Peter MacKay's Dog Ate His Lunch

Of course he knew that original $9-billion figure was nonsense.  And, sure, he knew that $15-billion figure wasn't the whole story either.   And, okay, he knew the $15-billion figure was shy $10-billion and should have been $25-billion all along...

...but according to Harper DefMin Peter MacKay the difference between $25-billion and $15-billion is in the eye of the beholder.  He was talking about apples, not apples and oranges, no matter what he actually said.   Which, of course, invites these truisms:

• There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. - Twain attributed this to B. Disraeli
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• It has long recognized by public men of all kinds ... that statistics come under the head of lying, and that no lie is so false or inconclusive as that which is based on statistics. - H. Belloc
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• Figures don't lie, but liars figure. - Samuel Clemens (alias Mark Twain)
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• If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment - Ernest Rutherford
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