Effects of Unrestricted Immigration

We Americans tend to be focused on what is happening in our own backyard, and there is nothing wrong with that.  But, sometimes, we miss the larger picture when we are consumed with our own problems.  Immigration and illegal migration is an issue which concerns many Americans, but it turns out that is an issue of concern in other parts of the world as well.

The Obama administration has taken an official stance of almost unrestricted immigration from countries in the Western Hemisphere, and if people can get to the United States without coming through an airport or a seaport, they fall under the same policy.

Why would a presidential administration have such a policy?  The prevailing theory is that it boils down to politics.  The Obama administration, being a decidedly leftist-collectivist Democrat administration, assumes that new immigrants, legal or illegal, benefitting from this policy, will become Democrat voters.

Such a policy has the appearance of near universal acceptance among leftist-collectivist political parties.  Consider Sweden for a moment.  The Swedes have engaged in contemplative navel gazing for about two generations now.  Their great socialist experiment has enabled a standard of living to be envied.  The problem is that their birth rate has fallen dramatically (1.6 births per native Swedish woman) while their median age has crept up to 41.2. (source: CIA World Fact Book). Overall, the Swedish birth rate is 1.9 (2.1 is the replacement rate for a stable population), so the difference is made up by immigrants. With a declining native population, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, the predominant political party, has consciously increases immigration from other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, in order to provide taxpayers who, theoretically, will sustain the social programs that Sweden is so famous for.  The same motivation for sympathetic voters provides the impetus for the Social Democrats in Sweden as it does for Democrats in the United States.

But, what are the unintended consequences in Sweden? They are similar to those which US citizens are aware. Stress on social services and social infrastructure. Declining labor wages, and internal security concerns.  The latter is something that took most Swedes by surprise, and that the Social Democrats choose to ignore.

Recently, the Swedish Police issued a report concerning their coverage of police services in Sweden. They have identified 55 zones within metropolitan areas of Sweden where they will no longer enforce the laws of the nation.  Here is the map from the report:

What started out with minor attacks on government service functionaries has turned into a resistance movement where the police are resisted whenever they attempt to intervene.

These no-go zones are primarily so-called “exclusion areas” which is the politically correct term for the 186 ghettos that have sprung up around Sweden in the past two decades. These areas are predominantly populated by immigrants from muslim countries with low education and even lower employment rates. The exception being the enthusiastic entrepreneurs in the fields of drug dealing, protection rackets and robberies.

Since the real law doesn’t apply, the function of justice has largely been taken over by the gangs themselves, not unlike how the mafia is seen as the go-to place in rural Italy when the local police is too corrupt to serve its purpose. Unofficial courts are held and punishments are meted out based on the cultural norms of the dominant gangs. Some no-go areas even have vehicle checkpoints at the border. Not police checkpoints, but the gangs protecting their turf from law enforcement and rival gangs.

The Social Democrats sticking their collective head in the sand. They are aiding and abetting such behavior by actually increasing the immigration quota.

Like the Obama administration’s policy, this is not a sustainable immigration policy for Sweden.  In fact, it looks more like a fifth column invasion, where the goal is to destabilize Sweden’s society in preparation for more ominous events.

Will the Swedes accept this over the long haul? Time will tell. If they do, then the long term prospects for native Swedes is extinction. The likely alternative, I fear is a violent backlash that may enshrine the attitudes of Ander Breivik. 

Fed Fraud Coming to Light

David Stockman lauds the end of Quantitative Easing (QE), and identifies it as the fraud it really is.

QE has finally come to an end, but public comprehension of the immense fraud it embodied has not even started. In round terms, this official counterfeiting spree amounted to $3.5 trillion— reflecting the difference between the Fed’s approximate $900 billion balance sheet when its “extraordinary policies” incepted at the time of the Lehman crisis and its $4.4 trillion of footings today. That’s a lot of something for nothing. It’s a grotesque amount of fraud

The scam embedded in this monumental balance sheet expansion involved nothing so arcane as the circuitous manner by which new central bank reserves supplied to the banking system impact the private credit creation process. As is now evident, new credits issued by the Fed can result in the expansion of private credit to the extent that the money multiplier is operating or simply generate excess reserves which cycle back to the New York Fed if, as in the present instance, it is not. 

