There are many different viruses and bacteria (including Ebola) that have flu-like symptoms and based on the summary of methodology for these CDC numbers I don't believe the CDC is doing enough regular randomized testing with controls to determine how many of those flu deaths are actually "the flu" or something else with "flu-like symptoms".

There should be two types of randomized testing. First general monitoring, where the CDC pays doctors to perform blind tests on patients with certain symptoms. The tests need to be blind because testing for a specific disease will bias the results... meaning doctors will see it as a test of their diagnostic skills to get it right if you hand them a test for the flu or something else specific. Rather what we should be after is a sense of what percentage of people showing up with a cough of any kind or other symptoms have certain viruses or bacteria. Just a blind test with a direction, give to someone with a cough of any severity. Or give to someone with a fever, headache etc.

The other thing would be for people who are in hospital or who die and had any flu-like symptoms to receive such randomized testing in order to gather enough data to get a specific breakdown on the cause of death beyond just flu-like symptoms. Otherwise if you just did the randomized testing of people showing up to the doctor's office and not those who are seriously ill or die, then you would mistakenly project the percentage of deaths as the percentages of illnesses circulating at the time, when we really want to know which of the viruses and bacteria are contributing to more deaths.

Taxes are also sometimes about influence, control, and information as much as revenue. If the motivation was simply to raise revenue then they picked an unnecessarily intrusive way to do it by taxing bandwidth instead of taxing as a percentage of the monthly bill or even imposing a flat tax fee.

I agree to the extent that America has never lived up to its ideals. With a history of mass slavery, genocide and ethnic cleansing against native Americans, suppression of the press, book burning, oppression of women which are all things that are contrary to the ideals of Liberty and democracy. Where others only see the hypocrisy and the corruption of those ideals, I see a nation which is trying to maintain those ideals of Liberty and become better at their practice. The important thing about America is that its ideals of Liberty and Democracy are worth believing in and fighting for. That we don't always, or even usually, live up to those ideals is disheartening. Whatever your take on the current state of America, we all need to be better at telling the difference between rhetoric and reality, but that doesn't mean we become cynical about our own ideals. It just means when we fall short we try harder.

Having not had enough money to get a new car or repair my old one, I can tell you the "kinetic divide" actually involves sitting by the side of the road waiting for a tow.

But the point is made... people without enough money need more money not just more bandwidth.

The class should be expanded to cover everyone in the profession not just employees of the companies. Many more people were damaged by this illegal conspiracy because these companies were in large part influencing the setting of wages for the industry. By illegally restraining trade they illegally depressed salaries for the entire market.

Why aren't nurses required to wear the same protective gear as the people cleaning up Ebola contaminated waste... fresh from the patient projectile vomit seems like a much higher risk than three day old bed sheets yet the requirements don't seem to be in place for full protective gear for nurses... I think if the CDC guidelines aren't updated to include full protective gear such as requiring full hazmat suits when in the isolation room with the patient, then we haven't learned anything.

And more importantly... who in their right mind still uses IE? Internet Explorer is currently blocked by my company's proxy server because it is considered so insecure and isn't likely to get unblocked any time soon.

The way these things are killed are to under budget them, then blame cost overruns as justification for canceling the project. Then everyone says they gave it a chance and it failed and no other similar projects get funding... There are many many varied interests that don't want this type of technological advancement.

the point was that fusion works. it is an observed physical phenomena. My idea for containing it is have a bunch of engineers design a reactor, have a bunch of other engineers and physicists validate the concept and then build it.

If their design and the math checks out, then it is easily worth $2.7 billion to validate the design by constructing a full size reactor. Heck add another billion to the budget just in case.

tell that to the sun

Libertarian Party does not equal libertarianism. I think the dilution of the word libertarian has been very deliberate. The fundamental ideal of libertarianism is simply the minimization of the threat or use of force in society.

There is no right for corporations to exist. There is a freedom of association, but that is of no specific form. Corporations are government contrived legal entities that are given rights by laws.

Not quite that clear. Congress makes all sorts of laws to enable companies to exist in the first place. If some of those laws enable companies to unreasonably stifle free speech then that would be a violation of the first amendment by proxy.

Not at all. Today's vast accumulations of wealth are enabled by government regulations that promote that concentration of wealth in private hands and under limited liability corporate entities. Government protections for private property should have some limits and there also must be limits on private security forces. I don't suggest higher taxes on the ultra rich as a libertarian ideal, or as a left leaning way to concentrate wealth in government hands which is no better than concentration of wealth in private hands. I would lower taxes on the merely rich and middle-class, it is at the extremes of wealth that go beyond mere luxury living that become about coercive and fuedal control of necessary resources. That needs to be addressed through government policy because Liberty shouldn't self destruct.