I assume you are writing to gain my attention since I don't recognize a WAJ, but then you couldn't be enough of a moron to make that mistake could you. Just a hint, when you decide to make a personal attack, don't start by shooting yourself in the foot.

Now on to the discussion. You are right that I took the MSM account at its face value and didn't research it further. The article stated it was comparing civilian violent casualties, but you know those pesky MSM reporters and editors. Truth is not always their strong suit.

But the essence of the post remains at issue. Given the disparity between the 27 and 45 deaths per 100,000, it is possible that Iraq is still safer than DC. So while I will acknowledge I presented an MSM article without checking it further (something I am likely to do again), you haven't disproved the idea that Iraq isn't as dangerous than several US cities headed by liberal governments. And the fact that it is even remotely reasonable to have the discussion on the comparison (i.e. that the violence in Iraq is not an order of magnitude higher than the violence in a place that voted 80% for Kerry) may prompt you to question what you have heard about Iraq from the MSM. This questioning of the MSM may in turn open up all sorts of intellectual horizons for you. Good luck.

Yeah, I noted that as well. It'd be pretty hard to find a single shot pistol these days.

Without advancing the idea of being a moron I think the issue many have made concerning the death rates centers on the fact that a great number of places in the world are violent and dangerous. Some of those places are in the U.S.. The media plays up the violent deaths in Iraq and feeds anti-war fervor. Putting the danger in perspective can be useful to disciplined minds. Statistics such as these can also be crap in the wrong hands.

Let's see, if the civilian deathrate is 45/100,000 per year, that means that it takes over 2,000 years for 100,000 civilians to die in DC.

If we want to quote the article a little more honestly than YAJ does, apparently this is the "violent" civilian death rate for civilians in DC. Unfortunately, the figures cited by Rep. Steve King (R-IA), in the Newsmax article linked by WAF only include violent deaths from war in Iraq, and not other deaths (not to mention non-civilian deaths). Or at least says well known left-wing moonbat James Taranto in his best of the web column here.

So I ask WAJ, are you a moron or do you just play one on the web?

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/29/132706.shtml?s=ic

So perhaps somebody can explain to me why this rises to the surface just now....