The news media has recently reported on President Biden’s calling Cuba a failed state.  There have been demonstrations there due to the corona virus pandemic.  The Cuban president responded by pointing out that the 60 year embargo of Cuba has exacerbated shortages of medical supplies and other basic resources.  I thought I would compare how […]

Last week I reported that my most viewed post on COVID-19 was on zip code testing in Johnstown zip codes compared to the county, state and the U.S.  I reported that the testing rates for the zip code for downtown Johnstown (15901) was nearly identical to the U.S. rates while the rates for the other zip […]

Watching the developments of the past week were surprising even to me. Were the up swelling of protests over the death of George Floyd and the corona virus pandemic totally unrelated?  Is Trump’s generally incompetent leadership a factor?  The mostly peaceful demonstrations have been occurring just as the turbulent restriction from the pandemic are being lifted.  Do people […]

In response to the horrific shootings in El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH, I saw the graph below from Vox showing the correlation between gun ownership and gun deaths.  The graph was used on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Monday right after the shootings in the above clip.  It shows that the US is an […]

Much was made of the 70th anniversary of D-Day last week which was the beginning of the end for Hitler’s Third Reich (along with Stalingrad in the east for the Soviets).  Much less talked about in the US is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I coming up this summer.  The beginning […]

My 200th post is a cross post with Healthcare for All PA PUSH The World Health Organization has come out a new report on life expectancy, infant mortality, and other health statistics for 2012 which can be read here.  Their image above shows the countries top 10 for men and women.  As with previous estimates […]

Former Sen. Rick Santorum actually compared the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare as he calls it) to Apartheid South Africa.  Here is his quote as he was paying tribute to Nelson Mandela on Fox News “was fighting against some great injustice. I would make the argument that we have a great injustice going on right now […]

The census bureau has made it’s online US and World population clock available for embedding on other websites.  Above you can see the estimate of the US population (over 315 million) based on the 2010 census, estimates of birth, death and immigration rates.  If you click on the World Population tab you can see the […]

A new survey by the Centers for disease control or CDC suggests that about 500,000 children in the US have low blood lead levels (defined as 5 micrograms per deciliter) from 2007-2010.  This shows an 8.6% decrease compared to the last survey period in 1999-2002.  The graph at the left shows that there are higher […]

The Washington Post has come out with a post in Ezra Klein’s blog titled 21 graphs that show America’s health-care prices are ludicrous.  Two of them are posted here showing how the average prices of angiograms and angioplasties are double those of the next highest country.  For example an angiogram costs an average $914 in the […]