But the fact that the new reserves generated during QE have cycled back to the Fed does not mitigate the fraud. The latter consists of the very act of buying these trillions of treasuries and GSE securities in the first place with fiat credits manufactured by the central bank. When the Fed does QE, its open market desk buys treasury notes and, in exchange, it simply deposits in dealer bank accounts new credits made out of thin air. As it happened, about $3.5 trillion of such fiat credits were conjured from nothing during the last 72 months.

All of these bonds had permitted Washington to command the use of real economic resources. That is, to consume goods and services it obtained directly in the form of payrolls, contractor services, military tanks and ammo etc; and, indirectly, in the form of the basket of goods and services typically acquired by recipients of government transfer payments. Stated differently, the goods and services purchased via monetizing $3.5 trillion of government debt embodied a prior act of production and supply. But the central bank exchanged them for an act of nothing. 

What is the effect today? 

• The Fed ended QE today. But they now own over 50% of the 10-15 year Treasury bonds.
• The US dollar went bidless against major currencies. Almost unprecedented.
• In spite of this, oil prices are falling.
• Gold prices continue to fall. Curiously, silver prices are rising slightly.
• The DOW peaked at 17006, but is now falling.
• The S&P500 peaked at 1985 and is now in retreat.
• Bloomberg reports home purchase mortgage applications are the lowest in 19 years.

So much for recovery.  We will continue to monitor the situation.

Mohammedan Terror in the Great White North

Canadians, who often criticize US foreign policy, calling it responsible for the incidents of terror that have stricken the US, are now the recipients of terror attacks themselves.

First, a soldier is killed in Quebec by a radicalized Mohammedan convert on the 20th, and then, this morning, it appears that multiple shooters attacked the Canadian War Memorial and Parliament at nearly the same time.

The danger from radical Mohammedans is not a surprise to Canadian authorities.  In fact, law enforcement personnel met with the killer in Monday's attack less than two weeks before the incident. 

These attacks will be called "crime" by the authorities in North America.  But, they are not crimes; they are acts of war.  Westerners have a distorted view of what war is.  Since the Peace of Westphalia in the mid-17th century, and clarified by Carl von Clausewitz in his seminal writings, the West has thought of civilization and the conduct of war as three parts: the government, the armed forces, and the civilian population.  In the Clausewitzian world, governments and armed forces conduct war, and the civilian population stays out of the conflict. This construct, in which armed forces maneuver in areas where the population is absent, is often called "third generations warfare" (3GW).  When civilians engage in destructive activities against their nation's enemies, they are thought of as criminals, since, in 3GW, there is no place for civilians.  If captured or confronted, these civilians are treated as criminals and not as soldiers.

Unfortunately for the West, the rest of the world is not hampered by such artificial rules.  In most of the rest of the world, people have a tribal mentality. They fight to protect their families, then their communities, then their tribes, and then whatever greater group is of interest, in this case, religion.  This is the way the world has worked in all recorded history up until the 19th century.  Because the non-Western world recognizes that governments and armies cannot exist without support of people, they see the civilian population as a legitimate target, or an opposing tribe, if you will.

Now, getting back to Canada, and by extension, every other Western nation, if you want to prevent domestic terrorism, you do it the same way as you handle Ebola.  First, you do not let it into the country.  Both Canada and the U.S.A. have abysmal, idiotic immigration policies.  Those policies need to be fixed.  If it pops up inside the country, you quarantine it with extreme prejudice.  You can doctor it if you want to, but unlike Ebola, there is probably not much of a therapy or regimen that will give you a 50% success factor.

Sound like discrimination?  You betcha! And with no apologies.  It is war of the cultures, boys and girls, and the other side is not taking prisoners, except to be used for beheadings on Youtube.  If Western civilization is going to survive, it will have to do the things that are necessary to survive.  This will not be popular among most Canadians today, but as these acts of war/terror become more prevalent, one hopes that the Canadians will wake up and repent of their misguided suppositions.

