Be Wary of Statistics
As Benjamin Disraeli said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.†Although I do use statistics here and do believe in their usefulness, I was reminded by a news story last week why we need to be careful. As read by the radio news announcer, the story went something like this:
November saw the largest one month increase in consumer spending in several years. The story went on to talk about several positive things this increase in consumer spending, and by implication, consumer confidence, might portend for the economy. The last line of the story changed everything, however, and made me wonder how it could have even found its way past the news editors or how the announcer could have read it without adding an editorial comment of their own at the end.
The last line said “experts attribute most of the rise in consumer spending to the recent increase in gasoline prices”. This was a ‘top of the hour’, network news, type broadcast! Sort of makes you wonder who is working in the news rooms these days and where the news reporter’s discerning eye has gone.
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On a different note, Bob at Black Holes and Astrostuff honored me with an award several days ago. I am not really hip to many of the awards and memes that I see in various places, but I am grateful for his acknowledgment of this site. The award is called “The Totally Useful and Deserving Blogger Award” and was originated at this web site. Thank you Bob. I will proudly display the award in my sidebar.
I also would like to pass on this award to two sites. The first is Anna at My Only Photo. Anna and her army of regular readers are certainly deserving of an award like this. The second site is JD at TechFun. In addition to his own commentary, his site posts lots of interesting links to topics in the news. He must spend a bunch of time every day reading! In addition JD has always been generous in helping his blogging compatriots figure out the more technical aspects of their WordPress blogs and is greatly appreciated for that!
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