Lying 101, Monday Second Period

[tequila_squared]

"I thought we could talk about a specific type of lying today," Lito said, "which I am not so experienced with myself, which is lying using statistics. Your American author Mark Twain, I believe it was, said, 'There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.' But how is this? Statistics are just numbers, if they say there are 30,000 people in a town then that's just a fact, no? But it depends on how you ask the question, and how you frame the answers. A politician may say, 'The majority of people support my plan,' and then you look at the actual numbers and find out that 'the majority' is fifty-one percent, but only if you include the ten percent who had no opinion, because hey, they didn't oppose his plan, no? Or a person might ask ten people, 'Do you support stealing from honest, hard-working citizens?' and then publish their results as 'One hundred percent of those surveyed are against raising taxes.' So you have to be careful to know what the numbers actually say, and how those numbers were arrived at. Now, how else might one lie using statistics?"

Practical Phys Ed, Monday, Period 3

[thisguyright.livejournal.com]

The shop was a theater today, but things were a little weird. For one thing, there were lights around the perimeter of the theater. Would that be for laps later? Of course.

"Baseball's been going for a week, so screw it, it's time for a baseball movie. Today we have The Natural, which is a baseball movie from two decades before you were born, based on a book from five decades before you were born, but you're going to shut up and love it."