An agency spokesperson might announce that thanks to his agency's tireless efforts, public policy problem X has been eradicated. On hearing this, the listener might think highlyofthe agency and believe it to be effective. However, his opinion might be less sanguine ifhc were informed that in the pursuit of eradicating this one public policy problem, the agency had grossly exceeded its budget and neglected its statutorily required duty to attend to a dozen other public policy problems." Furthermore, even the conveyance of pure facts can have persuasive effects on an audience, depending on bow the facts are presented. For example, a government official might state, "5,000 persons are killed by lightning each year." On hearing this, a listener might become wary of venturing outside on cloudy days. If, on the other hand, the same government official said, "On average, you have only a onetwentieth of one-percent chance of being killed by lightning this year," the same listener might feel the risk is so small as not to be worth changing his behavior. However, assuming a population of 100 million, both of these statements are true. The facts are the same; the inference drawn is quite different."