Patenting statistical techniques? Can you say WTF?

The patent in question:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=avgEAgAAEBAJ&printsec=f...

And yes, it does look like he just took fairly common statistical methods, added a bunch of awkwardly-worded stuff about how it's financial data, and you're storing it in a computer memory, so that makes it special. Or my interpretation could be off; it's not exactly a miracle of clear writing.

My question: would Prior Art be considered?

It looks like there’s a second patent with the same title:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...

It's a pretty common statistical technique - random sampling, and he wants to patent it. WTF??

Anyone thinks this is madness?

Agreed, the article itself reads almost like a piece of satire.

Can I say jackass here?