97% of statistics are made up

I'm a big fan of the Harper's Index - statistics like pictures: worth a thousand words.

My favourite recent statistics is "Percentage of Americans who cannot say in which year the September 11 attacks occurred: 30" (November 2006)

Without any context, these statistics are not much more than brain teasers. You can't draw policy and barely use them in an argument. But they're fun. Here's my take.

Life expectancy
US: 77.2 years
Canada: 79.7 years

Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2003)
US: 15%
Canada: 9.9%

Source: OECD.