A JOKER AND A CLOWN AT THE RADIO AND TELEVISION CORRESPONDENTS' DINNER 2007

BUSH'S BRAIN

KARL ROVE

DID HIS RAP!

AND HE’LL GET HIS OWN

RAP AT A LATER TIME!

(BUT NOT OF HIS CHOOSING!)

THE SMIRKING DECIDER

WAS ABOUT AS FUNNY

AS A BURNING BUSH!

THIS IS TRAGI-COMEDY

AT ITS VERY BEST AND WORST!

THE TRAGIC LEADER AND DECIDER

TURNED INTO A COMIC RELIEVER!

AND HIS CHIEF ADVISER AND DECEIVER

JUMPED UP AND DOWN

LIKE A LUNATIC CLOWN!

Adiuva nos, Domine!

Iraq death toll survey 'robust'

http://www.theaustralian.news.com/

March 27, 2007

BRITISH government officials backed the methodology used by scientists who concluded that more than 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the US-led invasion in 2003, the BBC reported today.

The Government publicly rejected the findings, published in The Lancet medical journal in October.

But the BBC said documents obtained under freedom of information legislation showed advisers concluded that the much-criticised study had used sound methods.

The Lancet study, conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, estimated that 655,000 more Iraqis had died since March 2003 than one would expect without the war. The study estimated that 601,027 of those deaths were from violence.

The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95 per cent certain that the real number lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 deaths.

The conclusion, based on interviews of households and not a body count, was disputed by some experts, and rejected by the US and British governments.

US President George W. Bush said he did not consider it “a credible report,” and Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said the study had extrapolated from an unrepresentative sample of the population.

However, the chief scientific adviser to the Defense Ministry, Roy Anderson, described the methods used in the study as “robust” and “close to best practice.”