Ah, summer. Heat, beach, ice cream—and ill-founded ice-cream trend articles. Behold: "For the old-fashioned ice cream truck business—now serving nostalgia alongside modern-day munchies like the Fantastic Four ice cream bar—business is booming," the Associated Press reports. Surely the AP has numerical support for that statement. Let's check the record:

"The Philadelphia-based International Association of Ice Cream Vendors doesn't keep statistics but says the industry is doing as well as ever, and its membership is expected to grow."

"As well as ever" = "booming." I better do my part to make this tendentious trend come true—I'll have to grab a cone later today.

But before I go, let's take another visit to that dangerous terrain where journalism meets math. The New York Times reports: "Patients worldwide who suffered heart attacks or strokes while taking the painkiller Vioxx are preparing to sue its maker, Merck, exponentially increasing the company's potential liability."

Which exponent could the Times mean? America^n = world, clearly. But what does n equal? Donald Rumsfeld? Coca-Cola? 42? The Times doesn't say. Perhaps the answer lies in these other recent references to exponential growth in the media, courtesy Google News.