Monthly Archives: October 2014

View 846 Wednesday, October 15, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

EBOLA OUTBREAK? Stock Market Plummets

A second health care worker who treated Mr. Duncan has now come down with Ebola. This has so concerned the President that he has cancelled a fund raiser and a golf game and will hold a cabinet meeting concerning public health.

Meanwhile, confidence in the competence of the government, which has repeatedly assured us that all the necessary protocols for preventing an Ebola outbreak in the United States are already in place, has collapsed and the stock market reflects that.

A ground swell of demand for sealing the borders against Ebola is developing, but no public official seems to be proposing that. Public officials are saying that we cannot refuse visas to those who wish to come to the United States. Of course those who come in through Mexico need no visa, but Ebola has a way of preventing vigorous travel. One can hope that the Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California National Guard could make that trip even more vigorous, but it is unlikely in California.

Whatever protocols are in place, they did not prevent someone well known to have been exposed to Ebola – she was treating a patient when he died from it – they did not include “monitoring” those known to be exposed to Ebola. We are repeatedly told about the competence of our meritocracy of unionized government workers.

Health care worker with Ebola flew on commercial flight a day before being diagnosed

The second health-care worker diagnosed with Ebola had a fever of 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit before boarding a passenger jet on Monday, a day before she reported symptoms of the virus and was tested, according to public health officials.

Even though there appeared to be little risk for the other people on that flight, she should not have traveled that way, Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a news conference Wednesday.

“She should not have flown on a commercial airline,” Frieden said.

This health-care worker flew on a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland to Dallas-Fort Worth with more than 130 other passengers. She did not have nausea or vomit on the plane, so the risk to anyone around her is “extremely low,” Frieden said.

The health-care worker was not identified by public health officials, but family members told Reuters and the Dallas Morning News that her name is Amber Vinson, a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. She was part of a team that had cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who flew to Texas and was diagnosed with Ebola last month, during his hospitalization in Dallas. Duncan died last week. Nina Pham, a nurse who also cared for Duncan, was diagnosed with Ebola on Sunday.

Vinson, who flew from Dallas to Cleveland on Friday, flew back to Texas on Monday, a day after Pham was diagnosed. She reported a fever on Tuesday and was isolated and tested for Ebola.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/10/15/ebola-stricken-nurse-flew-on-a-passenger-plane-a-day-before-being-diagnosed/

It is now reported that Ms. Vinson had a low grade (99.8 F) fever on Monday when she took the commercial flight; there is argument over whether that is a symptom of Ebola, and whether or not she was contagious on Monday. One would assume this is a ‘breach of protocol”. And there is this:

Sorry to say this but it appears that our Government has been lying to us about Ebola once again.

In a recent report from WHO ( http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/14-october-2014/en/ ) there is the little noted announcement that the 21 day incubation period is an error.

The REAL period appears to be much longer.

95% of the cases are under 21 days

3% of the cases are up to 42 days

2% fall in the other long period (something longer than 42 day)

Plus there appear to be infected individuals who never develop symptoms ( like Typhoid Mary ) but who are still infectious (that is possibly where the 2% comes from). That would be something to be feared — with 8000 cases that means there are 160 individuals walking around with no symptoms but who are spreading the disease. Just imagine one of them catching a flight to Europe and maybe on to America – nothing to identify them other than they came from West Africa. And they keep infecting those around them.

so it seem that areas of Nigeria that were declared cleared are having flare ups from the tail end of the sample curve that was over 21 days.

With 5% over the 21 day limit we have to be a lot more cautious than accepting the statistical 5% test. Our lives depend on it!

The problem with the Biological Sciences is that unlike Physics and Chemistry you end up with exceptions to just about any rule, and the data is never clear cut and definitive. Schrodinger achieved fame as a Physicist, if he were a Biologist he would be regarded as just another picky German who wanted a precise answer.

I am really not trying to sound overly pessimistic, but it is better for the truth to be told rather than live under government lies that will surely kill us.

Earl

See also this correspondent’s letter on the Ebola question in yesterday’s View; it is important. https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/questions-about-ebola-questions-about-an-essential-reading-list/

Re: Earl’s note (here: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/questions-about-ebola-questions-about-an-essential-reading-list/)

I was struck by Earl’s analysis of preparation strategy.. namely using the survivors to care for the those coming down with the virus. That brought to mind stories that my father told about his time in the Navy in the early 50s. They sent the ship he was on back and forth between climate extremities, in part to achieve what he thought was an experiment in adaptability. The administration and the Navy department then had no problem experimenting with personnel for the ‘greater good’. It’s quite possible he and his shipmates were a part of the experiments that led to the establishment of ‘wind chill’ calculations that are now a standard adjunct to all weather reports.

Now take that philosophy in concert with the deployment of troops to ‘help’ with the Ebola outbreak in Africa. If the administration were worried about a massive outbreak here and needed to build up a cadre of immune, command-able individuals that could handle the sick, this would seem to be the perfect laboratory to incubate such a cadre. The possible loss of half the deployed troops could just be attributable to ‘bad luck’.

Yes, I am aware that this sounds like ‘black helicopter’ reasoning, and while I do suspect the current administration is more than capable of such a move, I doubt they have the cunning to pull off such a measure. Yet, they have demonstrated they have the hubris to attempt a great many underhanded things that were unthinkable with in past administrations. In any case, I think this is a line of thought worth keeping in mind.

