Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Numbers doctored

Peter Hartcher pens "the most pretentious line of the week":
If the ancient Greeks had developed Facebook they would have recognised that it addresses the innate human need for thymos.
While not pretentious, the following line – by Dr Gideon Polya, commenting on an article on the Australian of the year (scroll down to the first comment) – must surely be in the running for the WTF outright stupidity award:
Thus on US-dominated Spaceship Earth, avoidable deaths from deprivation total about 20 million annually; post-1950 avoidable deaths in US-occupied countries total about 90 million; in Iraq (1990-2011) and Afghanistan (2001-2011), violent deaths and non-violent deaths from war-imposed deprivation total 4.4 million and 4.9 million, respectively, under-5 infant deaths total 2.0 million and 2.6 million, respectively, and refugees total 5-6 million and 3-4 million, respectively).
Both lines are at the Sydney Morning Herald site. Funny that.

8 Comments:

Blogger Minicapt said...

"Australian citizen Julian Assange is now a hunted man under real threat of rendition, torture, life imprisonment or death and without the support ..."
... next year, we propose "Hanging, Drawing and Quartering". This, it is suggested, will persuade young Assange to mend his ways.

Cheers

1:34 PM  
Anonymous Dan Lewis said...

And not one of those deaths, starvations or refugees can be attributed to Middle Eastern dictators, right?

It was all milk and honey until Bush came along...

Were these people not paying ANY attention to the last twenty years?

Which "spaceship" were they on?

3:24 PM  
Anonymous Chistery said...

"world hero Julian Assange" and "the global evil of US violence, terrorism and subversion."

Music to a leftards ears, which makes the last stats filled paragraph pretty much irrelevant. They'd be too full of smiles and giggles to continue paying attention.

Also why 3 out of 4 commenters gave Dr Gideon Polya the big thumbs up.

9:08 AM  
Anonymous Chistery said...

Polya appears to be a Loewenstein fan.

The Gillard Coup against Rudd was clearly driven by the Mining Lobby and was a brutal example of the power of Big Business in Murdochracy and Lobbyocracy Australia. However analysis of the Left-Right Gillard Coup Plotters reveals a commonality of pro-Zionism (as assessed by trips to Israel, and public utterances, including speeches to Zionist gatherings).

Yes, a well hinged individual!

And this, as another example...

"The specific weather events leading to the current Pakistan and China floods and the Russian heat wave are occurring against a background of increased floods and droughts in particular zones associated with man-made climate change (for analysis by Obama's chief science adviser Professor John Holdren simply Google "The science of climatic disruption")."

I think this guy has an expert opinion on everything... all of it left. Not just left, but far out into moonbat left.

So now I'm thinking to myself, I wonder if this guy is a Truther. Help me, Google....

Boo Yeah!

9:31 AM  
Anonymous PeterB said...

http://mwcnews.net/component/comprofiler/userprofile/gideonpolya.html

12:36 PM  
Anonymous Chistery said...

PeterB, the 'Articles' tab seems to hold the motherload. He looks like another Damian Lataan, except that the venomous bile hasn't quite bubbled up and exploded out his nose and ears. A quick search shows they do haunt the same blogs, so I guess they might be buddies.

2:28 PM  
Anonymous Adrian of Adelaide said...

Thanks for all of that Chistery. Interesting stuff and dare I say it, pretty amusing too. I love how these people write – and they’re actually convinced it’s good too. Just how deluded can you be and still mange to avoid being run over in the street?

I won’t bother mining the quotes Chistery has already provided – have a look for yourselves and ponder the fact this language-mangler is a Doctor… of something or other. God I hope it’s not medicine.

Reading the second grab, on the Pakistan/China floods, I could almost sense a Zionist plot about to emerge - but not to be... this time at any rate. Though I reckon Polya would be a barrel of laughs when it’s just him and the lads and a few under the belt. That’s the funny thing about these cranks – you can be sure the bizarre stuff they actually publish is just the tip of the iceberg.

4:21 PM  
Anonymous tbs said...

My need for thymos still goes unsated!!!

wILL NO ONE FILL MY THYMOS!!!!

7:54 PM  

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