The Amazon Chronicles

If you have not been following trends in the publishing industry, you are missing out on a terrific drama.  Online retailer Amazon has kicked sand in the face of the Big 5 publishing houses, and one in particular, Hachette, has taken particular offense.

The net of the spat is that Amazon understands the economics for fiction sales, especially e-books, which are highly elastic (for those of you in Boston, that means the lower the price, the more units you sell).  Hachette, on the other hand, sets prices artificially high and "discounts" them heavily based on volume orders.  In order to preserve the sales of hardbound books, Hachette prices the e-book versions higher than the paperback version that come out after hardbound sales taper off.  Amazon thinks that is stupid and has built a pricing model to reflect the same.  This is a great boon to the consumer.

Because Hachette doesn't like giving up control, they have dug their heels in.  Amazon's response was to take Hachette at its word, and charge the artificially high prices that were Hachette's MSRP.  Furthermore, Amazon would not pre-order Hachette books or keep them in stock.

Authors and pundits have taken sides and the ensuing kerfluffle has been most entertaining.  Me? I am on the side of the consumer, therefore, I support Amazon.  Here is a little piece I wrote in another venue back in the spring when this cranked up:

Amazon, whose position as a literature retailer was solidified after the Apple and large publishing houses were sued under federal antitrust laws for an attempt to fix the prices of e-books, is now at it again, going head-to-head with French publishing house, Hachette. 

For those of you not in tune with the publishing industry, what Amazon is doing is to refuse to continue the extreme discounting of artificially high retail prices assigned by the publishing houses, particularly for e-books. As a mass market retailer, Amazon can only sell books with a profit margin up to a certain price, depending upon the medium, length, and popularity of the author. Because of the way the publishing distribution discount system works, books which have a higher retail price require a higher distribution price. This means Amazon makes about half the margin on a more expensive, but steeply discounted book from the major publishers.

Hachette's first complaint was rooted in the fact that Amazon is now selling its books for the price that Hachette itself suggests. Now, Amazon is not pre-ordering potential blockbusters, like J. K. Rowlings' new book, SILKWORM, or building inventory for other popular books from Hachette. Because of Amazon's customer loyalty and purchasing power, this has the effect of slowing down Hachette's sales, and deflating best-seller status of Hachette's offerings.

Hachette needs to understand the new economic realities, or the market will leave them behind. The future is e-books. Clearly, e-books do not cost near as much to produce as hardcopy books, since there is no printing, binding, etc. The large publishing houses need to pass that savings on to the consumer, instead of conspiring to prop up artificial prices. One would think that the big publishing houses could have read the writing on the wall after the antitrust suit.

The sad part is that Hachette's authors are the ones that are suffering. The authors' royalty per unit would be the same or maybe slightly lower with Amazon's model, but with the lower retail price, they would sell many more copies, putting more money into the authors' pockets.

The fight isn't over and both sides are still heaving salvos at each other.  Recently, Rob Spillman, part of the establishment publishing industry, wrote a piece for Salon about why he thinks Amazon needs to be curtailed.  Unfortunately for Mr. Spillman, he did not have many facts in his op-ed, and he didn't use much logic.  This set him up for one of the best and most thorough fiskings that I have ever read in my life over on JA Konrath's blog.

The traditional publishing model is a dinosaur going head-to-head with 21st century technology.  I suspect in 50 years, young economics students will see traditional publishing replace the "buggy whip" symbology that was used on us when referring to technological obsolescence. 

While most of the press around the Amazon-Hachette dispute revolves around economics, the more important point is ignored. That is, the political aspect.  The gatekeepers can no longer control the narrative.  Everyman can publish now, and they may have thoughts and opinions which are not sympathetic to the progressive-collectivist worldview.  I suspect this is the real reason so many are taking sides with Hachette when there is no logical reason to do so.

Ubuntu

I often wonder why more people do not use Linux on their home computers.  After all, there are several distributions that are free, and many come with a library of free applications.

I have been running Ubuntu on an old Toshiba Centrino laptop for about 3 years now. It comes with Libre Office, which, as near as I can tell, is 98.44% compatible with Windows Office 2007.  For a browser, I use Chromium, also free (I quit using Mozilla after the SJWs demanded Brendan Eich's resignation).  This machine is about 8 years old, and the operations I run on it are as fast as my new company Lenovo laptop with Windows 8.  Chromium on Ubuntu is much, much faster than even the 64-bit Explorer browser.