Liberian Ebola Survivors Return to Help the Sick

Former Patients Like Salome Karwah, Who Lost Her Parents to the Virus, Offer Comfort and Counseling at Clinic

MONROVIA, Liberia—Six mornings a week, Salome Karwah gets up and goes to work at the Ebola treatment unit where she watched her parents wither and die just three days apart and where she almost died of Ebola as well.

Ms. Karwah, 26 years old, who had been a nurse’s assistant at a private clinic before the outbreak, recovered from the virus and was discharged on Sept. 5 as a patient from the Elwa treatment unit here. Less than a month later, she returned as one of seven Ebola survivors hired by the clinic, run by Doctors Without Borders, to counsel and comfort those suffering from the disease.

She and the other survivors are paid for their work at the Ebola unit, but few see it as a job. They are part of a select group that have withstood the virus here and they want to help.

(Update: Second health-care worker at Texas Hospital tests positive for Ebola).

http://online.wsj.com/articles/liberian-ebola-survivor-now-comforts-other-patients-1413301824

A collection of Ebola survivors trained in working with the disease would be valuable for many reasons including as a plasma supply, but it is unlikely that anyone has this intent.

This government seems more concerned with intentions than accomplishments. 

Can All U.S. Hospitals Safely Treat Ebola?

http://mashable.com/2014/10/13/can-us-hospitals-treat-ebola/

ABC Chief Medical Expert: CDC Wrong, All US Hospitals Can’t Treat Ebola Safely

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/10/12/ABC-Chief-Medical-Expert-CDC-Wrong-All-US-Hospitals-Cant-Treat-Ebola-Safely

Dr. Richard Besser, the chief health and medical editor for ABC News, told WFAA-Dallas on Sunday that he found the second Texas Ebola case "very concerning." As reported by Breitbart Texas, the latest patient diagnosed with Ebola is a female nurse at the Texas Presbyterian Hospital who treated Thomas Eric Duncan before he died from the disease. Besser, having recently returned to the United States after visiting Ebola-stricken areas of Liberia, expressed sharp disagreement with the protocols being followed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), dissatisfied with their admission that they needed to adopt enhanced protocols in a press conference Sunday.

Besser told WFAA that he had been anticipating the news of a second Ebola case. "I don’t find it surprising, but I find it very concerning," he said, continuing that it was necessary for health authorities to cast "a very wide net" to search for anyone who may have had even the most incidental contact with either Duncan or the nurse. The difficulty in containing the spread of the disease, according to Besser, is that it takes special training and experience to follow the isolation protocols and use the protective gear properly.

"The idea that this could be done by any American hospital that has an isolation room and can be done safely, I was skeptical about that," said Besser, in a clear departure from recent statements by the CDC that any American hospital can safely care for Ebola patients. Besser mentioned the highly specialized biocontainment equipment and advanced training available at at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where Fort Worth doctor Kent Brantly was successfully treated for Ebola exposure, and the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where an NBC photographer is currently getting treatment.

Besser agreed with Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC head, who had said that the new Ebola case was caused by a "breach in protocol." "You cannot get sick without a breach in protocol, [however] you can’t implement that protocol without training and practice. It’s very difficult to take off the protective gear in such a manner that you don’t potentially contaminate yourself." Besser cited this new Dallas case and the case of a nurse in Spain who had contracted Ebola from a patient, and the fact that health care workers at the Emory and Nebraska facilities had not gotten sick, as illustrative of the vital difference that the training can make.

Ebola Is Coming. A Travel Ban Won’t Stop Outbreaks

J V Chamary

 

Ebola has officially gone global.

The World Health Organization recently confirmed that a Spanish nurse was the first case of transmission outside Africa. Now it seems the first patient diagnosed in the United States transmitted the disease before he died.

More outbreaks are on their way.

While nations struggle to contain the epidemic in West Africa, other countries are discussing how to protect their own citizens, with governments and health authorities repeatedly asked the same question:

Why don’t we just ban flights from Africa?

The idea seems logical. Prevent sick people entering the country, keep your loved ones safe. It’s selfish, but understandable. A survey of over 1000 people by NBC News found that the majority of Americans (58%) support a ban on flights from countries where the Ebola virus has broken out.

Dr Tom Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has tried to explain why he doesn’t support a travel ban:

Importantly, isolating countries won’t keep Ebola contained and away from American shores. Paradoxically, it will increase the risk that Ebola will spread in those countries and to other countries, and that we will have more patients who develop Ebola in the US. People will move between countries, even when governments restrict travel and trade. And that kind of travel becomes almost impossible to track.

Simply put: you can’t seal the country. If you blocked air travel, it would force desperate individuals to use alternative routes – over land and sea – to escape the epidemic. They’ll still end up in the US, except you won’t know where.

An attempted travel ban would be like locking yourself in a cabin on a sinking ship and praying the flood doesn’t seep through the gaps, and that the water pressure won’t be enough to burst through the door.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2014/10/13/ebola-travel/

I would not have thought it impossible to quarantine those from plague ridden areas, and to refuse them visas to the United States, but I am not familiar with the current Department of State protocols.  I suspect that the Joint Chiefs of Staff could devise a way.

Chaos Manor Reviews, and The View from Chaos Manor, operate on the Public Radio model: they are free, but we are supported by patronage and subscriptions. If you have not subscribed, this is the week to do it. If you have subscribed but can’t remember when you last renewed this would be an excellent time to renew. KUSC asks for $10 a month. My costs are much lower so I don’t need that much. How to subscribe is described here: PAYING FOR THIS PLACE.

