From: harelb@arthur.uchicago.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: Re: Harel posts a particularly clumsy lie.  (Was Re: "STRONG FAMILY VALUES" (III) (1))
Organization: ACTIV-L (Activists Mailing List)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 22:06:06 GMT


The book _We're Number One_'s comparisons deal primarily with *The 19
Western Industrial Nations_ (precisely the 19 countries in most of the
charts).

Of course in some cases, the U.S. record is so abysmal (e.g.
cumulative AIDS cases) that the U.S. is ranked lower than one or many
countries otyher than the 18 other unsudtiralized nations (% infants
born wiht low birthweight is another example of this) in which case
other countries are listed as well.

This issue could have been clarified quickly enough by dropping me a
quick email (as I said my misc.activism.progressive co-moderation and
other projects prevent me from reading the Net with any regularity --
although these time-consuming projects are just a cover for a our
leftist conspiracy to have us all pretend not to be reading the Net as
much as we'd like to, some have unfortunatley discovered) -- or also
clarified quickly enough, we might add, by a brief look at the book in
question by Andrew Shapiro, and I would only add the obvious comment,
to WISP and others, that a serious inquiry is the last thing on the
minds of many who pretend otherwise.

Harel



*In article <wqtpbd2t@csv.warwick.ac.uk> csuah@warwick.ac.uk (~WISP at CU~) writes:
*>In article <1992Aug25.012632.13048@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
*>>In article <1992Aug21.114529.16549@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> edp@math.zko.dec.com (Eric Postpischil) writes:
*>>>In article <1992Aug20.155755.10597@oracle.us.oracle.com>, mfriedma@uucp
*>>>(Michael Friedman) writes:
*>>
*>>>>In article <9208192139.AA01280@poly.math.cornell.edu>
*>>>>harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (Harel Barzilai) writes:
*>>
*>>>>>We're Number One in percentage of population without health
*>>>>insurance.
*>>
*>>>>Note that Harel posts no evidence for this.  He just lets us mislead
*>>>>ourselves by providing an irrelevant table.
*>>
*>>>Harel's article did say one adult in seven had no insurance at all.  So
*>>>at most 86% have insurance, which is still less than the other developed
*>>>countries in the table.  And there was a reference cited for the
*>>>statement.  So what do you mean there was no evidence for it?
*>>
*>>Eric, the table was for number of people without government insurance.
*>>
*>>Also, I saw no reference for the claim that we are number one in
*>>number of people without insurance.  I also pointed out the total
*>>absurdity of this claim.  For example, do you really beleive thata
*>>larger proportion of Bangladeshis have insurance than Americans?
*>
*>I think he was probably talking about the industrial democracies. The
*>health care situation *for the population as a whole* is worse in the USA than
*>any country in Europe (with the obvious exception of Yugoslavia as was), in
*>addition to Canada, Oz, NZ, Japan Korea etc. etc... Comparing the situation in
*>the US with that in Bangladesh is a bit like comparing the number of Sumo
*>wrestlers in the US and Japan. Different frame of reference, so meaningless
*>comparison.
*>
*>The Wisp.
*>-- 
*>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
*>     Chris Williams <csuah@uk.ac.warwick.csv> aka <csuah@csv.warwick.ac.uk>
*>"Tony Greig in the slips, legs apart, waiting for a tickle"
*>                                      Brian Johnson (thanks to A. Simha 8^>)
Xref: sparky alt.politics.elections:11980 alt.politics.clinton:3524 alt.politics.bush:3518