November 15, 2004
HATE, TERRORS AND RACISM
Iraqi blogger Hammorabi recently received this e-mail from an Australian reader:
It is idiots like you that really make me sick. Do you often get told by the Americans to bend over and get ready for Bush to have his way with you.
What makes me really angry is that I live in Australia, yet I understand fully why the Iraqi people are fighting this illegal occupation, whilst dogs such as yourself will do anything to appease your masters. Do you not feel any sympathy for the 100,000+ Iraqis who have died from American bombs?
Oh, oh I get it now. I have just figured out why you are such a coward and why you post these traitorous blogs of yours. You know that you have no chance in hell of surviving if the Americans are not there to protect you cowardly ass, so you try in vain to do your part and try to influence others to think the way that the Americans want them to, in the hope that if you are able to convince some, then your life will be less in danger.
The note continues in this charming tone. Hammorabi writes: "Such people are enjoying the freedom in these countries yet they hide inside themselves hate, terrors and racism." Some of them don’t bother hiding, as the Sydney Morning Herald reports:
Something odd was happening on Sydney Harbour in the days leading up to New Year's Eve last year. A group of men known to police and ASIO counter-terrorism intelligence experts had found a sudden interest in pleasure cruising.
The men had acquired a boat and were seen making several trips around the harbour, showing particular interest, sources say, in an oil terminal. One was Saleh Jamal, a convert to militant Islam, who three months later would jump bail in Sydney on shooting charges and flee to Lebanon. There he has been jailed on suspicion of terrorist offences.
(Via reader Joe Nagy)
Posted by Tim Blair at November 15, 2004 03:34 PMBecause of course it's not possible that someone who actually lives in Iraq could know more about what's happening there than someone who gets his news direct from, oh, the Sydney Morning Herald.
Nice to see that Lancet article has been swallowed whole by the left. It's like a marker. Any time somone mentions the "100,000" number, you know everything you need to know about their politics and their knowledge of world affairs.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at November 15, 2004 at 03:50 PMI am not the biggest techno-guru running around, but is this possible:
"I got full information about the sender including the number of his/her registered computer in the internet and her address in Australia."
IP address fair enough, but I would be surprised if she kindly provided her home address in her email. Would be amusing if she did.
What is less amusing is the sheer cowardice demonstrated by someone living in the safety of Australia and having the cheek to tell a person in iraq "how it is".
Imagine working with those very people, who could easily have written that email, day in day out.....
Posted by: Claire at November 15, 2004 at 04:07 PMAttila,
It's sometimes, but not always, possible if you know where to look. If a person only uses his or her email for personal emails then it probably won't be listed online unless that person is in an email directory somewhere. Judging by the email Hammorabi received, I'd be willing to bet the author left a trail somewhere. People like that can't keep their mouths shut for too long.
As predicted the 100,000+ story hs become gospel.
How that Godwins law thing go again?
I think it's time for a Lancet's law.
Posted by: Troy at November 15, 2004 at 05:13 PMThis is an insight into the "moderate Islamists" we are informed live here in peace and Harmony.
Hopefully Kareema will become a Shaheeda and spare Australia 4.57 prospective little jihadists.
Anybody else realize what would have been said if the media had reported the Lancet study the same way that U.S. presidential polls are reported?
Your usual poll result is reported something like "51-49, with a 3-point margin of error". That 3 point margin-of-error means that the pollsters are statistically 95% certain the actual range is from 54-46 to 48-52, assuming vaild methodology. (It gets more complicated, but that's the short course.)
Reporting to the same standard, the Lancet report is "100,000 deaths, with a 99,000-death margin of error".
The sample size was so small that the first standard deviations were at 8,000 and 198,000. Even if we assume the methodology on the Lancet suvey was perfect (and we know it wasn't, because the paper data is basically an admission that it wasn't), the results are meaningless.
Thing is, I don't blame media bias for this. I blame media ignorance. Journalists, even the good ones, are not typically people who did well in math courses and have a solid grounding in statistics. And nobody, not even the prestige outfits, have large, mathematically-skilled staffs to review these things. And the result is utter nonsense being taken as Gospel truth.
(Not, however, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For the people who go to town with these numbers, think the gospels of Michael, Margo, Ralph, and Noam.)
Posted by: Warmongering Lunatic at November 15, 2004 at 07:13 PMSuch self loathing in this lefty fruit bat. They would urge the victory of Head sawers, women dismemberers, misoginistic, ignorant spawn of Satan over the US for revenge in its defeating their crap Socialist ideals. These guys are 5th columnists and are just such utterly huge losers. It is breathtaking!!!
Posted by: Dog at November 15, 2004 at 09:01 PMThe discovery of the dismembered and mutilated body of a blonde Western woman in Fallujah is being treated very gingerly here by the MSM.
The fact runs headlong into the fiction that Islam is a religion of peace, and might also drain some of the shit from the heads of complacent EMailers who revile Iraqis for cooperating with or sharing the goals of the coalition.
"I live in Australia, yet I understand fully why the Iraqi people are fighting this illegal occupation..."
I live in Knoxville, Tennessee and I understand fully that you are a jackass.
Posted by: lexine at November 15, 2004 at 10:50 PMLexine,
"Jackass" must be the understatement of all time.
How about "loathesome, corrupt, sanctimonious, hypocritical, traitorous filth".
Next time, I won't hold back
Posted by: jlchydro at November 16, 2004 at 12:08 AM