Showing posts with label bullshit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bullshit. Show all posts
Monday, September 29, 2014
What a Coincidence
It just so happens that in Derek Jeter's last game at Yankee Stadium he hit a walkoff single to give the Yankees a 6-5 win.
In an even further coincidence, the Yankees had a 5-2 lead entering the 9th and somehow David Robertson gave up 2 home runs to knot the game at 5-5 entering the 9th, with Jeter due up third.
Evan Meek gave up a single, Brett Gardner bunted the runner to second, and then Jeter came through.
In the annals of faux achievements, this has to rank third.
First, Nykesha Sales limping out on the court on crutches to make one basket and set UConn's all-time points record.
Then comes Michael Strahan's sack record, when Brett Favre took a dive for his buddy.
Then comes this. The game meant nothing to either team, but I can't be sure the Orioles were in on it. Maybe the Yankees just decided to allow 3 runs to give Jeter a chance at something.
I'm not sure, but I know there is no way all these things could have "just happened" not even for someone with as many "intangibles" as Jeter.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
I'm Calling Bullshit on This
As cool as this would be I just can't fathom the story of Barbara Soper. She says her 3 kids were born on August 8, 2008, September 9, 2009 and October 10, 2010.
That's right, 8-8-08, 9-9-09 and 10-10-10.
The story is in the Indianapolis Star but I don't know if they actually checked the birth certificates.
Their doctor had to give drugs to start labor for the couple’s first daughter, Chloe Corrin Soper, who was born full term on Aug. 8.
Ok, I buy that.
Their son was a surprise all around. “He wasn’t a planned baby at all, he was a miracle,” says Barbara Soper. He was due on Sept. 20, 2009, but because sister Chloe’s birth had caused some hemorrhaging, their doctor, suggested he come out a little early so he’d be smaller.
Soper was started on drugs to induce labor on Sept. 8, but it took 24 hours before Cameron Dane Soper made his way into the world, arriving on 9-9-09.
That sounds a little fishy, but possible.
Soper says she and her husband had thought it would be “neat” if their third child was born on 10-10-10 but because her due date wasn’t until Nov. 4, it seemed unlikely.
But it ended up being “kind of a mandatory eviction,” says Soper. She developed blood clots in her legs and three weeks before her due date doctors told her the baby needed to be delivered.
The induction was begun on 10-9-10, but it wasn’t until 6:53 on Sunday night, 10-10-10, that Cearra Nicole Soper arrived.
That's the part that seems like bullshit. First of all, why would they want to have kids only 13 months apart. Especially after having gone through it once, they would have been more careful. And why did it take 5 hours for the induction. They paid the doctor to hold off until after midnight.
While the dates might seem “incredibly rare,” they’re really not. Such a lineup can only happen in the first 12 years of the century and at least 10 months apart, says Shannon McWeeney, a professor of biostatistics at the Oregon Health Sciences
University in Portland.
“Given that the first birth occurred in that window, the probability is not as astronomical as you might be compelled to think,” she says.
In fact, it’s not that high a number at all, says Philip Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. “The ‘chance’ you get depends on the assumptions you make,” he says. One set of assumptions gives a chance of about 1 in 50 million. More realistic assumptions — including allowing at least 11 months between births — increases it to about 1 in 2,500.
Since thousands of women in the United States had kids in 2008, 2009 and 2010, this suddenly seems a little less extraordinary. But humans “like to look for patterns, to make sense of things” he says.
I don't buy that math. I don't think this can happen unless you actively try for it.
That's right, 8-8-08, 9-9-09 and 10-10-10.
The story is in the Indianapolis Star but I don't know if they actually checked the birth certificates.
Their doctor had to give drugs to start labor for the couple’s first daughter, Chloe Corrin Soper, who was born full term on Aug. 8.
Ok, I buy that.
Their son was a surprise all around. “He wasn’t a planned baby at all, he was a miracle,” says Barbara Soper. He was due on Sept. 20, 2009, but because sister Chloe’s birth had caused some hemorrhaging, their doctor, suggested he come out a little early so he’d be smaller.
Soper was started on drugs to induce labor on Sept. 8, but it took 24 hours before Cameron Dane Soper made his way into the world, arriving on 9-9-09.
That sounds a little fishy, but possible.
Soper says she and her husband had thought it would be “neat” if their third child was born on 10-10-10 but because her due date wasn’t until Nov. 4, it seemed unlikely.
