"jihadi ebola part 2" Topic

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For those who have a paranoid fear of NATIONAL REVIEW, this piece from that right wing rag the WAPO. I assume they vetted this guy and he really is an epidemiologist.

So you are saying you don't need the WAPO?

doc mcb of course he is they wouldn't print it if it wasn't true.

Fatman

TMI, TMI.

Uh, I think you volunteered the first bit about tp.

Well Doc, considering how well certain governments have managed the TP situation and the direction this one is going, stocking up is probably a very wise decision…

As for WaPo, unless one has a birdcage one probably doesn't get the print edition. And if one does get the print edition it would not therefore be suitable as a replacement.

P.S. Interesting that the '33 percent' fatality number presented in one of the other threads to lessen the perceived threat is now being countered by the WHO with a 70 percent fatality number. Of course that is in the affected African countries. As noted in the article a good reason to get on a plane to a developed nation if you think you have been exposed.

As one of the other news articles said – 'An aspirin and a lie.' After all 21 days is enough time to make travel arrangements.

P.P.S. Interestingly from that same linked BBC report -

The Sierra Leone army has closed the country's border with Guinea and Liberia to vehicle traffic in a bid to control the spread of Ebola. </Q/

Apparently they don't care if they get called 'racist.'

They must also have good stocks of TP and tinfoil hats…

Well, poo, I'm afraid you are right.

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Links to articles in LA Times and NYT and the WAPO piece i started with, all questioning the conventional wisdom -- which is what has been served up by the scoffers on the first thread --- that ebola does not spread easily and the US has little to fear.

MAYBE that is right and we can hope and pray that it is. But some experts are insisting that this is new enough that we should be cautious about old assumptions.

Read the piece and follow the links and read them.

Yet some scientists who have long studied Ebola say such assurances are premature — and they are concerned about what is not known about the strain now on the loose. It is an Ebola outbreak like none seen before, jumping from the bush to urban areas, giving the virus more opportunities to evolve as it passes through multiple human hosts.

Dr. C.J. Peters, who battled a 1989 outbreak of the virus among research monkeys housed in Virginia and who later led the CDC's most far-reaching study of Ebola's transmissibility in humans, said he would not rule out the possibility that it spreads through the air in tight quarters.

"We just don't have the data to exclude it," said Peters, who continues to research viral diseases at the University of Texas in Galveston.

Dr. Philip K. Russell, a virologist who oversaw Ebola research while heading the U.S. Army's Medical Research and Development Command, and who later led the government's massive stockpiling of smallpox vaccine after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, also said much was still to be learned. "Being dogmatic is, I think, ill-advised, because there are too many unknowns here."

If Ebola were to mutate on its path from human to human, said Russell and other scientists, its virulence might wane — or it might spread in ways not observed during past outbreaks, which were stopped after transmission among just two to three people, before the virus had a greater chance to evolve. The present outbreak in West Africa has killed approximately 3,400 people, and there is no medical cure for Ebola.

"I see the reasons to dampen down public fears," Russell said. "But scientifically, we're in the middle of the first experiment of multiple, serial passages of Ebola virus in man…. God knows what this virus is going to look like. I don't."

CDC officials also say that asymptomatic patients cannot spread Ebola. This assumption is crucial for assessing how many people are at risk of getting the disease. Yet diagnosing a symptom can depend on subjective understandings of what constitutes a symptom, and some may not be easily recognizable. Is a person mildly fatigued because of short sleep the night before a flight — or because of the early onset of disease?

Moreover, said some public health specialists, there is no proof that a person infected — but who lacks symptoms — could not spread the virus to others.

When the Times asked the CDC for comment, a spokesman told them lab tests have uncovered no evidence that the virus is mutating in ways that would make it more dangerous to humans — so far. The spokesman also said, in response to theories that the virus might be able to travel through the air in tiny aerosolized droplets, "I'm not going to sit here and say that if a person who is highly viremic … were to sneeze or cough right in the face of somebody who wasn't protected, that we wouldn't have a transmission." Is that possibly how the nurse in Spain got it? It's hard to believe a first-world hospital, knowing how dire the risk is to staff, wouldn't take precautions to prevent nurses from handling the fluids of an Ebola patient. But what about indirect contact, say, from an ill-timed cough while the nurse was in the patient's presence? In fact, an experiment conducted a few years ago involving pigs infected with Ebola resulted in the pigs passing the virus to monkeys despite the lack of any direct contact. Maybe that's because there's something unique to pig physiology that makes it easier for them to aerosolize the virus when coughing, but there's no way to be sure given the limited testing on Ebola. That's the whole point of the excerpt above.