Who says Ebola isn’t airborne

Tuesday, September 23, 2014 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

"The fact of the matter is that Ebola has never been proven not to transmit through the air, which is reason enough to assume that it does for the safety of workers on the ground. The two doctors explain that, scientifically speaking, Ebola currently has "unclear modes of transmission," meaning nobody truly knows all the ways that infections can emerge. "

"We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators <http://www.naturalnews.com/respirators.html> , not facemasks," they wrote, citing an earlier paper Dr. Brosseau published in the American Journal of Infection Control".

http://www.naturalnews.com/046986_Ebola_airborne_transmission_respirators.html

In November 2012, they say it is airborne!!!!

http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/pigs-monkeys-ebola-goes-airborne-112112

http://www.naturalnews.com/046986_Ebola_airborne_transmission_respirators.html

And, YOU don’t think Obama isn’t playing the typical game of total deceit keeping the people from panicking? If the cold virus is airborne, logic and common sense mandates that ANY virus can be airborne. Why don’t they tell why this virus isn’t airborne while all others are? ASSUME IT IS!!!!!

Google the Internet for more :<Ebola is airborne>

http://www.endalldisease.com/cdc-caught-lying-airborne-transmission-of-ebola-confirmed/

There’s nothing hidden about that fact. But the records don’t show that any humans grew ill from the Reston strain. Might be the cowpox version of Ebola. In which case maybe it’s what the researchers need to concentrate on for a vaccine.

Stephanie Osborn

Rommel And Ebola 

Jerry,

The German general Erwin Rommel famously said that Americans knew less but learned faster than any other opponents he’d faced. This was, of course, shortly after the first major WW II battle between US and German troops, at a place called Kasserine Pass – a fiasco for the US.

We can only hope our current medical leaders still learn fast. I made the (apparently common) error over the last couple of months of assuming that the West Africans’ growing problem with Ebola killing off their medical personnel was a matter of primitive conditions, scarce protective gear, and sloppy procedures. Perhaps so – but the second Dallas hospital worker diagnosed (so far) tells me we are not near as much better than them as we thought.

Our government’s position that any decent US hospital is intrinsically able to handle Ebola seems to have been abandoned overnight. I now see signs that our new government policy will be massively centralized, and resource-intensive to the point where if there are any significant number of cases the resources will quickly run out.

One of the immediate results of the Kasserine disaster was that heads rolled among the US leaders responsible. It’s probably too much to hope for here in 2014; we don’t seem to do that anymore.

I do hope that local medical people around the country are now seriously planning how to at least keep the transmission rate below 1.0 with resources at hand as outbreaks occur. I do not see any way we will escape this thing unscathed, but we should still be able to prevent epidemic spread here.

good luck to us all

Porkypine

Meanwhile in the Middle East

Subject: RE: Gruesome photos may show ISIS using chemical weapons …

Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 21:52:03 -0400

Chemical weapons are quick relative to what else is going on…

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/08/17/human-rights-watch-gay-men-systematically-tortured-and-killed-in-iraq/

http://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/punishing-gays-rectums-are-glued-shut-and-they-are-force-fed-petrol-and-set-alight/

Stephanie Osborn

Interstellar Woman of Mystery

http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com <http://www.stephanie-osborn.com/>

We continue to break things and kill people, but without apparent objectives.

Ebola in columns and talk shows today

http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-10-15.html

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/11/Michael-Savage-on-Ebola-Third-World-African-Dictators-are-Smarter-than-Barack-Obama

http://www.marklevinshow.com/common/page.php?pt=2nd+Ebola+Nurse+Called+CDC+Before+Boarding+Plane%2C+CDC+OK%27ed+It&id=11423&is_corp=0

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/10/15/obama_s_deadly_ebola_failure

 

I have read your thoughts on Ebola with interest. Indeed, why not restrict travel from places where Ebola is endemic? At first glance it surely seems like politically-correct insanity. But here is another view on the topic…

http://globuspallidusxi.blogspot.com/2014/10/obama-is-letting-diseases-enter-united.html

John De Chancie and I are working on a space opera, and he came over for lunch, after which the two of us went to the hospital to see Harlan Ellison,  As reported yesterday he had a stroke last week and is in recovery.  We called his wife first to be sure it would be appropriate,  Harlan is in a Catholic hospital, and at his request the nurses – he hasn’t seen any Sisters yet – covered the crucifix in his room.  One of them with a sense of humor used the standard pain estimation instructions as the cover.  John and I both went to Catholic schools in our youth so we have a somewhat different set of expectations…

Harlan looks good.

He’s sitting up in a wheelchair, with a hospital table in front of him.  I pointed out that there’s a 20% Federal excise tax on all medical equipment including his chair and that table and any other stuff they have to use in his physical therapy sessions.

He is recovering the use of his right arm and leg, and it looks as if all the neurological pathways are intact so it’s a matter of practice to get back full function.  Nothing wrong with his head.  He can still dominate a conversation for two hours, with me in the room, and that’s a rather large feat.  David Gerrold was there when we got there, and we had a fine afternoon talking about everything from the old days and taking Robert Silverberg to dinner to comparatively modern times.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 846 Tuesday, October 14, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

I have just learned that Harlan Ellison had a stroke last week, but is in recovery, and has been visited by many of his friends.  He is an old friend. We are not close, but we have been good friends for decades. Mike Glyer’s account is here.  http://file770.com/?p=19220 

The October Column FINAL is now in the hands of the managing editor, and will begin to appear at Chaos Manor Reviews. I remind you that this is Pledge Week. I do not constantly bombard you with requests that your subscribe except during the weeks when KUSC, the Los Angeles classical music station, hold their pledge drive. This place operates like public radio. It’s free, but it is publicly supported, and won’t survive without subscriptions and patronage. If you have not subscribed, this is the time to do so. If you can’t remember when you last renewed your subscription this would be very good time for that. We have several levels of subscription and support. Paying for This Place

The official line is that American hospitals are all prepared to handle Ebola, so we need not have an international quarantine. This opinion is not universally shared:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/14/who-new-ebola-cases-world-health-organisation?CMP=fb_gu

Ebola

Something that is not being actively noticed in the media is a statement I read from Ms. Pham that she was involved in the initial (2nd) reception of Mr. Duncan when he presented in the ER. At that time she had NO protective gear to shield her from an active case of Ebola that had yet to be diagnosed.

