09:16 – One of the commenters yesterday posted a link to an article from the Weekly Standard that’s worth taking the time to read: Six Reasons to Panic
Actually, I can add a seventh, that no one ever talks about outside scientific papers. The body fluids of someone who recovers from Ebola may remain infective for at least a year, and possibly indefinitely. The recovered patient becomes an asymptomatic carrier, much like Typhoid Mary, and, like Typhoid Mary, the only solution is to quarantine that person indefinitely until they are no longer shedding the virus. Or until an Ebola vaccine becomes generally available. So we could end up having to have Ebola Colonies, much like the Leper Colonies of antiquity.
Someone emailed me yesterday to ask what I thought the chances were of Ebola breaking out in the US and what I would do if it did. I told him what I’ve been telling friends and neighbors: that in the absence of sufficient data my SWAG is that the probability of that happening is somewhere between 0.001 and 0.01. That makes it an unlikely event, but even 0.01 is much, much too high given the consequences.
As to what we would do, we’d operate on the principle that you can hide but you can’t run. We would shelter in place, not leaving our house and yard for any reason. The best defense would be to have the necessary stores in place to allow us to isolate ourselves in place for weeks to months. And, although we continue to encourage our family, friends, and neighbors to build their own emergency stockpiles of food, water, and other necessities, we will continue to build our own stockpiles to make sure we have some excess to share with those family, friends, and neighbors who are not prepared.
Somehow I have the feeling that if things become more widespread inside the US, once international air travel is banned, it will not be long before domestic travel bans follow.
Agreed.
But what to do when a neighbor shows up at the front door, cold and hungry, and with flu symptoms? Or a kid’s friend from school? Can household pets be carriers?
“…the chances were of Ebola breaking out in the US and what I would do if it did. I told him what I’ve been telling friends and neighbors: that in the absence of sufficient data my SWAG is that the probability of that happening is somewhere between 0.001 and 0.01.”
Do those numbers go up any if the regime is either so incompetent and stupid as has recently been demonstrated that the virus gets out all over the place, or if the regime is deliberately allowing it to spread? And then making only PR moves to allegedly contain it and help people?
As one of the Bolshevik factotums said once, ‘never waste a good crisis.’ He’s since been in charge of one of our largest cities, Chicago, and it’s become a violent cess-pit of cannibal mayhem like unto its sister city of Detroit. Most of us white-bread suburbanites and exurbanites don’t care and hope it stays contained in those places, but what if it doesn’t? What if chaotic dystopia comes to our Pleasant Valley Sunday out here, ‘here in status-symbol land’??
“Actually, I can add a seventh, that no one ever talks about outside scientific papers. The body fluids of someone who recovers from Ebola may remain infective for at least a year, and possibly indefinitely. The recovered patient becomes an asymptomatic carrier…”
I’ve been interested in Ebola for 20+ years and I’ve never heard an asymptomatic carrier. They either recover or die. Since a percentage of Ebola cases have been recovering since 1976 but outbreaks are discontinuous as far as I’m aware I’d be a bit skeptical about the asymptomatic carrier idea.
Well then, how did the next generations come about when the first ones were contained?
Yes, pets can be carriers, although they are not themselves harmed by the virus.
As to feeding hungry neighbors, that was my point. If push comes to shove, I don’t want to be surrounded by desperate, resentful, hungry people. For that matter, I’m not heartless. I don’t want to see our family, friends, and neighbors starving, even if that wouldn’t increase the threat to us. The problem is that, as of now, Barbara and I have only roughly two person-years of stored food. If it were solely up to me, I’d be more comfortable with at least 20 and preferably 50 person-years of stored food, but Barbara would really freak out if I tried to accumulate that much.
As to Obama and his administration, I don’t believe they would intentionally slaughter millions of US citizens. Treat protecting us as 2nd, 3rd, or 10th priority, certainly, but not intentionally murder us.
@Miles_Teg
Oh, it’s been well known for at least a couple of decades that asymptomatic human carriers are a reservoir. See, for example, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870608/ and follow the cites.
On a lighter note: Art is dead.
I don’t care what the “artist” says: That’s not a Christmas tree!
Chuck wrote:
“Well then, how did the next generations come about when the first ones were contained?”
The non-human reservoir species.
Oh, it’s been well known for at least a couple of decades that asymptomatic human carriers are a reservoir.
