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23 Feb 2011 20:51

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World: Italy: Mass exodus from Libya could be “Biblical” in proportion

  • 6.5 million the number of people who live in Libya; about a third are immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa who could migrate easily
  • 300,000 the number of refugees Italy thinks may hit their shores after the Gaddafi regime is toppled – and that’s on the low end, by the way source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Feb 2011 09:21

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World: Libyan death toll: Top Italian official gives fairly high estimate

  • 1,000+ likely dead, says an Italian official source
  • » A bit above prior estimates: Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini offered the estimate to a Catholic organization in Rome, saying that while numbers in cases like these are hard to nail down, “we believe that the estimates of about 1,000 are credible.” Later, when speaking to Parliament, he didn’t mention a number but said “the tragic number will be a bloodbath.” Italy and Libya have significant diplomatic and economic relations.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Jan 2011 10:15

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Tech: No single analyst predicted the iPad’s level of success

  • 7M the highest sales prediction a professional analyst gave for the iPad’s first-year sales
  • 9M the top-end estimate of various tech bloggers – not even fanboi John Gruber was this bullish
  • 14.8M the actual amount that Apple sold, blowing everyone’s estimates out of the water source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Oct 2010 19:45

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Politics: How big was the crowd at the Rally To Restore Sanity, anyway?

Comedy Central estimated 250,000, which would be bigger than many estimates (but not the official estimate) of the Glenn Beck rally. Either way, it was freaking massive. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 May 2010 22:02

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U.S.: Should we trust the numbers we’ve been hearing from the oil spill?

  • The government has a responsibility to get good numbers. If it’s beyond their technical capability, the whole world is ready to help them.
  • Florida State University oceanographer Ian R. MacDonald • Regarding the numbers the government has been using to explain the growth of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. MacDonald and others claim that the spill has spewed forth far more than 5,000 barrels a day (still very high), and suggest that the method that they used to measure the spill was not designed for spills the size of the uncontrollably-spewing Gulf spill. For its part, oil company BP suggested that the leak could spew as much as 60,000 barrels a day – in other words, an Exxon Valdez worth of oil every four days. Scared yet? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Mar 2009 14:25

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Culture: How many people watched “Watchmen”? A lot. But not a ton.

  • $25 million in Friday estimates for the comic book flick
  • $4.55 million came from midnight showings; it did good, but not amazing source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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