The danger to the medical community is not from shedding virus during the treatment. It is rather to the EMTs who pick up the patient, the receptionist at the Doctor’s office, the other patients in the waiting rooms, and the ER staff all of whom have direct contact with a patient with active symptoms and already in an infectious state. It does no good to don protective gear after you have already been exposed.

With only 19 hospital beds in the country rated to treat this Level 4 disease we are just whistling in the dark about the ability of the medical establishment to contain the outbreak. The typical Doc in a Box facility or even major hospital are ill equipped to handle a presenting case. Most of the scares we will see in the next few weeks will be merely false alarms that turn out to be something else. But then we get the real event that contaminates a major medical center and is the lead in to infecting most of the skilled caregivers. Ebola requires a Level 4 care but most of our facilities are Level 2 and only a few are even Level 3.

This will end up as a major social catastrophe, the medical resources consumed and the treatment reduced to families providing the only treatment received. The only treatment that will be available will be to keep the patient hydrated while experiencing major loss of fluids and salts. And the net result will be that 50% of the patients die, even with the best treatment. In spite of all the claims of miracle vaccines that are being investigated the only recognized treatment is a plasma treatment from a person who has already recovered.

The only way to fight this problem is to institute a full scale mobilization. A person who comes down with Ebola will be placed under military supervision, and treated by people who have recovered and are now well and immune . All the messy things that need to be done to clean up a person with total loss of body control. And then carry out the disposal of the 50% who fail to survive. The lucky 50% would then be drafted as caretakers for the next round of infections. The survivors would have their blood drawn weekly for plasma to be given to the new patients. (The new miracle treatments that the pharmaceutical industry promises have not even passed the initial safety trials let alone dosage or efficacy and the ramp up in production would be like penicillin during WW2 – a miracle but not available for several years due to production problems). Strangely the only recognized treatment besides plasma from a survivor is nano- silver (which was recognized effective by the DoD against viruses in the blood but has major criticisms ) but obviously has no commercial possibilities.

We are lucky that Ebola has such a poor reproduction capability. Each victim on average only contaminated 2 new individuals, unlike measles which has a reproduction factor of 48. So like clockwork we can expect a doubling of the cases every 2 or 3 weeks. Think of the horror if the instead of 2**n we were facing 48**n. But one year gives us an n=17 (or worst case n= 25), and with a base of 4000 present cases the number of cases to be expected will be very high – and 50 – 70% fatalities. If the doubling time is taken as 2 week we would have the whole Earths population involved within a year (less isolates)

There is a minute but real possibility that we can stop it THIS time. More likely however is the probability that, thanks to inadequate quarantine, that the genie is already out of the bottle. so we will see the progress is remorseless, and the chances of the disease dying out are nil. If the virus destroys a small isolated village no one notices, but now that it has reached the major metropolitan regions of Liberia etc. it will spread like a wildfire. Wealthy people will flee to other countries for safety, and since they are under the 3 week max incubation period their illness would be undetectable for a few days. Even the tests that are available will give a negative result until about the 4th day of active symptoms as virus spreading contaminates the surroundings. People will flee from danger carrying the plague with them to the four corners of the world. It will be the Middle Ages all over again, with each village and castle isolating itself until the disease breaches the defenses. And like in the Middle Ages our leaders will exhort our masses to put their faith in the Medical Establishment / God. The net result being a loss of faith and a new Reformation.

Earl

I do not share your pessimism, but I also do not share the unbridled optimism of the officials.  The President waited a long time before realizing the importance of this.  Ebola is not easily made into a weapon, but coupled with suicide bombers that transformation is not so difficult.  I do not believe that Washington is taking this threat as seriously as it should.

Wednesday AM: A second nurse who cared for Mr. Duncan has now developed Ebola, showing symptoms one day after she took a commercial airline flight.  The President has cancelled a fund raising tour and a golf game and will hold a cabinet meeting.  More news in the Wednesday VIEW.

My experience is 30 odd years in the nuclear industry dealing with surface contamination at various levels. For very high levels of contamination two separate layers, each sealed were used. The first one removed on leaving contaminated area. Then past a step off area to remove second layer. For really hot areas a second person assisted and was fully dressed out.

The technique of removing protective gear MUST be trained as it is easy to make errors. The best training uses a fine UV fluorescent powder as contamination. The worker is checked after task to determine success. Should be repeated until a clean result is obtained. And importantly annual retraining.

Protocol error could be a training error not a mistake.

Tom

The lack of training of ER personnel in use of isolation gear is becoming manifest, despite all the public statements about how well prepared we are. 

On Reading Lists:

Dr. P:

Greetings, sir! I hope you’re well.

A while back (ten years ago?), you posted a list of essays and books that you considered essential reading for people keen on understanding history as you do. I was wondering if you would consider reposting that list, as I’ve been unable to find it using Google keyword searches.

Thank you!

Bart Leahy

I must have that list somewhere, but I’m not finding it. I do have a list of works that I consider essential for anyone growing up as a citizen in Western Civilization. When I catch up with some other works I will try to recompile it.

