What's In A Name & New Tool Tracks Recovery

What’s In A Name & New Tool Tracks Recovery.  I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

The World Health Organization has decided to stop using the term “swine flu” after Egyptian officials started slaughtering thousands of pigs in a very misguided effort to stop the spread of the outbreak. The new designation is not an easy one on the tongue as the WHO will stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A.

A new geospatial mapping web tool at USDA's website will allow citizens to track, and comment on, projects funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Hank Kashdan of USDA explains how it will work.

KASHDAN: We’ll also be having a blog opportunity that will be keyed from each project so when we might click into an individual state, you’ll click on a project, you’ll see that project, it will give some basic information about it in terms of funding amount, type of project, whether it’s a contract or a loan and then you’ll click on the opportunity to make a comment and that will bring you to a blog page. Now these comments will be moderated as we say. They’ll be reviewed by people in USDA and then posted on the web site with the intent of creating that dialog and this is all part of that effort in transparency.

Now here’s today’s Washington Grange Report.

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That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.