Its really quite amazing how many idiotic journalists are out there. Tim Lambert mentions this article:

...the overall number of Iraqi civilians and soldiers killed since the U.S.-led invasion in spring 2003 remains murky. Bloodshed has worsened each year, pushing the Iraqi death toll into the tens of thousands. But no one knows the exact toll.

And why don't we know how many Iraqis have died? Because we're extapolating from small samples!

In late 2004, a study published in the Lancet medical journal estimated the war had caused some 98,000 civilian deaths. But the British government and others were skeptical of that finding, which was based on extrapolations from a small sample.

You have to wonder what the world is coming to when one of the nation's top newspapers carries a piece evaluating statistical estimates by someone who obviously does not know that all of statistics is extrapolation from small random samples.

And, by the way, no the Lancet study did not say the war has caused 98,000 civilian deaths. That's just one more mistake from an obviously incompetent reporter.