Then how is convalescent serum treatment being used…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/14/the-decades-old-treatment-that-may-save-a-young-dallas-nurse-infected-with-ebola/
http://news.sciencemag.org/africa/2014/08/who-ponders-treating-ebola-infected-people-blood-survivors
Someone emailed me yesterday to ask what I thought the chances were of Ebola breaking out in the US and what I would do if it did. I told him what I’ve been telling friends and neighbors: that in the absence of sufficient data my SWAG is that the probability of that happening is somewhere between 0.001 and 0.01. That makes it an unlikely event, but even 0.01 is much, much too high given the consequences.
I agree 100%. The wife thinks that I am totally nuts.
As to what we would do, we’d operate on the principle that you can hide but you can’t run. We would shelter in place, not leaving our house and yard for any reason. The best defense would be to have the necessary stores in place to allow us to isolate ourselves in place for weeks to months. And, although we continue to encourage our family, friends, and neighbors to build their own emergency stockpiles of food, water, and other necessities, we will continue to build our own stockpiles to make sure we have some excess to share with those family, friends, and neighbors who are not prepared.
It will be rough. If you are in the inner ring of a major city, you need to leave when things go wonky. You will know when things go wonky. And you need a bug out place to go to!
I highly suspect that if things go totally in the ditch and food and energy services are ceased, that there will be bands of scavengers. Some will be violent, most will not be. Any signs of life will attract them.
Fox News just reported that there are four Ebola patients being treated in the USA now.
“Oh, it’s been well known for at least a couple of decades that asymptomatic human carriers are a reservoir. See, for example, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870608/ and follow the cites.”
I looked up that article, only found this:
“Although there is evidence of asymptomatic carriers, the very low levels of virus detected in these individuals suggest they do not pose a significant source of transmission”
These asymptomatic carriers don’t appear to remain infected for more than a few weeks, according to
Early immune responses accompanying human asymptomatic Ebola infections E. M. LEROY², S. BAIZE², P. DEBRE*, J. LANSOUD-SOUKATE & E. MAVOUNGOU Centre International de Recherches MeÂdicales de Franceville, BP 769, Franceville, Gabon, and *Laboratoire Central d’Immunologie cellulaire et tissulaire, Centre National pour la Recherche
“In conclusion, we show that 7 individuals exposed to Ebola virus during outbreaks in Gabon were infected by the virus but never developed symptoms of acute disease nor antigenemia detectable by antigen-capture ELISA. However, Ebola virus RNA was present in the 3 individuals studied for up to 3 weeks following exposure. Virus replication and disease onset were apparently controlled by an inflammatory response, which was subsequently down-regulated by an anti-inflammatory response.”
I only looked up one article but don’t think it showed that asymptomatic carriers are a reservoir in the usual sense of the word. They may be able to infect others until their immune system clears the infection, but once that happens I see no evidence that they are a long term danger.
“I don’t care what the “artist” says: That’s not a Christmas tree!”
Western art has been dead since the early decades of the last century, across the board, too; literature, the plastic and visual arts, music, etc. Main cause being the so-called Great War and its continuance to the present day. We’ve lost countless tens of millions of people who might have contributed, but not only to these fields, of course. How many potential scientists and engineers and inventors have we lost? For what?
The Great War “ended” and a generation later we had an even worse war. Now our former allies from that war are our “enemies” and our former enemies are our “friends,” pretty much like Orwell illustrated a long time ago. They change periodically, while our rulers keep us all hotted up over specious bullshit and inflammatory rhetoric. This year it’s the creatures we helped to create with ISIS. In previous years it was Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Iraq, Iran, etc. In my time it was the North Vietnamese, the Viet Cong, the Khmer Rouge, the Pathet Lao, the Thai Cong, Red Chiner, Cuber, and the Soviet Union. Why we’re still mad at the Russian and Cubans while being pals and buddies with all those others is a freaking mystery to this writer who regularly should be consulting a bile specialist.
Art and music have been garbage for a very long time now; so some bozo “creates” some rubbish and the rulers stick it right out there in the public square. Hats off to the guy who slapped him. Would that more “artists” and “musicians” had been given a good slapping around and a few severe beatings here and there.
Net has been down all day here until just now; back on the wireless. Fairpoint screwed us and has been apologetic but evidently there is no one in the entire organization who can turn our net back on on any give day or night of this past eight days. Now I’m told to call “customer service” on Monday morning; yesterday I was left on hold for three hours with the speakerphone and I finally hung up and called again at 5:10, having been told to do that because they leave by 5:30. At that time I got through and got their answering machine and instructions to call during “normal business hours.” So they evidently buggered off 20 minutes early. Their “tech support” is available 7×24 but apparently unable to turn our chit back on for us.
