Numbers in the Wall Street Journal Website

I just signed up for a subscription to the Wall Street Journal on-line edition. I had only visited the site before and saw the headlines, but never could enter the site. Now, I have access and I've found a most delightful column.

The column is:
THE NUMBERS GUY
By CARL BIALIK
and Mr. Bialik goes through various news articles and sites to show how numbers can be misused. If you have access to this site, it's worth a look. If not, I'll quote part of his column below. Look for more quotes as I see them.

--------------- Quote below ------------------

Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller, arrested last month in San Jose, Calif., for alleged sexual abuse of two boys, became the subject of a wider investigation after police found seven log books containing a reported 36,000 entries of sex acts with boys.

It's extremely unlikely that anyone could commit 36,000 acts of sexual abuse -- as Numbers Guy reader Don Fenstermacher pointed out, that would amount to an average of about 2.8 per day since Feb. 12, 1970, when Mr. Schwartzmiller was convicted in Alaska on three counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with three boys. The Daily Herald of Everett, Wash., noted it would take more than two molestations a day over 47 years. Police realized that many of the journal entries could be duplicates, and some may not be describing actual sex acts. "If you assume 10% of them are actual cases, that's 3,600 acts," Lieutenant Scott Cornfield of the San Jose police sexual assault investigations unit told the New York Times last week. "Even if you assume one percent, that's 360 victims." The Times headlined its report, "Child Molester Is Suspected in Hundreds of Cases."

But not all publications were as cautious with the numbers, especially in crafting catchy headlines. Dozens of Web sites headlined an Associated Press report, "Molester Suspected in 36,000 Abuse Cases."