{"id":90909,"date":"2022-11-13T20:26:30","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T04:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=90909"},"modified":"2022-11-13T20:26:30","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T04:26:30","slug":"poll-elections-and-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2022\/11\/13\/poll-elections-and-eggs\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll, Elections and Eggs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t understand why people listen to polls.&nbsp; I also don\u2019t understand why people go to psychics.&nbsp; My skepticism is best illustrated in the story of <strong>Mary Bateman<\/strong>, also known as the <strong><em>Yorkshire Witch<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; Back in 18<sup>th<\/sup>-century England, Mary claimed to have unerring prophetic abilities.&nbsp; She swore that she could predict the future by messages inscribed on the eggs laid by her hens.&nbsp; Of course, nobody believed her \u2013 because why would you believe that?&nbsp; Then Mary invited several people to her farm, where they witnessed a hen actually laying eggs that said \u201cChrist is coming\u201d.&nbsp; And, yes, they saw the eggs come out of the hen.&nbsp; Mary became a sensation.&nbsp; Needless to say, it was later discovered that Bateman used acid to write the messages on eggs.&nbsp; She then reinserted them into the hen\u2019s oviduct \u2013 which, and I say this not as a gynecologist or even a veterinarian, I believe is somewhere in the vicinity of the uvula.&nbsp; And that\u2019s why I don\u2019t trust pollsters \u2013 they\u2019re always trying to stick something in one end or the other.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-568\" src=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\" alt=\"colorbar1\" width=\"500\" height=\"1\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One didn\u2019t need to be a pollster to know that <strong>Maura Healey <\/strong>would be elected governor of Massachusetts.&nbsp; While locals note that she\u2019s the first female governor of our state, the national press is making much of the fact that she\u2019s the first openly lesbian governor of a US state.&nbsp; But what she does with her eggs is her business.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after Healey\u2019s win, another tinkle came from that glass ceiling when fellow lesbian <strong>Tina Kotek <\/strong>was elected governor of Oregon.&nbsp; And <strong>Jared Polis<\/strong>, who in 2018 became the first openly gay elected governor in the US, was re-elected governor of Colorado.&nbsp; <strong>Bill Maher <\/strong>says we should be watching him.&nbsp; I was watching closely enough to note that I don\u2019t like my politicians wearing a suit and sneakers.&nbsp; Never have.&nbsp; But he seems smart.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t understand why people listen to polls.&nbsp; I also don\u2019t understand why people go to psychics.&nbsp; My skepticism is best illustrated in the story of Mary Bateman, also known as the Yorkshire Witch.&nbsp; Back in 18th-century England, Mary claimed to have unerring prophetic abilities.&nbsp; She swore that she could predict the future by messages<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90918,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90909\/revisions\/90918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}