Tim Lambert awards the inestimable Michael Fumento the Golden Rake.

It is named in honor of Sideshow Bob, who in the Cape Feare episode of The Simpsons, steps on a rake whacking himself in the face. Then he does it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

Fumento, remarkably, has posted yet another witty riposte on his I Am Not A Blogger Web Site for what must be close to the ninth time, umm, erring in his description of last year’s study in the Lancet on deaths in Iraq.

Here are the latest words from Michael “I Know So Much about the Study, I Don’t Have to Read It” Fumento:

Moreover, the authors of the Lancet article CLAIMED to have re-calculated the number of deaths after excluding those in Fallujah, except that strangely enough they never bothered to say what those numbers were.

Thwack!
Just a reminder (and herein lies the rake – this language has been pointed out to Fumento too many times to count) here is what the study’s authors actually said:

We estimate that 98 000 more deaths than expected (8000-194 000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja and far more if the outlier Falluja cluster is included. (emphasis added)