Thursday, October 9, 2014


News Clips For The Day


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-states-worst-quality-life-164909712.html

The 10 states with the worst quality of life
 
By Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander E.M. Hess
October 7, 2014 1:34 PM

The United States is one of the world’s most prosperous economies, with a gross domestic product that exceeded that of any other country last year. However, a vibrant economy alone does not ensure all residents are well off. In a recent study from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), U.S. states underperformed their regional counterparts in other countries in a number of important metrics that gauge well-being.

The OECD’s newly released study, “How's Life in Your Region?: Measuring Regional and Local Well-Being for Policy Making,” compares nine important factors that contribute to well-being. Applying an equal weight to each of these factors, 24/7 Wall St. rated Mississippi as the worst state for quality of life.

ALSO READ: America's Richest and Poorest States

Monica Brezzi, author of the report and head of regional statistics at the OECD, told 24/7 Wall St. considering different dimensions of well-being at the regional level provides a way to identify “where are the major needs where policies can intervene.” Brezzi said that, in some cases, correcting one truly deficient measure can, in turn, lead to better results in others.

In order to review well-being at the regional level, the OECD used only objective data in its report, rather than existing survey data. Brezzi noted that current international studies that ask people for their opinion on important measures of well-being often do not have enough data to be broken down by region.

For example, one of the nine measures, health, is based on the mortality rate and life expectancy in each region, rather than on asking people if they feel well. Similarly, another determinant of well-being, safety, is measured by the homicide rate rather than personal responses as to whether people feel safe where they live.

Based on her analysis, Brezzi identified one area where American states are exceptionally strong. “All the American states rank in the top 20% of OECD regions in income,” Brezzi said. Mississippi-- 24/7 Wall St.’s lowest-rated states -- had the second-lowest per capita disposable household income in the nation, at $23,957. However, this still placed the state in the top 17% of  of regions in all OECD countries.

However, the 50 states are also deficient in a number of key metrics for well-being. “With the exception of Hawaii, none of the American states are in the top 20% for health or for safety across the OECD regions,” Brezzi said. Alabama , for instance, was rated as the second worst state for health, with a mortality rate of 10.6 deaths per 1,000 residents and a life expectancy of 75.4 years. This was not just among the worst in America, but also in the bottom 13% of all OECD regions. Similarly, Louisiana -- which was rated as the least safe state in the nation -- was the bottom 10% of OECD regions for safety.

Across most metrics the 50 states have improved considerably over time. Only one of the nine determinants of well-being, jobs, had worsened in most states between 2000 and 2013. Brezzi added that not only was the national unemployment rate higher in 2013 than in 2000, but “this worsening of unemployment has also come together with an increase in the disparities across states.”

Based on the OECD’s study, “How's Life in Your Region?: Measuring Regional and Local Well-being for Policy Making,” 24/7 Wall St. identified the 10 states with the worst quality of life. We applied an equal weight to each of the nine determinants of well-being -- education, jobs, income, safety, health, environment, civic engagement, accessibility to services and housing. Each determinant is constituted by one or more variables. Additional data on state GDP are from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), and are current as of 2013. Further figures on industry composition, poverty, income inequality and health insurance coverage are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 American Community Survey. Data on energy production come from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and represent 2012 totals.



http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/10/07/the-10-states-with-the-worst-quality-of-life/2/

The 10 States With the Worst Quality of Life
By Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander E.M. Hess
October 7, 2014

10. Georgia
> Employment rate: 64.7% (10th lowest)
> Household disposable income per capita: $26,426 (13th lowest)
> Homicide rate: 5.7 per 100,000 (13th highest)
> Voter turnout: 61.9% (tied-22nd lowest)

9. New Mexico
> Employment rate: 63.8% (7th lowest)
> Household disposable income per capita: $25,183 (7th lowest)
> Homicide rate: 6.7 per 100,000 (4th highest)
> Voter turnout: 61.6% (19th lowest)

8. Louisiana
> Employment rate: 62.3% (3rd lowest)
> Household disposable income per capita: $28,418 (24th lowest)
> Homicide rate: 10.9 per 100,000 (the highest)
> Voter turnout: 66.3% (14th highest)

7. South Carolina
> Employment rate: 62.5% (4th lowest)
> Household disposable income per capita: $25,055 (6th lowest)
> Homicide rate: 6.5 per 100,000 (6th highest)
> Voter turnout: 64.7% (18th highest

6. Oklahoma
> Employment rate: 67.9% (22nd lowest)
> Household disposable income per capita: $27,384 (19th lowest)
> Homicide rate: 5.5 per 100,000 (14th highest)
> Voter turnout: 62.4% (3rd lowest)

