Bogus Lancet Study

Via The Command Post comes this study published in Lancet (free reg) which purports that 100,000 Iraqi have died from violence, most of it caused by Coalition air strikes, since the invasion of Iraq. Needless to say, this study will become an article of faith in certain circles but the study is obviously bogus on its face.

First, even without reading the study, alarm bells should go off. The study purports to show civilian casualties 5 to 6 times higher than any other reputable source. Most other sources put total combined civilian and military deaths from all causes at between 15,000 to 20,000. The Lancet study is a degree of magnitude higher. Why the difference?

Moreover, just rough calculations should call the figure into doubt. 100,000 deaths over roughly a year and a half equates to 183 deaths per day. Seen anything like that on the news? With that many people dying from air strikes every day we would expect to have at least one or two incidents where several hundred or even thousands of people died. Heard of anything like that? In fact, heard of any air strikes at all where more than a couple of dozen people died total?

Where did this suspicious number come from? Bad methodology.

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Quote of the Day

Arafat’s slide into illness has raised fears of chaos among Palestinians, whose 4-year-old uprising for a state has stalled.

Of course there wasn’t much chaos under Arafat’s orderly, benevolent rule, just as there wasn’t any chaos in Iraq under Saddam or Afghanistan under the Taliban. Yeah, chaos, that’s the worst outcome possible. Better to have some of that nice stability like they used to have.

Bring on the chaos — and the freedom and opportunity.

(via Michael Totten)

Voting: Keep It Simple

If I knew nothing else about this election or recent history, I’d vote for Bush based solely on who his enemies are. The anti-Bush roster includes: the international Left — including MSM, academia and much of the entertainment industry; the governments of France, Iran, Germany, Venezuela, Canada, Cuba, N. Korea, Syria, etc.; the Palestinians; probably the Saudis and the Chinese; the UN; the US State Department bureaucracy; and numerous intellectuals who have been getting the big picture wrong for years.

When you think about it that’s not a bad way to make complex decisions: look at what the groups that have big stakes in the matter are doing, then vote with the ones that share your interests and against the rest. That’s how I vote on issues I don’t know a lot about. For example, on a referendum item that would cap lawyers’ fees in medical-liability cases, I am split. On the one hand I think medical liability is out of control, on the other hand I oppose price fixing. But I know that the trial lawyers favor the measure and the doctors oppose it, so I vote against.

All I need to know about this election is that the UN crowd wants Kerry to win. (As the WSJ pointed out in today’s editorial, the UN has already voted, by ginning up the missing-explosives story.) So to all the clever bloggers who are publicly agonizing about whom to vote for, I say, look at the obvious. Figure out who your enemies are, observe their preferences in our election and take the opposite position.

UPDATE: One of the commenters raises the issue of rational ignorance. I agree that that issue overlaps the issue that I discuss, as my main reason for using my “enemy of my enemy” heuristic is that I don’t have the resources or ability to evaluate each issue by myself. However, the overlap isn’t complete. I argue that by observing the behavior of better-informed players I am able to obtain, more economically than by conventional methods, the information that I need to make good decisions. It is a little like trading stocks based on market behavior, as opposed to trading on fundamental analysis of underlying economic conditions. Maybe I could learn enough about each company’s fundamentals to trade its stock successfully. But if I can trade just as well, with less effort, solely by observing the stock’s behavior and making reasonable inferences, why not do so? It is similar with voting decisions, especially when I am having difficulty making up my mind using conventional decision criteria.

UPDATE 2: Here’s someone who gets it.

What’s Up With Intrade?

I’m watching Intrade’s Bush-reelection mkt and reading comments on Lex’s recent post about the election.

I agree with the commenter who suspects manipulation. The mkt’s acting like there’s a big, aggressive seller: there are size bids, but only small resting offers below about 53. The seller is the only one tightening the mkt. Also, IIRC (and I may not be), it appears there’s been huge volume in the past hour or so.

This behavior doesn’t quite fit the pattern that observers noticed in the mkt earlier, where someone came in when the mkt was thin and spiked it down quickly by taking out a lot of bids. Today’s price action looks more like the scenario I hypothesized about, where someone is willing to spend hundreds of thousands to hold the mkt down, for an extended period, by entering a stream of sell orders in small units. Not as dramatic as the big plunge, but perhaps more believable to uncommitted or easily-discouraged voters. (And anyway, there are probably now so many resting bids at lowball prices that the mkt can no longer be spiked.)

If I were George Soros I’d do the same thing.

(Related post here)

UPDATE: Don Luskin shares another theory.