The Dem’s social programs leave little room Space Exploration.
How can you say Palin is a disaster and not say that Biden is not a disaster?

Except that……

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-doctor-is-in-infant-mortality-comparisons-a-statistical-miscarriage/

The stats have been skewed for some time.

To what degree the WHO standardizations are flexed for the propagandistic joy of various nations’ sales pitches is of much debate. As is the overall effect. But to say there is no effect on the very categorization differences on what constitutes a “live birth” is absurdist.

What is the statisically significant digit we can distill here?

I have no idea. But the author above suggests it might be substantial.

NOBODY can nail down for you what overall effect this has on the core numbers.

How the hell could we, since no one can even agree to what level other nations are not abiding by these lofty alleged WHO numbers and standardizations for counting “live births?”

Not sufficiently acknowledged here is the other fact–which I consider heroic and not a failure(if being on the “Good Side” of the Force is our colletive societal goal here–is that in the US we try our damndest to save EVERY tiny life once born. Not so in other hamlets and in those of socialized medicine across the globe.

NOW, granted:

Even allowing for this, and for what is a very suspect comparison in the first place between what are generally homogenous Euro societies (and a more mixed bag of apples and oranges in the US), of course there’d still be some differences.

And?

Well, to what end are we to take this? For example, other articles have pointed out that in some communities even with TWICE (or more) the health care spending increases for government sponsored clinics, preemie prevention efforts, and similar community outreach programs, some groups are STILL faring worse that their Euro counterparts when the stats regard premature births (and this is also at the heart of much of the cultural reason for infant mortality).

The problems appear to be multiple, societal, cultural, and have probably far more to do with the remains of paternalistic care leftovers from the Great Society’s destruction of minority and inner city family units, supplanting the father figures and other structures with government presence, etc. One could take the ugly and cynical tack–regardless of feelings on the matter overall–that just aborting all less than prime babies upon ultrasound discover of any and all abnormalities and/or if the mother is less than 18 years of age would also improve the stats.

No question it would. But that’s not fairy dust. (in fact, it MIGHT oddly enough be the ideal for some folks), and neither are the stats skewed for b abies less than “X” number of centimeters whose deaths are kept off the official charts.

Happy Kwanzaa. Or Solstace. Or whatever.

> Yes, and quite often they DON’T.

Again (and for the last time), I accept this may be true. Without a specific, critical analysis of a particular study what you’re doing here is blowing hot air. You’re accusing scientists of bad science without offering any evidence of such. Repeating your existing allegation is not necessary, providing specific analysis is. Or you’re just trolling…

> Thus for example longevity in the US would be 1st in the world
> possibly if we had a homogenous society where the mix of
> gunshots from gangbangers don’t get plunked in.

This is another repeat. Longevity in the US would be first in the world possibly if we all had magic fairy dust that protected us from harm. Longevity in the US would be first in the world possibly if we started counting age at birth -9 months. You can claim whatever you wish, sir… but you need to start providing some… you know… evidence. Crunch numbers and show me that your proposal at least has some statistical merit instead of providing unsubstantiated claims. On the face of it, I find this highly implausible given the number of gunshot deaths vs. the overall fatality rate in the U.S., but if you want to take the time to look at the numbers more rigorously to illustrate your point effectively I welcome the analysis. Otherwise you’re complaining that studies don’t have statistical rigor by… failing to provide a statistically rigorous analysis. Pot, meet kettle!

Too sweeping a generalisation Wakefield. For example cancer survival rates for four specific cancers the top 3 nations are the US, France and Japan. Australia and Canada also rank highly. Quite a mix of countries with a mix of socialised and fully private servicing.
http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20080716/cancer-survival-rates-vary-by-country

Not that this necessarily has anything at all to do with the capitalism vs. socialism argument that’s popped up, but just thought I’d throw it in there.

Absolutely, and heart ailments hit Americans like no other nation. Bad health care?

Possibly some screenings need to be refined.

What about diet and sedantary lifestyle?