5. Tennessee
> Employment rate: 66.5% (17th lowest)
> Household disposable income per capita: $27,734 (20th lowest)
> Homicide rate: 5.9 per 100,000 (10th highest)
> Voter turnout: 55.7% (6th lowest)

4. West Virginia
> Employment rate: 60.5% (the lowest)
> Household disposable income per capita: $25,199 (8th lowest)
> Homicide rate: 3.9 per 100,000 (22nd lowest)
> Voter turnout: 47.8% (the lowest)

3. Arkansas
> Employment rate: 65.1% (12th lowest)
> Household disposable income per capita: $24,150 (3rd lowest)
> Homicide rate: 5.3 per 100,000 (15th highest)
> Voter turnout: 53.3% (4th lowest)

2. Alabama
> Employment rate: 62.7% (5th lowest)
> Household disposable income per capita: $25,584 (10th lowest)
> Homicide rate: 6.4 per 100,000 (8th highest)
> Voter turnout: 61.9% (tied-22nd lowest)

1. Mississippi
> Employment rate: 61.6% (2nd lowest)
> Household disposable income per capita: $23,957 (2nd lowest)
> Homicide rate: 7.3 per 100,000 (2nd highest)
> Voter turnout: 74.5% (the highest)




“The OECD’s newly released study, “How's Life in Your Region?: Measuring Regional and Local Well-Being for Policy Making,” compares nine important factors that contribute to well-being. Applying an equal weight to each of these factors, 24/7 Wall St. rated Mississippi as the worst state for quality of life.... Brezzi said that, in some cases, correcting one truly deficient measure can, in turn, lead to better results in others.... In order to review well-being at the regional level, the OECD used only objective data in its report, rather than existing survey data.... We applied an equal weight to each of the nine determinants of well-being -- education, jobs, income, safety, health, environment, civic engagement, accessibility to services and housing.... Further figures on industry composition, poverty, income inequality and health insurance coverage are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013 American Community Survey. Data on energy production come from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and represent 2012 totals.”

These listings of most downtrodden states give mostly Republican states as the lowest rated. Republicans tout their expertise in economic matters and “growing businesses,” but when it comes down to dollars and cents for the ordinary citizen, they have not done well. I also notice that most of these states are either southern or western, have fewer large cities, more farms and ranches, less industrialization and less educational advancement in their populations than the Northeast.

The South was all but destroyed culturally and economically in the Civil War and that is demoralizing. My home state North Carolina had a good many industrial businesses when I was growing up, and therefore jobs, and Virginia, Maryland and NC are strong tobacco producing and processing states. Virginia and Maryland derive a good deal of business from their proximity to Washington, DC, which used to be described as “the recession proof city.” Many people from those two states commute daily to work in the city. There is also the IT industry concentrated on the beltway around DC. More people in that whole area have college degrees, and the Republican party in general has fewer members with a college degree, so in such an area there are more Democratic votes. The dominance in the South and West by Republicans is linked with generally more “conservative” thinking there, and in particular with fundamentalist Christianity.

Conservative thinking and lack of education, not necessarily always found together, holds a population back from social and economic advancement. The South has always had some very wealthy people, but many more who are poor to lower middle class. Factory towns in NC had a few wealthy families who owned the businesses and many more who worked for them. Republicans built businesses there, but paid low wages and fought unions tooth and nail – the same reasons they like to move to foreign countries today. Right now Republicans are fighting an increase in the federal minimum wage. They don't want their populations to get “above their raising.” That's why I have always voted Democratic. I want to see the poor be less poor and everyone be better educated.





New allegations in Secret Service prostitution scandal
CBS NEWS October 9, 2014, 7:00 AM

Two new allegations are on the table about the Cartagena Secret Service prostitution scandal ‎of 2012 - was an independent investigation delayed or watered down to protect the White House and was a White House volunteer in Colombia shielded from scrutiny?

The Washington Post says the Obama administration knew of allegations that a White House volunteer brought a prostitute to his hotel room on that trip.

As CBS News' Major Garrett reports, the Obama White House denies a cover-up of the Cartagena scandal, especially the charge leveled by government investigator David Nieland that political pressure hobbled the prostitution probe.

An associate of Nieland's, Gregory Stokes, raised the charge in 2013 with former CBS News correspondent John Miller.

"A man of high integrity in my opinion, was placed on administrative leave for refusing to redact or omit portions of his original report to the satisfaction of the inspector general," Stokes said.

