These days, you can''t turn on a television without hearing that you''re probably fat, engaged in unhealthy behavior, failing to get sufficient exercise, destroying the environment through the use of practically every product that makes your life more convenient, and likely to fall victim to just about everything and everyone around you. But not only are the statistics that prove these points based on false information, much of our national dialogue is dictated by this patently bad science-encouraged solely by public and private organizations that leverage these demonstrably untrue facts to bolster their own philosophies and fatten their own pocketbooks. With mounds of solid evidence that contradicts common thought, Morris Chafetz shows the lies behind the facts about today''s big issues (for instance, the "obesity epidemic" we hear so much about is the result not of a fatter population but instead a change in bookkeeping in a federal agency, and the evidence used now to frighten us about "global warming" was used a generation ago to frighten us about "global cooling") and encourages readers to look through the money-motivated façade of statistics and government controls and return to a strong attitude of personal responsibility.

Anxiety about "alcohol and youth" has been excited by shocking events and reports. Events are exemplified by multiple deaths of adolescents in automobile crashes after drinking parties. Reports are exemplified by the conclusion, from a national survey, that more than one fourth of youngsters aged 13 to 18 are already problem drinkers. Response provoked by these events and reports has taken the form of proposed or enacted legislation in several states to raise the so-called legal drinking age from 18 to 19, or 20, or 21. The confusion around the alcohol-and-youth problem is manifest in the fact that no one can be sure that raising the legal drinking age will make any difference. The legislation may be tilting at windmills; and it is doubtful even that the windmills exist. (But the legislative windmills are whirling.) The confusion is clearly manifest in the fact that the legal­ drinking-age legislation does not deal with a drinking age.

Anxiety about "alcohol and youth" has been excited by shocking events and reports. Events are exemplified by multiple deaths of adolescents in automobile crashes after drinking parties. Reports are exemplified by the conclusion, from a national survey, that more than one fourth of youngsters aged 13 to 18 are already problem drinkers. Response provoked by these events and reports has taken the form of proposed or enacted legislation in several states to raise the so-called legal drinking age from 18 to 19, or 20, or 21. The confusion around the alcohol-and-youth problem is manifest in the fact that no one can be sure that raising the legal drinking age will make any difference. The legislation may be tilting at windmills; and it is doubtful even that the windmills exist. (But the legislative windmills are whirling.) The confusion is clearly manifest in the fact that the legal­ drinking-age legislation does not deal with a drinking age.

These days, you can''t turn on a television without hearing that you''re probably fat, engaged in unhealthy behavior, failing to get sufficient exercise, destroying the environment through the use of practically every product that makes your life more convenient, and likely to fall victim to just about everything and everyone around you. But not only are the statistics that prove these points based on false information, much of our national dialogue is dictated by this patently bad science-encouraged solely by public and private organizations that leverage these demonstrably untrue facts to bolster their own philosophies and fatten their own pocketbooks. With mounds of solid evidence that contradicts common thought, Morris Chafetz shows the lies behind the facts about today''s big issues (for instance, the "obesity epidemic" we hear so much about is the result not of a fatter population but instead a change in bookkeeping in a federal agency, and the evidence used now to frighten us about "global warming" was used a generation ago to frighten us about "global cooling") and encourages readers to look through the money-motivated façade of statistics and government controls and return to a strong attitude of personal responsibility.

Anxiety about "alcohol and youth" has been excited by shocking events and reports. Events are exemplified by multiple deaths of adolescents in automobile crashes after drinking parties. Reports are exemplified by the conclusion, from a national survey, that more than one fourth of youngsters aged 13 to 18 are already problem drinkers. Response provoked by these events and reports has taken the form of proposed or enacted legislation in several states to raise the so-called legal drinking age from 18 to 19, or 20, or 21. The confusion around the alcohol-and-youth problem is manifest in the fact that no one can be sure that raising the legal drinking age will make any difference. The legislation may be tilting at windmills; and it is doubtful even that the windmills exist. (But the legislative windmills are whirling.) The confusion is clearly manifest in the fact that the legal­ drinking-age legislation does not deal with a drinking age.

Anxiety about "alcohol and youth" has been excited by shocking events and reports. Events are exemplified by multiple deaths of adolescents in automobile crashes after drinking parties. Reports are exemplified by the conclusion, from a national survey, that more than one fourth of youngsters aged 13 to 18 are already problem drinkers. Response provoked by these events and reports has taken the form of proposed or enacted legislation in several states to raise the so-called legal drinking age from 18 to 19, or 20, or 21. The confusion around the alcohol-and-youth problem is manifest in the fact that no one can be sure that raising the legal drinking age will make any difference. The legislation may be tilting at windmills; and it is doubtful even that the windmills exist. (But the legislative windmills are whirling.) The confusion is clearly manifest in the fact that the legal­ drinking-age legislation does not deal with a drinking age.