24 July 2007

Root causes, my pampered Ph.D ass

Sometimes you just have to let the data run free... and follow it the best that you can...
All in all, the research that professor Krueger gathers together suggests that if there is a link between poverty, education, and terrorism, it is the opposite of the one popularly assumed.
Apparently, contrary to the popular perception of the downtrodden revolutionary of humble beginnings... there is a thriving and diverse "Islamofascist freedom fighter" community out there.
Claude Berrebi and Harvard economist Efraim Benmelech studied—there's no nice way to put this—the human-resources policy of Palestinian terrorist groups.

They found that older, better-educated terrorists secured more important suicide missions and killed more people.
Now, on the face of it, that would seem to make perfect sense... but there are always exceptions to the rule.

Despite the fact that they were university educated and not "fresh off the goat" like so many of their middle-eastern brethren... the latest gang of UK terrorheads were also stunningly incompetent.

Allah certainly works in mysterious ways.

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