Stokes was referring to Nieland investigating the prostitution scandal on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general's office.

But a bipartisan Senate committee report released in April rejected the accusation of a cover-up.

The report said it investigated whether orders were given "to remove information that could have been embarrassing to [the Department of Homeland Security] and/or to the Obama Administration in an election year."

The committee found no evidence to "substantiate" the allegations.

It has long been known a White House travel office volunteer was implicated in the Cartagena prostitution scandal. What wasn't known was the name: Jonathan Dach, son of prominent Democratic donor and former Wal-Mart lobbyist Leslie Dach.

A White House investigation cleared Dach of wrongdoing but never disclosed his name, in part because he was a volunteer and not a salaried White House staffer.

Dach has long denied any improper conduct, but he cannot deny White House and administration connections. His father was recently hired as a senior counselor for Obamacare at the Department of Health and Human Services.

As for the younger Dach, he survived the scandal and now works on global women's issues at the State Department.




“'A man of high integrity in my opinion, was placed on administrative leave for refusing to redact or omit portions of his original report to the satisfaction of the inspector general,' Stokes said.... Stokes was referring to Nieland investigating the prostitution scandal on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general's office. But a bipartisan Senate committee report released in April rejected the accusation of a cover-up.... It has long been known a White House travel office volunteer was implicated in the Cartagena prostitution scandal. What wasn't known was the name: Jonathan Dach, son of prominent Democratic donor and former Wal-Mart lobbyist Leslie Dach. A White House investigation cleared Dach of wrongdoing but never disclosed his name, in part because he was a volunteer and not a salaried White House staffer.... As for the younger Dach, he survived the scandal and now works on global women's issues at the State Department.”

This article doesn't talk about what proof exists against the White House, just that allegations have been made. It also does not disclose any ongoing investigation. I wonder where this story came from at this time. It originated in 2013 with Gregory Stokes, who claimed Nieland was punished for refusing to redact his report. A bipartisan committee denied the allegation. Somehow the story is resurfacing now, though, possibly from Republican involvement to cause the Democrats more problems. It is October in a midterm election year.





Tensions run high after cop shoots, kills suspect in south St. Louis
CBS/AP October 8, 2014, 11:49 PM

ST. LOUIS -- An off-duty police officer fatally shot an 18-year-old man who opened fire during a chase in south St. Louis, police said Thursday. Demonstrations followed the shooting.

St. Louis Police Chief Col. Sam Dotson said the 32-year-old officer was patrolling the Shaw neighborhood for a private security company late Wednesday when the shooting happened.

The officer said three men in the street ran away when they spotted him, Dotson said during a news conference early Thursday. The way that one of the men ran - grabbing at his waistband, slightly lopsided - indicated he was carrying a weapon, so the officer chased him, Dotson said.

The man turned and fired at the officer, who returned fire and killed him, the police chief said.

Ballistic evidence recovered from the scene indicates that the man fired three rounds at the officer before his weapon jammed, Dotson said, adding that the gun was also recovered.

The officer fired 17 shots, Dotson said. He said he didn't know how many hit the suspect or why the officer fired that many shots.

"An investigation will decide if the officer's behavior was appropriate," he said at police headquarters.

People who described themselves as relatives of the dead man told The St. Louis Post Dispatch he was not armed.

Dotson described the officer as a six-year veteran of the St. Louis Police Department, and said the man who was killed was 18 years old and black.

He didn't name either man.

People began to gather at the scene near the Missouri Botanical Garden shortly after the shooting, reports CBS St. Louis affiliate KMOV-TV. Family members of the victim on the scene were crying. Others at the scene yelled threats at officers.

Some people shouted "Hands up, don't shoot" -- a reference to the fatal shooting in August of an unarmed black man, Michael Brown, by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson. That shooting led to weeks of sometimes violent unrest in the St. Louis suburb. Officer Darren Wilson has not been charged in the shooting.

Dotson said some in the crowd shouted obscenities at officers and damaged police cars, but that the officers "showed great restraint."

He added, "Any police officer use of force certainly will draw attention."

KMOV reporter Julian Johnson says some members of the crowd approached police in an aggressive manner and started chanting. He also saw several people following officers and getting in officers' faces.

Around 10:40p, Johnson says, he heard several shots fired. It's not known who fired them, but police say it wasn't them.

No demonstrators were arrested and by 1 a.m., the crowd had largely dispersed.




