"Statistics: Your chance for happiness (or misery)", by Professor Xiao-Li Meng, appeared recently in The Harvard Undergraduate Research Journal v. 2 (2009) n. 1, pp. 21-27. This highly enjoyable article is available in two formats:

• Heavyweight version (3 MG) in PDF
  Update to Adobe Reader required to read page 2 (which contains several Chinese characters)
• Lightweight version in HTML
  Text version of above; one image only

Two other persuasive articles have also recently appeared in the media:

• For Today's Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics
  New York Times, August 5, 2009
• In D.C., Statisticians Flex Their Strength in Numbers
  Washington Post, August 5, 2009