‘With seven days to go, why do you need this?’

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Wednesday January 13, 2021 · 12:39 AM PST

2021/01/13 · 00:39

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06: In this screenshot taken from a congress.gov webcast, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) gestures after receiving a standing ovation before speaking during a House debate session to ratify the 2020 presidential election at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden's 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. A group of Republican senators said they would reject the Electoral College votes of several states unless Congress appointed a commission to audit the election results. (Photo by congress.gov via Getty Images) — Representative Jamie Raskin

As the Lead Impeachment Manager, Representative Jamie Raskin’s short answer to Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who voted to block certifying the 2020 Presidential election:

“The people who are saying why impeach now really should be asking: Why does he continue to commit impeachable offenses up until the very end of his term?”

Raskin’s long answer, which we’ll hear Wednesday, January 13th:

The long one, which Mr. Raskin, who has written two books on Supreme Court cases, intends to deliver Wednesday on the House floor, begins this way: “We came very close to experiencing a coup in America. It was like an attempted coup wrapped inside a violent riot wrapped inside some cosmetic protests on the outside.”

The photo above was taken January 6th (before the chaos), when Rep Raskin received a standing ovation from both sides of the House acknowledging the death of his 25-year-old son, Thomas Bloom Raskin, New Year’s Eve.

WATCH: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), whose son passed away last week, receives a standing ovation from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. pic.twitter.com/J9yjilD3Ql
— Cheddar🧀 (@cheddar) January 6, 2021

From a statement about his son, which I hope you read:

On the last hellish brutal day of that godawful miserable year of 2020, when hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of people all over the world died alone in bed in the darkness from an invisible killer disease ravaging their bodies and minds, we also lost our dear, dear, beloved son, Hannah and Tabitha’s beloved irreplaceable brother, a radiant light in this broken world.

He left us this farewell note on New Year’s Eve day: ‘Please forgive me. My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals, and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.’

My Mother passed away from COVID on January 8th, she was 87. She attempted suicide when learning “the other woman” was following us from New York to California. I was so lucky to have her for 50 more years, knowing that life could’ve been so different without her. Mom was an English teacher with a wicked sense of humor. (Mom, we’re black, why did you name one of your kids Kipling‽)

She was the parent that was always there. She taught me (and 1st and 2nd graders) how to read with 100% comprehension. She was the one that couldn’t afford a computer, but got an electric typewriter that changed my life. She was the one that convinced the new principal to put me in 12th grade, only later to find I failed 7th and 8th grades. She was the one calling in every favor to get me into college: we went in humble, but after taking the GED we came back to a giddy reception—my results cost the State of Michigan six million dollars to redo the test.

Her doctor said she was a glass half-full woman (I could hear the delight in his voice, and also the sadness). Called mom one last time at 10:09pm, Friday. Fortunately, the nurse saw my name and called back, and I heard mom’s voice one last time. She died at 10:55pm.

For Rep Raskin to stand, at this moment of his grief, in the House of Representatives and present the case for Impeachment is what mom would call, doing something constructive. So I got myself out of bed to do this, and here you go. Kiss your elbow, Mommy.

My condolences to Representative Raskin and his family.

Hillary Clinton and 'Throwing Like a Girl'

northanger

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Friday March 11, 2016 · 7:13 PM PST

2016/03/11 · 19:13

Mo'ne Davis made history in 2014 for pitching a shutout in the Little League World Series. The Disney Channel is developing a movie about her called, Throw Like Mo. In March 2015, a Bloomsburg University baseball player tweeted about the movie, calling her a “slut”. Roxanne Jones, (founding editor of ESPN Magazine and former vice president at ESPN) wrote an op-ed about the incident for CNN:

Slut, ho, hussy, heifer, bitch -- long before I ever heard those words flow in a rap song, I heard them first in my own home, my own neighborhood. And too many times, they were directed toward me or one of my grade-school girlfriends.

You see, for generations, black girls have been so conditioned to being called these over-sexualized names -- first by our slave masters, then our mothers, sisters, friends and eventually the world -- that today many times we don't even take offense.

In 1996, in The Atlantic, James Fallows wrote an article about Throwing Like a Girl —

On opening day, April 4, Bill Clinton went to Cleveland and, like many Presidents before him, threw out a ceremonial first pitch. That same day Hillary Rodham Clinton went to Chicago and, like no First Lady before her, also threw out a first ball, at a Cubs game in Wrigley Field.

