Lou Dobbs and Christine Romans of CNN stood by their report of 7,000 cases in the last 3 years on Monday May 7, 2007. They reported they reviewed the Cosman article and were standing on that article.
The article by Madeleine Pelner Cosman is below:
http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1/cosman.pdf
If you open this pdf in another window and go to search or find and enter leprosy, you can click through the different instances of it. It appears in the text and some footnotes, one of which is the NYT article linked to below.
The Cosman piece is not doing a good job distinguishing stock and flow. Here is the NYT piece
New York Times February 18, 2003, “While there were some 900 recorded cases in the United States 40 years ago, today more than 7,000 people have leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, as it is now called.”
The Cosman article turns the 900 cases recorded 40 years ago into “in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted”. (page 3 right column 2nd paragraph) So what was a stock of 900 in the NYT piece turned into a flow of 900 in the Cosman article.
Just before that sentence, Cosman says, “Suddenly, in the past 3 years, America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy.” This mixes stock and flow language in the same sentence. When combined with the prior sentence it makes it sound like a flow of 900 cases for 40 years and then a flow of 7,000 over 3 years to have a stock at the end of the 3 years of 7,000 cases.
However, this is not correct. The Colorado Media Matters article is a well researched job that brings out the raw flow numbers per year and makes clear that 7,000 or 6,500 is the stock number. The problem with the Colorado Media Matters article is that its written as a hit job instead of to try to explain why its targets misunderstood.
Colorado Media Matters wants to say that the right wing people pushing the 7,000 number as a 3 year flow are evil, not to say that they misunderstood the Cosman text and failed to go back to original sources cited by Cosman. The NYT piece, although not a numbers piece in focus, has the data to help reorient, but not as much as what Colorado Media Matters itself assembled.
However, in the Colorado Media Matters piece you have to read it closely enough to find the numbers in the midst of the real hate. A hate piece is not a teaching piece. So, one can see how the Colorado Media Matters has failed to register in people’s minds. Its so eager to say that the ring wing pundits are evil that its data is poorly presented and they don’t articulate the stock and flow confusion. This is because they don’t want to understand how the error happened. They think they know that, people on the right are evil and lie.
However, its really a stock flow confusion that arises from careless wording in the Cosman article. The Cosman article was not a numbers article, nor a leprosy one. That was not its focus. It has 98 footnotes in a 5 page pdf. This was just one point among the many points in the article and is not even the lead. So Cosman was not focused on this issue either.
The same is true of the Leslie Stahl CBS 60 Minutes piece. They too were not interested in understanding the source of the error. It seems likely they found the CMM piece and just copied its hit job approach for Lou Dobbs and Christine Romans as the targets. This is also the emotion that Lou Dobbs and Christine Romans picked up on. 60 Minutes didn’t come to them as colleagues to explain this stock and flow confusion or try to show them the CMM piece and talk about it. They were practicing gotcha journalism, and concealing the numbers from the CMM article deliberately. But until you see the CMM article, you can’t reorient yourself from the Cosman paragraph that takes you in the wrong direction on stock and flow issues. 60 Minutes had the same bad intentions as CMM, to get its target.
In the process, both 60 Minutes and CMM failed to do their real obligation, teach their viewers or readers what the source of confusion was and what the correct way to understand the issue is. At the end of their pieces, readers and viewers don’t understand the numbers, and don’t understand the stock and flow issues. They only hear that Lou Dobbs, Christine Romans, The Peter Boyles Show, etc. are evil bigots. Its likely that CMM and 60 Minutes were both so eager to get the people they hated that they didn’t try to understand the math. The numbers became weapons to use, not data to understand and put together into a bigger picture.
This is the emotion that Lou Dobbs and Christine Romans picked up on. They were not being treated fairly or decently. If 60 Minutes had shown them the CMM piece, instead of plagiarizing it, and Christine Romans sat down with 60 Minutes with the Cosman piece, then together they could have figured out that the Cosman paragraph, buried in the article, had mixed up the stock and flow numbers from the New York Times article of 2003. Then with the CMM links, they could have figured out the stock and flow analysis.
