Originally posted by Paul J. Lyon@Dec 13 2004, 01:44 PM
Regarding the California reporter who broke the huge story about the CIA drug dealers who introduced cocaine into the U.S. in the 1980s: official cause of death
\"Suicide.\"
Four Bush biographers, Mark Lombardi, J.H. Hatfield, Danny Casalaro, and now Gary Webb--all \"suicide\" victims. What are the odds all of these people actually committing suicide?
Examining the male U.S.suicide rate for recent years
(http://www.suicidology.org/stats2001/1999datapage2.pdf), we can
extrapolate a conservative estimate of 17 male suicides per 100,000 people, or 0.017%. The odds of 4 specific, male biographers committing suicide would be the 4th power of 17/100000, or 8.3521 4.913 x 10^-17...roughly 1 chance 10,000,000,000,000,000. About as good a definition of impossible as you can get. A person would stand a better chance of playing the Canadian lottery 6/49 exactly twice in one's lifetime and winning ther grand jackpot BOTH TIMES! (That is, picking 6 numbers out of 49 possible numbers and matching all 6 numbers out of 6 random draws, on 2 separate occasions, and having only purchased two Canadian lottery tickets ever.) This calculation should be regarded as a conservative estimate: the actual odds against such a \"coincidence\" would be much greater. For example, if any of the biographers were female, the odds would be even greater.