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News/Politics 10-16-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. facepalm-double

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2. And if that video didn’t bring their incompetent response to all this into focus, this should.

From CNSNews  “Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said during a telephone press briefing Wednesday that you cannot get Ebola by sitting next to someone on a bus, but that infected or exposed persons should not ride public transportation because they could transmit the disease to someone else.”

“Frieden’s statement came in response to CNSNews.com’s question regarding a video message from President Barack Obama last week addressing Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa, in which the president told residents they “cannot get [Ebola] through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus.””

“My first question is, did the CDC vet this video message before it was released and posted on U.S. embassy websites, and is it true that a person runs absolutely no risk of contracting Ebola on public transportation, such as a bus?”

“Yes, CDC vetted the message, and, yes, we believe it’s accurate,” Frieden responded. “I think there are two different parts of that equation,” he continued. “The first is, if you’re a member of the traveling public and are healthy, should you be worried that you might have gotten it by sitting next to someone? And the answer is no.”

“Second, if you are sick and you may have Ebola, should you get on a bus? And the answer to that is also no. You might become ill, you might have a problem that exposes someone around you,” he said.”

Take a moment to absorb the stupidity of these statements……

How is it that you can’t catch it on a bus, but you can infect others on the bus if you have it. What?

And these are the experts handling this? We are so …….

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3. More bad news.

From TheJournalOfEmergencyMedicalServices  ” International aid organization Doctors Without Borders said that 16 of its staff members have been infected with Ebola and nine of them have died.

 Speaking at a press conference in Johannesburg Tuesday, the head of Doctors Without Borders in South Africa Sharon Ekambaram said medical workers have received inadequate assistance from the international community.

“Where is WHO Africa? Where is the African Union?” said Ekambaram who worked in Sierra Leone from August to September. “We’ve all heard their promises in the media but have seen very little on the ground.””

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4. Nope. No WMD’s here.

From TheNYTimes  “In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.”

“The New York Times found 17 American service members and seven Iraqi police officers who were exposed to nerve or mustard agents after 2003. American officials said that the actual tally of exposed troops was slightly higher, but that the government’s official count was classified.

The secrecy fit a pattern. Since the outset of the war, the scale of the United States’ encounters with chemical weapons in Iraq was neither publicly shared nor widely circulated within the military. These encounters carry worrisome implications now that the Islamic State, a Qaeda splinter group, controls much of the territory where the weapons were found.

The American government withheld word about its discoveries even from troops it sent into harm’s way and from military doctors. The government’s secrecy, victims and participants said, prevented troops in some of the war’s most dangerous jobs from receiving proper medical care and official recognition of their wounds.”

“Jarrod L. Taylor, a former Army sergeant on hand for the destruction of mustard shells that burned two soldiers in his infantry company, joked of “wounds that never happened” from “that stuff that didn’t exist.” The public, he said, was misled for a decade. “I love it when I hear, ‘Oh there weren’t any chemical weapons in Iraq,’ ” he said. “There were plenty.””

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5. Harvard educated lawyers are speaking out about the school’s new sexual misconduct policies.

From TheBostonGlobe  “Twenty-eight current and retired Harvard Law School professors are asking the university to abandon its new sexual misconduct policy and craft different guidelines for investigating allegations, asserting that the new rules violate the due process rights of the accused.

“This is an issue of political correctness run amok,” said Alan M. Dershowitz, an emeritus Harvard Law professor who was among the faculty members signing an article, sent to the Globe’s Opinion page, that is critical of the new procedures.”

“In a statement Tuesday night, Harvard said the new policy was enacted after a two-year review of its practices and its guidelines “create an expert, neutral, fair, and objective mechanism for investigating sexual misconduct cases involving students.”

The misconduct policy, which Harvard announced in July and which took effect this fall, includes a provision to adopt a “preponderance of evidence” standard when determining whether sexual assault or harassment occurred.”

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8 thoughts on “News/Politics 10-16-14”

  1. #4. This is confusing. Not only that, it doesn’t make sense.
    The reason we went into Iraq is the presence of WMD.
    When we didn’t find any, they said this was a mistake.
    But they evidently found some and kept it secret.
    And everyone kept saying that we made a mistake.
    There is a serious flaw in the logic.
    Or something else is at work here.

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  2. Chas,

    The reason the Pentagon and govt kept it quiet is because those weapons were made with the help of US companies, with the knowledge and assistance of our govt. They gave them to Saddam. That’s why it’s so hush hush, it’s to embarrassing to admit they were there because we gave them to him.

    Everyone in govt knew they were, that’s why Dems voted to go to war too. They later lied and said there were none, but all parties knew all along they were there because we helped put them there. And this doesn’t count the massive amounts shipped to Syria prior to the start of the Iraq War.

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  4. Chas,

    No. We supplied them when Iraq was at war with Iran. That whole “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” mentality at work. This perfectly illustrates the flaw in that theory. Eventually, if they become your enemy too, then you’ve made a huge mistake by helping them out.

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  5. This whole WMD thingy is an example of MYOB. One thing about Capitalism is that no central government planning committee can guess future demand for stuff. Nor can central government plan who/which “Freedom Movement” will be good/democratic. Save our money and limit our help to words. Don’t give away money or weapons.

    Look how many “Freedom Movements” go awry.

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  6. And it should also be pointed out that these weren’t the WMD’s military and Bush admin officials were looking for. These aren’t from an active program as Bush alleged Saddam had, they’re leftovers. The treatment once again for the veterans injured by this stuff is disgusting. This is troubling too.

    “Many chemical weapons incidents clustered around the ruins of the Muthanna State Establishment, the center of Iraqi chemical agent production in the 1980s.

    Since June, the compound has been held by the Islamic State, the world’s most radical and violent jihadist group. In a letter sent to the United Nations this summer, the Iraqi government said that about 2,500 corroded chemical rockets remained on the grounds, and that Iraqi officials had witnessed intruders looting equipment before militants shut down the surveillance cameras.”

    This is the same type of stuff alleged to have caused Gulf War Syndrome the first time around when troops destroyed stuff improperly. Nasty stuff. While they’re old munitions, they can still be used with other detonation means. And ISIS knows that too. 😦

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