counts

Mark introduced me to a website that tracks coalition casualties in Iraq.

I thought it was sort of interesting because we are watching the Ken Burns documentary on World War II (The War) in which families read the paper to see if there is any news of their loved ones and don't find out until they get a telegram. I don't know if it would be worse having a website you can incessantly check or not.

However, the site does have statistical trends, average deaths per day, and a drill down to exactly who, how and where. I noticed that 15% of the deaths since day 1 have been from friendly fire... and why do I not remember hearing about a huge 43 ff deaths in a week back in Jan 2005. (Compared to one or two other weeks.) What happened? I also noticed that the weekly average is climbing very slowing but steadily (by one more person for every six months we've been there.) I just thought of a nice math question. An increasing sequence - what will the estimated cost be in three years (total losses). I'll tell you tomorrow. It's too late for more math today. It felt honest and sobering to check it out. I recommend you do the same. And don't just take a quick look. Click on stuff. Explore. Caring about the troops matters. It's not just a bumper sticker.

(hey, not everything on my blog has to be light and silly.)