The next day photos of the Clintons in action appeared in newspapers around the country… Hillary Clinton was pictured wearing a dark jacket, a scarf, and an oversized Cubs hat… As the picture was taken, she was in the middle of an action that can only be described as throwing like a girl.

Fallows acknowledges how stereotypes can hurt, since he belongs to the "dancing like a white man" group. But seeing those two different Clintonian pitches, he started wondering: Why, exactly, do so many women throw "like a girl"? (if anyone could change it, certainly Hillary could!). There are no structural differences that cause women to throw differently than men—

SO what is it, then? Since Hillary Clinton's ceremonial visit to Wrigley Field, I have asked men and women how they learned to throw, or didn't. Why did I care? My impetus was the knowledge that eventually my sons would be grown and gone. If my wife, in all other ways a talented athlete, could learn how to throw, I would still have someone to play catch with. My research left some women, including my wife, thinking that I am some kind of obsessed lout, but it has led me to the solution to the mystery.

It was a tennis coach, Vic Braden, who was able to analyze and describe the “kinetic chain” involved in throwing a baseball.

The implication of Braden's analysis is that throwing is a perfectly natural action (millions and millions of people can do it), but not at all innate. A successful throw involves an intricate series of actions coordinated among muscle groups, as each link of the chain is timed to interact with the next. Like bike riding or skating, it can be learned by anyone—male or female. No one starts out knowing how to ride a bike or throw a ball. Everyone has to learn.

After learning how to bat and throw left-handed to play Babe Ruth, John Goodman said, "I'll never say something like 'He throws like a girl' again. It's not easy to learn how to throw."

This brings us back to the roots of the "throwing like a girl" phenomenon. The crucial factor is not that males and females are put together differently but that they typically spend their early years in different ways.

. . .

"For young boys it is culturally acceptable and politically correct to develop these skills," says Linda Wells, of the Arizona State softball team. "They are mentored and networked. Usually girls are not coached at all, or are coached by Mom—or if it's by Dad, he may not be much of an athlete. Girls are often stuck with the bottom of the male talent pool as examples. I would argue that rather than learning to 'throw like a girl,' they learn to throw like poor male athletes. I say that a bad throw is 'throwing like an old man.' This is not gender, it's acculturation."

Fallows provides two tips for anyone wanting to learn how to throw a baseball. One, play catch while on one knee — that’ll get your elbow in the right position. Two—

The other is to play catch with a person who can throw like an athlete but is using his or her off hand. The typical adult woman hates to play catch with the typical adult man. She is well aware that she's not looking graceful, and reacts murderously to the condescending tone in his voice ("That's more like it, honey!"). Forcing a right-handed man to throw left-handed is the great equalizer. He suddenly concentrates his attention on what it takes to get hips, shoulder, and elbow working together. He is suddenly aware of the strength of character needed to ignore the snickers of onlookers while learning new motor skills. He can no longer be condescending. He may even be nervous, wondering what he'll do if his partner makes the breakthrough first and he's the one still throwing like a girl.

northanger

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Sunday March 06, 2016 · 2:08 PM PST

2016/03/06 · 14:08

The Big Bad TV trope

The cause of all bad happenings in a story. The Big Bad may either be personally responsible for the events, or the biggest force in opposition of the hero's goals. A Big Bad could be a character with Evil Plans or it could be an omnipresent situation, such as a comet heading towards the Earth. In a serial story, the Big Bad often exerts an effect across a number of episodes, and even an entire season. In a standalone cinematic story, their presence drives the plot.

A Big Bad is not a catch-all term for the biggest, ugliest or even primary villain of any given story. The Badass leader of the outlaw gang that causes the most personal trouble is not the Big Bad. The railroad tycoon who turns out to be using the gang as muscle is the Big Bad. The Man Behind the Man is very common for this trope, leaving the reveal of the big bad as The Chessmaster behind it all and proving themselves far more clever and resourceful than the Villain of the Week. Sometimes the Big Bad is the grand enemy of the entire story as an Overarching Villain. At other times, the Big Bad is an Arc Villain who causes trouble for a period of time only to be replaced by another Big Bad with ambitious plans. The Big Bad may be confronted frequently, but is too powerful to finish off until the last episode of the story arc. The Big Bad may work through Evil Minions and will almost certainly have The Dragon protecting them, to keep interest up and provide something for the good guys to defeat. When you look at a season-long story or a major Story Arc and you can identify that one villain as being the one in control of everything, that is the Big Bad.

