Lies, BLEEP Lies, and Silly Statistics

This post was prompted by a Washington Post Style Invitational humor contest. The prompt was "Make up silly statistics that aren't true, but are funny because they remind us of something else." 

To make it easier for all Internet readers to spot the statistics that aren't true, I'm borrowing an old linguistics convention: A sentence that's "wrong" is flagged with an asterisk. Example: * These is false statistics maid up for chokes.

1. * "The world will come to an end in twelve years," wailed the most junior member of Congress, picking one of her 350,000 long black hairs out from between 3 of her 37.5% oversized front teeth. "Lighten up, Al," suggested another junior member. "But it will," wailed the Congresschick, "because I'll be too old to have babies."

2. * "America is 40% greater than it was in 2016," bellowed a fellow in a red baseball cap. "Say what?: one of his Tweeps obligingly sqiawked. "I'm thinking like a rich man," the Trump fan explained. "The more debt you're in, the more credit you have, which makes you greater!"

3. * Due to ethical constraints on sacrificing any more innocent animals to glyphosate testing,t he product was tested on 250 senior employees of chemical companies. Of these, 47% developed gastrointestinal reactions, 53% developed respiratory symptoms, 16% developed skin lesions, 8% suffered kidney damage, 9% developed thyroid symptoms, 2% became completely paralyzed, 3% developed tumors in sex-specific body parts, 5,6% committed suicide, and 0.4% developed a persistent delusion that he was Donald Trump's vermiform appendix. 

4. * Following the experiment described above, 99.8% of the cmpanies' remaining employees have been working on weeder robot technology, and 0.2% have gone int hiding.

5. * As a result of the radical redirection of the chemical companies, a large-scale survey indicates that 2.22 million Americans reported feeling 100% better, 2.7 million reported feeling70-95% better, and 35,479 are currently suing one or more chemical companies.

6. * A YouGov poll found that 23% of all free online courses re taken int he names of domestic animals and 4% are actually taken by the animals. Priscilla King's missing cat Heather, who had taken four freshman courses from Harvard Online with a GPA of 3.6, was found on Harvard's main campus, meowing for admission to regular classes. (In real life the cat died by misadventure.)

7. * 99.4% of the population of Takoma Park, Maryland (17,462) have higher IQ scores than 95% of the population of Rockville, Maryland.

8. Brett Favre, Jerry Rice, and Tim Tebow together have scored 216 touchdowns. (Google says this is true. I thought these statistics would be funnier if there was a real one on this page, somewhere.)

9. * 91% of Montgomery County Metrobuses run on or within 2 minutes of schedule, 85% or more of the time. 75% of Arlington Metrobuses run within 5 minutes of schedule, 75% or more of the time. 87% of Alexandria Metrobuses run within 10 minutes of schedule, 90% or more of the time. 51% of Fairfax County Metrobuses run within 5 minutes of schedule, 55% of the time. 40% of downdown DC Metrobuses run within 2 minutes of schedule, 90% of the time. Any resemblance between the observed behavior of Prince Georges County Metrobuses and their schedules is coincidental.

10. * According to a recent survey of sixth grade students, 59% could not find Canada on a map, 71% thought British was a foreign language (and 17% thought it was written with kanji characters), 6% were able to name their own state capitals, and 45% failed to spot the misprint in the US first edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which states that 42 is the product of multiplying 7 by 9. However, 84% self-identified as Democrats, 63% thought they might be homosexual, and 91% thought male-to-female transsexuals should be counted as women. Upon the release of the results of this survey, 21 sixth grade teachers attempted to leave the US.

11. * According to a survey conducted by off-duty DC traffic police officers, 51% of DC drivers have never had a DC license, 42% have never had a Maryland or Virginia license either, 33% indicated lack of familiarity with the term "license," 22% were drunk or stoned, and 49% were diplomats. Only 24% correctly answered questions about the rules for turning left on a red light in DC, Maryland, or Virginia. When asked how tourists should get around the city, 99% said "Ride Metro."

12. * 99% of Marylanders surveyed did not know that February was National Return Shopping Carts Month. 98% of Marylanders didn't know that Virginians think they push all those shopping carts into rivers themselves. 95% of Marylanders did not know that, when you call a store to report a shopping cart stuck in a watercourse, the Chesapeake Bay Monster makes one of your wishes come true.

13. * Taking primary responsibility for house cleaning, especially scrubbing bathroom floors, extends male sexual activity by an average of 13.6 years.

14. * You can lower your WSSC water bill by $40 per person per month if you flush your toilet by filling a quart container with water from the sink (while washing your hands) and dumping it into the bowl. (This is enough water to activate the flush mechanism without completely refilling the bowl, which can be done whenever one anticipates a need. I've tested this method. It really did lower my bill dramatically, but I'm not aware of any real statistical studies.)

15. * You can lower your Pepco bill by $50 per month if you think of all electronic devices as room heaters. When you turn on the air conditioning, unplug the TV sets and computers until the day of the first frost. (Again, that this lowers the bill is true; statistical studies of how much it lowers the bill were made up.)