Sesquipedalian loquaciousness

I’ve just been rewatching a few episodes of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. If you don’t understand the headline, here’s the link.

I’ll probably mention the series again at a later point in time, even if I’m pretty sure I’ve done it here on this blog at least once before. If I was only allowed to recommend one tv-show out of all the shows out there, this one would be somewhere on the absolute top of that list. Some wonderful quotes from the series:

Sir Humphrey: To put is simply, Prime Minister, certain informal discussions took place involving a full and frank exchange of views, out of which there rose a series of proposals, which on examination proved to indicate certain promising lines of inquiry, which when pursued lead to the realization that the alternative courses of action might in fact, in certain circumstances, be susceptible of discreet modification, leading to a reappraisal of the original areas of difference, and pointing a way to encouraging possibilities of compromise, and cooperation, which, if bilaterally implemented with appropriate give and take on both sides, might, if the climate were right, have a reasonable possibility at the end of the day of leading, rightly or wrongly, to a mutually satisfactory resolution.
Jim Hacker (after a long pause): What the hell are you talking about?
Sir Humphrey: We did a deal.

Sir Humphrey’s speech above (from the episode Power to the People) took 46 seconds from start to finish. Here are two other memorable Humphrey-quotes from the series (the first one is from the episode Man Overboard, the second is from the episode The Ministerial Broadcast):

Sir Humphrey: It is characteristic of all committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them, and that every member’s recollection of them differs violently from every other member’s recollection, consequently we accept the convention that the official decisions are those and only those which have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials; from which it emerges with an elegant inevitability that any decision which has been officially reached would have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, and any decision which is not recorded in the minutes has not been officially reached, even if one or more members believe they can recollect it; so in this particular case, if the decision had been officially reached, it would have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, and it isn’t so it wasn’t.

…

Sir Humphrey: You see, Party figures can be very unreliable, Prime Minister.
Jim Hacker: Evidently.
Sir Humphrey: May I suggest a compromise?
Jim Hacker: What?
Sir Humphrey: Well, it’s clear that the Committee has agreed that your new policy is really an excellent plan; but in view of the doubts being expressed, may I propose that I recall that after careful consideration, the considered view of the Committee was that, while they considered that the proposal met with broad approval in principle, that some of the principles were sufficiently fundamental in principle, and some of the considerations so complex and finely balanced in practice that in principle it was proposed that the sensible and prudent practice would be to submit the proposal for more detailed consideration, laying stress on the essential continuity of the new proposal with existing principles, the principal of the principal arguments which the proposal proposes and propounds for their approval … In principle.
Jim Hacker: What?
Sir Humphrey: Don’t refer to your Grand Design in your television broadcast on Friday.

California fact of the day

Now the government has started looting people’s safety deposit boxes:

San Francisco resident Carla Ruff’s safe-deposit box was drilled, seized, and turned over to the state of California, marked “owner unknown.”

“I was appalled,” Ruff said. “I felt violated.”

Unknown? Carla’s name was right on documents in the box at the Noe Valley Bank of America location. So was her address — a house about six blocks from the bank. Carla had a checking account at the bank, too — still does — and receives regular statements. Plus, she has receipts showing she’s the kind of person who paid her box rental fee. And yet, she says nobody ever notified her.

[...]

Ruff discovered the loss when she went to her box to retrieve important paperwork she needed because her husband was dying. Those papers had been shredded.

And that’s not all. Her great-grandmother’s precious natural pearls and other jewelry had been auctioned off. They were sold for just $1,800, even though they were appraised for $82,500.

[...]

The bank has reached a settlement with Ruff and continues to update its unclaimed property procedures as laws change. . . .

California law used to say property was unclaimed if the rightful owner had had no contact with the business for 15 years. But during various state budget crises, the waiting period was reduced to seven years, and then five, and then three. Legislators even tried for one year. Why? Because the state wanted to use that free money.

…

This quote seems apt:

If the government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.