Since fatty meats and richer diets are symptomatic of sumptious living and wealth (gout and related ailments used to be the province of kings and sultans, for example, but not the peasant), it seems a better explanation than:

“we just don’t have a good health care system or support network, etc” is warranted.

No health care system in the world can hold down costs, treat millions successfully, and have fantastic cure rates for diets and lifestyles that stuff the guts with meat and don’t have excercise. Not even a technologicallly advanced one.

It’s the equivalent of saying that the US military is just so lackluster compared to others (!?)

Until you find out we’re head to head with both the Red Chinese and Russians all at once and we wonder why we’re not winning FASTER, compared to the army, of say, a Swiss canton, fighting local tribesmen.

Socialized medicine is fine, for example, in wiping runny noses in the local clinic, but not for getting faster MRIs and open heart surgery waiting lists (of which the US has plenty need, unfortunately)

Yes, and quite often they DON’T.

Numbers are just numbers on some of these tables.

Thus for example longevity in the US would be 1st in the world possibly if we had a homogenous society where the mix of gunshots from gangbangers don’t get plunked in.

Infant mortality stats are made WORSE for the fact that many preemies are placed in the “try and save” category, whereas this is not done accross the board.

It’s like tossing out the chaff (those who, in the judgement of some physicians, will NOT make it) from the wheat (those who probably will).

If this is not accounted for then we have no better stats than the wonderful people’s democracy of……….Malta.

AS the article indicated.

Aunt Flossy? Couldn’t think of a name Aunt Flossy of the Virginian Whozits.

@shane
Nobody who used the phrase “dontcha know” could possibly have an aunt Flossy who lives in Switzerland. Aunt Flossy lives in Florida.

In most European countries, the waiters are paid reasonably to start with, and tip is generally included in the bill, so you only tip if the service was truly extraordinary.

That’s why we tip so well.

> And what is with the contemptuous manner in which many many Americans
> seem to treat service staff (waiters etc) overseas?

This is often based upon one of those cultural differences. Americans, in the general, are foolish enough to consider the consumption of a daily meal as a means to an end rather than an experience in and of itself. The general expectation is that the service staff appear promptly, provide food quickly, clear the table immediately after the end of the meal and provide the reckoning so that the customer can vacate the table (to the benefit of the restaurant) and go about the business enabled by the fueling stop.

People elsewhere, on the other hand, often prefer the wait staff to let them experience their meal as a social event… a much more sensible and enjoyable experience

In short, Americans wonder what is *taking so long*, and we’re culturally bombarded with impatience. It’s why we invented “fast food”, after all.

The converse is also likely to be true; broad brush stats can cover statistical aberrations that are not significant discrepancies in the larger view.

> The first link in turn links to links (yeah, a mouthful, I know) that show that
> the problem can be traced in no small part to cultural differences. Murder
> and mayhem tend to rub hell with longevity stats.

Absolutely cultural differences can make a difference; any decent social scientist would correct for those cultural differences in a rigorous study. And absolutely murder can rub hell with longevity stats. However, pretty close to exactly ~1 million people die each year from heart attack, stroke, and cancer, and only about 12-14,000 from murder. That’s less than 1%. I come up with a rough chicken scratch estimate of 2,487,415(.9) deaths in the U.S. in 2008, based upon the CIA factbook estimate of the population and the mortality rate.

But I digress… you’re performing a classic bait-and-switch here, my good man. Longevity stats are only tangentially germane to the question of infant mortality, and you’re not buttressing your earlier proposition that infant mortality rates in the EU and the US are not within a reasonable delta for comparison purposes, which is after all what I called shenanigans on

It has been proposed that the U.S. infant mortality rate is not comparable to other industrialized nations. You have challenged the validity of a statistical comparison on intellectually possible grounds, but I reiterate -> your proposed grounds lack sufficient evidence (at this time) for me to take your claim with sufficient weight to counterbalance the initial proposal.

