Iraq death toll
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COLORADO35 cars collide in Colorado whiteout Saturday, February 24, 2007
Between Denver and the beginning of the highway closure, about 35 cars collided in a pileup in whiteout conditions Saturday morning on an icy section of I-70. No major injuries were reported. The weather service reported wind gusts of 68 mph in the Denver area. A number of other highways also were closed in the two states. "Basically there's zero visibility at this time," Kansas Department of Transportation spokeswoman Barb Blue said just before noon. "Travel is not recommended unless absolutely necessary." A stretch of about 125 miles of I-80 was closed in both directions in western Nebraska, from Ogallala to the Wyoming line. Wind gusting to 52 mph drove wet snow. "It's nasty," said Carol McKain of the Nebraska State Patrol. Farther east, a 30-mile stretch of U.S. 275 was closed in Nebraska because of flooding. There was no power in parts of North Platte, Neb., where "the snow is so wet it's sticking to power poles and power lines," said Bill Taylor of the National Weather Service office in North Platte. Flights continued operating Saturday at Denver International Airport, where thousands of travelers were stalled by a 45-hour shutdown during a pre-Christmas blizzard. The airport was on the western edge of the area of heavy snow and had only about an inch by late morning, spokesman Chuck Cannon said. In addition to the snow on the western Plains, the vast storm system spread rain and thunderstorms across parts of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, with locally heavy snow across Iowa and southern Minnesota. The weather service posted blizzard and winter storm warnings for parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Up to 16 inches of snow was possible by late Sunday in Minnesota, which would be the biggest snowfall so far in an unusually dry winter for that state, the weather service said. Officials advised against unnecessary travel in southwestern Minnesota, where roads already were slippery from heavy sleet and freezing rain that fell during the night. One traffic death had been blamed on the storm in Wisconsin. HEALTHCAREBush spotlights rising health care costs WASHINGTON - President Bush is not giving up on his call to overhaul the tax code for those who buy health insurance. The president focused his attention again on the topic after a recent government report projected that health care spending would double by the year 2016. Analysts say current tax policy is contributing to the increase in spending through incentives that favor more comprehensive and expensive health benefits. The president noted that the current policy also discriminates against those who buy their insurance in the individual market. They don't get the same tax advantages as those who get insurance through their employers. "When it comes to health care, everyone should get the same tax breaks," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. The president has proposed treating health insurance contributions as income, which would cause workers' taxable wages to shoot up dramatically. But the president then calls for a standard tax deduction for those who buy health insurance — $15,000 for family coverage and $7,500 for individual coverage. So, the key to getting a tax cut will be to keep the cost of the policy below the size of the new deduction. The prospect of a tax cut would serve as a huge incentive for people to spend less on health insurance. Democratic leaders were quick to criticize the plan. But more recently, a group of 10 senators — five Republicans and five Democrats — wrote the president and told him they agreed that current tax rules for health insurance disproportionately favor the rich while promoting inefficiency. Bush went to Chattanooga, Tenn., earlier this month to try to generate momentum for his tax proposal. He shared a stage with people who hold full-time jobs but cannot afford to insure their families. For Danny Jennings, a father of two who manages a nursery, the plan would save about $4,500 a year on his tax bill, Bush said. "These tax savings would put basic coverage within the reach of his family," Bush said. The president said he also wants to support governors who come up with innovative ways to help their citizens get insurance coverage.
Americans underestimate Iraqi death toll WASHINGTON - Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed. When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000. Far from a vague statistic, the death toll is painfully real for many Americans. Seventeen percent in the poll know someone who has been killed or wounded in Iraq. And among adults under 35, those closest to the ages of those deployed, 27 percent know someone who has been killed or wounded. For Daniel Herman, a lawyer in New Castle, Pa., a co-worker's nephew is the human face of the dead. "This is a fairly rural area," he said. "When somebody dies, ... you hear about it. It makes it very concrete to you." The number of Iraqis killed, however, is much harder to pin down, and that uncertainty is perhaps reflected in Americans' tendency to lowball the Iraqi death toll by tens of thousands. Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone. Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower. Christopher Gelpi, a Duke University political scientist who tracks public opinion on war casualties, said a better understanding of the Iraqi death toll probably wouldn't change already negative public attitudes toward the war much. People in democracies generally don't shy away from inflicting civilian casualties, he said, and they may be even more tolerant of them in situations such as Iraq, where many of the civilian deaths are caused by other Iraqis. "You have to look at who's doing the killing," said Neal Crawford, a restaurant manager in Suttons Bay, Mich., who guessed that about 10,000 Iraqis had been killed. "If these people are dying because a roadside bomb goes off or if there's an insurgent attack in a marketplace, it's an unfortunate circumstance of war — people die." Gelpi said that while Americans may not view Iraqi deaths through the same prism as American losses, they may use the Iraqi death toll to gauge progress, or lack thereof, on the U.S. effort to promote a stable, secure democracy in Iraq. To many, he said, "the fact that so many are being killed is an indication that we're not succeeding."
Sometimes it's hard for people to sort out their conflicting emotions. "I don't know if I'm numb to it or not," said 86-year-old Robert Lipold of Las Vegas. "It's something you see in the paper every day there. And how do you feel when in the back of your mind it's unnecessary?" Given a range of possible words to describe their feelings about the overall situation in Iraq, people were most likely to identify with "worried," selected by 81 percent of those surveyed. Other descriptive words selected by respondents: _Compassionate: 74 percent. _Angry: 62 percent. _Tired: 61 percent. _Hopeful: 51 percent. _Proud: 38 percent. _Numb: 27 percent.
About half of those who know someone who has been killed or wounded felt it is right to criticize the war, compared with two-thirds of those who don't have a personal connection. The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,002 adults, conducted Feb. 12-15, had a 3 percentage point margin of error. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 1.35 Mb. Share with your friends:
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