Maxprop wrote:
OzOne wrote in message


On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 07:13:06 -0500, Horvath
scribbled thusly:



What do you do, just make this stuff up? I know you're too stupid to
look up the real numbers, but didn't you think I would? Alaska has a
higher than average murder rate, more than triple the rate of
Massachusetts.


That's bull****. Alaska has less people than Boston.


The word was RATE Holly!


Well duh. If a village population has 200 people and one gets murdered, the
murder rate is astronomically higher than even NYC or Washington, DC. Rates
mean very little when presented completely out of context or with no common
frame of reference.

And what context are the rates "taken out of"? Its true that the murder
rate in Alaska fluctuates more than other state due to the limited
sampling, but even with that, its above average almost every year.
There's nothing wrong with the method, the rates are high. You can
attribute that to a variety of causes, but the numbers are real.