Diseases of the Heart: The Devil's in the details when politics and truth collide
According to the CDC, in 1998 men of all races and all ages died from diseases of the heart at a rate of 268.0 per 100,000, while women of all races and all ages died from diseases of the heart at a rate of 268.3 per 100,000. (Source: Table 8, National Vital Statistics Reports, Volume 48, Number 11, Deaths: Final Data for 1998.) The fact the number for women is slightly higher than men garners an enormous amount of publicity which women's groups leverage to demand more money for research on women and heart disease. The fact men die from almost everything else at a higher rate than women gets...no publicity and no outcry because none of the whiners care about men.
What's very interesting about these numbers, however, is that if you read the rest of Table 8, where it breaks down the death rates by sex and age group, you find that in every age group men died from diseases of the heart at a higher rate than women:
The obvious question is, how can the death rate for all age groups combined yield a death rate for women that is fractionally higher when in every age group the rate is higher, and in some cases much higher, for men? The CDC might say the difference is accounted for by the death rates for under 1 year of age. Notice the rate for under 1 year is missing from the table above. According to the footnotes of Table 8 (which I have archived here in case somebody decides a little cover up is in order - careful, it's 650k) the rate for under 1 year of age is included in the "All Ages" category but otherwise is not listed. Yea, right. According to Table 37 (National Center for Health Statistics, Health, United States, 1999 with Health and Aging Chartbook, Death Rates for diseases of the heart, according to sex, detailed race, Hispanic origin, and age: United States, selected years 1950-97), just the year before, in 1997, when far more details were made available, the death rate due to diseases of the heart for males under 1 year was 18.0, while for females under 1 year it was 14.7. Moreover, the rate for males under 1 year of age has been higher going all the way back to 1950, so it is virtually inconceivable that in 1998 the rate for females under 1 year would have spiked sufficiently to make the rate for all ages higher for women. Bottom line, the difference is purely political. Somebody used clout to get the total number changed to suit their agenda. Who? I don't know. But I do know it gets even more interesting when race is added to the mix (due to space limitations I will just break it down only for whites and blacks):
Basically, what that says is the death rate for black men was higher in every age group than anybody else, and for black women it was higher than whites in most age groups, but that overall the death rates were highest for white women. They must be using some pretty powerful new math at the CDC to arrive at that conclusion. Or maybe they're smoking something. Either way, it looks pretty suspicious to me. Fixing law enforcement, dealing with the technicalitiesPolice who do not follow proper procedure run the risk of seeing criminals walk on "technicalities," which makes everybody but the lawbreakers mad. At the same time, however, law-abiding citizens do need protection from the potential for police to abuse their power. So, how can we protect our rights but still put offenders behind bars? Here's an idea: instead of letting lawbreakers walk on technicalities, prosecute them as if it was a righteous collar, but provide both financial incentives for officers to do things the right way and compensation to citizens, even criminals, whose rights were violated. Here's how: break police pay down into base salary plus incentive. Like they do with sales people. Base pay is untouchable, and incentive pay is for quality, not quantity: for getting paperwork done correctly, maintaining good relations with the community, observing all the rules while conducting searches, seizures and making arrests, and so on. What if our model police officer botches a bust? First, that counts against their incentive pay, reducing if not wiping out all incentive pay until they have made up for it. Classic carrot and stick motivation. Do things right, make more money, do things wrong, make less and have to work harder to make up for it. How will this compensate citizens whose rights are violated? Take the money our bumbling bobby lost and put it into a fund for the convict. If the convict is sentenced to life, they can access the fund for buying whatever kind of stuff people can legitimately buy on the inside. For convicts with finite sentences, hold the money in the fund until their release, when it will be theirs to use to make a fresh start. Will this work? Sales managers will tell you base salary plus incentives work for sales people. And public utilities, such as telephone companies, will tell you compensating customers for failure to provide adequate service works, too. (I worked in customer service and sales for a telephone company for more than 2 years, where do you think I got the idea?) A plan like this would provide incentives to provide quality police protection, compensate citizens whose rights were violated, but still get criminals off the streets. It will work. (I think.) The only question is, are we willing to replace the broken system and try something new?
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