The Pinnacle of Poor Taste?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYiJ_Dc-y_M


The song comes from Fickle 93.3 (WFKL) out of Rochester NY that brands their format as "We play everything". 

Their wild steeds are pawing the ground with impatience

Scientists have used Ebola disease spread patterns and airline traffic data to predict a 75 percent chance the virus could be imported to France by October 24, and a 50 percent chance it could hit Britain by that date.  Those numbers are based on air traffic remaining at full capacity. Assuming an 80 percent reduction in travel to reflect that many airlines are halting flights to affected regions, France's risk is still 25 percent, and Britain's is 15 percent.

Yahoo News

Belgium has a 40 percent chance of seeing the disease arrive on its territory, while Spain and Switzerland have lower risks of 14 percent each, according to the study first published in the journal PLoS Current Outbreaks and now being regularly updated at http://www.mobs-lab.org/ebola.html.

The WHO has reported, as of September 22, that 384 health-care workers have gotten the virus and 186 have died.  President Obama has promised to train 500 health workers per week to work to beat back the epidemic.  Vox

500 a week... boy, I feel better already... I'm not a virologist but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night; at least now we know what the military engineers are going to be building in west Africa.

"It's really a lottery," said Derek Gatherer of Britain's Lancaster University, an expert in viruses who has been tracking the epidemic...

Wanna buy a ticket? 
 

"And when the sun arises in a few hours, the world will see coursing through its fields the four horsemen, enemies of mankind. . . . Already their wild steeds are pawing the ground with impatience; already the ill-omened riders have come together and are exchanging the last words before leaping into the saddle."  ~Vicente Blasco Ibáñez 

Nothing promotes a little humility like the world getting all medieval on your ass. 

Risk and Direct Contact - NY Times 

September 20th Worst Case Scenario - 500,000 cases

September 23rd Worst Case Scenario - 1,400,000 cases

CDC Worst Case Scenario Triples in Four Days

Ebola in Dallas

So you have to figure, what... maybe he flew in on an international flight to maybe La Guardia? Perhaps 250 people on the plane?  Then a flight to Atlanta, say another 225 people on that flight.  The layover in Atlanta, might have eaten lunch at one of the restaurants there, then the flight to Dallas, maybe 225 more people.  

Airports say they are unprepared for screening passengers... does it take a rocket scientist to figure out that maybe, just maybe we ought to be quarantining, or giving thorough screenings to people entering the country with passport stamps from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone?

Just Sayin'

IT IS NOT THE MISSION

 

Of the Department of Defense to fight Ebola

Not one soldier, sailor or airman swore to protect and defend the people of Liberia from all viruses foreign or domestic.

Barack Obama on Tuesday called West Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak a looming threat to global security and announced a major expansion of the U.S. role in trying to halt its spread, including deployment of 3,000 troops to the region. ~Yahoo

To date we have spent more than $100 million to address this challenge, USAID also has announced plans to make available up to $75 million in additional funding.  DoD also has requested to reprogram $500 million in Fiscal Year 2014 Overseas Contingency Operations funds for humanitarian assistance.  White House

National Security vs Global Security

It is the duty and responsibility of the President to ensure US national security, not to guarantee the world global security. 

According to a senior military official, Dempsey said at a recent meeting: “The Department of Defense’s number one priority is combating Ebola.” ~ W.J

Really? In that case General Dempsey ought to be court-martialed and the President impeached for this extra-constitutional abuse of power and dereliction of duty.   If one American soldier dies of ebola his blood is on the President's hands.

Ebola is Serious Business

Don't get me wrong, something needs to be done, but it is not for the Department of Defense or for the American soldier to be ordered to do so.  One would have to seriously question the legality of that order within the context of the Constitution of the United States. Frankly, it's not even the responsibility of the US Public Health Service:

The mission of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is to protect, promote, and advance the health and safety of our Nation. ~ USPHS

And before you start lecturing me on the epidemiological hazards to national security know that a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a medical technologist.  I'm not saying we ought to do nothing, I am saying the President has no more authority to order US troops into the midst of a peacetime viral outbreak in a foreign country than he has to order the staff of Massachusetts General there.

You can't argue the President is concerned about national security when anyone with ebola can simply waltz across our southern border.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Thoughts?

Modern Science meets the Middle Ages

Liberia

Mob destroys Ebola treatment center in Monrovia

‘The president says you have Ebola, but you don’t have Ebola, you have malaria. Get up and go out!’

A mob descended on the center at around 5:30 p.m., chanting, “No Ebola in West Point! No Ebola in West Point!” They stormed the front gate and pushed into the holding center. They stole the few gloves someone had donated this morning, and the chlorine sprayers used to disinfect the bodies of those who die here, all the while hollering that Ebola is a hoax.  ~Buzzfeed

Then the mob left with all of the patients.

“Everybody left with their own thing,” she said. “What are they carrying to their homes? They are carrying their deaths.”

What good is modern science when your patients are living in the dark ages?