Gerald Ford (a quote often misattributed Thomas Jefferson).

Quote of the day

I had almost the exact same experience in April of 1989. I drove across from the crossing near Hannover, and was struck by the nastiness of the border procedures (even though I’d expected them). Then I was deeply disturbed by my first sight of the Wall, even though I knew its history well. I got to it near midnight, which didn’t help, but still, I was struck by how furious and disgusted I was at the sight of the thing – and the accompanying searchlights, razor wire, guard towers, and so on. How anyone could look at it and not immediately think “horrible high security prison camp”, I couldn’t say.

And I crossed on foot through Checkpoint Charlie the next day, was similarly robbed of 30 West-marks, and couldn’t spend them, either. I had a foul bratwurst for lunch, and thought that on that evidence alone there must be something seriously off when the Germans were unable to produce a decent sausage. I saw the goose-stepping guards at the Unknown Soldier tomb (in the company of some appalled Brits who swore under their breath), and at the Friedrichstrasse U-bahn platform (an island inside an island) I watched in shock as the booted, armed, long-coated guard went strolling along the catwalk above us, watching the crowd. “I’ve seen this movie”, I kept thinking.

I ended up buying a book in the Volksbuchhandlung as a souvenir, after similar being yelled at by the cashier woman for trying to shop without a hand basket, the way the sign said I had to. I dropped a copy of “Amnesty International: A Biography of Lies” into it, and the handle fell off.

And at the end of the day, the guard back at the checkpoint informed me that I could not leave with any DDR currency. “Was soll Ich denn tun?” I asked him, and he replied flatly in thickly accented English: “Enchoy a ress-taurant”. I walked out a couple of blocks away and gave my currency to the first East German couple pushing a baby carriage I saw.

I, too, thought that I’d definitely seen evil right in front of me. I’ve never had reason to think differently.

…

Derek Lowe’s comment to this post. Read the original post as well.

I’m too young to remember the fall of the Wall, I was 4 years old at that point in time, and it didn’t stick even if in retrospect I’d have liked it to (and even if I do remember personal events that took place before that, which I do), however I did spend a little time, not much; a couple of days at most, in Berlin sometime at the beginning of the 90′es. I don’t remember the exact year, but it was almost certainly less than 5 years after the Wall had fallen. My family went to Poland that year – in car – and on the way I saw both the remains of the Berlin Wall and Auschwitz. I have never been to Berlin since then, but what I took with me from that trip could probably be boiled down to the thought that Berlin was just an ugly, battered big city – probably due to the fact that we spent most (/all?) our time in the Eastern parts of the city. A lot of the inefficiencies and quirks of ‘the old system’ was still in place in Eastern Europe at that time: For instance, it took us more than four hours to cross the (German-)Polish border, and my dad twice had to bribe (‘pay a fine to…’) policemen from the traffic police with cash in order to avoid ’spending the night in jail’ – the last time it happened was very close to the (…again German-Polish-) border on our way home, and my dad had a pretty good idea how those policemen made most of their income. He was furious; they demanded a lot of money. One other thing I remember from that trip is the fact that the roads in Eastern Europe at that time were in a horrible shape: one road in particular stood out because it was made of concrete, not asfalt. Every 100 yards or so there would be this ‘thunk’ sound, as the tires passed from one ‘chunk’ of road to the next. The road was probably first established during Hitler’s major infrastructure projects, and it didn’t look like much had happened since the war. And anyway, how and why would you even try to make a trip in a car like this one ‘convenient’ – most people driving that kind of car would probably be (almost) happy if it didn’t break down altogether while they were driving…

The situation has changed a lot since then. Now’s as good a time as any to remember that, and be grateful for that. Even if you’ve never lived on the wrong side of the barbed wire.

Promoting the unknown

As always, if you want to listen to the pieces, do give them a short while to buffer first, so that they don’t ‘cough’ while playing. You do not want music like this to ‘cough’.