OFD ain’t real happy. I’m not paying for this outage and if we’re still unhappy by mid-week we’ll be looking at another ISP, probably ComCast. Or even DISH if they now have internet service. We don’t care about broadcast/cable tee-vee but need the net and the Roku would be nice to have back.
Still overcast and drizzle here, no sign yet or calls from Mrs. OFD and MIL.
Well, both DISH and Comcast are out. We may have to struggle through ironing out this chit with Fairpoint after all. Damn. I wanted more ammo.
RoadRunner is a monopoly right where I am, though not a couple blocks over, go figure, and their quality of service and customer service is what you would expect of a monopoly.
@ Lynn: Sorry for the typo.
“One bloody missed spelling typo in the entire post, and it was in the most embarrassing place possible,” he mutters as he hangs his head in shame.
In regard to “Art is dead”: The creature (I refuse to call him either a man or an artist) that created this is from the U.S..
Anyone want to bet against the fact this was funded by U.S. tax dollars?
Sigh. At least it wasn’t a 60 thousand gallon (227,124.71 liter) jar of urine.
On the bright side, he’s displaying it in France!
The art critic in me says he should have put a slot in it near the top labeled “Place WWII loan payments here” and leave the thing in place until the French government fills it with money.
Would this be an ironic place for a misspelling? I think it would be.
Re the French war debts, a historically common response to refusal to repay is the seizure of national assets, or members of the nation. I’d suggest grabbing a few million of the best-looking young French women as war booty, pardon the pun, but the US already has plenty of unbathed women with mustaches coming in from Mexico. I don’t think we need to go and get more.
No, I missed catching the spelling error on final edit. Sometimes my fingers do things my mind does not tell them to do when I am typing.
As far as your description of the women went, you left out the Rapunzel length armpit hair…
As far as your description of the women went, you left out the Rapunzel length armpit hair…
And the once a month bathing routine. A crowded French subway on a hot summer day is a olfactory experience to be avoided.
Saturday night, watching Tennessee vs Ole’ Miss, listening to Barry Manilow, on http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-Roar-Built-/dp/B00L3YHF6O/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1413683770&sr=1-1&keywords=creative+sound+blaster+roar these speakers, Oh Mandy. Life is good.
I don’t know what decade you were in France, but you have to be making up this stuff about women there. I was told in puberty that French women started the trend of shaving legs. I do not suppose you want them to take that back? Actually, my personal experience was that Polish women in the US did not shave, but while living 40km from Poland for nearly a decade, I never saw an unshaved leg — ever. And, of course, the center of the perfume industry has long been Grasse, near the Riviera.
Never have gotten the American attitude to the French. Yeah, they ARE wired differently, but so are high IQ people. Maybe all of the French are high IQ.
They give us a beautiful statue of a lady that we put up at the entrance to our shores for everyone to see, and we give them a green butt plug. Who, pray tell, is the addlebrained in that equation?
American French-hating is nothing but racism, IMO.
You’re spoiling a session of listening to Mandy by watching gridiron?
I think the Frogs would be nicer if we just tried to speak their language a bit. Yanks don’t often bother. I made a bit of an effort and they were pleased.
“One bloody missed spelling typo in the entire post, and it was in the most embarrassing place possible,” he mutters as he hangs his head in shame.
No worries! Just tired of getting mail / email for Ms. Lynn McGuire. At least the phone calls for the lady of the house, Ms. Lynn McGuire, have ceased.
If you saw me, you would be sure that I am not a she-la. Chest hair, back to four inches long since the docs shaved it earlier this year. No hair on top except for a couple of leftovers. Enough back hair to definitely fulfill at least a couple of Silverback descriptions. Butt hair, wait, lets not go there.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-lynn-mcguire/30/7a9/73
I passed through France in the mid-1980s and the smell of the populace confirmed the stereotype. I suppose you could argue that all the stinkers in the airport were foreigners and I’d have trouble refuting it, but I’d think that the police and people at the ticket desks and such would be mostly French. I’ll admit that the crack about mustaches was something of an exaggeration, but it wasn’t totally made up.
And as for your claim that anti-French prejudice is racism, do enlighten us: what race are the French, which is distinct from the (currently) majority race in the US and in particular the putative race of most commenters here?
Lynn, my birth name was not Steve. It was based on a non-English language and it lent itself to humorous changes by English-speaking children and asshole family members, and in fact I was named for an uncle who had died of stupid.* I caught a lot of abuse for my name and hated it deeply.** Only the fact that I was able to change it before I was big enough to commit mass slaughter prevented a mass slaughter.
