Magic Numbers

The Chinese I Ching has nine lines in groups of three. The 8^th line from the bottom is the strong, lucky line. The line fourth from the bottom is the unlucky weak line. There are strong male lines and broken female ones. If you can interpret the gua, you can see into the future...

Did the US government actually orchestrate the Twin Towers destruction?

In August 2004, a poll by Zogby International showed that 49 per cent of New York City residents, with a margin of error of 3.5 percent, believed that officials of the U.S. government “knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act.” [2] In a Scripps-Howard Poll in 2006, with an error margin of 4 percent, some 36 percent of respondents assented to the claim that “federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center or took no action to stop them.” [3] Sixteen percent said that it was either very likely or somewhat likely that “the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings.”

Numbers prove it. So they did orchestrate it.

(NB I do not believe that myself.)

Magic numbers!

A dark cave. In the middle, a boiling cauldron.
Thunder.
Enter the three Witches
First Witch
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
Second Witch
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
Third Witch
Harpier cries "'Tis time, 'tis time."
First WitchRound about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
All
Double, double, toil and trouble; (10)
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Good old Shakespeare! Nailed it thrice. (Macbeth).

At the beginning of the education revolution in the last century, an edict came down that we teachers had to give each “student” a mark out of twenty for attitude and achievement. I was faced with making up a lot of numbers fast.

So I did.

But there were no 10s or 20s! 19, 14, 11 – all difficult numbers giving the impression that I knew what I was doing. One particularly badly behaved boy, I remember, got 7 and a half.

I handed them in so that they could be checked as fact.

And everyone believed them: hey! - they were numbers!

I am not alone in this.

Numbers matter. They add gravitas:

This Christmas, 23,000 young homeless people like Mark won't have a place to call home.

Seven days to save the NHS!

Use numbers. There are 101 reasons to do so. 

Here is just one: it convinces everyone.