In its most general terms, a Big Bad will be at the center of the Myth Arc rather than just any Story Arc. At the same time, the Big Bad is not exclusively the most dangerous enemy of the arc. In many cases, you will find that while the Big Bad may be in control, the Dragon-in-Chief would still be the greater threat.

You Say You Want A Revolution

northanger

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Wednesday March 02, 2016 · 9:30 AM PST

2016/03/02 · 09:30

Symbols of Power: Adinkras and the Nature of Reality, S. James Gates Jr. The geometric objects that interest us are not triangles or octagons, but more complicated figures known as "adinkras", a name Faux suggested. The word "adinkra" is of West African e — S. James Gates, Jr. explains how research on a class of geometric symbols known as adinkras could lead to fresh insights into the theory of supersymmetry — and perhaps even the very nature of reality.

You say you got a real solution Well, you know We'd all love to see the plan

For me, one of the great things about the Internet are the ideas and folks I never would've met in real life. Several years ago, (un)fortunately [haven't quite decided yet] met up with former members of the Ccru. Sitting between three ghettoblasters, Simon Reynolds & Renegade Academia: The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit.

My interaction with "Ccru" (and associated websites & bloggers) began around the 2004 presidential election. Most of them were British, one was Persian, which provided an interesting perspective of the United States and our War on Terror. What was really interesting were the numerous (Marxist and otherwise, but almost totally non-American) responses to the 2008 financial meltdown this group produced.

Can't say I understood it all, but it certainly informed my American POV over the past 10 years. Since some of those themes seem familiar, at least to me, today at Daily Kos, I thought it might be interesting to look at one of them: Accelerationism. What makes this a, possibly, useful topic is the broad spectrum of theory, criticism, bloggers, and an international conglomeration of continental vs. analytical vs. speculative disagreements & other kinds of ivory tower stuff.

What is Accelerationism?

northanger

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Thursday February 11, 2016 · 4:27 PM PST

2016/02/11 · 16:27

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 06: House Democratic Assistant Leader Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol September 6, 2011 in Washington, DC. Clyburn has been tapped by Pelosi to be a member of the Joint Select Commit — South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn

Instead of remaining neutral, South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn (D) is being encouraged to endorse a presidential candidate. His comments yesterday on CNN about that possibility are worth noting. When asked what key issues Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton should be aware of, Clyburn mentioned persistent poverty communities. CBC’s objective involves expanding the 10-20-30 funding formula — first introduced in the 2009 Recovery Act — to include more of these communities. Speaker Paul Ryan met with the CBC Wednesday to discuss moving this issue forward.

10 = % of funding • 20 = % of people • 30 = years in poverty

^{...at least 10 percent shall be allocated for assistance in persistent poverty counties…}

^{any county that has had 20 percent or more of its population living in poverty over the past 30 years}

Using the 10-20-30 formula the Recovery Act funded a total of 4,655 projects in persistent poverty counties, totaling nearly $1.7 billion… I want to make one thing clear about the 10-20-30 approach. It does not add one dime to the deficit. It simply targets resources from funds already authorized or appropriated.

Rep. Clyburn serves South Carolina's 6th District: “which is bisected by the I-95 corridor. This corridor is the heart of what has been dubbed in South Carolina as the ‘Corridor of Shame,’ a 200-mile stretch of interstate highway that is flanked on either side by persistent poverty counties.” [Developing the Will and the Way to Address Persistent Poverty in America, Representative James E. Clyburn, Harvard Journal on Legislation].

The Situation Room, Aired February 10, 2016

[17:43:29] BLITZER: Let's talk about the Democratic presidential contest. Joining us now is the House assistant Democratic leader, the South Carolina congressman, James Clyburn.

Congressman, thanks very much for joining us. I know you've said you're feeling a lot of pressure, including from your wife, one of your daughters to endorse either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, so give us the answer. Who are you going to throw your support behind?

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, thank you so much for having me, Wolf.

Well, when I get home on Friday evening, I'm going to be spending a lot of time with family, friends. I'll be on the phone talking to a lot of people.

I think that they're probably right: People would like to know where I stand, irrespective of where that is. And although I said at the outset that I would stay neutral in all of this, I'm beginning to feel that maybe they're right, that I need to let people know where I stand and I'll probably do that, though not today or this week.

