80% of our carbon issues is the fact that we have cut down 80% of our global forests to make grazing land which we then re-pave to make housing developments.

Gee, ya thunk, all of us who have been saying this problem would be significantly minimalized if we were to restore forestation and vegetation.

It is NOT like the telephone companies don't know who is making all the SPAM calls. To claim otherwise is just BS. They bill for the calls made, THEY KNOW.

It's just that the old land-based telecoms went from having regional monopolies to losing most of their customers to cell phone technology. So you have these legacy telecoms looking for any source of funds $$$. (And as I typed this, a "Scam Likely" call rang.) It's like how most local newspapers now print ads that are reminiscent of the underground rags of the 80's and 90's - loan shark ads, escort services, etc.)

Dying industries last thralls of profit.

Translation, uh, basically, don't buy ANY products. LOLZ

Even our meat is being shipped to China for packaging.

Time to build plants outside of China.

Truly what it should be called.

F-35 Turkey (Sausage, all the cost of the pork barrel, with half the flavor and a crappy texture.)

I am wondering how many of the pilots in crashed F-35 that were labeled pilot error for things such as "Failing to eject when the oxygen systems failed." Had in fact succeeded with their own procedures, only to suffer a double systems failure.

The F-35 is the absolute worst military expenditure in global history. It costs more, and does less. Heck, we would have been far better off if we just kept making and improving the F-22.

Honestly, at this point, they need to start looking at replacements. I mean, shoot, Tom Cruise tried to wait until they had a decent 5th generation naval aircraft, but instead had to resort to using ancient F/A-18's, a jet as old as I am. That's pretty sad...

I enjoyed Maverick, but dang, if it wasn't an epic film of the "decline of an empire".

I do not think it should be the responsibility of the Visa to address such issues. We pay a bajillion in taxes, tons of it on law enforcement. It is the responsibility of those government agencies to address criminal activities.

Perhaps we should end the war on drugs so that law enforcement can focus on far more important areas such as child trafficking.

The point he's making, is that raids like this are abused. You have someone on your staff who has been viewing child porn via the work office. I get a warrant for that individual. We do a raid. Arrest him. And we seize every single computer in your office, so we can take all the info we wanted that we could not get a warrant for.

This is par for the course, sadly....

Taxi's were a corrupt cartel model that many governments benefited from at the suffrage of the citizenry.

Uber leveraged technology to upturn that dynamic, providing better service at cheaper prices with greater ease and availability. Of course, this hurt the wallets of many cities. Should an Uber-driver require a million dollar limited token?

No, it should not. Uber was hit with tons of crappy BS investigations. Oh, they're treating their employees as contractors. Um, they are....
- User their own equipment
- Select when they want to work
- Select where they want to work
- Choose which work they want to take

That's just about as down the line as being a contractor is in business. Compare that to U.S. Federal Government contracting in which contractors and sub-contractors create an eco-system in which half the $$$ the government pays for a tech person goes straight into the coffers of an exclusive list of contracting firms. All while mandating where a contractor works, when a contractor works, and what equipment they use.

Hmm, if the U.S. government really had any !@#$% interest in protecting and ensuring workers they were being properly counted either as an employee or contractor, it would look in its own vast yard of egregious breaches. Instead, it was a frivolous lawsuit aimed to harass a company that was advancing society but at the expense of a sweet little coffer many cities kept in their finance trunk.

So essentially, it was political war. And in that case, Uber is morally largely in right for impeding such BS.

I don't deny they do. I am pretty sure Canada's reporting is more accurate than the U.S. reporting. There is less inclination and motivation to report higher.

Yes, there is absolutely both political and financial incentive to declare high levels of COVID related deaths.

- States can expect Federal kickbacks based on COVID deaths.

- Those wanting universal healthcare want the U.S. death totals to be higher in comparison to other western nations in order to make a case for U.S. to move to universal healthcare (which I personally am not opposed to)

- Big Pharmaceutical would love cases to continue so that the COVID vaccinations can become both mandatory and annual (akin to the flu vaccine)... $ cha-ching (we're talking trillions of $$$ in profits)

COVID is very beneficial to politics, it was used heavily to affect the outcome of the U.S. election. Most analysts admit if not for COVID, Trump would likely have seen a second term. And it was very evident that shortly after Biden took office, the amount of COVID articles in the media plummeted, despite almost no change in actual trends.

No, it has to deal with it being cold as !@#$ in Canada most of the year.

To really evaluate a comparison of death tolls across nations, the following factors need to be reviewed.

> Democratic, economic, and technological parity - there is a huge difference in reporting between democracies and totalitarian regimes, between 1st world modernized nations and 2nd and 3rd world nations.

> General population density - more people close to each other (India & China) will increase infection rates.

