"Statistical tools and methods, like many other technologies, can be employed either for social good or for evil" (the American Statistical Association’s Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice).

Unfortunately for us, we’ll never know the difference: Darryl Huff’s classic How to Lie with Statistics is, at the moment, unavailable at the San Francisco Public Library.

The probability of this occurrence is… you figure it out.

The fourth slide in our fearless Mayor's State of the City PowerPoint Presentation featured the bold words: "Progress by the Numbers." Earth-shaking statistical analysis of the numbers after the jump.