Population density, yah. Also it looks like a disproportionate number of casualties are from, for instance, Homestead, FL. In other words, I think this is a pretty crappy visual display of information.
As in, is that why we're making a point of studying the distribution of war deaths? Because someone thinks that Democrats or Republicans are suffering more in the war? Or that support for the war ought to correlate to suffering as measured by KIAs?
I mean, where I come from we don't go mapping data unless we've got a null hypothesis all lined up.
Focusing on the change in Bush's 2004 vote compared to 2000, we discover that Iraq War casualties from a state significantly depressed the President's vote share there. We infer that were it not for the nearly 10,000 U.S. dead and wounded in Iraq, Bush would have won approximately 2 percent more of the popular vote, carrying several additional states and winning a decisive national victory.
I think the map is supposed to be a tribute to all service members.
From the "Tribute to Fla service members" link on the map page:
As of Sunday, the Pentagon had released the names of 1,948 American military personnel who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. They come from every state in the union and U.S. territories from the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea to Guam in the far Pacific Ocean.
The wars have reached the prairies and the beaches: At least 30 service members from New York City. An Army sergeant from Makoti, N.D. Four soldiers from Pago Pago in American Samoa.
Maybe the point is that there aren't very many communities with several killed servicemen. The sprinkling of green dots around my hometown is misleading. You have to zoom pretty far in to see that Kansas City and Independence are both yellow towns.
The map makes me sad. If you need to zoom in you don't have to get very far to find names. These were real people.
The google map is more misleading. For starters, there are two "+s" and it only works when you click the correct one. Also, the ancient book "How to Lie with Statistics" talks about using seemingly three dimensional figures to represent data and how that can distort the image. The US gets covered with gargantuan black figures.
I like the names map better. It presents without manipulating, at least not as much. If anything, the big dots underrepresent the number of killed. The dot areas seem to have the ratios of roughly 1, 2.25, 4, 6.25.
I think the names map is a rorschach test on how you feel about the war.
Is the pattern supposed to correspond to "blue / red"? It doesn't, at first look, appear to.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:03 PM
"supposed to"?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:04 PM
It just looks like a population density map to me.
I was under the impression that the South contributes more combat troops per capita, but I can't tell that if that is true from the map.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:05 PM
Population density, yah. Also it looks like a disproportionate number of casualties are from, for instance, Homestead, FL. In other words, I think this is a pretty crappy visual display of information.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:07 PM
"supposed to"?
As in, is that why we're making a point of studying the distribution of war deaths? Because someone thinks that Democrats or Republicans are suffering more in the war? Or that support for the war ought to correlate to suffering as measured by KIAs?
I mean, where I come from we don't go mapping data unless we've got a null hypothesis all lined up.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:08 PM
There was a google maps–based site that supposedly did the same thing, but better, but I never got it to work.
Here.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:11 PM
You know, like this pdf:
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:12 PM
I think the map is supposed to be a tribute to all service members.
From the "Tribute to Fla service members" link on the map page:
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:18 PM
Only about 5 places had 10+ deaths, and about a dozen more 5+. I think that it's skewed because of people who declare military bases as home.
Arizona is very high.
Mapping onto a pop-density-distorted map while labelling the obvious military bases would make it more useful.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:22 PM
And to continue the grumbling, the click-on-the-dot feature is pretty useless where many dots are close together.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:26 PM
True, but you can zoom in, which helps (but makes navigation difficult in other ways).
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:28 PM
Ah, that does help. Now I'm going to complain about the use of "Enduring Freedom" and "Iraqi Freedom."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 5:36 PM
Chicago seems to be slacking off compared to, say, NYC and LA.
Posted by Matthew Yglesias | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 6:28 PM
They raise 'em a little smarter in Chicago.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 7:07 PM
Maybe the point is that there aren't very many communities with several killed servicemen. The sprinkling of green dots around my hometown is misleading. You have to zoom pretty far in to see that Kansas City and Independence are both yellow towns.
Posted by L. | Link to this comment | 07- 5-05 8:10 PM
The map makes me sad. If you need to zoom in you don't have to get very far to find names. These were real people.
The google map is more misleading. For starters, there are two "+s" and it only works when you click the correct one. Also, the ancient book "How to Lie with Statistics" talks about using seemingly three dimensional figures to represent data and how that can distort the image. The US gets covered with gargantuan black figures.
I like the names map better. It presents without manipulating, at least not as much. If anything, the big dots underrepresent the number of killed. The dot areas seem to have the ratios of roughly 1, 2.25, 4, 6.25.
I think the names map is a rorschach test on how you feel about the war.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 07- 6-05 9:03 AM