Dear Reader,
This time of year always evokes both good and bad memories for me, mostly because of the intense family time the holiday season would bring. Every Christmas Day, my extended family would gather at Uncle Tony and Aunt Theresa's house to trade presents and share an evening meal. Those gatherings always started out pleasant enough, but by the time early evening had arrived, the dinner table had turned into the United Kingdom circa 1940: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills."

The most frequent combatants were Uncle Tony and Uncle Sal. Their "loud discussions" (as my mother liked to call them) were mainly sophomoric insults focusing on Uncle Tony's thinning hair and Uncle Sal's expanding waistline. Occasionally, however, they involved the whole family. One of their more spirited arguments centered on when to tell your children the truth about Santa, with Uncle Tony clinging to the idea and labeling presents "from Santa" despite the fact that his kids were teenagers, while Uncle Sal suggested that responsible parents would "abandon the charade" as soon as their child demonstrated any skepticism. Of course, this argument took place in front of several believers, including me. I look back at this moment as the official end of my childhood. Such arguments invariably split the family. There were no Switzerlands at the LaRusso Christmas Dinner; you were either one of Tony's Cronies or Sal's Pals; you couldn't be both.

This month, SAS Education debuts its own version of the LaRusso Civil War: Stat Wars. Stat Wars is a new video series that pits two SAS advanced analytics instructors against each other to solve a common, real-world statistical problem. After hearing each present their arguments, viewers are invited to choose the solution they found most helpful. Playing the roles of Uncle Tony and Uncle Sal are Danny Modlin and Marc Huber, two of SAS' most knowledgeable and entertaining instructors. Each episode will tackle a new statistics challenge. In the first episode, Danny and Marc discuss how best to compare a list of average SAT test scores by gender. So check it out, and let us know which instructor you think wins this episode's challenge.

Let there be peace on Earth (and at your family gatherings) this holiday season.

Larry LaRusso
Editor, SAS Training Report