A few samples from Liapunov’s etudes:

Annie Fischer playing Brahms:

Danskere og IT – nogle tal

1) 86 pct. af danske familier har computer i deres hjem.

2) 83 pct. -ll- har internet – 76 pct. har bredbånd. 98 pct. af alle par med børn har adgang til pc i hjemmet.

3) 3/4 af alle danskere anvender internet dagligt eller næsten dagligt. Fire ud af fem bruger internet mindst en
gang om ugen.

4) To ud af tre danskere handler på nettet.

5) 9 pct. af befolkningen (ca. 360.000 personer i alderen 16-74 år) har aldrig brugt en pc. 72 pct. af dem er mellem 60 og 74 år.

6) Næsten hver anden kvinde (49 %) har aldrig brugt et regneark til udregninger, og 28 % har aldrig flyttet/kopieret en mappe eller fil.

7) 33 procent af de danskere, der bruger internettet, læser blogs, mens andelen af danskere, der blogger, er 18 procent. De tilsvarende tal for sidste år var 22 og 9 procent.

8 ) I 2009 var andelen af danskerne, der inden for de sidste tre måneder havde benyttet nettet til at søge ‘helbredsmæssig information’, 46 procent.

9) 39 pct. af internetbrugerne (ca. 1,4 millioner danskere) spiller eller downloader spil, musik, film, tv-serier eller billeder fra nettet.

10) Hver anden internetbruger er tilknyttet en social netværkstjeneste. 95 procent af de danskere, der er tilknyttet en netværkstjeneste, er tilknyttet Facebook.

11) 95 % af alle danskere har en mobiltelefon. 87 pct. af alle over 60 år har en mobiltelefon.

…

Fra denne nye dst-publikation om Befolkningens brug af internet – 2009

Quotes of the day

An ignorant person is one who doesn’t know what you have just found out.

…

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that’s out always looks the best.

…

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

…

everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

…

Will Rogers

Quote of the day

Everything the Fed has been doing over the past fifteen months makes sense if you think of their goal as transferring wealth from taxpayers to banks. If you try to explain it as an attempt to implement an expansionary monetary policy, you won’t even get past my high school students.

Arnold Kling. There’s really no good reason to be calling it ‘expansionary monetary policy’, ‘quantitative easing’ or some such econterm. ‘Looting’ is a lot shorter, and most people get what that means.

Nej, er det sandt? – Ryd forsiden!

En politiker der har løjet for sine vælgere. Tænk engang!

Har man hørt mage? Hvad skal det dog ikke ende med…

Et rigtigt godt argument for at blive hjemme…

Ikke at der ikke er nok i forvejen, jeg kan komme i tanke om et par hundrede tusinde andre lige nu og her. Uanset hvilke øvrige argumenter, der så måtte være for at glemme al den statistik, jeg har haft på studiet og beslutte sig for at bevæge sig ned til valglokalerne for at få en varm følelse i maven, så ændrer det ikke på at sandsynligheden for at min stemme vil være udslagsgivende er = 0 ved dette valg. Ok, ~ 0, men så tilpas tæt på 0 til at forskellen er irrelevant:

Fire år efter, århusianerne sagde farvel til Louise Gade, den første folkevalgte ikke-socialdemokratiske borgmester i Smilets By, har Socialdemokraterne sikret sig et solidt greb om magten i Århus. Således viser en meningsmåling, foretaget af Rambøll for JP Århus, [min tilføjelse: "at partiet..." - 180 bør virkelig få sig en korrektur-læser] står til 14 af 31 mandater i byrådet og hele 42 procent af stemmerne. Det skriver jp.dk.

Meningsmålingen giver Socialdemokraterne mulighed for en flertalskonstellation sammen med såvel SF, der står til fem mandater, samt de radikales to mandater.

Med mindre der virkeligt sker ting og sager i løbet af de næste par uger, så bliver jeg hjemme.

