Count on it JOW

I am finally finishing up my little tour with the Census. By now the enumerators are down to checking abandoned trailers in deep rural locations to make sure no one is living there. Those and the few people who are actively in opposition to any federal government activity, are just plain old nut jobs, or both. There seems to be so much anger out there against the United States, by some of its own citizens, that even a benign activity such as the census is viewed with real hostility. It has been a remarkable accomplishment; a few thousand permanent employees swelled to over 640,000 workers in just a couple of months and is now contracting back down, mission accomplished.

Ranging from the seriously silly to the dourly serious, Americans are playing around with the Census form, especially Question 9: What is Person 1's race? The question includes 11 choices and the option: ‘Some other race – print race.’ And that is where the shenanigans begin. You just don’t give people a wonderful opening like that and not expect some smart ass replies. Census workers have received literally thousands forms that include creative self-identified races. They include things like Human, Vulcan and Borg (nods to "Star Trek"), Cylon (for the "Battlestar Galactica" fans), and, yes, NASCAR. (Get it? Race?)

Some census jokes.

A Blonde was sitting on her porch, when a man walked up with a with his black and white census bag.
'What can I do for you?' She politely asked. 'Are you selling something?'
'No, I'm a Census worker.'
'A what?'
'A Census worker. We're trying to find out how many people there are in USA.'
'Well,’ she replied, ‘you're wasting your time here. I have no idea.'
------------------

Checking some questionnaires that had just been filled in, a census clerk was amazed to note that one of them contained figures 121 and 125 in the spaces for "Age of Mother, If Living" and "Age of Father, if Living."
"Surely your parents can't be as old as this?" asked the incredulous clerk.
"Well no," was the answer, "but they would be “if living!"

And on a related note: statistician jokes

When a statistician is pounding a nail with a hammer but misses the nail and hits his thumb, what do we call it?
Sampling Error
When a statistician is pounding a nail with a hammer but misses the nail and hits his thumb 10 CONSECUTIVE times, what do we call it?
A Biased Statistic
How do we correct for the bias?
Tell the statistician to place his thumb directly on the nail and then strike his thumb with the hammer!!!

+++++++++++++
Husband returns home from a doctor's visit with a sad face.
Wife: "What did the doctor say?"
Husband: "I have Dyscalculia. It's a math disorder."
Wife: "How bad is it?"
Husband: "The Doctor said not to worry. 100 out of every 15 people have it."

……………………………
A statistics professor was describing sampling theory to his class, explaining how a sample can be studied and used to generalize to a population. One of the students in the back of the room kept shaking his head.
"What's the matter?" asked the professor.
"I don't believe it," said the student, "why not study the whole population in the first place?"
The professor continued explaining the ideas of random and representative samples. The student still shook his head. The professor launched into the mechanics of proportional stratified samples, randomized cluster sampling, the standard error of the mean, and the central limit theorem.
The student remained unconvinced saying, "Too much theory, too risky, I couldn't trust just a few numbers in place of ALL of them."
Attempting a more practical example, the professor then explained the scientific rigor and meticulous sample selection of the Nielsen television ratings which are used to determine how multiple millions of advertising dollars are spent.
The student remained unimpressed saying, "You mean that just a sample of a few thousand can tell us exactly what over 300 MILLION people are doing?"
Finally, the professor, somewhat disgruntled with the skepticism, replied, "Well, the next time you go to the campus clinic and they want to do a blood test...tell them that's not good enough ...tell them to TAKE IT ALL!!"

***********
Statistics play an important role in genetics. For instance, statistics prove that numbers of offspring is an inherited trait. For example, if your parent didn't have any kids, odds are you won't either.

========================
They have the oil leak sort of stopped – finally. Even so, BP continues to provide the late night comedians with rich fodder.

• "We have some wonderful news. BP announced it successfully capped the oil leak. The oil leak has stopped. I am so glad they were able to nip this thing in the bud." –Jay Leno"
• BP just announced that the containment cap is working and no oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. Well, that was easy." –Jimmy Fallon
• "Before they capped it, BP had to test the integrity of the well, which I believe is the first time BP and integrity have ever been used in the same sentence." –Jay Leno
• "BP says it finally stopped the oil from leaking. And if we've learned anything in the last three months, it's that whatever BP says, BP says." –Jimmy Fallon

And one more I could not resist.
• Dick Cheney is recovering after minor surgery. Doctors implanted a new device in him called a 'heart.'


Thos. Pinney