Numbers are our friends

There's a strange article in the Times today by a guy I've never heard of. But when you live in central London there are so many calls on your attention that it's hard to track everything. My filtering system includes; not watching tv news, not buying any newspaper but the Sunday Times, not reading any article beyond written evidence of "Bush Derangement Syndrome".

So when I'm short of time and the first sentence I read is:

"LAST WEEK I devoted this space to a diatribe against George W. Bush,"

I turn the page or click through to something else and also don't notice whatever is advertised around the opinion piece. Life's just too short!

However, I do like a crunchy statistic so the second paragraph caused me to hold my finger for a precious second:

"Within hours of publication I received nearly 500 e-mails from American readers. About a quarter of these emails were split between praise and rational disagreement. However, the vast majority — some 300 — were abusive to the point of obscenity."

"from American readers" - so they sent details of their passport? doesn't he believe it's in the interests of some people to make "right wing nuts" look - well, nutty?

One of the issues in market research these days is - how can respondents' identities be confirmed if the only contact is by email.

"nearly 500" - rounding up from 451? or 499?

"some 300" - rounding up from 251? or 299?

"to the point of obscenity" - there is no universally agreed measure of "rational disagreement" vs. "to the point of obscenity". I don't like this guy so don't trust his judgement, just saying.

251 out of 499 is no "vast majority" and this guy is using numbers, yet again, to confuse and discombobulate. That is getting very tiresome.

Just like a blog, this guy is giving his opinion.

But it's a new age these days and blogs are the venue for ranting opinions.

99% of cats agree with me too.