Policy lags

Each recession, however minor, sends a shudder through politically sensitive legislators and administrators with their ever present fear that perhaps it is the harbinger of another 1929-33. They hasten to enact federal spending programs of one kind or another. Many of the programs do not in fact come into effect until after the recession has passed. Hence, insofar as they do affect total expenditures, on which I shall have more to say later, they tend to exacerbate the succeeding expansion rather than to mitigate the recession.

…

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, side 76. Men sådan er det jo ikke i virkeligheden, vel? Den slags indvendinger er jo mest bare teoretiske, de har ikke rigtigt noget på sig. Vel?

Fra dagens udgave af Jyllandsposten:

De vækstpakker, der skulle hjælpe murere, tømrere og elektrikere i Århus gennem finanskrisen, samler tilsyneladende støv.

På et møde i går blev håndværksfagene orienteret om, hvordan det går med at få brugt pengene i Vækstpakke I og II, der tilsammen indeholder 1,75 mia. kr.

»De fleste magistratsafdelinger havde slet ikke noget, mens Børn og Unge og Sociale Forhold havde skrevet lidt sammen i et notat,« fortæller Michael Ancher, formand for Dansk Byggeri Østjylland.

Mindre projekter

I notatet står, at Børn og Unge hovedsageligt holder sig til mindre projekter, mens social-magistraten har fremrykket projekter til 9,3 mio. Det svarer til, at der reelt er kommet gang i 0,5 pct. af milliardpuljen.

»Alle snakker, men der sker ikke noget,« siger Michael Ancher, som bakkes op af Aarhus Haandværkerforening og Tekniq, installatørernes forening.

»Det ender jo med, at projekterne først begynder at blive realiseret i løbet af 2010 og 2011.

Space colonization

Via MR, I found this blog. It looks very interesting. The post Tyler linked to, about the habitability of Earth, was fun to read, especially as I’ve often been thinking the same thing (far most of Earth is really, really deadly to humans, and in a historical context, most of the time this planet would just with almost 100 percent certainty have killed you dead, good and hard, no questions asked). But this post, about space colonization, is even better. Stross states in the beginning of the post that those of a sensitive (or optimistic) disposition might want to stop reading right now – I say: Read it, no matter what you think right now. I have for a long time, for many of the same reasons as the ones Stross outlines in his post, been a member of the: ‘human space-travel to exoplanets outside of the solar system…’, and especially ‘the succesful establishment of a human settlement on an exoplanet’…, ‘is just never gonna happen/work/succeed’-camp.

Go west?

How will an updated version of this image look like in 20 years?

“What Darwin said” – evolution in a nutshell

7 links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. Read them all. HT: Razib Khan. If you don’t already know about his blog, follow this link and start reading; the scienceblog-gnxp is definitely on my current top five of all blogs I read.

You can of course, rather than following these links, also just read Darwin himself here (I have given you this link before some time ago, but in case someone missed it: Here you can find a Danish translation of On the Origin of Species…).

For the record, I value the opinions of people denying evolution’s views about the biological sciences about as highly as I value the medical opinions of people still subscribing to the miasma theory of disease. The parallel is not completely randomly chosen: On the Origin… came out in 1859, only 5 years after Filippo Pacini as the first man ever isolated a bacterium, the Vibrio cholerae bacillus which causes cholera, thus invalidating the miasma theory of disease. One of the main reasons why there aren’t many people who are convinced that the latter theory is correct anymore, is that that particular theory never made it into the churches.

“Joke? What do you mean?”

Link.

En sympatierklæring

Hvorfor ikke?

Jp vil utvivlsomt selv dække de væsentligste punkter i sagen online, så læs med der hvis du vil vide mere.