Ubuntu is easy to install; it practically installs itself.  The only issues I have run into is that there are some apps you have to install from a command line interface with a keyed-in "apt-get" command.  Unix/Linux commands seem to be obtuse, and the the propeller heads seem to take great joy in making commands obtuse.  Who would ever think of naming a string search command "grep", after all?  And, once in a while, I have to look pretty hard for a device driver.

Overall however, I have enjoyed the speed at which Ubuntu operates and the fact that I can leave my laptop up and running for months without rebooting (try that with Windows).  Ubuntu is as intuitive as the Mac OS and faster than either Mac or Windows.  There is a great deal of support on the interwebz too.

The World is Changing

1. Passenger jets disappear with no trace.
2. Video recordings of beheadings by a group unheard of in January 2014.
3. The U.S.A. sends military equipment to Syria to assist in overthrowing Assad.  It is absconded with by an army of military amateurs who are in the process of setting up the New Caliphate.
4. This same amateur group is defeating 500,000 professional Iraqi soldiers and Kurd insurrectionists who have air support from the USAF. 
5. Crimea secedes from the Ukraine and reunites with Russia; Russia is punished by NATO for taking the Ukraine back. The U.S.A. is complicit in the overthrow of a democratically elected government in the Ukraine. 
6. Hamas begins a barrage of rockets on Israeli targets and Israel responds predictablywith overwhelming force, crushing Gaza.
7. Scotland considers leaving the UK, while Catalonia does the same with Spain, and Venice with Italy.
8. Central banks funnel wealth into the pockets of cronies while governments rape their taxpayers to make it happen.
9. The world economy slides into decline, as the central bankers squeeze the last drop of "quantitative easing" from a population that doesn't realize what is happening.
10. The birth rate of entire ethnic groups in the "wealthy West" drop below the recovery point.
11. A rare, deadly disease becomes an epidemic in the poorest part of the world, and spreads to the richest nations on earth.

The world is changing, and not for the better.  I do not know if it will be an apocalypse, or a slow devolution, but civilization's zenith is past us for this cycle.

I suspect that the most likely course lean heavily towards the slow devolution.  Momentum being what it is, there are tremendous forces trying to maintain equilibrium.  But, I do not think those forces understand exactly what is happening, and therefore they will be surprised again and again as events play out in an unanticipated fashion.

What will happen?

Whatever happens, the world will not be the same for your children's children as it was for you.  Unless, of course, you are part of one of those ethnic groups that are not having children, and then it won't matter.

Ebologic

It appears that certain political leaders in the US cannot scale their intellect when it comes to Ebola.

Yesterday, on the Vox Popoli blog, a poster with the handle, "SimplyTimothy" put it rather succinctly:

Can somebody point out to me where the principle of quarantine mutates to the principle of open borders?

1. Keep Ebola patient out of the maternity ward.

2. Keep Ebola patients in different wing of the hospital.

3. If the hospital succumbs to Ebola, isolate the hospital from the neighborhood.

4. If the neighborhood succumbs to Ebola isolate the neighborhood.

5. Town--isolate town

6. County...

7. State...

8. Country...

9. Continent.

10. Planet

From 1 to 9 I do not see the principle that shows increased interaction between the smaller and larger environment is conducive to the health of the larger environment.

Somewhere between 8 and 9 something mysterious happens in the minds of men. 

What am I missing?

Ebola Redux Revisited

Long term prospects are not looking good.  It appears that Nina Pham's boyfriend has been hospitalized for symptoms of Ebola. Who else has been exposed?

The thing that puzzles me is why no one is asking the question around why is it taking so many medical personnel to be unsuccessful at preventing the spread of the disease in North America and West Africa?

I and many people like me have called for a travel ban on people leaving West Africa.  I now have statistical support for such a ban. The MOBS LAB has done an analysis on disease migration, comparing a situation with no travel ban to one with an 80% travel ban.  In the comparison, the probability of importation of the virus in the USA falls from 80% (no travel ban) to approximately 35% (80% travel ban).  With a complete travel ban, the probability could fall even more.

