Flit

SURELY, THAT'S NOT THE BEST

SURELY, THAT'S NOT THE BEST HE CAN COME UP WITH

I think it's clear I'm as happy as anyone to see Marc Herold's ludicrous Afghan casualty numbers debunked, so I should be happy Megan McArdle and others have tried to call attention to the problems with Herold by providing links to Stats.org's Iain Murray's refutation of it at Tech Central. However, I'm not really... it disturbs me that Murray doesn't bother to provide more than perfunctory evidence of his own numerical claims.

A STATS review of the data suggests that, on a careful reading, only 650 of the deaths he claims are in any way reliably reported.

When Herold goes to the trouble of putting everything but his own raw notes on line, a proper refutation can only be of equal weight if it does likewise. But Murray provides no links, and Stats.org has no mention of its "review of the data" on its site. That's pretty slipshod. If Murray really has done a review of Afghan casualties that could stand up to scrutiny, why wouldn't he publish it? No, Murray had a chance to bury Herold forever online... and he whiffed. You simply can't criticize people for faulty methodology, without inviting debate on your own. Murray, of all people, should know that.

FLYING THE SERVICE AIR SKIES

FLYING THE SERVICE AIR SKIES

While I'm here, here's my nutty airport security story. (Issued free to all North American airline passengers, along with their complementary peanuts.) Travelling to and from Louisville AFB, from Pearson International, on a Canadian Air Force Airbus, while in uniform, our chalk was intensively searched both coming and going. On the way down, we had to take our combat boots off and pass them through X-ray; on the way back up, one foolish soldier who hadn't prestowed his forces-issue multitool (ie, a pair of pliers) had it permanently confiscated.

Now, I'm not going to complain about the indignity or anything. If the Canadian Forces wanted us to shave our heads and paint them purple every time we flew, I'd do that too. But it seems a tremendous waste of money to search so thoroughly, just to eliminate any chance that a Canadian soldier with a pair of pliers could overwhelm his 200 other trained soldier buddies and redirect the plane, doesn't it? At some point, doesn't common sense have to kick in?

SOMEONE IN BOULDER'S BEEN PLAYING

SOMEONE IN BOULDER'S BEEN PLAYING A LITTLE TOO MUCH CRIMSON SKIES

Well, I'm back. Great time in Ol' Kentuck. Very friendly people there: felt very much at home. More on that later, maybe.

Meanwhile, great story from the Ottawa Citizen's David Pugliese today, on NORAD bringing back the Zeppelin. As a diehard Nate Zachary fan, I've got to say it's about time, dammit.

Also, here's a picture from our guys in Kandahar, which pretty much says all I have to say about the 6-month anniversary.