The DailyKos and other left-wing bloggers are featuring the map below (from

the invaluable website icasualties.org) in an attempt to make a point about

the deaths of U.S. servicemen and women in Iraq. The point is not entirely

clear, but Kos appears to be suggesting that areas that voted for John Kerry

in the last election have suffered more deaths in the war than areas that

voted for George W. Bush — hence, the blue areas are more patriotic than

the red.

It appears to be a wildly invalid point in many ways. To take just one

example, the casualties map also resembles a map of the concentration of the

U.S. population; it’s no surprise they would be similar. For another, the

casualties map bunches dots in the small states of the Northeast, while they

appear spread out in other, larger, areas, so that it appears that

Massachusetts, which according to icasualties.org has lost 28 servicemen and

women, is covered in dots, while Louisiana, a physically larger state with a

smaller population that has lost 47 servicemen and women, is much less so.

It is a ghastly calculation, but one that might become more common on the

Left in the weeks to come. That said, is anyone aware of a meaningful

measurement of American deaths by state, perhaps deaths per 100,000

population from each state?