While the World Health Organization (WHO) is predicting 20,000 cases and a containment in 9 months, other medical/scientific organizations are saying the outbreak will continue from 12 to 18 months and infect hundreds of thousands.  And that's just in Africa.

Sanity Begins To Sink In - Despite Their Best Efforts To Avoid It

The CDC has decided that it needs to rethink how Ebola is handled in the US.  Dr. Frieden has overcome his cranial rectosis after questions were raised when Nina Pham contracted the virus while caring for Thomas Duncan, the infected Liberian national who was allowed entry into the US.

"We have to rethink the way we address Ebola infection control. Even a single infection is unacceptable," Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters. "The care of Ebola is hard. We're working to make it safer and easier."

What took you so long, doc?  The fact is, they really don't know what the "unknown protocol break" was.  They don't really know if there was a protocol break.  They have no idea what the transmission method to Nina Pham was.  The CDC is blowing smoke.

The larger issue surrounds how the US deals with travelers.  Last night on his regularly scheduled TV show, Bill O'Reilly unloaded on Frieden, calling him a propagandist.

Talking Points has said from the beginning there is no compelling reason why West Africans should be admitted to the U.S.A. when there is an Ebola epidemic raging in that region. Think about it! Think about it! This is a national security issue, is it not? What reason is there on this earth not to suspend visas from that area? The truth is, there is no reason, just a bunch of excuse making.

What reason indeed. On another show, Dr. Marc Siegel attempted to rebut this point of view.

This is a very hard virus to spread. With one case in the United States, we should not cut off all air travel. …We don’t need widespread panic here. We don’t need it there. We need science.

 Seriously, Dr. Siegel?  Can you guarantee that Ebola is a hard virus to spread?  Are you willing to go to Liberia and treat the victims?

And then, there is Dr. Anthony Fauci with his convoluted logic.

From a public health standpoint, that really doesn't make any sense. It’s understandable how people can figure that that might help but when you completely seal off and don’t let planes in or out of the West African countries involved, then you could, paradoxically, make things much worse in the sense that you can’t get supplies in, you can’t get help in, you can’t get the kinds of things in there that we need to contain the epidemic. And the best way to protect America is to suppress the epidemic in West Africa and if we completely isolate them… we know from experience with public health, that marginalizes them and you could have civil unrest, the governments could fall and then you wind up, could having spread of the virus to other countries in West Africa, which would only compound the problem.

Fauci is projecting here. First of all, nobody is saying anything about not letting people and supplies into West Africa.  In fact, I have heard no one say anything about that.  What I have heard is many smart people with common sense saying that we shouldn't be letting people from the hot zone leave West Africa.  And that includes people who go over there to provide help.  If they are compelled to go to the hot zone, then they should stay over there until the danger is past.

Secondly, Fauci is so concerned about civil unrest and governments falling in West Africa, events that are quite common in that region of the world, but what about in North America?  Does he not think that if Ebola gets loose in North America that stability will not be threatened?

There are successful protocols which can prevent the spread of the virus.  Firestone, the company that makes tires, has developed one in West Africa.  They have assumed that the virus can be transmitted by vectors other than contact with body fluids.  They are operating in the hot zone.  They are successful and the CDC is not.  What does that tell you?

U.S. Foreign Policy Shoots Itself In The Foot - Again

Turkey had the right idea about ISIS and the "New Caliphate".  Let them engage in internecine destruction, guard the borders, and stay out of it.  Ultimately, ISIS and a New Caliphate are relatively unsustainable anyway.

But, it now appears that the US has pressured Turkey into enabling its (the US) imperial aspirations.  The president's administration, and specifically, the State Department have not figured out that the Shiites will use the US to defeat ISIS, and as soon as that threat is gone, they will turn on US interests.  Not only that, the US is planning on training and equipping our future enemies!  In order to lessen the negative impact on mid-term voting in the coming weeks, the Obama administration is labeling our future enemies as "moderate Syrian rebels".

