[General] The Idiot Conspiracy

Wow! Hate mail! And lots of it! Thanks Metafilter.

There are some angry people out there. And some none-too-smart ones either.

I’m of two minds as to whether or not I should address the issues raised about my post (there are more here). My gut instinct is to reply, but that feels too defensive. So instead I’ll be more constructive:

• To those who understood that it was a bit of a laugh: “Thanks for dropping by”
• To those who thought that I was creating a serious conspiracy theory and thought that I didn’t realise it was a posed photo: “Thanks for dropping by, but keep your FUCKTARD views to yourself”.

There, I think that’ll help.

However, there were a couple that I did want to reply to…

Anonymous said:

More like you hate black people you racist.

Racist? Moi? [ED: joke omitted so as not to offend] . Ho ho ho. That was a joke (and fuck you for making me spell it out) but seriously, I’m not racist. And don’t send me any of that “ethnocentric” bullshit either.

Anonymous said:

You lie-beral Demon-crat scum just hate the fact that… [Blah, blah, blah]

(With a tired look on his face the author writes) Dude (or possibly Dude-ette), I live in New Zealand. Our "liberal" party is the right wing ACT Party. If I lived in America I probably would vote Democrat, because you only have two parties and I don't like Republican policies. HOWEVER, I live in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and if we had the democratic party here I would not vote for them either.

But what about my dodgy statistics? Yeah, what about them?

I was slightly incorrect in my description. When I said:

…each black player has a 10 in 33 (or 30%) chance of being selected for the first position…

I actually meant that the first position has a 30% chance of being a black player. The equation was still correct. I did assert that this was only the case if the player were being selected for the positions randomly.

I don’t think that any photographer would have said: “Ok, all you darkies, up the back, all the Aryan Ubermensch up the front by Herr Bush.” I imagine that it was a self-arranged photo. The owner, the coach and the QB have to be at the front, everyone else can stand where they want, and as JoKeR said:

… the black players didn't want to be any closer to Bush than they had to be.

Or perhaps more eloquently by troybob:

…it's balanced by a 0.4% chance that a black person would want to stand next to george bush at a photo-op

Some people said that the tallest people were at the back. Well let’s see if we can’t find an example to refute that claim…how about Tedy Bruschi (6’01’’) at the front and Superbowl MVP Deion Branch (5’09’’) at the back? Hmm, that was easy.

How can anyone read my blog, write a comment about it and STILL not get the point? Do you guys angrily comment to the Onion or Whitehouse.org as well? Read the post, stop, have a little think. Then comment if you must.

Like srboisvert did:

Bush hates poor people. I can tell because there isn't a single one in that picture. Can someone break it down by salary?

I’ll use Superbowl MVP Deion Branch and Tedy Bruschi again if you don’t mind. In 2004 Bruschi had a salary of USD$4,204,600 and Branch had a salary of USD$384,200. Dum-Dum-Duuuummmmmm!!!! Srboisvert you may be onto something there.

God it’s happening, I’m actually replying everyone…arrrgghhhh

b_thinky said:

There really aren't any black stars on the Patriots (or any stars besides Brady)

I’m no Patriots fan, but even I can list: RB Corey Dillon, S Rodney Harrison, DE Richard Seymour, LB Willie McGinest and, of course, Superbowl MVP Deion Branch.

Yeah, this is fun (and a little cathartic), bring it on! Bonzai questioned my science:

Let's see. .4% that one photo-op can produce these events? (That percentage has already been called into question. But let's just take it as a given)

How photo-ops does a president do anyway? If it's 100, the odds of 100 iterations not producing 1 example of .4% probability, is around 67%. So about a 33% chance of it happening at least once. 200 iterations would be 45% chance of it happening once.

The sample size is one. Can we draw on a larger sample set? How do you eliminate bias when deciding who is "close" and who is "not close", are these precise measurements?

This doesn't seem to be good science.

The president does 100 photo-shoots with football teams? Fuck, does he do anything else? Also are you sure you did your sums right Bonzai? Seems slightly off to me.

What I did wasn’t good science, not at all. What Bonzai did was bad research. Do what I did and go to the White House photo gallery. You’ll find that the 2003-04 Patriots photo had a lot of black players near the President. Why do I have to find my own counter example?

And then…from the mash of idiots arose a genius (there is no sarcasm in this sentence).

is all the outrage and analysis expressed here for real?

I'm pretty sure this is a joke folks...

posted by hellbient at 10:48 AM PST on September 19

Actually two geniuses, um, genii, um…you get the idea.

Structure is not the result of random chance. A recognizable pattern or design is evidence of an intelligent designer. To suggest that the positions of each person came about either by chance or evolved through trial and error over a long period of time in order to ultimately create the best balance of physical height and relative importance is to deny God's hand in all things. God made the Patriots superbowl champions. God made Bush our president, and God made the black players stand in the back. Nothing happens by chance.

posted by wKen at 11:21 AM PST on September 19

Any how it’s about time to knock off, so happy reading and have a good rest of the day.

Tomorrow:

• How George Bush caused Hurricane Katrina with secret government weapons because he is actually a member of al Qaeda, and
• I swear I will get onto the list of stuff I promised.

Addendum (22/09/05):

This is the last thing I will say to our visiting defenders of freedom. I really hope that you don’t think that your politicians are telling you the truth. For example.