A propos foregående post

Ok, kun meget lidt a propos den seneste post før denne, den eneste fællesnævner er IQ-betragtningerne i punkt 2, men emnet er på den anden side også lidt på linje med dating-posten, og den er jo altså teknisk set også en ‘foregående post’ – så titlen holder, på trods af at den kunne være valgt bedre. Selvom det er en lang kommentar mange af Jer nok allerede har læst, vil jeg bringe den næsten i sin helhed herunder:

Tyler, my question for you from last week’s request for requests: do you think conditions are ripe for a contrarian survey book “Everything You Know about Men and Woman is Wrong?” written by a guy who is NOT a pick-up-artist?

CH 1: Most women really do want a man to be better than they are and to be in charge of them.

CH 2: Most men would trade 40 IQ points in a wife and 20 IQ points in their children in exchange for their wife having bigger breasts.

CH 3: Many women in abusive relationships chose their men for reasons that correlate strongly with the abuse.

CH 4: We may really be creating a world where the benefits of marriage to healthy attractive successful men have shrunk too much, and many such men will now avoid marriage and child-raising. (I would call this the ‘Clooney Hypothesis’.)

CH 5: Young attractive women have the most finely tuned status sensors of any creature that has ever existed.

CH 6: Kissinger was right (about male power being the strongest aphrodisiac for women).

CH 7: Male-female marriage is not a contract between two people; it is a way of ordering a society.

1) køber jeg måske, måske ikke. Det er vanskeligt at teste for, og den slags generalle udsagn er efter min opfattelse heller ikke meget bevendt, uanset om de er korrekte eller ej, for den potentielle dater. Jeg er ikke interesseret i flertallets præferencer, jeg er interesseret i potentielle partneres præferencer og hvorvidt disse er kompatible med mine egne.
2) virker absurd, ABSURD, på mig. Not a chance in hell jeg ville bytte 40 IQ-points for noget som helst, med mindre det var for at gøre en ikke-kompatibel potentiel partner (med måske IQ 165) kompatibel. d(sex-appeal)/d(Intelligens) er (i mere end 9 ud af 10 tilfælde for dette individ) > 0, og (ikke-marginale) niveauændringer i nedadgående retning kan der ikke kompenseres fuldt ud for vha. æstetiske ændringer i den modsatte retning. Nej, jeg er formodentligt ikke repræsentativ, og måske vil nogen mænd føle på denne måde, men der er problemer med denne præferencestruktur: Eksempelvis tjener kvinder med højere IQ mere end kvinder med lavere IQ, og par hvor kvinden har højere IQ har derfor bedre råd til at betale for brystimplantater – 40 IQ-points vil kunne betale for mange operationer over et livsforløb. I øvrigt betyder et fald på 40 IQ-points hos kvinden pga. middelværdireversion ikke at barnet forventet vil miste 20 points i forhold til alternativet – der er partiel konvergens mod IQ-100 for alle pars børn.
3) virker korrekt på mig.
4) kommer meget an på, hvordan man definerer det sociale optimum. Et samfund består af meget andet end raske, succesfulde mænd. Hvis vi dog på den anden side antager, at vi gerne vil have den slags individer til at prokreere og opdrage så mange børn som muligt, indenfor nogle givne rammer, synes hypotesen dog ikke så langt ude endda, ej heller for forholdene herhjemme. Så vidt jeg har forstået kan pre-nuptials (hvad kalder man egentlig dem på dansk?) ikke købe dig fri af eksempelvis børnebidrag, og selvom de således mindsker den økonomiske risiko for en højtlønnet mand, mindsker de ikke kvindens incitament til at springe fra i nær så høj grad som det kunne være tilfældet. Hvilket igen kan være både godt og skidt, afhængig af velfærdsfunktionen.
5) ved jeg ikke noget om, 6) ej heller.
7) Taler vi ideal eller praksis, og hvorfor kan den ikke være begge dele? Indrømmet, i USA synes udsagnet at være korrekt, især set i lyset af den traditionelle debat om gay marriage. Herhjemme er næsten hvert andet barn dog født uden for ægteskab, og hvad betyder dette for svaret på spørgsmålet? Det er ikke et emne, jeg har tænkt meget over, så jeg ved ikke, hvad mit politiske ideal på dette område ville være.