I shouldn’t stereotype but Americans they do stand out when travelling. You have the ability/confidence/whatever to project your voices. You’re not trying to be obnoxious but we can be sitting in a quiet restaurant in, say, Paris and you will hear every word from across the room about “aunt flossy who now lives in Switzerland, dontcha know, well she’s got the cancer but I’m really not sure how good the treatment can be from, you know, socialised medicine dontcha know” and you can barely hear the people at the table next to you chatting.

And what is with the contemptuous manner in which many many Americans seem to treat service staff (waiters etc) overseas?

Don’t worry it isn’t just you guys. The ugly Australian has started to appear in recent years and don’t forget the Germans… the Americans of Europe.

I love Yanks but these are just a few impressions from years of travel.

My point was that one must be VERY careful with broad brush stroke stats, when some of the finer hairs of those brushes get ignored.

There is a reason–and not good ones, but ones that place things in perspective–about why the US tends to lag all the “good” stats commonly shown in impressive tables for how we stack up next to the Euro kin:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/127038.html

https://www.reason.com/blog/show/119199.html

The first link in turn links to links (yeah, a mouthful, I know) that show that the problem can be traced in no small part to cultural differences. Murder and mayhem tend to rub hell with longevity stats.

Medical advances and star-wars level miracle preemie care at the other end of life–the start–actually makes the stats worse than they probably otherwise would be stated.

As to Shane–you demostrated my point. The Brits came, they say, the conquered, had no “exit strategy”, had not phrase for such until things got Ghandi-ized in some areas, and bequeathed to the planet commonlaw and representative government. Britain’s sun did set on the empire, but not before midwifing many of the world’s more civilized nations and outposts from what the raw material used to be called “savagery.”

We’ve just been trying to figure out what American stereotype we’re not living up to. Maybe we should be wearing baseball caps.

Everybody here in Britain and in Europe wears baseball caps now, and you can always spot the idiot — he’s the one wearing the baseball cap backwards!

Typical American stereotype? The late actor Slim Pickens.

So try wearing a cowboy hat, fringed jacket, and the cowboy boots — which was how Slim Pickens arrived in England to appear in the film Dr. Strangelove — on your next visit.

> It depends on the cause of the “death”, and if the baby was deemed
> a “person” in that stat

While this is relevant, your presentation is misleading. For example:

> For example, in Germany and Austria, fetal weight must reach one
> pound to be counted as a live birth

While I will accept that this statement is true on the face of it (without bothering to research it myself), even a cursory search of Google shows a vanishingly small number of children under this target weight as surviving.

Your listed challenges are all similar. I’m not an expert in reproductive science by any means, but all of them seem likely just by the description offered to represent a very very minor statistical impact in any study involving sufficiently sized populations (for the purposes of comparing birth rates in the EU vs the US… completely negligible). While I certainly believe that you may have a point, you’d have to provide much more compelling evidence before I’ll take your analysis seriously.

In short, sir, I call shenanigans. Rather than describing a myriad of ways in which these population studies may have equivalency problems (which is true of any two population studies), you’ll have to actually show that these equivalency problems exist.

Why is it that when my wife and I travel outside the US, people always greet us with “Lemee guess, you’re Canadian?”, when it’s so easy to recognize traveling Canadians. They’re the one’s wearing the giant maple leaves so people don’t think they’re American.

We’ve just been trying to figure out what American stereotype we’re not living up to. Maybe we should be wearing baseball caps.

“We are about to find out whether our traditional devotion to free speech and free enquiry can survive real, incontrovertible results from the human sciences; and in particular, in the event of an Obama victory, whether that devotion can survive under a left-liberal administration headed by a cultural Marxist — an administration much more interested in shoring up the soft totalitarianism of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” than in permitting the discovery of true facts about human nature.”

Link:
http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/HumanSciences/obamavshbd.html

This is a gross generalisation to be sure and the colonial period by all the colonial powers simply meant varying degrees of the bastardisation and sodomising of the colonies. None of the colonial powers deserve any kudos in this regard. However, the British rule was way more benign (your definition of benign may vary) than the Belgian rule for example.

Having said that place like Rwanda and Mozambique are bouncing back. Whereas Zimbabwe has taken a backwards step. What did I say about generalising?