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Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 384

This CDC page list 41,758 deaths.. The difference in death counts between the two CDC pages might be because the page you linked has data that is lagging and not up to date. The following text is from the page you linked to, bolding was added by me.

The provisional counts for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths are based on a current flow of mortality data in the National Vital Statistics System. National provisional counts include deaths occurring within the 50 states and the District of Columbia that have been received and coded as of the date specified. It is important to note that it can take several weeks for death records to be submitted to National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), processed, coded, and tabulated. Therefore, the data shown on this page may be incomplete, and will likely not include all deaths that occurred during a given time period, especially for the more recent time periods. Death counts for earlier weeks are continually revised and may increase or decrease as new and updated death certificate data are received from the states by NCHS. COVID-19 death counts shown here may differ from other published sources, as data currently are lagged by an average of 1–2 weeks.

Comment Re:As with Ebola (Score 1) 135

During WWI, due to censorship, the press in most of the combatant countries could not report on the deadly influenza that was sweeping the world. I guess the authorities thought it would hurt the morale at home if people found out about it. The press in Spain, being neutral in the war, wasn't subject to censorship and reported on the pandemic in Spain. This meant that most people associated the disease with Spain, since they weren't hearing about it from other sources.

Comment Re:cat got my tongue (Score 1) 160

The death rate for 40 to 49 year olds isn't what I would consider low. It's 0.4%. At 0.4% that means one in 250 would die. The 40 to 49 age group is pretty large, about 40 million people. Not all of those people are going to become infected, but at that death rate it would still lead to a lot of hospitalizations and deaths.

Comment Re:Don't worry (Score 1) 253

Did I mention budgets? I was thinking of the elimination of the post of senior director for global health security and biothreats on the national security council (NSC). That was done solely at the discretion of the executive branch. This article, written in 2018, goes into the impact of that decision. It's from the center for strategic and international studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/... As to budget, presidents are not without influence over what goes into the budget. While their proposed budget isn't the one that gets enacted, it says a great deal about what their priorities are and what they will try to get enacted when it's time to negotiate with congress. Judging from Trump's proposed budget it looks like he would be an advocate for slashing the CDC. How do you think that will affect appropriations for the CDC?

Comment Re:Ahh, the uneducated city dweller... (Score 1) 151

I live in the country, and while I'm not a dairy farmer or rancher, I do know a couple of dairy farmers and have observed that they do not let their cows drink out of just any old stream or pond. They worry about excessive dissolved solids and excessive coliform contamination. Streams and ponds that are deemed unfit for the cows and calves are fenced off. Perhaps cattle ranchers raising livestock for meat don't have to worry about these things, but I know dairy farmers do.

Comment Re:Teachers (Score 1) 220

In many states school taxes can only be increased through an election. In NY state, where I live, there's a legally mandated process that dictates how school districts must present a proposed budget to the voters and what happens if budget is not approved. Around the state voters are regularly presented with budgets that will result in a tax increase.

Comment Re:It takes a long time for wood to rot. (Score 4, Insightful) 424

I live in central NY state and hike through forested areas most days. From what I've observed, after falling down most large trees take considerably longer than ten years to rot. I'm still stepping over some dead trees twenty-five years after they first fell. Not saying trees don't eventually rot, but around here, in their natural environment, they seem quite resistant to rot. Even after trees decay it's not like their wood just evaporates and returns to the atmosphere as CO2. A great deal of their material sticks around decades longer as soil, which can sequester a great deal of carbon and nurture the next generation of trees.

Comment Re:Polar ice caps melting faster than expected (Score 1) 268

Al Gore's prediction was the ice would be gone in 2014. That doesn't square with "much faster."

Isn't it about time to throw Al Gore and his movie under the bus on behalf of ..... umm ..... less easily refuted alarmism?

Where did Al Gore predict that polar ice would be gone in 2014? In 'An Inconvenient Truth' he says that there were two major studies showing that the arctic ocean, which he refers to as the polar ice cap, would be ice free in the summer in 50 to 70 years. Using Google I could not find anything where Gore was predicting that the polar ice caps would be gone by 2014.

Comment Re:The Most Shocking Thing About the France Attack (Score 1) 259

Do you really believe that preventing legitimate Syrian refugees from entering the U.S. will prevent a single existing terrorist from an organization like ISIS from entering the U.S.? Even if no Syrian citizens are permitted to enter the U.S., terrorist organizations will pick another route to enter the U.S. Fake passports are not that difficult to come by. Hell, the Syrian passport found near the body of one of the Paris suicide bombers was a fake. Serbian police arrested a man Saturday with the same passport information except for the photo. But why even bother with coming in with false passport when you can use nationals who are already in place. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission, stated, “Let me underline—the profile of the terrorists so far identified tells us this is an internal threat. It is all EU citizens so far. This can change with the hours, but so far it is quite clear it is an issue of internal domestic security."

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