I found plenty of bloggers–probably with the same predisposition to believe the worst about the U.S. rather than check their figures–repeating the Independent‘s version, and bleating about how awful the United States is. Bleat away, bloggers, but get your numbers right. The U.S. is only about one-fourth as bad as you think. And just because the Indepedent misuses its sources doesn’t mean that you need to amplify them.
My favorite was this reposting of the Independent story. One of the commenters points out the absurdity by relaying actual data, but he is ignored by plenty of others, who swallow the Independent story whole. One of them says “Anybody with a 3 digit IQ that hasn’t been locked in a closet for the past decade doesn’t need a report to know this.” I somehow doubt that the commenter just forgot to add the final three words, “story is wrong.”
As the blogosphere might put it: Fail.
