[WikiEN-l] Re: Bot for generating articles on cities in Israel

[Daniel Ehrenberg]

--- Steve Vertigum <utilitymuffinresearch2 at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> I think the point of the argument against is that
> statistics from an apartheid state (regardless of
> how
> much the US happens to sanction it currently) must
> be
> treated as suspect.  UN statistics should be
> better--ie, more NPOV--even if they are not as
> "complete."
> 
> The same could in many ways be said for the US as
> well-- the US until very recently was more or less
> an
> apartheid state, and still has lingering aspects of
> this left over, in terms of its
> sociological/financial
> barriers. Etc.  If this was the case today in the
> US--as it was 1950--there would be every
> justification
> for Wikipedians to look upon statistics coming out
> of
> such a country's official machinery as smelly.
> We should trust more open neutral statistics than
> those of any state agency.  The CIA factbook for
> example is only usable is because its extremely
> short
> descriptions belie any attempt at pov.
> 
> To deal with the basic concept--what people forget
> is
> that "racism" and the apartheid that was synonymous
> with it, (which came first?) in the US was, (as it
> is
> everywhere) simply a way to keep people
> separated--firstly for imperialist/corporate control
> reasons.  The US began as an English corporate
> venture
> into tobacco, youll remember. 
> Whatever the reason, ''[[the hand that rocks the
> cradle]] is the hand that rules the world'', and we
> would be remiss to not challenge such statistics,
> that
> ask us to overlook some glaring inconsistencies.
> 
> Apply these fundamental metaphors for understanding
> humanity as you like.
> ~S~
> Between any two disparate points of view is a buffer
> zone, which makes for a nice way for tricksters to
> get
> around. --戴眩

The Israel is an apartheid state? Hardly. And even if
it were true, it shouldn't be on this list. Israel's
statistics are perfectly valid, as are pre-1950 US
statistics. Even at the beginning of the US's history,
African American slaves were counted in the US Census
for purposes of the size of the electoral college,
albeit only as 2/3 of a person. If you have actual
proof that Israel is messing up its statistics, please
post it here. 

Where do you think the UN gets its statistics from?
They don't conduct their own census. In New York
State, there was a small controversey over Census and
old people going to florida while they recieved the
Census in the mail in their official New York
residence and missed the deadline. But there were no
UN statistics to back this up. The UN could care less
about this obscure data. 
<rant>
The only data I could find from the UN on Israel
(aside from useless rural vs. urban data) was that
there were about 6 million inhabitants in 2000. But
Israel, evil apartheid Israel, said that there were
6.5 million in 2002! Oh no! We can't use their data
because the obviously fabricated an other half a
million Jews for their evil plan.
</rant> 
LDan

Note: If you want to respond to my out-of-place
political statements, do it offlist.

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