More Good News

My brother sent a CNN article to me yesterday which states that "a new study in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that healthy seniors who consume light to moderate amounts of alcohol reduce their odds of developing physical disabilities or dying in the next five years by 23 percent, compared with either heavy drinkers or those who abstain."

Now that is good news--especially for him because in the study, "seniors" referred to men and women over age 50. Oh the humanity!

What's more: Light to moderate drinkers were defined as those who consumed fewer than 15 drinks a week and fewer than five per day (fewer than four daily for women).

That's considered light? More good news for me!

Your Vote Counts

Apparently Obama went from a 70:30 favorite a few weeks ago to dead even in the Intrade prediction markets. This is likely more credible than my qualitative analysis with supplemental Facebook statistics. D'oh!



In tribute to the woman, the myth, the legend (and since a Sarah Palindrome is boring), I thought I would give you some Sarahnagrams instead.

HA IRAN SLAP
AH LIAR SNAP

And my favorite: I A RASH PLAN

Doomed to Ugliness?

Just when I thought my oldest brother had sent me a link regarding a (what some may find interesting) hypothesis that prettier people were more likely to have daughters than sons, he redeemed himself by presenting evidence to the contrary by economist Andrew Gelmen.

Amen!

Apparently, by charting the offspring of People magazine's 50 most beautiful people over a five-year time frame (1995-2000), out of 329 children, Gelmen found there were only 47.7% girls (with standard error 2.8%) which is a statistically insignificant 0.8% percentage points lower than the population frequency.

As a horrific statistician myself, and one who was never "on the bus" during grad school, I'm taking this opportunity to cash in on being statistically challenged in order to consider the higher percentage of boys in this select set (vs. the average populous) as a confirmation of my extraordinary beauty. And since few people who know me actually tend to comment on this site, I feel very comfortable that I won't be called out.