Because your age is well up into the double digits and you have a business and presumably a bunch of bills and property and what-not in your name, changing it, even if you were so inclined, would probably be more of a nuisance than it’s worth. I recommend that the next time someone misspells your name or you’re addressed as “Mrs Lynn…” or whatever, you just go straight to the mass slaughter.
* Here’s a hint, boys and girls: If you’re an alcoholic, don’t scuba dive.
** My father managed to go off to war and not come back, so he’s safe, but my mother had better hope she keels over and dies before I get a chance to pick a nursing home for her. I may be joking…
Steve, I can sympathize about your birth name. Mine, Edmund, is pretty rare. Growing up I heard every “Mr. Ed” joke there was. Of course, of course. But I kept it.
As for Lynn’s name, it’s uncommon but not rare in the South and Texas. I’ve known a couple of male Lynns.
My apologies to Chuck W.
My impression could be wrong, but I feel most of the people participating on this board would have accepted a simple “Your comments about the French are annoying me. Please either STFU or change the subject.”
There was no need to attempt to squelch the discussion by pulling out that nasty old “R” word.
While I might reluctantly admit that some of my comments attempting humor about the giant butt plug and SteveF’s comment might have been tasteless, perhaps even tinged by jingoism, a touch of xenophobia and a dollop sexism, I would like to know how they are racist.
I will admit that my knowledge might a bit out of date. When my formal education ended in the early 1970s, there were at most 4 racial groupings: caucasian, mongolian, negroid and australoid.
I was totally unaware there was now a French race.
S’il vous plait, Mr. Chuck, could you describe for us the racial characteristics of this hitherto unrecognized French race?
@Lynn:
The reason I was hanging my head in shame is that my last name is Bzdell.
I constantly have to deal with people spelling it Bydell, Badell, Bedell, Bidell, Bisdell, etc. We won’t even get into their attempts to pronounce it.
At a New Year’s party about 10 or 12 years ago, my wife and I ran into the old high school girlfriend of one of my brothers.
My wife couldn’t stop laughing when the lady said to her, “You know that Steve, Joe and John are the way they are because they all suffer from a vowel deficiency.”
Names…kids will find something wrong with just about any of them. We gave our kids very unusual first names, and very normal middle names, figuring they could switch if there were problems. Turned out there weren’t…well, some kids tried with the younger boy, but he just took the nickname and wore it proudly. Heck, for a while, I thought he was going to ask us to start using the nickname. By the time he dropped it, the whole issue had been forgotten and the class nitwits had gone on to other things. Wish I had had that much chutzpah as a kid…
Y’all been trolled by Mr. Chuck. Plus y’all RAAAAAACISTS anyway.
Here’s a link to the Army Racial and Ethnic Designation Categories so y’all can figure out what y’all are. RAAAAAACISTS. I’ve never seen such a RAAAAAAACISTS site in my life.
I’ve been following this pretty closely.
Based on what I’ve read, largely at http://www.operonlabs.com/?q=node/16
I’d suggest obtaining adequate quantities of Lamivudine and doxycycline and keeping them in your freezer, and starting a dosing regimen of the Lamivudine at the first sign of fever. If you actually develop full blown Ebola, up the dosage and start with the doxycycline to reduce the severity of the systemic tissue damage.
That looks pretty authoritative to me. The problem is, I don’t know how to get my hands on any lamivudine. The doxycycline I could synthesize if necessary.
Quoting the Urban Dictionary:
racism. A term used to classify the act of hating a particular group of people because of skin color, origin, or religion.”
That is the common vernacular. Try to excuse yourself with a narrow definition that does not reflect common modern usage if you want, but don’t look to me for an okay. I am sick of hearing slams against the French, whose blood is only 2 generations removed in me, and where I have relatives today. Even as a kid, I hated jokes about the Polish; several of my closer friends as I was growing up, were Polish. In 10 years living in Berlin, I never heard a Polish joke. In fact, I never heard a joke about any ethnic or national group. Americans should take a hint. Especially when it comes to the French. Had 4 visitors from rural France a summer ago last, and not a single one of them had any offensive odor whatsoever. With several trips to France while we lived in Berlin, and many more over the last 40 years, I have never smelled anything offensive around anyone, and I really doubt anyone here has, either.
Mr. Ray, Mr. SteveF and Mr. SteveB please add “liar” to the list of what you is.
MrAtoz said on 19 October 2014 at 10:37
RAAAAAACISTS … link to the Army Racial and Ethnic Designation Categories
Just about as bad as anyone ever was about the first people – Australian Aborigines.
The only provision they make for them is to throw them into an assortment of “odds and sods” bins.