None of these questions are new to people who are following the outbreak news but it's striking how many credible scientists like the ones quoted above are sending up these warning flares in major media outlets like the LAT. The first piece I read in this vein was this op-ed in the New York Times last month by Dr. Michael Osterholm, who claimed that doctors were privately worried that the virus might indeed evolve the capacity for airborne transmission. Osterholm's no crank; he's the head of the University of Minnesota's center for infectious disease research. And his logic was straightforward: The reason you might worry more at this point about evolution in Ebola than, say, in HIV or hepatitis or other viruses that have afflicted many millions over many decades is that there's never been a mass outbreak of Ebola in recorded history like the one we're experiencing now. The virus simply hasn't had much of a chance to evolve while passing from person to person. It does now, with an outcome that's yet to be determined.

Just today, the World Health Organization walked back the conventional wisdom that the virus incubates in an infected person for no more than 21 days. Turns out that a man who's gotten the disease and survived it can still pass it through his semen for up to 70 days afterward and possibly more than 90 days. Ebola could thus continue to thrive in Africa a la HIV as a killer STD. Neo-Neocon notes something interesting too, per the bit in the excerpt about what it means to be "symptomatic": Both Thomas Duncan, the Dallas Ebola patient, and the nurse in Spain had "slight fevers" when they first presented themselves to doctors. Fevers associated with Ebola typically run 101.5 or more. Could it be that victims with "slight fevers" are sufficiently symptomatic to pass the disease on?

bread, milk, eggs, sugar*, butter and cinnamon

No sense yet, they are all refrigerated perishables except the sugar and cinnamon.

Keep on spreading the alarm, Doc. At least this time you've gotten some credible citations (unlike that hack Goldberg).

EVERYTHING you quoted, though, is old news. Every virus outbreak goes through the same cycle of 'we don't know enough' to 'now we know enough' (especially influenza, which seemingly changes with every season). What is known about ebola, especially its transmission method, makes a vast uncontrolled outbreak unlikely in the US. And with increased observation, the chances of it taking hold is even less.

Is there reason to be concerned? Should the government take reasonable precautions to curb exposure? Of course. The same as will done during any virus outbreak (like the flu, which will kill this year far more than ebola every has. And is right around the corner, BTW). But to the point of hysterical jihadi plots to spread the virus? Really…..

But if the new sources are credible, and they address your main objections to the Goldberg piece, it seems to me that makes him credible, or plausible. "Don't know" means DON'T KNOW.

I think I'm done talking with you, coastal. I know a hopeless case when I see one. "Hysterical" is nothing but an emotional outburst on your part.

Who makes the ebola virus in 15mm?

Not 15mm but here's a plush version:

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If you think Goldberg's uninformed nonsense is credible, then there is no use continuing the discussion. Nothing presented here supports his ravings. But if it makes you happy, then knock yourself out…

Hope that tin foil hat doesn't get too tight….

"I don't put syrup on my French Toast."

Heathen!! Butterscotch syrup for me, thank you!!

No jihadis would have to blow themselves up to spread ebola.

There must be a lot of easy-to-aquire infected material in Africa right now. Hell, I hear they use it as a restorative in Bongolesia! ;)

They'd just need to send multiple ebola-laden parcels to the US and have their sleepers collect from PO boxes. It wouldn't take much effort to get it into the food chain or water table. It could even be smeared on toilet seats, or on tables in places like McDonalds.

And bleach certainly wouldn't be enough to kill it.

Scary stuff.

You know Conrad, I'm trying really hard to think how long the shelf life of ebola is when its not in a human. Not especially long I suspect.

Here's how you can summarise all this coverage, from left or right rag -

Step One: Decide you want to cause an ebola outbreak in the USA.

Step Two: ?

Step Three: Millions dead from ebola.

So until you or the writer you read work out step two, don't stress about it. Instead, consider your own health, I'm sure there's something you could improve about it. For me, I'm 40 and still smoking a pack a day. And that's got a better chance of killing me than ebola does. I can't do anything about a potential ebola epidemic, but I sure can do something about that smoking.

Its good to be worried about health issues, but ebola breakouts are global, your health is local!

People keep missing the point of terror: you only need to kill a few people, not millions nor even hundreds, if you do it in a visible way that creates panic and disruption of normal activities.

I hope and believe that American (and first world generally) health systems are strong enough to protect us against a mass epidemic.

So what?

Our security systems are evidently flawed enough that we've had, what, three potentially serious threat-situations to the PRESIDENT in recent months? (Shots hitting the WH unnoticed, the fence-jumper, and the armed guy on the elevator.) Are we arguing that the Border Patrol, say, is more efficient than the Secret service?

