@boomzilla said:And there's the first problem. The US classifies things as live births when the child is born alive. Pretty much regardless of how close to term or other things. Many (most) other countries don't consider those live births and I believe also do not have as good a record at those kids surviving. But it really fucks the comparative statistics. I've read that Japanese police forces only ever classify things as homicides if they can actually close the case. Cultural thing, or something. Anyways, that's another example of shit statistics. One of my business profs told me that his college (which is in the mountains) had, according to the statistics, a worse crime rate than a college which was just outside a major city. He found this unbelievable (and he may have been right). He figured that we were just more diligent in counting our crime reports than the other college. His solution? He suggested to the campus police that they not report all of their reported crimes.