No it isn't. Because it's picking a single fact established for science: that children do not develop severe clinical symptoms, but ignoring the others: that children could act as asymptomatic carriers and that children could develop long term systemic complications. That's why it was necessary to say 'science should not stand in the way'. It is explicitly acknowledging that when all scientific facts are considered by a trained scientist, the prevailing opinion is that there are risks to opening and that it should not be done at all cost, no matter why. Of course a politician can pick one scientific fact and come to a non scientific conclusion just by handpicking whatever fits the narrative.

No, that Is not true. Lots of countries instituted social distancing way before the US and following WHO direction. Most leaders praised the WHO, except for a few that refused to implement social distancing when the WHO advised it.
  Did they advise it as soon as the first case? No, nobody knew the contagiousness of the virus, nor the rate of asymptomatic carriers.

You're mistaking the guidance of whether the general population should go and get a facemask vs the instructions that were given to states to secure such supplies for the medical personnel.
Most of the rest of the world, for example Latin America (well, maybe except Brazil) followed WHO instructions and had been very grateful for their coordination and guidance. Most of them have much flatter curves than US and have positive projections, even coming from a much more difficult initial situation: weaker health systems, poorer population, less resources, and more financial constraints in their economy.
At the end of this crisis we'll have the numbers of increased mortality in different countries. When those figures show great differences from country to country, there'll be no WHO scapegoating. Of course, that doesn't prevent some from trying to establish the scapegoat lie right now and never look back.

That's just straight false. If you'd read Taiwan's communications to WHO, they were *inquiring* about h2h transmission and stating that they had isolated patients. Guess what? China had also isolated patients, had told us so, and that is the only *statement* in taiwanese communication. Now, some people who don't have enough science literacy claim that "no evidence of h2h transmission" means "evidence of no h2h transmission", well, it does not mean that. There was no additional information in Taiwan's emails, they were made public recently and it is a politic stunt for Taiwan to claim that they "warned". Everyone, even laymen were asking about h2h transmission. The WHO would only establish that after scientific evidence, not after "many people being worried about it".
It's shameful to see how some people more worried about Taiwanese independence than the COVID-19 fight are trying to use this for political gains. It is disgraceful even if they had the high ground in their quarrel with China, something with I'm not sure they really have.

Also, WHO cannot do anything like that, WHO will only recognize countries its parent organization, UN recognizes. UN voted to have China represented by its member countries. Guess what, not even US recognizes Taiwan as an independent country. You suggesting that WHO should do that only highlights how simplistic and uninformed your view is.
So many people trying to lecture us on how a worldwide organization should have handled a major crisis, and they don't even understand the basics of how an organization is governed. Of course, this is always a given in Slashdot.

Well, many of the things that you say can be seen quite differently if we don't just see it all from your particular political views:

- Lula was found guilty without proof, solely based on the testimony of a witness (just imagine if Trump's impeachment went forward with just one testimony, much worse if he was jailed just in that). And the 'deep convictions' of the judge, as he wrote himdelf. Said judge, Moro, was then appointed as head of the Justice ministry by the candidate that most probably would not have been elected if Lula had participated in the elections.
- Greenwald leaked evidence that Moro had not been fair in his role as judge, directing the prosecution and even specifically meddling in the election campaign. A judge in Brazil is not meant to take sides like that neither with the prosecution nor the defense. Much less should make decisions based on whether that will impede the defendant from participating in a campaign.
- The cases for corruption were much more common in the opposition to Dilma (and Tenet's party, that was an ally but then turned on them). That's not whataboutism, is simply a rebuttal to the view that we should skip on the attacks on due process because the fight to corruption is worth it. Brazil is more corrupt today than before: as a matter of fact there's a leak of one of Temer's ministers saying that Dilma had to be impeached to 'stop the bleeding' of politicians being imprisoned for corruption.
- if the right wants to win an election, and they have a right to be able to do so, it will be by participating lawfully, that is, with no proscriptions.
- You are just overlooking the flagrant attacks on the democratic processes because you like the outcome of the elections and the economic policies that Bolsonaro brings. This is because after his right wing policies, Temer approval rate was abysmal and Lula was set to win in the first round. Lula's political opponents could not compete fair and square and had to proscribe him.

Ps: for those of you who don't know of the bizarre nature of the current Brazilian government, we're talking about a philofascist government whose *Culture * minister just copied one of Goebbels speeches and Bolsonaro had to sack him for the resulting outrage. A government that swore to never again let their political opponents to gain the power of the country (so much for democracy).

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/24/...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j...

https://theintercept.com/2019/...

