Border Wall Status

We are 11 days into the Biden Administration, and for now, this link still works, although it's labeled at the top as Archived from a previous administration.

https://www.cbp.gov/border-security/along-us-borders/border-wall-system

Here's a screenshot of the Border Wall Map, with the Red lines marking the New Border Wall system, most of it replacing the grossly inadequate fencing that existed there previously.  This Map unfortunately does not differentiate with different colors which parts of the wall were Completed vs. Under Construction vs. Under Pre-Construction.  The border is about 2000 miles long.  About 450 miles of New Wall was completed before Biden foolishly stopped the building.  I think another 290 miles was under Pre-Construction or Construction.  The little gaps you see in many places below are where the mountainous terrain created a natural barrier.  The New Wall would run up to the mountain and then start again on the other side.  It would be easier to climb the 18-30ft. fence than climb over the mountain.  The biggest gap along the Western 2/3 of the Texas/Mexico border is a very mountainous section where the Rio Grande runs between large cliffs on either side.  A wall is not needed in hardly any of that section.  Again, scaling a 30 ft. fence is far easier than traveling through a remote mountainous area for days and crossing that treacherous terrain.  Other areas of the Rio Grande further East in Texas which are not near any roads are much better suited to use aerial surveillance to spot people and stop them if they try to get across the river at those points.  All in all, the 450 miles of completed wall is a huge accomplishment and greatly helps our Border Patrol's ability to control the border.  The question is whether Democrats will even try to control the border or not.

UPDATE:

As of October 23, 2020 (4 months before this post was written), construction of the wall system breaks down as follows:

• FUNDED: 738 miles
• COMPLETED CONSTRUCTION: 386 miles
• UNDER CONSTRUCTION: 195 miles
• PRE-CONSTRUCTION PHASE: 157 miles

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/10/29/border-wall-system-deployed-effective-and-disrupting-criminals-and-smugglers

This site below has another map which tries to break down each section of the border wall project by construction phase.  I'm not sure how up-to-date all the information is.  But it also has a great picture to help people understand the benefit of this New Wall system vs. the previous fencing it replaced.
https://www.trumpwall.construction/

Best Resources for COVID-19 Stats

CDC - United States COVID-19 Cases and Deaths by State

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker

COVID Tracking Project - 2 Metrics 7-Day Average Curves

https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/2-metrics-7-day-average-curves

John Hopkins - Cases Trends for all 50 States

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states

Our World in Data

Graph of selected Countries Deaths Per Million

CDC - COVID-19 Vaccinations

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations

WashPo - Vaccine Distribution

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/covid-vaccine-states-distribution-doses/

Masks Appear To Do Little To Slow Spread Of COVID-19 (graphs)

Hat Tip:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/29/these-12-graphs-show-mask-mandates-do-nothing-to-stop-covid/ 

Here's some of the graphs of COVID-19 cases in different localities along with when Masks were requiered.  I see no pattern in these graphs or others I've studied that indicate Masks make much difference at all in slowing the spread of COVID-19.  There are various theories on why, but the data seems pretty clear.  Mask mandate proponents cannot seem to point to anything more than cherry-picked data (e.g. Austria) to try to claim that they are helping.

The Scientific Method

Facebook post from a friend:

The term "anti-science" or "science denier" is hilariously misused. The act of science is the questioning and testing of falsifiable statements. Taking a fact in faith as an accepted truth is true anti-science.

My responses:

Exactly! Another term that is almost always an oxymoron is calling history class "social science". History is a VERY DIFFERENT field of study that has very little to do with science.

sci·en·tif·ic meth·od

/ˈˌsīənˈtifik ˈmeTHəd/

noun

a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

"criticism is the backbone of the scientific method"

Science is about what we can observe, measure, experiment on, and test in the PRESENT. We also have to be very careful when we try to extrapolate from current scientific observations and apply them to the past, future, or phenomena we don't have enough information about yet. The further we extrapolate away from solid scientific observations to make theories (which so many try to pretend are solid conclusions), the weaker the theories are and less and less credence should be given to them. Examples:

PAST

The debate about the age of the earth is a classic example. SCIENCE CANNOT DETERMINE THE AGE OF THE EARTH! Science can only measure the present and try to extrapolate back to the past, and has to make many assumptions. For any age to be calculated, some measurement of change at present rates must be calculated, and then one has to assume how it was in the beginning, and that the rate has been constant over time, and then the present rate is extrapolated into the past. And it's prone to WILD error. It's like saying when the score is 6-0 only 1 minute into an NBA game, that the final score will be 288-0. When it comes to age of the earth, any evidence like a fossilized tree (which normally would have decayed in small number of years) being buried and preserved through multiple geological layers that were supposedly were laid down over millions of years must be ignored, because the "scientists" don't like evidence that contradicts their theories. But a wise person can trust far more that the current scientific measurements are reasonably accurate without taking it on faith that unscientific extrapolations about the distant past have much validity at all.

FUTURE

Global Warming / Climate change is a classic example of extrapolating into the future (and of corruption of the recent data itself, but that's another topic). Climate has always changed and variability is natural. Sometimes average global temperatures trend up and sometimes they trend down. Since the late 1800's they have trended up overall. But when they trended down from 1940-1970, many "scientists" extrapolated that present (at the time) rate of cooling and proclaimed humans were causing a new Ice Age. Less than 10 years later, after temperatures trended upwards again, some of these same "scientists" did a 180 and extrapolated the last 5-10 years (at the time) rate of warming and boldly and hypocritically proclaimed CO2 emissions were going to destroy the planet. They've been pushing that line ever since, even when global average temperatures didn't go up between 1998 and 2015. The predictions made in the late 90's by most of the computer models at the time of rapid warming by 2020 were falsified by the current temperatures now in 2021 being below even the lower bounds of most of the models' predictions. So no wise person should put any stock in predictions about 2050 or 2100. There's just as much chance that temperatures may be lower by then than they are now. We can trust that scientists can predict fairly well the path of a hurricane over the next 2-5 days, but we'd be fools to trust at all they can predict average global temperatures in 2050. That is wild extrapolation of the current science.

PHENOMENA WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION ABOUT YET

No one knows what the long term effects of a mRNA vaccine will be.