BLITZER: Well, we would be happy if you did it right now. You got a chance to speak to people in South Carolina, people all over the country right now. Do you want to give us a little clue?

CLYBURN: No, let's just wait until I talk to them. They may change their minds. So we'll see.

BLITZER: Your family. Unlike Iowa and New Hampshire, the Democratic voters in South Carolina, about half if not more, are African-Americans. What are the key issues you're looking for from Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton to try to convince you?

CLYBURN: Well, I'm very concerned about an effort to really target resources into communities of need.

[17:45:03] I think that this whole trickledown effect that we seem to do so often is leaving too many people in dire straits. For instance, we see the numbers increasing now almost 500 counties in the United States of America are now classified as persistent poverty counties.

And I'm very pleased that the speaker of the House, Mr. Ryan, has now decided that he's going to take a hard look at what the Congressional Black Caucuses has been advocating for several years on directing resources into these communities. I spoke with Harold Rogers today and it looks like we're going to get some movement on that. [Ryan, black lawmakers, may join forces on poverty plan]

I want to see the candidates talk about that. How do we do the infrastructure issues? How do we support historic black colleges and universities? I have seven in my district. There are 103 in the country. And for people not to understand the value of these institutions to our overall society I believe is up to presidential candidates to get people to understand that.

BLITZER: All right.

CLYBURN: And so that's the kind of thing I am looking for and I hope we'll get it during this two-week period.

BLITZER: I know there's a little history between you and the Clintons going back eight years ago, I remember it well. You endorsed then Senator Barack Obama. He won South Carolina, as you know. The former president Bill Clinton, there's a famous phone call you discussed in your memoir. You told him, I think your words are, "Go ahead and chill a little bit." Have you gotten over that? What's your relationship with the Clintons like today? [Blessed Experiences: Genuinely Southern, Proudly Black]

CLYBURN: Well, we have a great relationship. I spent a lot of time, I was on the phone with Mrs. Clinton last week. I've seen the president, the former president several times. Mrs. Clinton and I set with each other at Senator Clementa Pinckney's funeral and we have had several conversations.

You know, I had my fish fry out in Charleston a couple of weeks ago and I spoke with her at that time as well as Senator Sanders. So the relationship between me and the Clintons are like any other relationship. Sometimes things get testy. But I've been married 54 years so I know what it is to have relationships that things get testy in sometimes.

BLITZER: Yes. Sometimes they go up and sometimes they go down. You're welcome to come back in a few days when you make up your mind and let the country know, let the folks in South Carolina know what you're doing. We always enjoy having you on the show, Congressman. Thanks very much.

CLYBURN: Well, thank you so much for having me.

BLITZER: Thank you.

northanger

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Friday January 29, 2016 · 11:07 AM PST

2016/01/29 · 11:07

Kamoka Pearl, a boutique family business on the French Polynesian atoll of Ahe that is trying to shake up the international pearl market by raising pearls more sustainably. Since 2003, Kamoka has hosted young people from around the world, who come to work — The Rise of Eco-Friendly Pearl Farming

From, The Rise of Eco-Friendly Pearl Farming

Kamoka Pearl was founded in 1990 by Humbert's father and brother. A year later, halfway through college (where he studied marine biology), Josh Humbert joined the family business, which raises high-quality "Tahitian pearls" for the international jewelry market.

To raise pearls, Kamoka cultivates a native species of pearl oyster, Pinctada margaritifera. The oysters are placed in baskets or nets to protect them from predators, which include triggerfish, sea turtles, and eagle rays.

um, ick! 😱

The next step involves seeding the oyster to produce a pearl. An oyster makes pearls on its own by secreting nacre, or mother of pearl, around an irritant that gets into its shell. Contrary to popular belief, according to Humbert, that irritant is most often an invading worm that bored in, not a grain of sand.

More pix. Have a great weekend!

OMG, Thanks Kos, they're back!

northanger

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Friday January 22, 2016 · 3:09 PM PST

2016/01/22 · 15:09

yai! single comment threads!

#OnceAndForAll — The Global Struggle for Women's Rights, 1995

northanger

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Wednesday January 20, 2016 · 3:52 PM PST

2016/01/20 · 15:52

MAKERS: Once And For All - 2015 documentary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing 1995 — Opening title for MAKERS: Once And For All

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton’s "Women's Rights are Human Rights" speech is #35 in the Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century (compiled by Professors Stephen E. Lucas and Martin J. Medhurst). Clinton’s speech occurred during the U.N. 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session, on September 5, 1995, in Beijing, China.