Meanwhile: there are a number of books of great importance, but as I grow older, I realize that what seems to be missing in western education now is an historical framework in which to insert various works so that they can be imbedded in their time. One very readable book that does this is Fletcher Pratt, Battles That Changed History. Pratt chooses fewer battles than the classical battles that changes history books, but his strength is that he embeds his into an overview of western history. That doesn’t substitute for a good sense of western history from the times of the Battle Ax People to the Fall of the Soviet Union, but that’s what you will want. Many of us started with A Child’s History of the World. I read that at age 5, although it is intended for older children, and I see to it that all my grandchildren have it. Van Loon’s Story of Mankind is another book I can recommend. The important thing is to have a notion of what went on at various times. Then you can begin to learn history. You haven’t learned it from those books, but you do have a bit of a picture.

A fairly good edition of Pratt can be found at Gutenberg Press.

And, frankly, the California Sixth Grade Reader of 1914 that I have recently put up as an eBook contains a number of essential stories and poems that at one time everyone was simply assumed to have read. The stories in that book are a sampling, but that was a fairly good sampling.

After that we have, from previous entries in this column:

Liberal Education in a nutshell

In an article titled "An Education in 404 Pages," by James Baccus, Vanderbilt Magazine, Spring 2003 issue, page 11, the author cites the following as the most significant recommended reading for someone interested in a liberal education but without the time to read the works in full.

1. Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance."
2. Alexis de Tocqueville, "The Principle of Interest Rightly Understood," from Democracy in America.
3. Thucydides, "the Melian Dialogue," from the History of the Peloponnesian War.
4. James Madison, Federalist 10 and 51.
5. Adam Smith, "On the Division of Labor," from The Wealth of Nations
6. Voltaire, Letter 15, "On the System of Gravitation."
7. Richard Feynman, "The Uncertainty of Science," from The Meaning of It All.
8. Plato, "The Cave," from The Republic.
9. Michel de Montaigne, "Of Cannibals," from The Essays.
10. John Stuart Mill, "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion," from On Liberty.
11. Karl Popper, Chapter 10, The Open Society and Its Enemies
12. Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Grand Inquisitor," from The Brothers Karamazov.
13. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From Birmingham Jail.
14. Virginia Woolf, Chapter 6, A Room of One’s Own.
15. Abraham Lincoln, "The Gettysburg Address."
16. Suetonius, "Augustus, Afterward Deified," from The Twelve Caesars.
17. George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language."
18. Edmond Burke, "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol."
19. Samuel Johnson, Number 21, The Rambler.
20. Immanuel Kant, "On Perpetual Peace."
21. Henry David Thoreau, "On Seeing," from his Journal.
22. Plutarch, "On Contentment."
23. Soren Kierkegaard, "The Story of Abraham," from Fear and Trembling.
24. William Hazlitt, "On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth."

Jim Woosley

I might quibble here and there, and I think some of those entries are less important than some that were left out, but there’s nothing wrong with that list. I’d certainly include a couple of Plutarch’s lives in addition to the essay; they’re fun anyway. And Cicero on how to make a speech isn’t fun but is very much worth slogging through. Do understand, though, that this is a small selection of works that civilized persons should be exposed to over their lifetimes.

Dr. Pournelle, While reading your page I came across the reading list for a liberal education. Am I to take the word Liberal to mean politically liberal as we see in the United States today, or are we talking about a classical education? I am interested to understand. If you truly do recommend some of these books I will hunt them down.

Douglas Knapp

When I was a lad, a "liberal education" meant broad, with philosophy, an education in "the liberal arts," as opposed to narrow and more technical education such as one got in a music conservatory or an architectural school. The St. John’s College "Great Books" program was sort of the epitome of liberal arts education.

In those days most college graduates were Republicans (about 75%) so "liberal" didn’t mean politically liberal in the modern sense, but for that matter, a political liberal in those days wasn’t automatically an anti-anti-Communist supporter of welfare and of relaxing or ending discipline in schools. But in those days the Democratic Party was the party of "tariff for revenue only" and the Republicans were for protective tariffs, Democrats were for states’ rights and the Republicans had most of the black vote.

There are no items on the list given above that one should not have read, but it would be impossible to agree with everything there since there are mutual contradictions. And as I said, I would add some items, and if doing that required taking some off the list, I’d do that: not all the ones listed are the highest priority.

The real problem is trying to get an education of the old variety on the cheap. It’s far better to have read Federalist #10 than no Federalist Papers at all. It’s far better to have read some of Tocqueville than none, and it’s far better to have read some of Mill’s On Liberty than none of it, and part of one of Plato’s works than none of them, and — well, you get the idea. For those starting late and trying to see what this liberal education stuff is all about, that’s no bad list.

But I would seriously add a few summary works. Barzun’s Dawn to Decadence, Pratt’s Battles That Changed History, and Paul Johnson’s Modern Times are among them probably longer than the entire list given above, but they contain a great deal of understanding of our era.

Anyway, you will do yourself considerable good by finding those works and reading them.

You may find one problem: most of these works sort of refer to each other. Clearly the earlier ones don’t refer to the later, which is why many Great Books programs take works in chronological order, but there are difficulties with that approach too. The result is that you may not fully understand any of those works until you have read them all.

Classics are not always works one is glad to have read or wishes one had read, but one doesn’t want to read (although that can often enough). Some are a delight, and more so the second time you read them after you get that understanding that comes with familiarity with what was once the world of civilized discourse.

