Harry Shannon
You have no doubt heard of the far-right web site
Breitbart. It makes Fox News look timid
and centrist. As for accuracy … um,
consider this.
On March 17, 2020, they published a story about coronavirus. Well, they published a lot of stories on the topic, but one headline caught my eye.
It read: ‘Study: 86 pe…
Category: numbers
Try living on the minimum wage – my letter in the Hamilton Spectator
Harry Shannon
Background: A story in the paper on March 3 reported that Hamilton (Ontario) city council turned down a proposal to pay various workers a living wage. The vote was 14-4 against.
My letter was just one of three in today's (March 7) paper criticizing the decision. There was a fourth letter on the topic. It began: 'A living wa…
The value of public transit
Harry Shannon
Some years ago, even before traffic was as bad as it is today, I had to get into Toronto from the Hamilton area. There was a problem on the GO (commuter) train line, so I drove. But so did many of the people who normally took the train.Stuck in traffic, I did some simple mental arithmetic. At the time, there were three …
Data on Pit Bulls
Harry Shannon
Another letter to the Toronto Star which wasn't published. But they did print others that made the same point, and more.
Background: a few years ago, the Ontario's Liberal government enacted a ban on pit bulls. There's now a Conservative government, and one of their MPPs (MPP = Member of Provincial Parliament) has introduced …
Canada’s election: Andrew Scheer’s big mistake and how votes and seats don’t necessarily match
Harry Shannon
If you believe the latest projections, the Liberals will get the most seats in the next Canadian Parliament. The excellent website 338Canada.com has the Conservatives slightly ahead in the popular vote, but getting only 123 seats compared with 137 for the Liberals. Still not the 170 needed for a majority, though. It seems th…
How fast is fastest?
Harry Shannon
I was listening to CBC radio last week, and heard someone
claim that cricket is the fastest-growing sport in Ontario. Maybe it was in Canada, but that’s not
relevant to my point here.
My point is that the term fastest-growing is really meaningless, or at best misleading. There are about a million registered soccer pla…
My latest letter to the Toronto Star
It wasn't published, but you can read it here!
Background to the letter. The Ontario Premier Doug Ford shuffled the provincial cabinet after barely a year in power. Actually, not just a shuffle, but also an increase in the number of ministers.
For more on the class sizes, click here
Re Radical Reboot, June 21I assume it’s just a coi…
Conversions, approximations, and an innumerate historian
Harry Shannon
There’s a story about
a museum guide, who was showing visitors around the exhibits. Coming to an ancient artifact, the guide
stated: “This one is five million and three years old.” One curious visitor asked: “How can you be so
accurate with the dating?” The guide
answered: “Well, when I became a guide…
How to be a Philanthropist – Part 2: A Look at Some Numbers
Harry Shannon
This post follows up Part 1 - An 11 Step Guide.
Recently, MacKenzie Bezos, newly divorced from Amazon's Jeff Bezos, promised to give at least half her $36.6 billion fortune to charity. In what must be the understatement of the year, she noted "I have a disproportionate amount of money to share."
Bezos had just si…