That would have shown 900 cases in 1963 as a stock. (Even if that number is confused, its so close to zero relative to 7,000 it doesn’t matter.) So by 2003, 40 years, the stock of cases was about 7,000. The flow was 200 to 250 per year. The NYT piece makes it clear that the source of this is immigration:
according to a New York Times report from February 18, 2003, “While there were some 900 recorded cases in the United States 40 years ago, today more than 7,000 people have leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, as it is now called.”
But, in the past six years, Dr. Levis and his colleagues have proved that a handful of his patients — including a 73-year-old man from Queens who had never been out of the country and an elderly Jewish man from Westchester — have contracted leprosy here.
As a result, the disease is now officially endemic to the Northeastern United States for the first time ever. (Cases of leprosy transmission in the Southeast date as far back as the turn of the 19th century.) And leprosy experts think that even some foreign-born people with the infection may have acquired it in immigrant communities here.
Dr. Levis has tried to increase other physicians’ awareness of the disease through mailings, telephone calls and lectures.
So the conclusion is that 40 years of legal and illegal immigration brought leprosy to the North East where it had never been before. This was not the conclusion that CMM or 60 Minutes wanted. They wanted to say that their targets, Lou Dobbs, Christine Romans, The Peter Boyle Show, the Washington Times, WND, Lonewacko, etc. were evil and hate illegals because they are bigots. The conclusion for 60 Minutes and CMM is that these right wingers are bigots who lie. Because of that 60 Minutes and CMM both deceived their readers and perhaps themselves as to the true story, that 40 years of legal immigration from the 1965 Immigration Act caused these 7,000 cases of leprosy. The NYT piece goes into the detail, these cases come from immigrants and are spread by them.
As a result, the disease is now officially endemic to the Northeastern United States for the first time ever. (Cases of leprosy transmission in the Southeast date as far back as the turn of the 19th century.) And leprosy experts think that even some foreign-born people with the infection may have acquired it in immigrant communities here.
Not only did 60 Minutes deceive its viewers out of its own bias and hatred of Lou Dobbs, it also deceived them on the real source of disease to its viewers, the last 40 years of legal immigration. Those 40 years brought the disease. Cosman, Lou Dobbs, Christine Romans, The Peter Boyle Show, Lonewacko, World Net Daily, Frosty Wooldridge, the Washington Times, etc. all have the big story right, immigration is bringing disease here and killing Americans.
Just as America is responsible as a collective for its acts, and can be sued in court, so “big” immigration as a collective is responsible for its acts, and can be held to account in a moral court. This is not to bash immigrants, but immigration can be held responsible as a collective process. There is no other way to evaluate a collective process such as immigration, or war, except in terms of the consequences implied. Those who support or cause a collective process, like “Big Immigration” can be held responsible for it.
Motive for repeated acts is ascribed to those who did them or praised them. Immigration can be a weapon in the hands of the elites as much as a knife or gun in the hands of an individual. When the elites support it after every killing or death caused by it, we can infer they intend those deaths to continue, especially when they say its inevitable. We can infer that when they say we can’t stop it, and that if we try, that we are bigots. We can infer they intend us harm from a pattern of such statements linked to our deaths by killing or disease.
“Big” immigration killed Americans on 9-11 and in street crime. We are allowed to evaluate “Big Immigration” and decide if we want it. That’s not bigotry, that’s informed consent. 60 Minutes and CMM want “Big Immigration” to keep rolling. We can evaluate their motives towards us when we die over and over and their solution is that we don’t ask why or ask for it to stop.
If “Big Immigration” kills us, and they say be quiet, bigot, then we can infer that they are the real haters. We are allowed to infer from that behavior that it’s us they hate. They say the opposite, that they are here to inform us and help us. But if every time we are killed they call one of us bigots, we can infer that they have an intent to harm us. We can infer that this is the big lie that is being covered up and that it is being covered up by 60 Minutes and CMM in these pieces. We can infer that it is not even much of a cover up if they have to call us bigots to silence us.
We can infer that when they call us bigots, they take ownership of the crime against us. We can infer that if the “solution” is we keep on dying, that they take ownership of the future, past and current crime against us. When our wages go down and they say the solution is more immigration to keep our wages down, we can infer that they take ownership of our low wages now, in the past, and in the future. When we die of disease and they call Lou Dobbs a bigot and conceal that its 40 years of legal immigration as well as illegal immigration that caused the disease, then they take ownership of the disease, past, current and future.
Go back and reread the statements of 60 Minutes and CMM. Are their words the words of teachers explaining a math error and confusion? Did 60 Minutes and CMM teach the real answer? What is their goal, teach stock and flow distinctions, or to smite Lou Dobbs, Christine Romans, The Peter Boyle Show, and so forth. What solution for leprosy did they propose? Did they think the problem was Americans getting leprosy, or was the problem Lou Dobbs and Christine Romans?
–Following is more argumentative. In addition, the paragraph refuses to break w/o this.
Are their words ones of hatred with bits of math used as weapons, without even really understanding it properly? All they bothered to learn, was just enough to use it as a weapon. They didn’t learn all, because then the conclusion is that 40 years of legal immigration caused the leprosy in the US today. The real conclusion is that to save us, they need to admit legal immigration for the last 40 years harmed us by disease and that we have to stop legal immigration and send the illegals home.
The real hate comes out in names like “The Nightly Nativist”. The real hate comes out in the Nation’s attack on Lou Dobbs. Ken Auletta also attacks Dobbs, using some overlapping material from the Nation. I don’t recall him citing the Nation either on Charlie Rose when he discussed Dobbs. In the New Yorker article he mentions the Nation once, but doesn’t attribute any of the ideas or charges he makes, which may have some overlap. (But this is not verified at this point.) Auletta is more subtle than Daphne Eviatar in the Nation in her article, “The Nightly Nativism.”
The MSM hate Lou Dobbs, WND, The Peter Boyle Show, Joe Guzzardi at Vdare, etc. for telling the truth, immigration kills. It killed on 9-11. It kills when it takes people’s jobs. It kills when it keeps down wages. It kills when people lose their benefits. It kills from disease. It kills from street crime.
The MSM have lied us into being killed by immigration. Lying about what kill us is evidence of malice and intent. This is shown by the above analysis. The real goal of 60 Minutes and CMM was to cover up that legal immigration for the last 40 years, not just illegal immigration has caused leprosy to become a recognized disease in the North East for the first time ever.
When they lie about what causes our disease, then we are their target. Their job as media is to warn us on disease, not cover up that 40 years of legal immigration causes us to die. When they lie about that, we owe it to ourselves to infer that their intent towards us is malice. We need to stop being polite, while they call us bigots. They engage in acts and lie about them that cause us to die. We have to infer malice and intent. We owe it to ourselves.
They aren’t for us, they are against us. They hate us because they harm us. They hate us because they lie to us. The real hate they have is for us. They want us dead, and they keep succeeding. They made a Red Crescent Memorial for 9-11 that honored the hijackers.
On 9-11 itself, on their media programs, they said to us that we were bigots if we wanted to stop immigration. They brought them here to kill us. Why can we infer that? Because they say repeated attacks are a certainty and continue to bring in immigrants and call bigots those who say stop. That shows they intend that immigration will kill more, and say stopping it is bigotry.
This shows that the real haters are the MSM. The 19 hijackers killed with airplanes, but the elites used the 19 hijackers as a weapon, as shown by their Red Crescent Memorial and to their statements that it was bigots who wanted to stop immigration, and not the 19 hijackers. Those who celebrate with a Red Crescent Memorial have taken ownership of the hate of the killing itself. The 19 hijackers were never called bigots, nor was 9-11 called a hate crime. Why? Whose hate was it not being called out?
When the MSM lies that immigration kills, it shows intent and malice. When they lie about what kills us, as here, the last 40 years of legal immigration, it shows they want it to continue. When they want us to continue to die, its evidence they hate us. Every time immigration kills us, they call us bigots, never the direct agent. This shows that these are their instruments, and that when we are killed through immigration, its an instrumentality of their intent. Their lies before and after are evidence of their intent to harm us by the act on the screen.
When they call the victims bigots, it shows they had malice towards them and us. When the victims are silenced, as they have tried to silence the 9-11 families, by threatening to call them bigots, it shows they intended the harm. When they prevent the solution, stopping immigration, it shows they intended the harm of the immigration. When they say its bigotry to identify the cause, it shows they are the ultimate cause. They take ownership of the act and are the cause.
When we catch them doing what they did in this case of disease, cover up that its 40 years of legal immigration that caused it, then we fail morally if we just laugh at them without drawing the conclusion. Like the 9-11 families, we have a moral obligation to ourselves, our children, and our community.