There is a philosophy of government in Washington, D.C. that needs to be eradicated.  The voters in the US need to quit voting for incumbents and throw all the bums out.  With $18 trillion in debt, the US can no longer afford to be the world's policeman.  Actually, being the world's policeman is a large part of what got the US in trouble to begin with.  

Now, with this opinion, I will probably be labeled as 'isolationist' by some people.  They should research what isolationism really is.  I am not isolationist; I am a non-interventionalist.  The US foreign policy should be to refrain from getting involved in wars where there is no direct threat to the integrity of the United States of America.

Ebola Redux: The Case For Quarantine

There are now documented cases of ebola in six countries outside West Africa (the hot zones).  All of them are in Western Europe or the United States.  Two others are suspected, one in Turkey and one in Australia.

The most troublesome case is the nurse in Spain.  Apparently, she had informed that country's health officials on three separate occasions that she suspected she was infected with ebola. 

Her first contact with health authorities was on 30 September when she complained of a slight fever and fatigue. Romero Ramos called a specialised service dedicated to occupational risk at the Carlos III hospital where she worked and had treated an Ebola patient, said Antonio Alemany from the regional government of Madrid. But as the nurse’s fever had not reached 38.6C, she was advised to visit her local clinic where she was reportedly prescribed paracetamol.

Days later, according to El País newspaper, Romero Ramos called the hospital again to complain about her fever. No action was taken.

On Monday, she called the Carlos III hospital again, this time saying she felt terrible. Rather than transport her to the hospital that had treated the two missionaries who had been repatriated with Ebola, Romero Ramos was instructed to call emergency services and head to the hospital closest to her home. She was transported to the Alcorcón hospital by paramedics who were not wearing protective gear, El País reported.

On arrival at the hospital, Romero Ramos warned staff that she feared she had contracted Ebola. Despite the warning, she remained in a bed in the emergency room while she waited for her test results. She was separated from other patients only by curtains, hospital staff said on Tuesday.

Clearly, government health officials in the West are not prepared for the kind of risk ebola represents.  With transportation technology being what it is, the only sensible reaction to the spread of this pernicious virus is the quarantine of the entire hot zone.  Anything less will make the influenza pandemic of 1918 look like a walk in the park.

Zerohedge has published a map with the known spread of ebola:

Read about how a private enterprise in the hot zone has successfully addressed the spread of ebola on its premises.

NBC News: Asking Disingenuous Questions

Cassandra Vinograd asks the question at NBC News, "Are the Airstrikes Against ISIS Working?"

SInce ISIS is gaining ground, why would she bother asking such a disingenuous question?  It's pretty obvious to anyone with a measurable IQ can see that (a) ISIS is not being stopped, (b) they are barely even being slowed down, and (c) they are taking measures to avoid damage from air strikes.

Miss Vinograd would enhance her understanding of war if she would take the time to read Collin R. Ballard’s The Military Genius of Abraham Lincoln and T. Harry Williams’ Lincoln and His Generals.  Then, she might understand what effective war is all about.

But, the aerial assaults against ISIS are not about being effective.  Rather, they are all about getting the Democrats through the next election cycle in November.

The Ebola Files

All travel from West Africa needs to be halted now. It should have been halted six weeks ago. Air France, British Airways, and Emirates stopped all flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone back in early August. Congressman Alan Grayson called for a travel ban from Liberia and other infected countries in July! So, why is anyone from West Africa still being permitted to enter the USA?

According to Lakeland Industries:

... a leading global manufacturer of industrial protective clothing for industry, municipalities, healthcare and to first responders on the federal, state and local levels, today announced the global availability of its protective apparel for use in handling the Ebola virus. 

In response to the increasing demand for specialty protective suits to be worm by healthcare workers and others being exposed to Ebola, Lakeland is increasing its manufacturing capacity for these garments and includes proprietary processes for specialized seam sealing, a far superior technology for protecting against viral hazards than non-sealed products. "Lakeland stands ready to join the fight against the spread of Ebola," said Christopher J. Ryan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lakeland Industries.  

"We understand the difficulty of getting appropriate products through a procurement system that in times of crisis favors availability over specification, and we hope our added capacity will help alleviate that problem.  With the U.S. State Department alone putting out a bid for 160,000 suits, we encourage all protective apparel companies to increase their manufacturing capacity for sealed seam garments so that our industry can do its part in addressing this threat to global health.

