The Odds of That

The New York Times Magazine ^ | August 11, 2002 | Lisa Belkin

[aculeus]

When the Miami Police first found Benito Que, he was slumped on a desolate side street, near the empty spot where he had habitually parked his Ford Explorer. At about the same time, Don C. Wiley mysteriously disappeared. His car, a white rented Mitsubishi Galant, was abandoned on a bridge outside of Memphis, where he had just had a jovial dinner with friends. The following week, Vladimir Pasechnik collapsed in London, apparently of a stroke.

The list would grow to nearly a dozen in the space of four nerve-jangling months. Stabbed in Leesburg, Va. Suffocated in an air-locked lab in Geelong, Australia. Found wedged under a chair, naked from the waist down, in a blood-splattered apartment in Norwich, England. Hit by a car while jogging. Killed in a private plane crash. Shot dead while a pizza delivery man served as a decoy.

What joined these men was their proximity to the world of bioterror and germ warfare. Que, the one who was car-jacked, was a researcher at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Wiley, the most famous, knew as much as anyone about how the immune system responds to attacks from viruses like Ebola. Pasechnik was Russian, and before he defected, he helped the Soviets transform cruise missiles into biological weapons. The chain of deaths -- these three men and eight others like them -- began last fall, back when emergency teams in moonsuits were scouring the Capitol, when postal workers were dying, when news agencies were on high alert and the entire nation was afraid to open its mail.

[LarryLied]

So why is the New York Times Magazine printing this? A homosexual angle here?

[ppaul]

?

[GBA]

So what's the link? Did they all have a common employer? Is this a clue about some coming attack or event? Is Clinton involved (aka "Arkancides")?

[billhilly]

Exquisite cynicism. My hat is off to you.

[genefromjersey]

What are the odds these deaths are "all coincidence " ? ( About a million to one in my book ! )

[aculeus]

So what's the link?

I have not read the article. Why not read it yourself and tell us about it?

[blam]

"So why is the New York Times Magazine printing this? A homosexual angle here?"

I expect that they stole this 'coincidence' story from FRee Republic. (Some have been talking about this around here for months.)

[GBA]

Why not read the article? I tried, but got their login screen. I don't want to sign up for an account with the NYT so that I can then log in and read it.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

So what's the link?

That there is no link, that it's all just a coincidence, nothing to worry about, nothing to see here, move along.

Using the Law of New York Times Reporting, the exact opposite is probably the truth!

[eno_]

Al Quaida have claimed in the documents that have been captured to carry out coordinated assinations. So why not bioweapons experts? If Iraq intends to use bioweapons on us, they would plausibly either get Al Quaida to assasinate these people or do it themselves, in order to reduce our ability to respond.

[Free State Four]

When the Miami Police first found Benito Que, he was slumped on a desolate side street, near the empty spot where he had habitually parked his Ford Explorer.

The SUV did it. fsf

[ml/nj]

I just skimmed the article in the Magazine.

My conclusion is that people trained as journalists should report news, and stay away from writing on mathematical topics.

ML/NJ

[Free the USA]

Index Bump

[Louie the Lowlife]

I think the reason for this article IS the Arkancides: that mother of all coincidences known as the "Clinton death list". You can find it in thousands of places on the internet, including right here on FR. The NYT wants to teach us not to be so suspicious of concidences. Now if the coincidences happened during a Republican administration, well, that would be a different story altogether. Let's all do a scientific experiment. Let's start keeping track of all suspicious deaths even remotely connected with George Dubya. Let's all compare notes after four (and eight) years. What, no bodies on the list? What are the chances of that?

[Vidalia]

NYT MAG:
User ID: lumpy77
Password: buttocks

[eno_]

Well, there was the Enron guy who shot himself in the back of his own head while driving. But I'm sure there was enough garden-variety desperation within Enron to account for at least one suspicious death.

[gg188]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/647895/posts?page=22#22

I had made this observation before on other subjects of coincidence and "conspiracy" (the deaths of microbiologists, incl my hometown Memphis; FLT 800, etc.; on 3/17/02, I wrote:

Here is what I have always wanted to see. I hesitate to say it, since I made a "D" in a Statistics course I took(and just barely a D).

I would like someone who made an A in statistics to do a statistical analysis or model---the kind we did in Statistics 101 (well, the kind everyone ELSE did)---not talking MIT or NASA here---to see if the occurences of death that we see in the Clinton death list have been at a frequency beyond what is normal. Most importantly: plane crashes. Someone can find the statistics for the last few decades on small planes going down in Arkansas or in the South or in the USA. What is that versus the rate of planes going down since Bill Clinton appeared on the scene? What are the odds of his knowing people ON planes that go down? Statistics don't like. If there are spikes there, then it is either COINCIDENCE---which requires something akin to belief in Miss Cleo and the Psychic Hotline---or there is cause.

[gg188]

I have to wonder about someone who, as the writer says of herself, "really wanted to stay home and watch 'The Golden Girls.'"