If 100 jihadis try to cross the border and the BP catches 99 of them, that is a loss for US and a victory for them.

The Breeakfast Club is either missing the point on purpose or deficient in imagination.

the point of terror: you only need to kill a few people

You don't even need to do that. An idea left unchecked can cause the same amount of fear and anxiety. Imagination is a powerful thing.

ebola breakouts are global, your health is local!

That's super-catchy McWong73! Like it.

Re-posted from Jihadi Ebola 1
"At least with ebola, the people suffering from it aren't trying to spread it around"

Unfortunately many of the sufferers and their relatives are denying the existence of Ebola (right up until it kills them!) and are not complying with movement and hygene restrictions (note, attempts to remove relatives from hospitals by force/mob rule.)

The general ignorance of the populace in the region is making things worse.

The UK is busy training/briefing a military field hospital to go to Sierra Leone to help. Hopefully more countries could do this too.

I think what we need is a 'fire break' to isolate this in the region, however unsavoury that may sound.

Like I said above, it's no good waiting for this to arrive at your doorstep, it needs to be tackled at source by a worldwide effort (civil and military) now.

A 5.56 firebreak…

Just heard UK are sending 700 troops including hospital, logistics and helo's

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chriskrum and others, does anyone remember, or has anyone read, THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS?

"which is what has been served up by the scoffers on the first thread --- that ebola does not spread easily and the US has little to fear."

I don't recall seeing that in the other thread.

"People keep missing the point of terror: you only need to kill a few people, not millions nor even hundreds, if you do it in a visible way that creates panic and disruption of normal activities."

It seems to me that in some cases, nobody needs to die at all. Some let their imaginations run wild to terrorise themselves without a single criminal act taking place.

"chriskrum and others, does anyone remember, or has anyone read, THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS?"

Now we are presenting old novels to support our statements?

Let's also panic over asteroids being targeted onto Earth by alien bugs.

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Normalcy bias is the opposite of paranoia.

LOL.

To the guy carrying the World Is Ending sign, everyone else has a "normalcy bias".

Old novels? Well, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN is an old novel, as is 1984 and ON THE BEACH. Novels are often used as a medium for political/social views.

"Supporting" is less correct than "expressing" through literature.

And, is that guy wearing pants?

"Novels are often used as a medium for political/social views."

Which social view are you trying to promote on The Miniatures Page with a novel that has been described as "racist, xenophobic and paranoid" as well as "widely revered by American white supremacists"?

"And, is that guy wearing pants?"

When the world is coming to an end, pants and matching footwear probably seem unimportant.

I bet he has enchiladas. I want enchiladas. You in for enchiladas Doc?

Interesting. My post disappeared but the one promoting white supremacist literature did not.

I guess Donald Duck is too offensive for TMP :-)

I think you guys need to contact the CDC, shooting ebola! why didn't they think of that! I'm pretty sure none of them science types would do that, the limp wristed geeks. I'd go the old school 303 route, but no one appreciates the classics these days.

Apparently, Weasel, 'white supremacist literature' is in the eye of the beholder, as with so many other labels.

As that book got a favorable review from William F. Buckley, Jr. it appears that others view it differntly.

On the OP, a Republican Representative has stated that, per conversation with the Border Patrol, 10 ISIS agents have been captured crossing the US border with Mexico. A Democrat Representative noted that of the 100 known citizens who have left the US to fight as members of ISIS, 40 have returned to the US (where they are being watched by the FBI).

Not therefore impossible to have ISIS coordinate a bio attack with ebola or another agent. Although a plot along the lines of that broken up in Australia might be more likely – kidnapping and beheading random civilians on camera. Something less than immediately fatal for the jihadi.

I do not believe CAMP is white supremacist literature.

Here's the first two Amazon reviews, which comport with what I recall of it forty years ago:

