Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 20:55:28 -0500 From: Jeff Huo Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan Subject: Re: TAN: Phobias (was Re: TAN: Summer Reading recommendations) In article <3b802c9a.273027852@news.mindspring.com>, lparkinson@mindspring.com says... > leigh_butler@paramount.com (Leigh Butler) rhapsodized in blue: > > > >There's not caring for spiders, frex, and then there's the kind of > >arachnophobia that led some girl I heard about to _duct tape_ her > >mouth shut every night (after reading about the statistic that 6 out > >of 10 people have at some point swallowed spiders in their sleep). > > Aside from the weirdness of her response... my own question is: "How > the *fuck* can they can statistics on something like that?" It's not hard, really, when you think about it --a combination of polling, rigourous data collection based on previous reports from hospitals and the like, experimental obsevations in the field, some reasonable extrapolations based on well accepted statistical models, and unholy orgiastic communion with bestial succubi sealed with the heart's-blood of thousands of living chipmunks sacrificed upon black obsidian altars carved with Aztec death-glyphs while the Statasticians themselves are wearing weasel pelt codpieces and piped to the gills on exotic Amazon hallucinogens and Taster's Choice Hazelnut Roast, why? -Jeff Although Mike Ikeda would probably insist that it's Folger's Choice French Roast. That's what happens when you ask an amateur like me... -- Jeff Huo | jeff@spundreams.net.nospam (remove nospam) U. Michigan Med | http://www.spundreams.net/~jeff New to the group? Welcome! Please read http://www.landfield.com/faqs/sf/robert-jordan-faq/ http://www.spundreams.net/~jeff/rasfwrjians2.html