More than 47,000 outspoken activists and impassioned leaders hailing from almost every country, religion, and culture on earth came together in Beijing — and at the parallel NGO Forum — making it the largest gathering of women's advocates in history.

"MAKERS: Once And For All" is a feature film presented by AOL that tells the story of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing 1995 as a watershed event in the global struggle for women's rights. With original interviews with subjects, including Hillary Clinton, and archival footage, the film captures the suspenseful months leading up to Beijing and the high-stakes drama of the event itself.

Released in November 2015, MAKERS: Once and For All is a documentary of that event — here’s the trailer. View the full documentary here. The title comes from Hillary’s speech:

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely — and the right to be heard.

northanger

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Sunday January 17, 2016 · 5:42 PM PST

2016/01/17 · 17:42

The stage at the Gaillard Center before tonight's Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C. (Andrew Burton/Getty) — The stage at the Gaillard Center before tonight's Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C.

Quick diary IKYMI, important because this debate’s in South Carolina —

We have yet to see a debate at its best with regard to the issues of race, criminal justice, and policing.

McKesson, if he had the chance, would ask this question:

Given your understanding of issues ranging from police violence to criminal justice reform to the racial wealth gap, what will be three key priority areas of your administration and how do you plan to measure success?

Here’s the letter...

Dear Lester,

As the principal anchor for the Democrat’s second-to-last primary debate on Sunday, you have an opportunity to prompt Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Martin O'Malley to address a fresh set of issues and go deeper on topics that they have only nominally addressed in previous debates.

You have an opportunity to push these candidates to talk candidly about race in America.

As you know, the last four debates have received symbolic, not substantive, questions about race, equity, and justice. In Sunday’s debate, you have an opportunity to change this.

I’ll be there, in Charleston, in person. And I know many others will be at home watching, too.

Dr. Mona uncovers #FlintWaterCrisis using Medicaid screening data

northanger

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Saturday January 16, 2016 · 3:42 PM PST

2016/01/16 · 15:42

Just learned about the “hero doctor” who helped expose the #FlintWaterCrisis, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha (Director, Pediatric Residency Program, Hurley Medical Center) — interviewed January 15th by Democracy Now! What’s striking (bolded text) was the readily available medical data of young children, which helped verify what was going on with Flint’s water supply and that city’s children.

DR. MONA HANNA-ATTISHA: Yeah. So, in late August, we were hearing reports from the Virginia Tech group that there was lead in the water. And when pediatricians hear about lead anywhere, we freak out. We know lead. Lead, as you said, is a known potent, irreversible neurotoxin. So we wanted to see if that lead in the water was getting into the bodies of children. So that’s when we started doing our research.

And what we found was alarming, but not surprising, based on what we knew about the water. The percentage of children with elevated lead levels tripled in the whole city, and in some neighborhoods—actually, it doubled in the whole city, and in some neighborhoods, it tripled. And it directly correlated with where the water lead levels were the highest. So we shared these results at a press conference, and you don’t usually share research at press conferences. It’s supposed to be shared in published medical journals, which now it is. But we had an ethical, moral, professional responsibility to alert our community about this crisis, this emergency.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the research that you did, all it took was being able to go back in your own—

DR. MONA HANNA-ATTISHA: Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —medical records. And it wasn’t a series of new testing that you had to do. Could you talk about that?

DR. MONA HANNA-ATTISHA: Right. So, we routinely screen children for lead at the ages of one and at ages of two. Medicaid children, who are on public insurance, are recommended to get lead screenings. So we had the data. It was the easiest research project I have ever done. So all we did was go back and look at our data. And we compared the percentage of children with elevated lead levels before the water switch, which was 2013, to 2015, and that water switch happened in 2014.