> Geographic constraints (islands, peninsulas, temperate zones, etc.) Japan and Australia benefited from being island nation-states in closing down their borders until a vaccine was available. Canada and the Scandinavian nations are much colder than England and the U.S., this will lead to reduced transmissions. Warmer regions entail far more interaction with strangers and larger groups. Be it a small family gatherings or large public events, you can have a lot more attendees at an outdoor gathering than an indoor one.

> General population health - America already has a high level of obesity and related diseases (heart disease, diabetes, renal failure, etc.) It is well known that these health aspects significantly increase the risk of succumbing to COVID.

> Stupidity - let's just be honest, there is a famous saying DON'T DO STUPID THINGS, IN STUPID PLACES, WITH STUPID PEOPLE. (i.e. "a kid running across a highway to look cool to the other kids")

So all of those factors adjust the the expected demographic outcomes, and need to be taken into account when comparing nations.

And then there are just flat our liars. (i.e. China - who claims to have had less cases of infection than U.S. has had deaths). Dubious is a gross understatement. Also, you can argue that it was not death by COVID if you shoot the patient before he dies of COVID.

Look, I use to frequently visit friends in Maine. Out kayaking in the summer, but even in the middle of the summer the temperatures plummeted once the sun set. And Maine, is essentially equivalent to the "warm part" of Canada.

Cold weather reduces interactions and contacts, especially amongst strangers. It limits the size of social gatherings. Etc.

So yes, those nations in which is is very cold (Canada), those nations which are islands (Japan and Australia) or the extent end of an isolated peninsula (Scandinavia), should inherently have significantly lower transmission rates than other nations.

If you rotated the Earth so Canada was in the location of the U.S. temperate zones, the Canadian COVID deaths would easily double.

Yes, but a good half of them likely would have died within the year of other comorbid illnesses that were extant (heart disease, liver disease, diabetes, heart disease, etc.)

In fact, more likely than not, COVID simply sped up the arrival of death for some. In fact, it is very likely that in 5-10 years, the death rate will drop as many who would of died over the following few years regardless of COVID, will have died in the past 2 years. Of course, COVID will be used to push universal healthcare and the future reduction in annual deaths from the culling of the weak by COVID will be lauded as a sign of universal healthcare rather than the actual shifting of deaths.

Oh, and just to state for the record. I am not opposed to universal healthcare, as I believe we are already paying for it, just not receiving it. Americans already pay more in Medicare/Medicaid taxes than the citizens of most nations pay to have universal healthcare - so we might as well have it.

A lot of BS is happening.

Seriously, American has had far more access to treatment and vaccines than many nations. Yet, somehow we have the the highest death toll by far? Ya, something is not adding up.

Even if we take it at face value, the death rate for this plague is less than 1/6th of 1%. In the scope of plagues, that is a historically a very low toll.

What drives me crazy is that we see headlines about America being so astronomically high. But the media seems incapable of asking the questions it should be asking.

- How can America be that much higher than other nations?
- How can third world nations with far less access to emergency care and vaccines be doing stellar.
- How can China's supposed total # of COVID cases (not deaths) be only double America's total deaths.

Oh, there are answers. Such as any death that entails a positive COVID test being reported as a COVID test. Die in a car accident while positive with COVID, you're a COVID death.

Or the fact that COVID is a Coronavirus. Which normally was mentioned in referencing common colds. How many positives are being triggered by COVID testing picking up traits of common colds?

They're not investigating and it is pretty obvious why.

1. There is so much money to be made off this. If big pharma can make this into a mandatory annual vaccine it will result in trillions of dollars in profit.

2. Politics. There are those who want to see COVID rates inflated and see America at the top in order to push for universal healthcare. Don't underestimate the intent to leverage COVID for that.

3. On top of the fact that many states are panning for Federal handouts based on the COVID case volumes. (Balance the state budgets in the name of COVID deaths.

But basically, most of it all comes down to $$$.

Stats referenced:

Confirmed Cases: ~82 million, nearly 1 in 4 Americans.
Deaths: ~1 million, over 2 years, or 1/6th of 1% of Americans.
Deaths per million (DPM) = ~3,000

VERSUS DPM's for others....

China's= 10 (ya right)
Sudan = 112
Japan's = 235 * (Island nation, making it easier for them to isolate until the vaccine arrived.)
Australia = 275* (Island continent)
Iraq = 626, do you really believe Iraq was that much better than the US? or just not diagnosing as many cases?
Finland = 657 (Not quite an island, however, Finland/Sweden/Norway form a fairly isolated penisula. Also very cold regions.)
Cuba = 738 (also an island)
Canada = 1,000 Additionally, a very cold region most of the year.

Most other modern westernized nations seem to fall into the 1,500-2,700 DPM. The first being about half our rate and the latter being about on par.

As I have said for about two years now. We will NOT know the real toll until 5-6 years after COVID has passed. When we can look at the total number of deaths per year over time. Once we can review the total annual deaths from 2015 thru 2030 and see how much deviation existed during the COVID years, we will have a much more accurate figure.