FUN WITH STATISTICS.

Historian (and Open University contributor) David Bell wrote an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times yesterday pointing out that, by most standards, both the destructiveness of the 9/11 attack and the general threat posed by Islamist terrorism -- while tragic and real -- are also modest; he cautions against further indulgence in the historical tendency to exaggerate all foreign policy threats as existential. J-Pod then helpfully alerts us to this stinging retort. From the latter:

While �only� 2,973 people died on 9/11, they died at the rate of 29 people per minute. Taking Mr. Bell�s opening scenario one step further, had Islamofascists murdered 29 people here during every minute of the year following 8:46 a.m. EST on 9/11, more than 11 million would have been slaughtered. Is that a few more than the United States loses in traffic accidents each year, Mr. Bell?

--Sam Rosenfeld