WHAT DOES D.C. MAYOR-EXTRORDINAIRE MARION BERRY HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS?

Quick blog update just because this link was so fascinating. Mortality statistics indicate that Washington D.C. in 2000 was more dangerous for a black man than war-time Iraq presently is, no matter how bad the U.S. and British media would have you believe. As they say, here's the "money quote":

According to this week's story from Scripps Howard News Service, there are 140,000 troops in Iraq, and there have been 286 fatalities from all causes since the war began in March (about 24 weeks ago). That gives us an annualized death rate of 443 per 100,000. Only about half of these deaths (147) were in combat, for a combat death rate of 228 per 100,000.

According to Center for Disease Control / National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, there were 21,836 young black men (age 18-30) in Washington DC in 2000, the latest year that mortality data is available. The total number of deaths in this group from all causes was 132, with 95 homicides. i.e. the death rate for this group was 604 per 100,000 and the murder rate was 435 per 100,000.

In other words, a young black male soldier from Washington DC would have been 36% more likely to die by staying at home than by serving in active duty in the Iraq war, and almost twice as likely to be murdered at home than to be killed in combat. Yes, that's horribly sad, but it puts a few things in perspective.

But you'd never hear the New York Times, Dan Rather or the BBC put Iraq mortality rates into true perspective as this data in fact does. They're all about anti-American hysteria over there. I'm particularly sensitive to this point because during our stay in Asia, according to the BBC World Service, the primary English-language news service on TV, Iraq was spinning into chaos, as was Liberia and Israel AND it was all the U.S.'s fault. The coverage was so biased, in fact, it made me think it a major miracle that England joined us in the campaign.

Anyway, just a tidbit of inarguable evidence that most news agencies are truly not serving us.