But it ended up being “kind of a mandatory eviction,” says Soper. She developed blood clots in her legs and three weeks before her due date doctors told her the baby needed to be delivered.
The induction was begun on 10-9-10, but it wasn’t until 6:53 on Sunday night, 10-10-10, that Cearra Nicole Soper arrived.
That's the part that seems like bullshit. First of all, why would they want to have kids only 13 months apart. Especially after having gone through it once, they would have been more careful. And why did it take 5 hours for the induction. They paid the doctor to hold off until after midnight.
While the dates might seem “incredibly rare,” they’re really not. Such a lineup can only happen in the first 12 years of the century and at least 10 months apart, says Shannon McWeeney, a professor of biostatistics at the Oregon Health Sciences
University in Portland.
“Given that the first birth occurred in that window, the probability is not as astronomical as you might be compelled to think,” she says.
In fact, it’s not that high a number at all, says Philip Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. “The ‘chance’ you get depends on the assumptions you make,” he says. One set of assumptions gives a chance of about 1 in 50 million. More realistic assumptions — including allowing at least 11 months between births — increases it to about 1 in 2,500.
Since thousands of women in the United States had kids in 2008, 2009 and 2010, this suddenly seems a little less extraordinary. But humans “like to look for patterns, to make sense of things” he says.
I don't buy that math. I don't think this can happen unless you actively try for it.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
LSD No-Hitter: Urban Legend or Baseball History?
One of the greatest urban legends of all-time is the story of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis saying he threw his 1970 no-hitter while high on LSD.
I have always rejected this story but baseball people take it as fact.
A new video takes Ellis's own description of that day and adds an animated imagining of what Ellis must have been seeing that day.
There is no way his story is true. Possible theories include: he was so high he thought it was the same day but it really was one day or two days after he dropped acid that he pitched the no-hitter. Or maybe like David Wells he just exaggerated and instead of recanting like Wells he kept adding on his own lie until he believed it himself. Or he made the whole thing up so he would be remembered.
I have always rejected this story but baseball people take it as fact.
A new video takes Ellis's own description of that day and adds an animated imagining of what Ellis must have been seeing that day.
There is no way his story is true. Possible theories include: he was so high he thought it was the same day but it really was one day or two days after he dropped acid that he pitched the no-hitter. Or maybe like David Wells he just exaggerated and instead of recanting like Wells he kept adding on his own lie until he believed it himself. Or he made the whole thing up so he would be remembered.
Monday, December 28, 2009
How Was This Not the Biggest Story in the Country?
I recently heard a story that I could not believe I missed when it came out a few months ago. Maybe I just missed it, but someone exposed to as much news as I am probably should have heard this one, unless the liberal media covered it up.
The White House released its visitor logs for the first 6 months of the Obama Presidency. The names William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright were both on the list. Ok, annoying, but no huge deal. But wait, there's more. The White House says it's not the William Ayers or Jeremiah Wright you are thinking of. The people who visited the White House are different people with the same names.
No I am not making this up.
It was reported by ABC News, the Washington Post, the New York Times and even the White House's own website.
The Obama Administration has promised to be the most transparent administration ever. Now, I expect all administrations to lie, to cover stuff up (and no this is nowhere near as bad as lying about a reason to go to war) but it is insulting to the American people to feed us this blatant lie and expect us to buy it. I can't imagine even the most ardent liberal Poophead buying this "same name, different person" story.
As we learned with Watergate, it's not the infraction that kills you, it's the cover-up, I guess that's unless you have the entire news media rooting for your success.
The White House released its visitor logs for the first 6 months of the Obama Presidency. The names William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright were both on the list. Ok, annoying, but no huge deal. But wait, there's more. The White House says it's not the William Ayers or Jeremiah Wright you are thinking of. The people who visited the White House are different people with the same names.
No I am not making this up.
It was reported by ABC News, the Washington Post, the New York Times and even the White House's own website.
The Obama Administration has promised to be the most transparent administration ever. Now, I expect all administrations to lie, to cover stuff up (and no this is nowhere near as bad as lying about a reason to go to war) but it is insulting to the American people to feed us this blatant lie and expect us to buy it. I can't imagine even the most ardent liberal Poophead buying this "same name, different person" story.
As we learned with Watergate, it's not the infraction that kills you, it's the cover-up, I guess that's unless you have the entire news media rooting for your success.
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