Sobering Look At The Threat Of Ebola

“Six Reasons to Panic,” at the Weekly Standard, offers a sobering, scientific look at the threat of Ebola:

1. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, … this Ebola is related to, but genetically distinct from, previous known strains, and thus may have distinct mechanisms of transmission. … Not everyone is convinced that this Ebola isn’t airborne. Last month, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy published an article arguing that the current Ebola has “unclear modes of transmission” and that “there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles … even if this Ebola isn’t airborne right now, it might become so in the future. Viruses mutate and evolve in the wild, and the population of infected Ebola carriers is now bigger than it has been at any point in history—meaning that the pool for potential mutations is larger than it has ever been.

2. General infection rates are terrifying, too. … despite the fact that Duncan was a lone man under scrupulous, first-world care, with the eyes of the entire nation on him, his R0 [“‘reproduction number’ … how many new infections each infected person causes”] was 2, just like that of your average Liberian Ebola victim. One carrier; two infections.

4. … The worst-case scenario envisioned by the [CDC] model is anywhere from 537,000 to 1,367,000 cases by January. Just in Liberia. With the fever [is] still raging out of control. …

5. … Marine Corps General John F. Kelly talked about Ebola at the National Defense University two weeks ago and mused about what would happen if Ebola reached Haiti or Central America, which have relatively easy access to America. “If it breaks out, it’s literally ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States,” Kelly said. “They will run away from Ebola, or if they suspect they are infected, they will try to get to the United States for treatment.” …

6. … it’s a straw-man argument to say that a flight ban wouldn’t keep Ebola fully contained. No one says it would. But by definition, it would help slow the spread of the virus. If there had been a travel ban in place, Thomas Duncan would have likely reached the same sad fate—but without infecting two Americans and setting the virus loose in North America. … Ebola has the potential to reshuffle American attitudes to immigration. If you agree to seal the borders to mitigate the risks from Ebola, you’re implicitly rejecting the “open borders” mindset and admitting that there are cases in which government has a duty to protect citizens from outsiders …

It is quite something when an “elite institution” like the Weekly Standard concedes that, “We have arrived at a moment with our elite institutions where it is impossible to distinguish incompetence from willful misdirection.”

All The President’s Women II

Barack Obama, Feminism, Gender, Government

Departing Secret Service Director Julia Pierson, Marie Barf, the sibilant spokeswoman at the State Department, Lois Lerner of the IRS, Martha Johnson, head-honcho for the General Services Administration, and the heavy hitters, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power: In “All The President’s Women,” we chronicled the qualities that make some of the president’s women such smashing successes.

But there are more. A “hell of a job” did Sylvia M. Burwell do, as head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), at preventing Ebola from reaching the US. Two young women have been infected and are fighting for their lives. “We know how to do this, and we will do it again,” boasted House Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco, who has also shown great promise, you’ll agree, at executing the one and only duty the feds should legitimately be doing: protecting innocent Americans from the invasion of an exotic killer.

UPDATED: Bar one man, all HHS Regional Leaders are women.

Our Father Who Art In 1600 Pennsylvania

America, BAB's A List, The State

Our Father Who Art In 1600 Pennsylvania
By Myron Pauli

Americans are religious zealots and politics is our common religion. And while we have two rival religious factions, both focus on that object of veneration or cursing, the Presidency. Together with His Winged Angels (e.g. the trillions of dollars of federal bureaucrats, invisible “contractors,” and drones), His Holiness can perform miracles or wreak punishment upon the nation at his complete whim. No mere obstructions such as laws of nature, common sense, or the US Constitution can impede His Divine Will to bring utopia to America or to punish us for our wickedness.

The Dow goes up – get on your knees and pray to the Heavenly Father of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. If the Dow tanks, go ahead and curse that evil President Mephistopheles. If something bad happens when your good God is in the White House, it is clearly punishment brought upon by the wicked idolaters of the Evil Party. If Satan is in the Oval Office, you can pray for redemption, political power, and “hope and change”.

No problem is too small, too remote, or too impossible for our Heavenly Father of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Yes, you might be sitting on your butt in your basement ignoring warnings when Hurricane Katrina comes but it is up to President Dubya Bush or his Winged Angels of FEMA to come and sweep you to safety. Hundreds of local municipal buses sitting in low-lying areas while the elderly are ignored in nursing homes and the local cops and firemen have scrambled away are clearly the fault of Bush and his Chief FEMA Angel and former horse judge Michael “hell of a job” Brown to haul everyone’s ass out of New Orleans.

While the President is, of course, omniscient and perfect, it is the wicked “American Haters” or “Racists” or “The One Percenters” or “Alien Welfare Bums” which caused that supernova to blow up 5,000,000,000 light years away. The latest plague is Ebola, either brought on by Satan Obama and flying monkeys from Africa or the evil racist Koch-Brothers who cut the budget for the Center for Disease Control. Even your toilet backing up is political. Our divine government can do ANYTHING– our NSA can track every terrorist, our TSA keeps our airplanes safe, or CDC solves all illness, our FEMA handless all emergencies, the Agriculture Department puts food on our table, the State Department makes us beloved throughout the world, the FBI catches all the bad guys, the CIA are all prophets, and the Marines can turn Afghanistan into the Switzerland of central Asia at the will of his Holiness. As the old saying goes, “we put a man on the moon”.

Our presidential libraries cost hundreds of millions of dollars and rival the ancient pyramids for the faithful to make pilgrimage to and genuflect at the greatness of the previous Holy Provider of all that is good.

And the media serves as the Yeshivas and Monasteries for the Faithful. Archbishop Hannity and Rabbi Maddow can lead us, the righteous and loyal, in our prayers “Blessed be Bush” and “Cursed be Obama” – Amen! – or is it the other way around?

Over 40 years, while Watergate was “testing our faith” (yes, we must have “faith” in the national government), I wrote up a Prayer For the President – albeit with a little help from King David. Picture a despondent H. R. “Bob” Halderman in search for a miracle and I leave you with this bit of inspirational satire:

The PRESIDENT is my shepherd, I shall not want
He maketh me lie before Senate Committees
He leadeth me before the Grand Jury
He restoreth my office
He leadeth me in the paths of eavesdropping for His re-election’s sake
Yea, though I walk through the valley of Watergate, I will fear no jail;
For thy re-election victory and executive privilege art with me
Thy clemency and thy staff, they comfort me
Thou preparest a coverup before me in the presence of thy enemies
Thou annointest my office with power; my zeal runneth over
Surely a light sentence and a good corporation job shall follow me all the days of my life
And I shall dwell in the White House forever.

******
Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.

Me And The Idiocracy

Healthcare, Ilana Mercer, Intelligence, Internet, Media, Politics, Technology

“Dying For Obama’s Deadly Dogma” must be rather good, if a total of four twitter twits saw fit to “un-follow” me, subsequent to its posting.

I’m used to the Idiocracy! To paraphrase Mark Twain, I can live for two months on a good compliment from worthy, literate people like my editor at Quarterly Review. He wrote:

“Intellectuals are fated to be outcasts.”

And this from the gifted, successful, mystery novelist Sibella Giorello:

“In a word: BRILLIANT.”

Thanks to both. You made my day.