The Prophet as Leper
By Lloyd A. Conway on July 31, 2000
Format: Paperback
This book is so politically incorrect that I admire Amazon.com for actually carrying it. Written in the early 1970s, this book looks beyond the cold war to a North-South confrontation in which European civilization is unilaterally morally disarmed. The thesis is simple: suppose a million starving people from the Ganges actually took Western rhetoric of compassion, explotiation, etc., to heart, and comandeered, en masse, shipping, with the intention of moving to the shores of France? (Raspail, of course, is French.) Would anyone stop them? The imagery employed is interesting. The title comes from Revelation, Chapter 20, and refers to the forces of evil laying seige to the camp of the saints, here meant to be the nations of the West. "The thousand years are over…" is chanted from Third World lips, harking to the millenial reign of Christ, as well as to the millenial domination of Europe over the globe. Raspail has the Vatican, World Council of Churches, and other organs of what he saw as Western liberal compassion try to feed the Armada, as it sails around the Cape. The bodies of their would-be benefactors are cast into the sea. The characters who oppose, with violence, the Armada are named with names like Constantine Drasages and Luke Notaras, namesakes of the last Byzantine Emperor and Admiral. They are portrayed as villans in the media; one of the more thoughtful leftists, fashionably in support of opening up France's shores, but cynical enough to see the potential results, reflects on the parallels between Byzantium's fate and that of the West. The author's point is that any who dare to say that 'white' civilization has a right to exist are branded racists and cast out of the pale of polite society. The narrative is set up as a flashback. The Armada is about to disgorge its human cargo in Provence as we begin. An old man, M. Calgues, awaits them, Mozart playing in the background, after setting what he expects to be his last supper among the living. From there, we go back to the beginning, in India, as a Western cleric preaches quasi-liberation theology to the masses. Along the way, as the news spreads over the world, we digress, looking at Manhattenites holing up in skyscrapers as the spectre of race riots beckon, and at Russian troops on the Manchurian border contemplating the human waves gathering to wash over them. The central question of the book is this: will the West (including Russia – more properly, the North), when (not if) confronted with de facto occupation of national territories by Third World people, coming to live, but not to assimilate, use violence to save itself? Is there left in Euro-American civilization a will to live that is strong enough to pull a trigger? The stark question is answered in one of two possible ways by the concluding chapter. This astringent book, whether you agree with Raspail's views or not, demands thoughtful attention to the questions posed. How will we deal with population/immagration issues? Is our culture and way of life worth fighting for? -Lloyd A. Conway
5 Comments Was this review helpful to you?
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167 of 174 people found the following review helpful
A Courageous and Prophetic Polemic of a Novel
By Jamie MacTavish on August 7, 2002
Format: Paperback
Jean Raspail was already a distinguished travel writer and novelist when he put his reputation on the line with this one – He had a lot to lose. To his credit, Raspail pulls no punches and manages to say just about everything there is to say about the threat that Third World immigration poses to Western Civilization.
I had heard about this book, but decided to read it for the first time only after boat loads of Kurds landed on France's Mediterranean beaches a couple of years ago. The sight of hundreds of ragged Kurds running through the streets of Cannes could have been a scene from the film version of this novel.
The story is about an invasion of France by boat loads of East Indians, and the small group of Frenchman who defend against them. But as Raspail notes in the Introduction, the story is a parable – A parable of the destructive Third World immigration in the West that has been going on since the latter part of the 20th Century, and the West's lack of will to resist it.
Immigration negatively impacts the environment, the economy, crime, and national security. This novel posits that it further threatens to destroy the relatively democratic, tolerant and civilized cultures of the West and the essential commonalities of the Western peoples. According to Raspail, the West "has no soul left" and "it is always the soul that wins the decisive battles."
To call the novel "racist" is unfair. Raspail includes an East Indian among the "Saints" who defend France, and portrays many White Frenchmen who welcome the invaders as their equals. The novel clearly states that being a Westerner is NOT a matter of race, but a "state of mind."

WFB did indeed think highly of it -- which was why I read it.

Buckley threatened to punch Gore Vidal in the mouth when GV called him a Nazi. One sympathizes with the impulse. Slinging around words like "racist" loosely and without justification is very deplorable.

It is what it is, no matter how much you deny it.
Popularity with White supremacists is not a fiction. link

The two reviews you pasted are overtly xenophobic and politically biased.
Thanks for reinforcing what the Fox News analyst Linda Chavez said about it.

Yeah, but he read it 40 years ago. Maybe he's just misremembering.

Saw on Yahoo, that Homeland Security has confirmed capturing at least four ISIS agents trying to cross the Southern US border in the last 36 hours.

Makes me wonder how many got away, since usually they only capture a small portion of those trying to get into the country. Also doesn't count how many flew in on commercial aircraft from Europe, etc.

"….that ebola does not spread easily and the US has little to fear".

Yea, tell that to the well-trained Western doctors and nurses wearing bunny suits, and following enhanced safety protocols who contracted it. Many of them have paid for that misperception with their lives.

I find it very interesting that no one is talking about the costs to Western nations for not imposing a quarantine on travellers from the region.

Seems to me that would be far preferable, and less costly than trying to impose multiple quarantines around Western countries, who aren't prepared to deal with a huge ebola epidemic, and whose national health systems can't handle it.

