was standing next to Gary Neville and that ball moved just the split second before he kicked it. It sounds crazy but I am telling you. It was actually quite a bit. It moves."
Here is how I did it.
Uri Geller challenges Ireland gaffer Martin O'Neill
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text:
After seven years of preparations, Brazil is just weeks away from opening day of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and things are not looking good.
Key infrastructure and stadiums are not quite complete, concerns about safety are rising in Rio, protesters have taken to the streets in angry clashes with police, and now transportation worker and police officer strikes are rolling through Sao Paulo, Rio de Janero and several other cities.
Fare collectors and bus drivers walked off the job on Tuesday and Wednesday in Sao Paulo, which officials estimated affected some 230,000 commuters, according to Reuters. Police officers in at least 14 Brazilian states, went on strike Tuesday to demand better pay and working conditions.
Ahead of the June 12 start of the tournament in Sao Paulo, the country is on edge, The Post's Dom Phillips reports in Rio:
Sitting outside the orange tent where he rents stand-up paddleboards on Copacabana Beach, Jorge Soares was of two minds about Brazil's World Cup, despite the extra money it is already bringing in as tourists arrive in town.
"As a businessman, it's a good thing," he said. "But as a citizen, I see the World Cup works as futile for the population."


text:
"The Dirt on 'Government Motors'"
As sure as death and taxes is this: he who pays the piper calls the tune. When the government run by a Liberal "invests" in a car company, what do you think happens?
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