Now, with the State Department putting out that bid, I have to ask, what do they know that they are not telling us?  160,000 suits for a disease that is supposedly not airborne?  I was born at night, but it wasn't last night.

To make me more suspicious, it appears that the CDC changed their Ebola information page on September 19, 2014.  Here is what they took out:

Because we still do not know exactly how people are infected with Ebola, few primary prevention measures have been established and no vaccine exists.

When cases of the disease do appear, risk of transmission is increased within healthcare settings. Therefore, healthcare workers must be able to recognize a case of Ebola and be ready to use practical viral hemorrhagic fever isolation precautions or barrier nursing techniques. They should also have the capability to request diagnostic tests or prepare samples for shipping and testing elsewhere.

I am sure the government wants to avoid mass panic.  But at what cost?

Write your senators and congressmen today and ask them to support a ban on entry for people who have originated from or passed through the infected areas.

UPDATE:

It appears that there may be another ebola case in the US:

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Patient-With-Ebola-Like-Symptoms-Being-Treated-at-Howard-University-Hospital-278025181.html

This time it is in Washington, D.C.

A patient with Ebola-like symptoms is being treated at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., a hospital spokesperson confirmed late Friday morning. The patient had traveled to Nigeria recently. That person has been admitted to the hospital in stable condition, and is being isolated. The medical team is working with the CDC and other authorities to monitor the patient's condition.

One can hope that the proximity to Congress may scare the galoots into doing something to protect the people who pay their salaries.

Meanwhile, the incompetent moron running the CDC attempt to tell us that we are safer if we let the infected travel internationally:

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/ebola-us-border-111581.html

Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Friday said restricting travel between the U.S. and West Africa would likely “backfire” and put Americans more at risk of contracting Ebola.
<snip>
“Even if we tried to close the border, it wouldn’t work,” the top health official added. “People have a right to return. People transiting through could come in. And it would backfire, because by isolating these countries, it’ll make it harder to help them, it will spread more there and we’d be more likely to be exposed here.”

What we have here is a situation where a bureaucrat is not as smart as he thinks he is, and he thinks we are a lot dumber.

Maybe we should start calling his boss "Obola".

Rush Limbaugh, ever the cynic, may understand this better than I do.

"The Washington establishment political class wants [illegal alien] amnesty. That equals open borders. Ebola is a giant threat to that, and so therefore Ebola has to be positioned as insignificant. 'It's much ado about nothing! Nothing to see here. Don't worry about it. We've got it in control.'"

It is a bizarre world we live in when the CDC is reduced to arguing that we cannot prevent non-citizens from coming into our country in order to protect ourselves.  In fact, it is downright criminal.  Occam's Razor, they want ebola to spread in the US, as it would provide the basis for another power grab. Rahm Emmanuel's legacy lives on.

Lies Cause Skepticism and Government Funding Causes AGW

Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) got caught with their pants down when it was discovered that the agency had been manipulating surface temperature data. Not only have they been boosting recent temperatures, but they have been lowering temperatures from many decades ago to get the average surface temperature curves in line with political goals and objectives which depend on the concept of anthropogenic global warming.

Well, it gets worse.  Now, we find out that NOAA is assigning current temperatures to weather stations that are no longer in existence!  Anthony Watts points out:

I’ve annotated the plot, to include “zombie” weather station that have been closed for years, but still show “estimated” data from NOAA.  

This puts NOAA in the position of attempting to engineer a prophesy.  Is it any wonder that people are skeptical about AGW?

The icing on the cake is that NOAA can’t even make up it’s mind about which year is the hottest one since records began being kept. Says Watts, who has performed a great deal of research on NOAA published temperature data:

You can’t get any clearer proof of NOAA adjusting past temperatures.

This isn’t just some issue with gridding, or anomalies, or method, it is about NOAA not being able to present historical climate information of the United States accurately. In one report they give one number, and in another they give a different one with no explanation to the public as to why.

This is not acceptable. It is not being honest with the public. It is not scientific. It violates the Data Quality Act.