Hello, Jerry,

In addition you the rest of your reading, consider the newly-reprinted _A Stroll With William James_, by Jacques Barzun (U Chicago Press).

Someone on the William James discussion list called it "delightful", and they were right. All-around good book.

[Incidentally, I would add some part of Locke’s Second Treatise and the Declaration of Independence to the great essays subset of the Great Books. Also, bits of Adam Smith. And…]

Regards,

John Welch

Which I can certainly agree to.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 846 Monday, October 13, 2014

Happy Birthday, US Navy!

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

I’ve just finished the October column, about 9,000 words, and sent it to the prepublication list. I’ve heard back from quite a few, and I expect to have the FINAL done by tomorrow evening, at which point I’ll send it to my managing editor for posting.

And I’m starting on the November column, in hopes of getting the deadline dates closer to the beginning of the month. I also have to work on fiction. It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.

I thought we had Ebola under control. I was wrong. The nurse, Nina Pham, 26, who treated Mr. Duncan has now become the first person in all of history to catch Ebola while in the United States.

DALLAS —

Federal health officials on Monday urged the nation’s hospitals to "think Ebola" and launched a review of procedures for treating infected patients, while the World Health Organization called the outbreak "the most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times."
Public-health authorities also intensified their monitoring of Dallas hospital workers who cared for a Liberian man who died of Ebola. Their stepped-up efforts came a day after a 26-year-old nurse tested positive for the virus.
The nurse, identified as Nina Pham, was wearing protective gear when she took care of Thomas Eric Duncan, but became the first person to contract the disease within the United States. Nina Pham’s family told WFAA-TV in Dallas that she was the health care worker with Ebola. A rector at her family’s church told The Associated Press that Pham’s mother told him Pham has the virus.
Pham, a graduate of Texas Christian University’s nursing school, was monitoring her own temperature and went to the hospital Friday night as soon as she found out she was running a low fever. She is in isolation and in stable condition, health officials said.

http://abc7chicago.com/health/nurse-catches-ebola-from-thomas-eric-duncan-1st-us-patient/348131/

Until Ms. Pham’s family came forward, there was a concerted attempt to avoid identifying her; this morning’s papers said “nurse or nurse’s aid”, and nothing else.

Ms. Pham wore the protective equipment (as Medical devices such stuff is subject to the Obamacare 20% Federal Excise Tax), but her infection is officially blamed on “violation of procedure”, but I note that so far no one will say what procedure was violated. Does that indicate that we know what procedure was violated, but don’t care to say what it was? That seems so incompetent as to border on malice. More likely it’s reflexive, coming from those who devised the procedures and will not admit that they are defective.

If someone has another suggestion as to why the violated procedure has not been described, I would really like to know it. If the procedure is good but this competent young lady’s actions violated it, it would be extremely helpful to others – and to her if she survives – to know that action caused the infection. And if they don’t know what procedure was violated, or how, is it possible that the procedure wasn’t violated, it is ineffective?

Five members of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department who were sent inside the apartment where a man with Ebola  lived were not wearing any protective gear, not even latex gloves, in violation of biosafety level 4 regulations.

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/dallas-sheriffs-deputies-upset-about-being-ordered-inside-ebola-patients-apartment-without-protective-gear.html/

The four people inside the apartment were exposed to the Ebola contaminated sheets and towels belonging to Eric Thomas Duncan for several days and not given any food, thereby increasing their chances of getting Ebola and their motivation to get out of the apartment, potentially spreading the disease.

We have not heard that any of the officers were infected, which is surprising: given the level of exposure, the probability that one of another of them was infected is high.

A nurse contracts Ebola. An urgent care center in Boston shuts down when a sick man recently returned from Liberia walks in. Health care workers complain they haven’t been properly trained to protect themselves against the deadly virus.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/13/health/ebola-cdc/index.html

Public health experts are asking whether the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is partly to blame.

Here are five things they say the CDC is getting wrong.

1. The CDC is telling possible Ebola patients to "call a doctor."

When passengers arrive in the United States from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, they’re handed a flier instructing them to "call a doctor" if they feel ill.

Never mind how hard it is to get your doctor on the phone, but even if you could, it’s quite possible she’d tell you to go to the nearest emergency room or urgent care center.

…

2. The CDC director says any hospital can care for Ebola patients.

"Essentially any hospital in the country can safely take care of Ebola. You don’t need a special hospital to do it," Dr. Thomas Frieden said Sunday at a press conference.

"I think it’s very unfortunate that he keeps re-stating that," said Macgregor-Skinner, the global projects manager for the Elizabeth R. Griffin Foundation.

He said when it comes to handling Ebola, not all hospitals are created equally. As seen at Presbyterian, using protective gear can be tricky. Plus, it’s a challenge to handle infectious waste from Ebola patients, such as hospital gowns contaminated with blood or vomit.

The other three reasons are similar, and should be read by anyone with real interest in the subject; the bottom line is that while the official word is that we have the situation under control, with competent people in charge following appropriate procedures, but we don’t, really.

The only way to prevent future Ebola infections in the United States is to close travel from infected areas; for those who are allowed into the United States from those areas, there must be strict quarantine procedures lasting at least 21 days. Actually we do not know that’s long enough: Ebola has an unusually long gestation period, and for much of that time there are no symptoms.

The only way to handle passengers from those parts of Africa is not to let them into the United States, and quarantine the very few whose entry is allowed. There are many strains of Ebola, coming from many different parts of Africa, but they are becoming mixed together. They differ in virulence of infectivity , gestation period, and quite possibly in infection vectors. We know very little about this disease, and our confident statements about the ability of our general state of public health and its gift of the capability to prevent this from becoming pandemic are at least open to question.

