Statistics ARE horseshit, depending on the agenda of the presenter/organizer. And as you point out, there are HEAPS of ways to ignore critical facts in a way which supports the presenter's argument.

And the thing about my nephew, yeah, that was not just relevant because he's my nephew, but because it was SO out of the blue. At the time I presented it as The Decline of Japanese Society, but I still wonder how much of this is Japanese media learning from the west about how to get the general populace worked into a good fear state so they'll agree to restrictions on personal freedom.