Honestly, I can’t see any need for any official classification other than nationality, organisation, rank or grade (including civilian), qualifications (IQ, knowledge, physical condition and training, and any imposed conditions or limitations {like religion or lack thereof, belief that killing babies born/unborn is acceptable or not}).
Oh, and a link to personal history detail, highlighted one way or another (e.g. bold and/or italic) if it included bright highlights and or wobbly lowlights.
Under unofficial conditions, sex (physical and attitudinal) would also be relevant.
I can’t be a liar. I’m not wearing pants, so they can’t be on fire.
They could still be on fire. But, doesn’t your wife wear the pants in the family. 😉
Heh. I hate having anything on my legs or feet and thus wear shorts and go barefoot year round. I wear long pants for work (when not working from home) and at funerals, and tolerate anything on my feet only for protection or as required by law.
(What’s with the moronic laws that say you have to have shoes on your feet if you go into a publicly-accessible store? If I’m wearing sneakers outside and then go into the store, I’m bringing in dirt or whatever I stepped in. How’s that different than if I were barefoot? Dumbasses.)
Normally I’ll wear boots when shovelling snow, but that’s more for traction than for protection from cold. It’s a pain in the ass, often literally, to be working on a sloped driveway in bare feet.
With reference to the XXX-tree “sculpture”, what-all is your problem?
So, it’s a butt-plug. So what?
Haven’t you all been wanting to shove something up at least some of the French, one way or another, for a long time? What is it now? Second thoughts? Jealousy?
@SteveF: I don’t get it either, re bare feet. The bottom of your foot picks up dirt just like the bottom of a shoe. Maybe less, because you don’t normally get gravel stuck between your toes. Maybe it’s a liability thing?
The advantage of shoes ought to be: you can leave the dirt at the door by taking your shoes off. That’s the one problem I would have with going barefoot throughout the day – the dirt gets pretty embedded in your feet, and you can’t just leave it at the door, but you probably don’t want it inside, or on your sofa, or in your bed. How do ChuckW and SteveF deal with this practically?
In practice, because of laws and other BS I don’t do much barefoot walking except in our yard, which has good grass cover, and our driveway, which is usually clean. My feet don’t get much ground-in dirt, just bits of grass and such and a quick wipe on the doormat takes care of it. If I’m going past our yard, like walking to the school bus stop, I’ll generally hose them off or make a first stop in the laundry room with its shop sink or wipe my feet in wet grass.
“They give us a beautiful statue of a lady that we put up at the entrance to our shores for everyone to see…”
It’s just a big joke now, as far as actual liberty here goes in this country; and the words are from yet another Marxist wench that everyone sobs and grovels over. Given muh druthers, I’d dynamite the thing ASAP. Love watching those apocalyptic sci-fi flicks which have it submerged to the shoulders in ice or toppling in flames. Loved “Independence Day” for the demolition of the WH and most of Mordor.
Dunno whether French people stink but I can tell ya that their colonial Quebecois cousins speak a nasty bastardized form of the language, dress very strangely, and will typically cluster in the middle of store aisles chattering away like those little monkeys in “The Wizard of Oz,” usually midget-sized and with astonishingly jet-black hair on the petit jolie filles. I also found out how come rural Vermonters talk like they have a mouth full of marbles; it’s because they’re descended from les Quebecois who came down here to farm and work in the mills back in the old days, so a curious form of northern New England Yankee English mixed with colonial French.
And I just heard Mrs. OFD yakking on the phone; when she gets going it’s north-country New York, and very nasal. When I get going it’s a mix of Boston and Providence.
A southern English woman I know speaks very nice southern English, but when she and her Scottish hubbie start talking I can barely understand her (or him). Their daughter has defined her father’s language as “Scotlish”.
Och aye, Sco**ish (that’s a glottal stop, not ‘tt’). I lived in Scotland for a while – lovely people, gorgeous countryside. For a few weeks, I stayed in a B&B on the fringes of Aberdeen. The elderly couple had lived their lives on a remote farm in Aberdeenshire, and the B&B was their retirement. For the first couple of weeks, I just nodded politely to whatever they said…
That southern Scottish dialect has been known since the Middle Ages as “Lallans” Scottish, and is the language found in Bishop Gavin Douglas’s version of Virgil’s “Aeneid,” “Aeneados.” Along with his other books and those of that same period’s writers and poets. A further manifestation of it is heard in Glasgow, called “Glaswegian,” almost incomprehensible unless you listen to it for a while, say, in the movie “Trainspotting.”
Lallans, of course, was heavily intermingled with the speech of north English counties and earlier, Old Norse.