And we’ve said nothing about jihad and Ebola. The period between showing symptoms and los of ability to do much is short, a few days at most. The period between infection and displaying the first symptoms is considerably longer. I am no expert on the inner thoughts of those who choose suicide for their cause, but it takes no great imagination to understand that blowing yourself to kingdom come will distribute your body fluids over a fairly wide area.

I would say we have ample reason to restrict travel from infected areas, and strictly quarantining all those who do manage to reach the United States. I would not think that instructing them to call their doctor if they have symptoms would be of much effect if the intention is to spread the disease – or of much use to those who know they have been exposed to it and hope to survive by coming here.

I expect it is superfluous to point out that there are other fatal contagious diseases transmitted by exposure to body fluids of those infected with it.

I read the following article, link provided by reader ‘J’:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/rotherham-child-sex-victim-confronts-muslim-abuser-gets-arrested-for-racism/#.VBgqfIVQwjo.twitter <http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/rotherham-child-sex-victim-confronts-muslim-abuser-gets-arrested-for-racism/#.VBgqfIVQwjo.twitter>

When I read it, 84 readers had commented; this was the first:

"Tina Trent <http://disqus.com/embed/comments/?base=default&disqus_version=a8083c1e&f=fp-mag&t_i=241046%20http%3A%2F%2Fwww.frontpagemag.com%2F%3Fp%3D241046&t_u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.frontpagemag.com%2F2014%2Fdgreenfield%2Frotherham-child-sex-victim-confronts-muslim-abuser-gets-arrested-for-racism%2F&t_e=Rotherham%20Child-sex%20Victim%20Confronts%20Muslim%20Abuser%2C%20Gets%20Arrested%20for%20Racism&t_d=Rotherham%20Child-sex%20Victim%20Confronts%20Muslim%20Abuser%2C%20Gets%20Arrested%20for%20Racism&t_t=Rotherham%20Child-sex%20Victim%20Confronts%20Muslim%20Abuser%2C%20Gets%20Arrested%20for%20Racism&s_o=default&l=#> • 6 days ago <http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/rotherham-child-sex-victim-confronts-muslim-abuser-gets-arrested-for-racism/#comment-1590126474>

Look at what happened after the Maj. Hasan massacre: it was declared workplace violence while Eric Holder deployed an entire army of consultants to Chicago to address an incident of simple assault — by a woman who tugged on a woman’s headscarf after complaining loudly about Hasan in a store.

Yes, she broke the law by touching the other woman. But millions of us have experienced far, far worse violence, verbal abuse, and violations of personal space in the cities we live in, with no recourse to police, let alone what happened next.

The woman was charged with hate crime, immediately, and made to prostrate herself in court before an army of activists. She received a stiff sentence, utterly disproportional to the crime, and of course nobody in the local ACLU whined about the disproportionality. She was made to apologize to the woman, her family, and her community.

We are moving closer and closer to fascist control of language and thought through our hate crime laws, accompanied, as always, by corresponding diminishment of punishments for even vile crime committed by offenders from protected ethnic and racial communities.

In other words, we are entering another lynching era.”

It is representative of the other 83 comments. The people who make the country work, and are demonized for their efforts, are growing short tempered.

Bob Ludwick

 

I have a policy that I apply to anything I hear from a policy maker or

bureaucrat: I treat anything they say as potential disinformation or misinformation. The difference: disinformation is a false statement or statements where the agent offering the statement or statements knows these to be false; misinformation is a statement or statements where the agent offering the information believes these falsehoods to be true.

This is another example of why I find this belief correct in most instances:

<.>

A series of statements this week from Obama administration officials have left a murky picture about whether four people caught last month crossing the United States border from Mexico had ties to terrorist groups.

U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, raised the issue last month when he said he had heard that individuals with terrorist ties to the Middle East had been caught crossing the border. Other Republican members of Congress have made similar claims since.

Responding to news reports about those remarks, Marsha Catron, the Department of Homeland Security’s press secretary, said Wednesday in a prepared statement that the suggestion that individuals with ties to the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, had crossed the border was “categorically false.”

“DHS continues to have no credible intelligence to suggest terrorist organizations are actively plotting to cross the southwest border,”

the statement said.

Then on Thursday, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told an audience in Washington that four people had in fact been apprehended, but that their “supposed link” to terrorism was “a claim by the individuals themselves” that they were members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Johnson described as “an organization that is actually fighting against ISIL and defended Kurdish territory in Iraq.”

</>

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/10/243072_did-members-of-terrorist-group.html?rh=1

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Jerry,

There is one time-tested effective way to stop the spread of an

epidemic: Quarantine. People arriving from places where a dangerous disease is present spend its incubation period plus a safety margin in isolation with no visible symptoms before being allowed entry.

Inconvenient, yes. And expensive in direct proportion to how comfortable we want to make the experience – it could range from tent cities on underused military bases to rented rural resort hotels. But practically doable, and cheap compared to the costs of a significant outbreak here.

Why aren’t we doing this? The short answer is, politically correct incompetence. Paul Rahe addresses this question in more detail at http://ricochet.com/center-disease-control-loses-grip/.

Porkypine

Now for some good news:

Philip of Macedon’s tomb found?

<http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/remains-of-alexander-the-greats-father-confirmed-found-141009.htm>

—–

Roland Dobbins

"You would think that carrying around a Nobel Prize would be uneventful, and it was uneventful, until I tried to leave Fargo with it, and went through the X-ray machine."