From 2014 (DK5 doesn’t display twitter image, but it’s Dr. Mona with a young patient in 2014 (the year Flint’s water supply got switched):

Isiah needs your votes. $ for Hurley Children's Hospital. https://t.co/oG0h91adGU pic.twitter.com/XMVvgZgH3Y
— Mona Hanna-Attisha (@MonaHannaA) May 27, 2014

Elevated lead found in more Flint kids after water switch, study finds

Crusading doctor shakes head 'no' at Gov. Snyder's Flint news conference

Just a minute from the September 2015 press conference:

YouTube Video

FYI @ Medicaid Lead screening:

northanger

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Saturday January 16, 2016 · 2:44 PM PST

2016/01/16 · 14:44

From The Detroit News:

Lansing — Hillary Clinton dispatched two top campaign aides to Flint on Wednesday to meet with Mayor Karen Weaver about the city’s water contamination crisis.

Clinton’s national political director, Amanda Renteria, and policy adviser Mike Schmidt met with the mayor at City Hall on Wednesday.

On Monday, the Democratic presidential frontrunner also criticized state officials for allowing Flint River water to continue flowing to city homes after General Motors Co. deemed it too corrosive for engine parts.

"The crisis reached a nadir Monday night, when Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency." This is a... https://t.co/ujklbU3t3Y
— Damario Solomon, Esq (@SoloSpeaksTruth) December 16, 2015

#Flint Mayor Karen Weaver on state's emergency response to tainted water: "This is that we've been waiting for." pic.twitter.com/kKgMXs7PdB
— Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) January 11, 2016

Update thingy: [Gar! (DK5):] As a former Michigander, thanks for reccing this up. Another diary, from me about Flint’s Hero Doctor Mona & how government (big and small) makes a difference in children’s lives. (These two women, Mayor and Doctor, are amazing!)

Madeleine Albright & The Iraq Sanctions Myth

northanger

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Monday December 14, 2015 · 2:59 PM PST

2015/12/14 · 14:59

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (Wikipedia) — The Tower of Babel

From Pacific Standard [wiki] by Michael Spagat (2013): The Iraq Sanctions Myth]. See also: The Nation (2001) &c &c]

Sanctions allegedly killed hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq and provided a rationale for invasion, a line still heard today. But those deaths almost certainly never happened.

The claim that sanctions killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children originated in a 1995 letter to The Lancet which, in turn, was based on a Baghdad survey done by Sarah Zaidi and colleagues. After other researchers identified anomalies in the survey data, Zaidi, to her great credit, re-investigated the work from the ground up. Having sub-contracted the original interviews to the Iraqi government, she traveled to Baghdad and re-interviewed many of the original households. When Zaidi failed to confirm quite a few of the reported deaths in these follow-up interviews, she retracted her results.

From note #6, page 2, PDF: Estimating the Human Costs of War: The Sample Survey Approach (Michael Spagat, in Garfinkel, Michelle R. and Skaperdas, Stergios, (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Peace and Conflict, 2012):

Indeed, survey approaches to measuring deaths due to economic sanctions in Iraq have encountered similar problems. Zaidi (1997) withdrew her survey-based estimate of 567,000 child deaths due to sanctions (Zaidi and Smith, 1995) after revisiting households from the original survey and failing to replicate many of the deaths. According to a subsequent UNICEF survey, child mortality nearly doubled in the early 1990’s in Iraq (Ali and Shah, 2000 and Ali, Blacker and Jones, 2003), resulting in an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 “excess deaths” of children. However, Dyson (2009) shows that these estimates are inconsistent with a range of credible evidence and argues that it is likely that the UNICEF “survey data were deliberately manipulated by the then government of Iraq.”

Basing decisions, policy or statements on (as Albright unfortunately discovered) incorrect or invalid data is never a good idea. If you’re considering voting for Hillary in the primaries, I just wanted to provide more information on this issue. This incorrect data, as noted by Pacific Standard, was still being used by Tony Blair in 2010 to justify the invasion of Iraq, and the Washington Post for George Bush.

Michael Spagat is a professor of economics at Royal Holloway, University of London. He provides a detailed response to the Zaidi & UNICEF estimates in this 2014 interview.

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‘With seven days to go, why do you need this?’

Hillary Clinton and 'Throwing Like a Girl'

kos, breaking big bad

You Say You Want A Revolution

SC Rep. James Clyburn and Persistent Poverty Counties

The Pearl in our Oyster

OMG, Thanks Kos, they're back!

#OnceAndForAll — The Global Struggle for Women's Rights, 1995

DeRay Mckesson's open letter to Lester Holt #DemDebate

Dr. Mona uncovers #FlintWaterCrisis using Medicaid screening data

Hillary Clinton aides met with Flint mayor over crisis

Madeleine Albright & The Iraq Sanctions Myth