The problem is that political careers have been built on AGW.  When the reported data indicates that not only has there been no warming in the US, but there is indication of cooling, those careers are in jeopardy, as well as legislation, executive orders, etc, etc.

I have always said that the primary cause of global warming is government funding for climate research.  It appears that I have more evidence for my theory.

Don't Trust The Authorities

Here is an excellent reason why you should never trust the authorities.  The kid was conditioned by all the zero tolerance propaganda, and he did what, by any measure, would have been the right thing to do according to the rules.  As a result, he gets penalized.

I sincerely hope that he learns the correct lesson, and that is, if you keep your mouth shut, what they don't know won't hurt them (or you).

Society needs to return to the standard that if there is no harm, there is no foul.  If there is no injury or destruction, there is no crime. 

Is Crimea the Spark for the Next World War?

I have been watching the news about Crimea lately.  The phrase "usual suspects" comes to mind.

Frankly, I could care less what happens in Crimea.  Regardless of the outcome, the result of opposing machinations has no impact on me or my country, and therefore, it is my opinion that the USA should stay out of it.  The Ukraine is a European country, and therefore, Crimea is a European problem.

And that is why it is the USA's problem.

European nations have de-funded their militaries because the USA is always willing to take up their slack.  They use our propensity for bellicosity to subsidize all sorts of social programs, which leads the populace to engage in navel gazing while the banksters and collectivists suck their wealth dry.  So, from a military perspective, the European nations can do nothing, and they are expecting the USA to spend its blood and treasure in an anti-democratic move to force a region to be a part of a country which it has no wish to do so.

Let's be clear: the people of Crimea want to be part of the Russian Federation.  With over 81% of the eligible voters in Crimea participating, almost 96% of the voters voted to go with Russia.  International observers certify that the referendum was conducted by international standards.

So, why is the USA and the EU so anti-democratic?  Occam's Razor, they are not democratically-oriented organizations to begin with.  Besides being stuck on the Wilsonian philosophy that lines on a map are sacred, the people that run the US and EU governments do not want people to have the kind of power that the people in Crimea demonstrated, because it make them less than relevant.  They might even have to get real jobs.

The USA and the EU claim that the referendum violates the Ukrainian constitution. Really?  What part of the constitution is that?  According to the WSJ (I don't read Ukrainian), the entire country has to vote in order to let Crimea go to Russia.  I am not so sure about that.  It turns out that Crimea is in reality, The Autonomous Republic of Crimea with its own constitution and parliament.

And then, there is the argument concerning international law:

It’s a matter of international law: territory cannot be annexed simply because the people who happen to be living there today want to secede. If that were the case, then under international law, any geographically cohesive group could vote on independence. That would mean the Basques should be free from Spain and France, and the Kurds would have an independent nation; the large community of Cubans living in Miami could vote to separate from the United States.

It appears that international law has been structured to maintain the status quo.  The problem with this is that it removes the God-given right to self-determination.  If Dade County, Florida wants to secede, who are we to stand in their way?  The Basques and Catalans were forcibly inducted into the Spanish Empire. In this enlightened age, why does the Spanish government continue to force them to stay?  Where does democracy fit into all this?  Does the West only pay lip service to the concept? That being said, the Russians should not be able to have it both ways.  If they are going to incorporate Crimea, they need to let Chechnya go.  Fair is fair, after all.

What concerns me the most is how Russia will respond to our interference.   When most people think of US debt creditors, they think of China.  What they don't realize is that Russia is probably the second largest creditor of US government debt.  What if Russia decides to dump its holdings?  What if Russia decides to shut down natural gas sales to the USA's NATO allies?  Either or both moves would create an untenable situation, which would leave NATO very little political choice but to go to war.  And since the EU members of NATO do not have much capacity, it means the US would have to go to war.

Somehow, I do not think that Russia is afraid of the USA's military "might".  It's one thing to bomb the piss out of a few third world tribal nations.  It is another thing entirely to pick a fight with an opponent who has numerical and technological parity.

The USA has one thing going for it.  We have a pansy president who is essentially a bully. He will bully around countries who have no capacity for engaging him on any serious level. However, I expect he will back down from Putin.  And that's not necessarily a bad thing.