Surely you will admit that comparing the price of gasoline now vs 1950 is irelevant unless inflation is factored in. Or the death rate due to cancer now vs 50 years ago must account for the base of people it is based on in order to arrive at a fair comparison. Surely you understand this don’t you?
Surely you will admit that the number of times a convenient store gets robbed doesn’t have to be evaluated based on the number of people who live in the town. Surely you will admit that the number of car bombings in Iraq doesn’t need to be evaluated in terms of how many cars there are in Bagdhad.
It often makes sense to look at data as a fraction. It often doesn’t. The purpose of the article is to evaluate the data that the MSM is reporting in a broader context. Since the MSM reports absolute numbers, the critique is based on absolute numbers. There is no single best way to evaluate all data, and the person who did this evaluation did it appropriately for the debate in which he was engaged. It certainly isn’t so far off the mark that it deserves the insults and abuse that you and a few others have heaped on the author.