100% of the people reading this post are reading this post (and other lies about statistics)

A friend recently shared an article about the Ice Bucket Challenge that claimed only 27% of the money raised is going towards research. Here’s the article. 

Here’s the headline: 

ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE: ALS FOUNDATION ADMITS LESS THAN 27% OF DONATIONS FUND RESEARCH & CURES

$95 Million Later: Only 27% Of Donations Actually Help ‘Research The Cure’

I was pretty angry. The tone of the article is really awful too, slamming the ALS foundation for these heinous crimes. Yet, there’s some additional facts tucked away in a pie chart that give the lie to the headline. 19% of the funds raised go to patient and community outreach; a viable use of funding, don’t you think? 32%, the largest chunk of the funding, goes to public education. How dare they spend the money trying to make people aware of the disease and its effects! That’s what Wikipedia and webMD are for! Oh, and the $95 million figure they quote isn’t what they actually break down in the chart either — it’s only the expenses for the year ending January 31, 2014.

Given that pie chart, in fact, 79% of the donations go directly to aiding sufferers of the disease or increasing awareness; that’s pretty good. The foundation is rated very highly by Charity Navigator too. 

The salary for the CEO is pretty insane — $300k+ is nuts for a non-profit. However, it’s only a tiny slice of the total pie, and not nearly as bad as scaremongers would have you believe. If we, in the United States, don’t want to use tax dollars to contribute to health care, funding of organizations like this one is a great way to contribute. 

Josh Gordon is better than an air traffic controller

I’m not surprised that Josh Gordon’s 1 year suspension was upheld. Here’s what I did find surprising, courtesy of Dawgs by Nature:

ESPN’s Outside the Lines first broke the story of the impending suspension on the second day of the NFL Draft back in early May.

 

Later report near the end of July revealed that Gordon had tested positive for marijuana, but that the level of THC metabolites were 16 nanograms per millimeter (barely over 16.01 parts per billion) in one of his samples and above the league’s absurdly low threshold of 15 ng/ml to consist of a “positive.”

 

That threshold is higher than any other major sport, including the very strict IOC, which stands at 175 ng/ml. Even air traffic controllers can have a level up to 50.

 

However, due to what effectively equates to a coin flip, the NFL’s standard testing procedure is to randomly select one of the two samples provided by the player. The first one is tested and if it comes up positive, above the threshold, the second sample is tested merely for the presence of the same banned substance, without regards to the threshold. If the first sample comes up negative, below the threshold, the second sample isn’t tested.

 

Gordon’s first 16 ng/ml sample sparked a test of his second sample. The second one came up 13.6 ng/ml. Based on this procedure, it confirmed what the league considers a “positive.” And the rest is history.

Well, it’s good to know he’ll be able to find a job directing air traffic while he’s suspended. A much less stressful job than catching footballs, apparently. 

Batman and the villain who hates him

It may seem to you, dear reader, that I am undergoing some sort of metaphysical experiment, devoting this entire blog to troll Kevin and provoke a response from him. That’s a filthy lie. 

However, I did happen to find a couple of articles about the Man of Bats (not to be confused with Bat Manuel) and his principal villain, the Joker. 

First up, we have a ranking of everybody who has ever played the Joker. Noting that I’ve seen relatively little of the animated series, I think any list that has Nicholson over Ledger is just, well, wrong. Mark Hamill as number one… Kevin will, almost certainly, agree with this assessment (I believe he’s done so before). Based on the video games, I will say that he’s done a remarkable job of capturing Joker’s essence, even if he’s just a tiny bit more cartoonish than I’d like my Joker. 

Second, we have a report of a disaster nearly averted: Pierce Brosnan as Batman. I like Pierce Brosnan. I really do. The Thomas Crown Affair was a great flick, and he’s my generation’s James Bond. He was even great in Remington Steele. What he would be awful as is Batman. At no point in his film career have I seen intensity, and intensity is a sine qua non for Batman. Christian Bale had it, Val Kilmer had it in small doses (even if it was more imperiousness than intensity). Michael Keaton had at least some of it. Brosnan has zero. He’s spent so much time playing “cool, calm, and collected” that it’s completely mad to think of him genuinely losing his shit, or just barely hanging on. 

Ben Affleck can have a vindictive asshole type personality — see the brilliant Dogma — which means that he could bring that level of “he might lose his shit” to Batman. Maybe he’ll fail, but as I’ve already argued, Batman movies rarely succeed or fail based on who plays Batman.

Yay sanity

It may not be sexy, it may not sell as many tickets, but Pettine made, in my estimation, the right move: Brian Hoyer will be the starting QB for the Browns. Manziel needs some time to be seasoned, to learn the offense, and to develop both as a mature adult and as a quarterback.  

Please, Mike Pettine — reconsider

I really, really want Johnny Manziel to succeed. A key part of that success is learning the NFL on the sidelines. And yet… there are reports that if Manziel has a monster game on Monday Night Football, he could start for the Browns against Pittsburgh on September 7. The last sentence of the article tries to backtrack some, but I fear what might happen if there’s too much pressure on Johnny too early. 

I hope Pettine knows what he’s doing.