En poll

Med højtbegavet mener jeg Mensa-kandidatniveau eller højere. Dem, der er uden for normalområdet på IQ-skalaen, dem der virkeligt skiller sig ud:

Jeg ved godt at der ‘mangler’ en svarmulighed à la ‘jeg er selv højtbegavet, men omgås helst ikke andre højtbegavede’, men jeg betragter en sådan konstruktion som primært teoretisk.

Jeg har kun kendt en lille håndfuld af den slags ‘højtbegavede’ individer godt nok til på nogen måde at forme en holdning om ‘dem’. På den baggrund ville mit svar være en blanding af b og c. Jeg fascineres af deres intelligens, men bryder mig ikke om at føle mig dum, og interagerer derfor ikke gerne med dem uden for en strengt kontrolleret setting som eksempelvis nettet, hvor jeg generelt selv kan sætte alle de grænser, jeg ønsker, og hvor jeg måske end ikke opdager, at jeg interagerer med ‘dem’. Halvvejs obligatorisk og kun i meget begrænset omfang decideret social interaktion, som eks. interaktionen med forelæsere eller lignende i universitetsregi, er ikke hvad jeg tænker på her, og spørgsmålet går ikke på, om du finder din forelæser i (fag X) skræmmende.

College degrees and gender

Since 1970, the gender ratio has flipped:

Only business, engineering and the physical sciences have more males than females enrolled. Via Mark Perry.

Diabetes, international prævalens og lidt mere om mortalitet

Jeg ville egentligt have gjort dette til en mere bred post om sundhedsdata, men jeg kom til at gå ud ad en tangent, og posten herunder er så, hvor jeg havnede. Først et kig på diabetesprævalensen i et internationalt perspektiv:

…

Jeg vidste ikke på forhånd, om jeg ville skrive posten på dansk eller engelsk, så jeg valgte at konstruere graferne på engelsk, anyway… De første to lande er Australien og Østrig, SR er Slovakiet, Kor er (Syd)korea – jeg håber de øvrige giver sig selv, ellers spørg. Kilden er OECD, rådata kan findes her. Der er også meget mere data af samme type ved dette link til OECD’s sample over helbredsrelaterede nøgleindikatorer, som jeg også tidligere har linket til.

Bemærkelsesværdigt for mange vil det nok være, at USA end ikke er i nærheden af at være i toppen af listen over diabetesrater. Jeg ved ikke om det er opgørelsesmetoden, der spiller ind her, men dette er i hvert fald overraskende. Mange lande, i dette udsnit Schweiz, Mexico, Ungarn, Canada, Tyskland, Tjekkiet og Østrig, har højere absolut prevalens, og de fleste af de samme lande ligger ligeledes på niveau eller højere i de alderskorrigerede data (her skiller især Mexico sig ud fra resten). Bemærk at mellemindkomstlande i efterhånden nogle år har oplevet stor vækst i incidensen af type 2 diabetes, og at både Kina og Indien i disse år også oplever voldsom vækst. Livsstilssygdomme holder sig ikke længere til de rige lande.

Jeg fandt også nedenstående interessant (data er fra OECD’s nøgleindikatorer):

Pr. 100.000 indbyggere er på en måde en god variabel, på en måde en dårlig variabel at anvende. Den er god, fordi den angiver en form for (meget) løst estimat for, hvor udbredt sygdommen er (ja, det, der måles, er hvor mange, der dør af sygdommen; men disse to variable følges altså ret godt ad – det må synes en rimelig antagelse, at ‘den marginale nydiagnosticerede diabetiker’ ikke vil introducere væsentlige nye effekter af interesse på populationsniveau, som vil lede til signifikante afvigelser på mortalitetsraterne på tværs af diabetespopulationen som helhed). Den er dårlig, fordi den overser modsatrettede effekter, som i perioden utvivlsomt har spillet en rolle. Hvis man ønskede kun at fange mortalitetsudviklingen og således prøve at omgå problemet prævalensvariationen (-væksten) over tid udgør, ville døde pr. 1000 diabetikere eller lignende være et bedre mål, selvom det selvfølgelig også er problematisk at anvende, eksempelvis fordi risikoen for komplikationer vokser over tid og derfor på ingen måde er homogen i gruppen af diabetikere, et forhold mortalitetsstudierne altid tager (og bør tage) højde for.