<http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/10/10/nobel-prize-airport-security/>

———

Roland Dobbins

But it could become a bad day.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL9OHXw_-A8#t=108 

It is still pledge week at KUSC, which means it is time for me to harangue you about

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Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 845 Saturday, October 11, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

I am hard at work on the October column for Chaos Manor Reviews. I hope to have a release candidate draft by tomorrow night. We’re covering Wi-Fi updates, the Surface Pro 3, and a bit about Windows 10, including mail from readers sent after I asked what would make you love Windows 9.

That hasn’t left me much time for this day book, or for that matter for following what’s going on out there. I gather that the US is still breaking things and killing people, but without clear objectives; if that were done by a random person we’d call him a homicidal maniac. One of my major papers during graduate school in political science was on the subject of Reasons of State, and can it be moral for a government to do things that would be condemned if an individual did them?

The subject is more complex than you might think, and I certainly won’t go into it now.

It’s pledge week time at KUSC, the Los Angeles Good Music Station, which makes this pledge week for Chaos Manor as well. This site and Chaos Manor Reviews operate on the Public Radio model: they are free, anyone can listen and watch and read them, but they won’t last if we don’t get support from the readers. We have operated this way for more than a decade, and so far we have been successful.

I let Chaos Manor Reviews sleep for a couple of years, but I have brought it back and intend to keep it going, provided that we continue to get support.

Subscriptions and support: I certainly don’t intend to lay guilt trips on those who like this place but simply don’t have the resources to support it. I’m not asking for rent or eating money. But if you think this place is useful, then consider subscribing. As to when to subscribe, if you never have, obviously this will be a good time to do it. If you can’t remember when you last renewed your subscription, this is a good time to do that.

More about that in PAYING FOR THIS PLACE.

Chaos Manor Reviews is mostly concerned with technology; in the old BYTE it was The User’s Column, Computing at Chaos Manor, and it tells what we have been doing in high tech. We also have reviews of books, movies, entertainments, and games.

The View from Chaos Manor is my day book, and is concerned with the effects of technology on history, particularly American history, as well as more personal matters.

Neither will exist unless without your support.

And if you know anyone with children from 5^th Grade up through Junior High School, let me recommend

as something appropriate. It contains stories and poems that once were considered essential for citizens to have been exposed to. The values of Western Civilization in general and America in particular have been conveyed through literature and the public schools since the earliest days of the Republic, and this reader was in use in the days when the California school system was considered one of the very best in the world.

‘The automators will continue to get very, very rich, while the automated will have to find something else to do.’

<http://motherboard.vice.com/read/outsourcing-is-no-longer-cheap-so-its-being-automated>

—–

Roland Dobbins

I am following with fascination the Steve Koonin story, for two reasons.

1) He was a professor when I was a student at Caltech. Scary smart, and the author of the classic text on Computational Physics, by that same name.

2) But here’s the real reason: http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/19/aps-reviews-its-climate-change-statement/ <http://judithcurry.com/2014/02/19/aps-reviews-its-climate-change-statement/> , some months ago. I had been wondering what became of the APS review, which certainly sounded interesting at the time. The head of the APS committee? Steve Koonin.

If the APS turns, it would be a gamechanger.

mkr

The Future of Warfare Dr Pournelle

RE: 20YY The Future of Warfare @ https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/things-worth-your-time/

"The Pentagon can make smart investments now to prepare for the future, . . . ."

No, it bloody well cannot.

The Pentagon can RECOMMEND smart investments to prepare for the future, but the purchasing decisions will be made by the Congress.

Example 1: M1A1 Abrams panzer. The Army specifically rejected the prototype because of its turbine engine. The Army preferred the competitor with the diesel engine they knew and loved. Congress voted them the turbine.

Example 2: PA-48 Enforcer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_PA-48_Enforcer. Piper Aircraft came up with the idea to stick a turboprop engine in a Mustang fighter, load it with hardpoints, and make it a COIN aircraft. Shades of the old A-36 Apache http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_A-36_Apache. Piper lobbied Congress, and Congresscritters voted $4 million to explore the idea. The Air Force detailed no one for that nonsense and returned the money at the end of the fiscal year. The next year, Congresscritters voted $11.9 million for the Enforcer and ORDERED the Air Force to spend the money. The Air Force program manager began all his briefings with "Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear . . . ."

(For the few who like the Enforcer, the A-1 SPAD (Skyraider) was several times better in the COIN mission, the OV-10 was at least as good, the A-37 was better, and the A-10 Warthog was several orders of magnitude better than all of them.)

Example 3: F-35 Lightning II (aka MacNamara’s Zombie Revenge). The Air Force-Navy-Marine Joint Strike Fighter is built in three versions — A, B, and C — ’cause the version that meets Air Force requirements does not meet Navy requirements and the version that meets Marine requirements does not meet Air Force requirements. About the only thing the three versions have in common is the canopy and the F-35 designator. The whole project is an excuse to transfer money from the public treasury to Lockheed-Martin. You think the Air Force, Navy, and Marines wanted this abomination? (The Marine version makes sense. The others? Pffft.)

The chances of the Pentagon making smart investments for the future is zero.

—

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

Foreign Legions

I am wondering since the Supreme Court has ruled that the draft is perfectly constitutional if we can kill two birds with one stone…

Draft any illegal alien found. They get six years as a soldier, an inflexible course in being an American (including English and Civics), and citizenship with their honorable discharge (but not with general or less characterization).

We get someplace to deal with all of the illegals, end the enclave-colonization they bring and troops that no voter will cry about should they die.

Seems like it’s full of win.

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