When we let 60 Minutes and CMM get away with covering up what is causing us to die, when we should infer malice on their part, then its our failure. We are letting them kill our brothers, our sisters, our parents, our children, and our grandchildren. We have an obligation to hold the MSM accountable for their lies. We have an obligation to hold them accountable for calling us and their victims, bigots. This is what the 9-11 families learned.
Because we let them off is why the MSM keep doing it. When we die, they call us bigots. Every time some of us are shown dead on the screen, the MSM call us bigots. They threatened the 9-11 families that way, and they threaten us that way. Its not enough to laugh it off, we have to hold them to account specifically for malice and intent to kill us by disease and by future terrorism and by losing our jobs and the rest by immigration.
Every time, that we are killed by big immigration, they threaten to call us bigots. What is the solution when we are killed by terrorism? By disease? By low wages? The solution is that we die just the same and don’t ask for answers to the question, why is this happening to us? Who is responsible for the series of harmful events, not just each one in isolation?
Who is championing the process that involves our repeated death? They say to ask such questions is bigotry towards immigrants. But isn’t it they who are in control of “Big Immigration” as a process? Isn’t it their motives that are revealed by serial killings against us by different people?
Who asked for this death? When did we give consent to it? Why can’t we stop it if we consented to it? When did we give consent to die and give up any right to stop what is causing it? When did we consent that “big” immigration was the all important goal and not us? When did they say that? Is that what Kennedy said in 1965? That we would die from big immigration? Or did he lie and say the opposite? Why shouldn’t they be held to have malice when they lie about what kills us?
Its no accident that CMM went after the Peter Boyle Show on the issue of illegal immigration causing disease. Its no accident that 60 Minutes copied the CMM attack piece and tried it on Lou Dobbs. They didn’t pick some error about something else, its this. And its no accident that the truth is that its legal immigration that is killing us, not just illegal immigration and that they covered that up.
Every time the MSM call us bigots or call us bigots through calling Lou Dobbs a bigot or the Peter Boyle Show a bigot, they are showing their intent. When they call us bigots, its because they hate us. When one of us dies, another of us is called a bigot. That happens every time. That shows they hate us. Because this happens over and over, the killing and the calling us bigots, it shows they intend the killing. Calling us bigots, or Lou Dobbs a bigot, when we die from disease, shows they hate us and intend us to die. That’s evidence. We need to infer that is what their intent is and what their motive is. Trials convict for intent based on circumstantial evidence.
The same killings over and over, and the same calling us bigots if we try to stop the killings by stopping immigration is more proof of intent to kill us than almost any trial. The MSM say it to our face every time. The killings go on. The calling us bigots goes on. That’s more evidence than in the Scott Peterson case or other cases of intent for double homicide or multiple homicide.
You be the jury like its the Scott Peterson case. But now, instead of one incident, they come over and over, and the calling us out as bigots comes over and over. You be the jury. Aren’t they more guilty than Scott Peterson? Of more killings? Of more lies? Of more hate speech in calling us bigots?
For you as the jury, your charge is as follows. By hiding that legal immigration causes disease, do 60 Minutes and CMM take ownership in the people harmed by that disease? Is hiding that legal immigration causes disease evidence of malice?
Did both CMM and 60 Minutes read the New York Times article cited by CMM that indicated that it was immigration, legal as well as illegal that was responsible for the rise of disease in the US? Did both ignore the rest of the Cosman article with its over 90 footnotes?
Is calling Lou Dobbs and by extension Christine Romans, bigots over the narrow issue of illegal v. legal immigration and 3 years immigration v. the immigration since the 1965 Immigration, and using that as a smoke screen to take attention away that its immigration that causes the rise in leprosy show intention to deceive?
Is that a violation of their representation to us to protect us by news, not harm us by falsehood?
Is calling out Lou Dobbs and Christine Roman for 3 v. 30 and illegal v. legal but hiding that its immigration since the 1965 Immigration Act that is responsible for leprosy in the Northeast for the first time ever show intent to deceive us and show malice?
Do CBS and CMM take ownership of the disease by their actions?
Does this show they hate us? Do the MSM hate us without knowing us as individuals? They don’t know our names. Do they hate us anyhow? Is that bigotry? Are CBS and CMM bigots?