And the Democratic party is the one most democratic of all, that's in its name. Also, the green party is composed by lizards and what about the Tea party? Does microsoft produce small software?
Listen, it's a name. 'First they came..' starts 'First they certainly for the socialists'. Hitler bombed Guernica for Franco, Guernica was a republican (socialist) city and Franxo was the general leading the coup against the elected socialist government. Every neonazi movement assumed it's right wing heritage, none would claim to belong to the left.
Don't try to derive truth from words, and especially not from fantasy names like the ones people give to their associations.

Yet the American system is very inefficient when compared to public systems that *also* cover the elderly. The explanation needs to be a difference between America and other developed countries. The US does have a large number of veterans, that is true, even proportionally, that is a possibility. Yet another possibility is that the US has no part of its health infrastructure run by the state. And for inelastic services, like health, running a part (mind, not necessarily the whole of it) of the market by the State turns out to be a great thing. The current state of things is that the American public and the State are captive and subjected to the collusion of the whole healthcare system.
One American physician once told me that most physicians familiar with the systems used in other countries are aware of this. But they get a fat share of the money (more than other professions) so few are eager to launch a reform movement.

They can. Germany for example has a much larger share of it's economy handled by SMBs and coops than big, publicly traded corporations, when compared to US. Mind, these countries though different in size are almost as developed. So the difference is probably not intrinsic to coops but rather ecosystem and regulation.
One obvious advantage that a publicly traded company does have is the ability to capitalize. It can use stock for that, and it has easier access to credit (either by a greater assurance that a default will result in liquidation or maybe even ideological bias by banks, they do have that, specially since credit unions are relatively so successful).
Capitalism does behave in boom-and-bust cycles. Public companies might have a similar advantages for the boom period. But maybe the bust might undo all that good that was authentically created.
As always, mixed schemes work best, but laize faire is not the best way to guarantee that diversity. Just a bit of regulation can do wonder. Otoh the regulation bureaucracy is as encroaching as the free market establishment and both try to expand their relative power.
Eternal vigilance and constant tweaking are our best hoped.

You said that there's no proof of what the US government says, but that its becoming clear that there is some truth because ... the US government keeps saying it?
Mind, the summary clearly states that the government is about to pass a bill, proof or no proof. Universities reacting to the bill, or to US federal gov pressure, are not a valid indication that there's anything else but smoke. Ever been to a music show? There's no fire behind that smoke.

In Argentina, during the last right wing, US backed, dictatorship set theory was also removed from elementary school.
The reasoning was (translation is mine) that it 'promotes the Soviet idea of the collective, and of grouping as an indispensable relationship in problem solving'. I wonder how much of red scare factor was behind the similar move in the US.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world...

Seriously, Wikipedia is a site where everyone posts what they think with little oversight but UD it's a joke site, that doesn't even try to be a serious definition.

We certainly don't need more humans.
We do need more developed regions of course, so that the living standard of the existing humans improve. Actually, the development would also help with curbing the amount of humans: high development brings low pop growth.

Well, not necessarily.
South Australia vs somewhere else in the country but to the north means the things are still done in Australia.
Importing a submarine from another country means that you missed on the research and development capabilities generated by building it yourself. Now, theres the question of whether those capabilities are worth the price. But then the two cases are different, and you'll find that those allies probably do not buy a lot of their equipment and instead make sure that they can build their own, regardless of cost

Nicely put about the US but... Have you ever been to Mexico or Argentina? I've never seen a bomb detector in a McDonald's in my life. Mexico's said to be dangerous near the border, but in Mexico City I saw nothing like what you describe, not even in Acapulco. Also, Mexico's violence is predominantly related to drug traffic and plain old crime (kidnappings too).
Your description of Argentina is totally inaccurate too. Even though there were two terrorist incidents in the last 30 years to Jewish/Israeli targets, the only sign you can see of that is pylons outside of synagogues and Jewish countries. The terrorist threat is non existent.

You describe this theory about how those taxes create more crime. Yet the Netherlands are one of the safest places in the world, specially if we normalize by their relative size and individual freedom . Yeah, the Maldives are doing great, if you don't mind your alcohol being prohibited.
That system might not be perfect, but you singled out one of the best implementations that we have for a society that is effective and relatively efficient in keeping it's population happy, and in good part that is because it decided to care for all of its component parts. Almost every other place is doing worse off. There are exceptions of relative social peace and low taxes, but most that I know are either tax havens (those only leak benefits from balanced societies, their relative advantage would vanish if everyone followed suit) or havie some kind of sovereignly owned resource (like oil).