President’s Approval Rating Drops into Negative Territory: Scientists Baffled

A poll conducted last week indicated that the President’s approval rating has dropped to –5%, a figure that has scientists and statisticians baffled.

“This simply isn’t possible,” said Dr. Jerry Hathaway of California Institute of Technology. “You can’t have a negative percentage of the population doing… anything. It must be some quantity greater than or equal to zero. Any simpleton should be able to see that this poll is flawed.”

“It’s obviously some kind of statistically anomaly,” Dr. Zoidberg of the Demos Institute of Mathematics said reassuringly. “Take another sample. I’m almost positive the results will be above zero.”

“No, no, no! You don’t understand!” insisted Dr. Rodney McKay of MIT. “This is bad! This is very bad! It could mean a rift has opened up in the space time continuum. Negative statistics imply that fewer than zero respondents approve of the president. Since that is not possible, it must mean that more than 100% of respondents disapprove of the President. This could mean that people in other universes responded to the poll through a temporal/spatial rift. I have no idea how this could happen, but I just know I’m going to end up having to fix it.”

The White House came out against the poll’s results today, calling them “scientifically unsound”, “methodologically suspect”, and “mind-bogglingly mathematical”.

Dr. Tricia McMillan, who conducted the poll, stood by its findings. “I know these findings seem highly improbable, but you have to understand that anything is possible.”