Ask kids their opinions on a topic (war, drugs, driving, sex, whatever.), then ask what their teacher’s opinion is. They may tell you what you want to hear about their opinion, but they will recite what they have heard. And *how* they tell you about someone else’s opinion will tell you if they believe it or not. Many times my kid’s friends have mocked their teachers and other adults (and even me!) when re-telling an opinion.

However – unrelated to that, and touching on chris’ comment – if a government program is created and is expected to use a GAO measurement program to monitor its progress, then that is the measurement it must use. That’s the law that was passed, that’s the law that should be followed.

Would obesity still have risen dramatically if the Department of Agriculture hadn’t developed the ridiculous food pyramid in the early 1990s?

Also, I would generally have no problem with taking a GAO report with a grain of salt.

Would you take seriously a Board of Directors report from a publicly traded company, whose stock you were contemplating investing in, if the company consistently operated in the red and floated junk bonds to keep its doors open?

I am not necessarily for or against government anti-drug advertisement program.

However, I always have a problem with linking a statistical assessment, based on a huge unknnown for which an assumption must be made, with the causal nexus as to the efficacy (or lack thereof) with the subject action.

In other words, is the past trend in the reduction of crime attributable to the adoption of “shall issue” permit laws by more states?

If so, what about last year, when violent crime increased dramatically?