MILBLOGGERS, those of us on the ground at the time or recently returned, knew the numbers bore no semblance to reality for lots of obvious reasons. Here’s the gist of my initial reaction:

You don't have to be an "expert" in social scientific "method" to recognize crap when you see it.

Much like polls in general, anything based on anecdotal evidence is going to be hopelessly biased and potentially orders of magnitude from reality. Even if we take these researchers at their word that they "checked 92%" of death records, how did they ensure they didn't double count? Did they keep a copy and reconcile no dupes? In a tribal community, many "families" would claim the same family member as "one of their own."

I remember clearly when the earlier report came out from these researchers. Then, it was clear that any “insurgent” who managed to die away from the location of combat would almost surely be counted as a “civilian” casualty, as the Al Qaeda in Iraq and Baathist holdouts we were fighting at the time purposely hid their identities and wore no uniforms. Many injured and killed were showing up at Iraqi hospitals and morgues, mis-identified as “civilians.” Call it an early prototype of the same public relations and deception efforts that Hezbollah would later professionalize.

The same objection applies to this new report. Death certificates are no doubt completed in many cases without adequate or sufficient information to know whether those deaths were the result of combat or not, or whether the corpse was that of a combatant.

And more on the sample: how did they statistically ensure that their neighborhoods, streets, blocks, cities were a good sample? Methinks the answers sought dictated the scope for questioning.

Surveys often breed a response whereby the survey subjects steer their answers towards subtle survey or survey taker biases. They get social "credit" and approval from providing information.

One last point on methods. In Social Science in particular, statistical extrapolations are notoriously unreliable. Results need to be checked for validity (call it the sniff test).

As this post suggests, the idea that more than 700 (out of 770) deaths go unreported daily -- in an atmosphere where reporters and their sources are rewarded for high body counts -- is unbelievable on its face.

That these boobs from Johns Hopkins retain zero credulity for the magnitude of disconnect between physical evidence and what anecdotal "data" they've gathered says far more about their own biases, rather than denial on the part of us skeptics.

Stephen Coughlin, the Pentagon specialist on Islamic law and Islamist extremism, has been fired from his position on the military's Joint Staff. The action followed a report in this space last week revealing opposition to his work for the military by pro-Muslim officials within the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England.

Mr. Coughlin was notified this week that his contract with the Joint Staff will end in March, effectively halting the career of one of the U.S. government's most important figures in analyzing the nature of extremism and ultimately preparing to wage ideological war against it.

He had run afoul of a key aide to Mr. England, Hasham Islam, who confronted Mr. Coughlin during a meeting several weeks ago when Mr. Islam sought to have Mr. Coughlin soften his views on Islamist extremism.

Mr. Coughlin was accused directly by Mr. Islam of being a Christian zealot or extremist "with a pen," according to defense officials. Mr. Coughlin appears to have become one of the first casualties in the war of ideas with Islamism.

The officials said Mr. Coughlin was let go because he had become "too hot" or controversial within the Pentagon.

Misguided Pentagon officials, including Mr. Islam and Mr. England, have initiated an aggressive "outreach" program to U.S. Muslim groups that critics say is lending credibility to what has been identified as a budding support network for Islamist extremists, including front groups for the radical Muslim Brotherhood.