As Kurt has pointed out to me, people are dying everyday. Interesting. According to the CIA World Factbook something on the order of 155,000 people die each day worldwide. Our local paper reported the news today that Fred Travalena has died. If you don't know who Fred is, I assume you haven't watched enough of Hollywood Squares. Here's his photo, it may jog your memory. No help? Anyway, this is a comment that appeared in our local paper in response to the news of Travalena's death. It is from a woman named Christine.

Ed McMahon Farrah Fawcett Michael Jackson

Billy Mays Gale Storm Fred Travalena

I worked in the nursing field for 30 years, the saying was "they always die in 3's". I've been keeping track for years and its fairly accurate.

Unfortunately for Christine, it is not accurate at all. Since Ed McMahon cashed it in on June 23rd, until the 28th when poor Fred bought it, about 750,000 people died if the CIA is to be believed. Christine, like most of us can only name 6. The deaths in threes is an example of confirmation bias. Our brains are programed to confirm what we already believe. On Christine's list I see six names, but she sees two groups of threes. In addition she makes the logical fallacy of appeal to authority in her reference to her years of nursing. Nothing in being a nurse qualifies a person as an expert on demographics. That would be a demographer. Superstitions are interesting, though. Oh, Mrs. Sneed is a nurse and an expert on everything, but she is the exception. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky