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On Tue, 9 Sep 2025 18:52:40 -0700,  Alan says...  

> > And if the Communist running Broward County Elections were to activate INeligible voters?
> > 
> > Illegal.

> And there is no evidence that they did that.

Here are some good references for understanding odds, probability, and statistics, organized by their approach and level of detail.

For Beginners and General Audience

Books:

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. This book explains the fundamentals of probability and 
chance in an engaging, narrative style, using real-world examples to make the concepts easy to grasp.

Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data by Charles Wheelan. A highly accessible and humorous introduction to the core 
ideas of statistics. It focuses on the "why" and "how" of statistical concepts without getting bogged down in complex math.

Online Courses:

Khan Academy: Offers a comprehensive and free set of courses on probability and statistics. The lessons are broken down into short 
videos and practice exercises, making it an excellent resource for a foundational understanding.

Brilliant.org: This site uses interactive, problem-solving puzzles to teach concepts. Their courses on Probability and Logic are a 
great way to build an intuitive understanding of the topics.

For Students and Deeper Learning

Textbooks:

A First Course in Probability by Sheldon Ross. This is a widely used and highly respected undergraduate-level textbook. It is 
mathematically rigorous and covers all the core concepts of probability.

OpenIntro Statistics by David M. Diez, Christopher D. Barr, and Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel. A modern, free, and open-source textbook. It 
integrates real-world data and case studies, making it highly practical for students.

Online Courses (University-level):

Coursera / edX: Search for introductory statistics courses from universities like Duke University or the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology (MIT). These courses often use video lectures, quizzes, and projects to provide a college-level learning experience.

For Applications in Data Science and Practice

Books:

The Art of Statistics: How to Learn from Data by David Spiegelhalter. Written by a leading statistician, this book teaches you how 
to think like a statistician and critically evaluate data in the real world.

Practical Statistics for Data Scientists by Peter Bruce and Andrew Bruce. This book is specifically for those who want to apply 
statistical concepts in data science. It explains statistical methods in a hands-on way, using programming languages like R and 
Python.

Blogs and Websites:

Simply Statistics: A blog written by prominent biostatisticians that provides insights and commentary on statistical methods and 
their applications in science and data.

FiveThirtyEight: While not a dedicated stats blog, FiveThirtyEight uses statistics and probability to analyze a wide range of 
topics, from politics to sports. Their articles provide excellent real-world examples of statistical thinking in action.

The American Statistical Association (ASA): The professional organization for statisticians has a website with resources, articles, 
and news related to the field.

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Odds - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odds
In probability theory and statistics, where the variable p is the probability in favor of a binary event, and the probability 
against the event is therefore 1- p, "the odds" of the event are the quotient of the two, or .

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Understanding Probability And Odds - Data Science
https://diogoribeiro7.github.io/statistics/probability_odds/
May 20, 2024 - Discover the difference between probability and odds in biostatistics, and how these concepts apply to data science 
and machine learning. A clear explanation of event occurrence and likelihood.

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PLONK! 

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"Trump Derangement Syndrome" Is a Real Mental Condition

All you need to know about "Trump Derangement Syndrome," or TDS.

"Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a mental condition in which a person has been driven effectively insane due to their dislike 
of Donald Trump, to the point at which they will abandon all logic and reason."

Justin Raimondo, the editorial director of Antiwar.com, wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times in 2016 that broke TDS down into 
three distinct phases or stages:

"In the first stage of the disease, victims lose all sense of proportion. The president-elect's every tweet provokes a firestorm, 
as if 140 characters were all it took to change the world."

"The mid-level stages of TDS have a profound effect on the victim's vocabulary: Sufferers speak a distinctive language consisting 
solely of hyperbole."

"As TDS progresses, the afflicted lose the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality."

The Point here is simple: TDS is, in the eyes of its adherents, the knee-jerk opposition from liberals to anything and everything 
Trump does. If Trump announced he was donating every dollar he's ever made, TDS sufferers would suggest he was up to something 
nefarious, according to the logic of TDS. There's nothing - not. one. thing. - that Trump could do or say that would be received 
positively by TDSers.

The history of Trump Derangement Syndrome actually goes back to the early 2000s - a time when the idea of Trump as president was a 
punch line for late-night comics and nothing more.

Wikipedia traces its roots to "Bush Derangement Syndrome" - a term first coined by the late conservative columnist Charles 
Krauthammer back in 2003. The condition, as Krauthammer defined it, was "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in 
reaction to the policies, the presidency - nay - the very existence of George W. Bush."