Also consider that whoever wants to spread ebola to the US doesn't even need to get to the US, you get a good infection going in a place like Tijuana and your job is done. same with somewhere like Toronto. Given what I've said before it sounds like I've joined the alarmists, however I'm raising this because I doubt any of the media covering this in the US has even the remotest idea about epidemiology and the virtual impossibility that this could occur as a result of terrorism. More importantly no one has still defined step 2 that I outlined earlier.

already posted on the other thread:

Having spent about an hour perusing CAMP OF THE SAINTS, I will concede that I find many of his uses of "white" off-putting. I'd prefer to substitute "western" in many cases. Perhaps if he were writing today he'd do that. I do regret mentioning it, simply because it is a distraction from the real issue, which is not race but culture. (And that is clear enough from a fair reading of SAINTS.)

If I were putting together a "best of" our culture it would surely include Thomas Sowell and ML King and Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas and on and on. I don't care what anyone looks like; the important thing is how they think, what their values are.

The issue with immigration is assimilation. Which translates into "how many?" and "how fast" as much as "from where?" And also includes the question of whether our culture retains enough confidence to insist that immigrants DO assimilate. Which is what CAMP was asking.

I gave up on the old thread, all the cool kids are here now.

Be wary of using a word/concept like assimilation unless you want to come across as the Borg. Strictly speaking the term isn't inaccurate, but I don't think it accurately conveys the intent. Inclusion is a far better word, and easier to sell.

New world western countries, of which there are basically four: USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (you once may have included South Africa, but let's not go there), have all succeeded and grown super fast due to the inclusion of multiple cultures and peoples over a rather short period of time to enable fast track exploitation of our countries natural resources and industrial base. This is the real strength of the new west, and the one reason why other folks are jealous of the new west. We've proven that inclusion works, and that threatens those regions, countries and beliefs that have defined themselves by more narrow terms of race, religion, gender and cultural identity. We've also shown that these people who have included themselves into the new western countries embrace their new home with all of heart and mind. An example of this that we're familiar with are the Nissei, or the large number of people with Italian heritage who fought for their nation in WW2 against Italy.

But let's get back to ebola because we argue with each other better, which is more entertaining.

The main thing is that they learn English. After that there are other priorities, but the shared language is essential.

But have patience with the first generation! :)

Take my Chinese family as an example, arrived in Australia in 1871. My great grandmother spoke no English and had her feet bound, yet none of their kids spoke a lick of Chinese. It happens, but it takes a generation. My own kids are a half Lebanese, and they're highly unlikely to speak Arabic.

The problem MCWong is that a whole industry has grown up that profits from 'diversity' and therefore fights 'assimilation' of any kind tooth and nail.

Indeed in the US and UK at least we have instances of second generation Muslims who are far more radical than their parents.

But that is Fez territory.

As to the current 'cool' topic you need to head to the 'Ebola Migration' thread.

Sorry, but McWong73 nails it.

Just keep in mind that many in our respective nations were saying exactly the same thing about Irish Catholics less than seventy years ago, possibly less in parts of the UK and Australia.
I know young men whose parents migrated here from Lebanon and Syria who left High School and joined the Australian army…far, far more than those who have actually tried to harm the joint. As far as they're concerned they are doing their bit for their home and county, and I am grateful and proud of their commitment.

My paternal family are Irish Catholics and I've heard some disgusting things about their general treatment back in the day, even as late as the 1980s.

I guess the world needs it's bogeymen…

@Conrad G
I hate to say this, but as late as the 1980's some of them were blowing innocent civilians to pieces, now thankfully mostly stopped due to the peace process.

Yes, the standard process is a three generation transition from no English to broken English to native speaker English. PROVIDED the immigrants are not part of a subculture determined to resist Anglicanization.

How many Irish Catholic American citizens did the government feel the need to make a drone strike on, Conrad??

Not sure where the three generations came from Doc. They arrived in the early 20th century and my grandparents were proficient by the time I was old enough to remember. My parents could speak a little Slovene, but their English couldn't be distinguished from any of their contemporaries.

Apparently the education system isn't what it used to be, a topic for another forum.

And insofar as ancestry, as a third generation American i was far more interested in origins than my parents. Therefore, I find the fact that certain second generation Americans are more intensely religious than their parents and decide to go overseas to join organizations that are at war with their country anomalous. Although given the anti-Western bias of some current institutions and with the fall of Communism eliminating the previous alternative of choice, Islam is a logical choice. Another topic for the Fez.

Toilet paper is rarely a topic of amusement. Lack of toilet paper is even less amusing.