I’m incredulous that 5,000 folks have died because of the tragic heatwave in France. I calculate that the same number of people, proportionally, that would have died in the U.S. would be 25,000 — about half the size of the town in which I grew up in Pennsylvania. What really piques my curiosity, however, is how many people died in Iraq who have not had electricity or clean water in three months; this is not to level blame on any one party there — rather, it’s a sad commentary that statistics are only kept by Western countries about Western countries. The U.S. currently does not keep records of Iraqi casualties.