Det er vanskeligt at sammenligne tallene fra 1960 med tallene fra i dag, for mange ting har ændret sig, og en del af disse har utvivlsomt medvirket til at gøre det problematisk at sammenligne tallene over tid uden at tage nogle betydelige forbehold. Det giver mening, at flere i dag dør af diabetes, fordi flere i dag har diabetes, men for bare at tage tre markante problemer, så a) har patologernes praksis ændret sig i perioden, b) diabetes var mere dødelig for 50 år siden, end sygdommen er i dag, fordi vores viden om sygdommen og vores behandlingsmuligheder er udvidet markant, og c) det er uklart, hvor stor forskel de markante fremskridt i diagnosticeringsprocessen (måling af glykeret hæmoglobin, brugen af plasma-glukose værdier), såvel som de deraf følgende ændrede diagnostiske praksis, har betydet for disse tal. Tallene er i den meget lave ende, og det vil de fleste af den slags opgørelser være: Mange diabetesdødsfald er vanskelige at kategorisere den ene eller den anden vej. Mere end 80 % af diabetikerne herhjemme dør af hjertekar-sygdom, men det er umuligt for en patolog at vide med sikkerhed, om hr. Hansen fik sin blodprop pga. sin diabetes, eller om han havde fået den alligevel. Hvis tallene stammer alene fra eksempelvis dødsårsagsregistret, vil de undervurdere diabetes’ betydning for mortaliteten betydeligt, en observation der for øvrigt er righoldig empirisk belæg for at gøre sig (Mühlhauser, Sawicki m.fl.). Observationen betyder også, at der nok i opgørelser som disse vil være en tendens til kun at anvende/acceptere diabetes som dødsårsag i de mest oplagte tilfælde (de mest oplagte vel nok værende DKA, diabetisk hypoglykæmi (estimeret 2-4% af alle dødsfald blandt diabetikere), hyperosmolær non-ketotisk koma og nyresvigt sekundær til diabetes), og så se bort fra diabetes som forklaringselement i tilfælde som er vanskeligere at kategorisere.

Hvis man holder sig alene til disse tal, koster diabetes lidt under 900 mennesker livet herhjemme hvert år, ud af ca. 55.500 døde i alt – det omtrentlige tal for 2006, det sidste år hvor data er tilgængelige i OECD-regi, jf. dst – svarende til ca. 1.6 %. Det tal er meget, meget lavt, og estimaterne på dette område varierer da også ganske betydeligt. Den internationale diabetesforening IDF estimerede således tidligere dette efterår (advarsel, linket er til en rodet og dårligt skrevet artikel skrevet af et fjols, der tydeligvis ikke aner, hvad det er, han skriver om. Selvom artiklen har en del spændende tal, vil den sandsynligvis misinformere dig mere, end den vil informere dig. Diabetikere og individer med forstadier til diabetes er f** ikke det samme!), at 2.744 danskere i 2010 vil dø på grund af diabetes. Det er stadig lavt, men nok betydeligt tættere på sandheden.

Quote of the day

Why do I have to make an appointment, wait in line, fill out a slew of paperwork, and pay $70 to adopt a dog that otherwise would likely have been euthanized (at the taxpayers’ expense), and yet bringing your very own human child into the world takes nothing more than a few shots of tequila or a broken condom?

From the comment section of this MR post. That’s actually a very good question. Along the same lines: Why is it much more difficult to adopt a child than it is to get one on your own?