“The way that one of the men ran - grabbing at his waistband, slightly lopsided - indicated he was carrying a weapon, so the officer chased him, Dotson said. The man turned and fired at the officer, who returned fire and killed him, the police chief said.... 'An investigation will decide if the officer's behavior was appropriate,' he said at police headquarters. People who described themselves as relatives of the dead man told The St. Louis Post Dispatch he was not armed.... People began to gather at the scene near the Missouri Botanical Garden shortly after the shooting, reports CBS St. Louis affiliate KMOV-TV. Family members of the victim on the scene were crying. Others at the scene yelled threats at officers. Some people shouted 'Hands up, don't shoot'.... Dotson said some in the crowd shouted obscenities at officers and damaged police cars, but that the officers 'showed great restraint.'”

It appears that the police officers in this case didn't respond with force to the protesters, which is good, and the officer's description of the shooting showed that the unnamed 18 year old shot first at the off duty policeman. His family members denied, however, that he was armed. Dotson said a gun was found on his body and ballistics indicated that he fired three shots at the officer. I'll look for more in the news as the investigation proceeds.





EBOLA – THREE ARTICLES


Sheriff's deputy with possible Ebola symptoms hospitalized in Texas
CBS/AP October 8, 2014, 4:31 PM

FRISCO, Texas -- Suburban Dallas officials say a sheriff's deputy who went into the apartment where the first U.S. Ebola patient had stayed is hospitalized "out of an abundance of caution" after falling ill.

But the deputy did not have contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola patient who died today in a Dallas hospital, a spokesman for CareNow told CBS News.

The patient, Michael Monnig, was transported from a Frisco Care Now facility where he was complaining of "stomach issues," sources told CBS station KTVT in Dallas.

The Dallas County Sheriff's office released a statement Wednesday, saying "the deputy expressed concern and we directed that deputy to the Dallas County Health & Human Services for care. We now wait for further information as medical staff attends to the deputy."

Frisco officials say the deputy was transported Wednesday after an urgent care facility reported a patient "exhibiting signs and symptoms" of Ebola claimed to have had contact with relatives of the man diagnosed with the disease in Dallas.

Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas confirmed that a patient was admitted "after reporting possible exposure to the Ebola virus."

Frisco Fire Chief Mark Piland says the deputy entered the apartment where Duncan had been staying and had contact with some members of the family that lived there.

Health officials say none of the family members has exhibited symptoms and wouldn't have been contagious.

At a press conference Wednesday, the mayor of Frisco said his office was told the risk that this patient has Ebola is minimal.

Frisco is about 28 miles north of Dallas, a city on edge as public-health officials wait to see if any of the people who may have been exposed to Ebola develop symptoms of the deadly disease.

Several residents of the neighborhood where Duncan emerged as the first U.S.-diagnosed Ebola case told city officials they had been sent home from work. Some community volunteers shunned a nearby after-school program. And the hospital at the epicenter of fear acknowledged for the first time that some patients were staying away.

Health officials tried to present a unified front of both preparedness and reassurance, almost two weeks after the Liberian man who brought Ebola into the U.S. first developed symptoms.

"This is a very critical week," said Dr. David Lakey, the Texas health commissioner. "We're at a very sensitive period when a contact could develop symptoms. We're monitoring with extreme vigilance."

CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook said he believes Duncan won't be the last person to be diagnosed with Ebola on U.S. Soil.

"We're going to see individual cases [of Ebola] in the U.S. However, that is not the same as an individual outbreak," LaPook said Wednesday. "We need to beef up our ability to follow protocol as cases come into emergency rooms."

Public health officials are watching for any signs of Ebola's spread. Ten of the 48 people being monitored are confirmed to have had close contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, who died Wednesday after being hospitalized for more than a week. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people infected by the virus can begin showing symptoms of Ebola eight to 10 days after exposure. Duncan first sought care at a hospital emergency room on Sept. 25 and was admitted three days later.

The Ebola outbreak has triggered huge interest on social media, as evidenced by this Twitter heat map:

Vickery Meadow, a collection of low-income apartment complexes just a short drive from some of Dallas's toniest neighborhoods, appeared calm on Tuesday. Women in traditional Muslim head coverings, mothers carrying children and workers headed to the bus stop walked along the road next to The Ivy apartments, where Duncan had stayed.

But some tensions have surfaced.

Dallas City Councilwoman Jennifer Staubach Gates said three residents of Vickery Meadow reported that their employers sent them away from work out of fear that they could be carrying the virus. Gates said Tuesday that she had contacted a lawyer to help those men.

The city has also enlisted doctors to explain Ebola to neighborhood residents and assure them that they are safe, Gates said. Vickery Meadow is home to thousands of immigrants from Afghanistan to Mexico, many of whom do not speak English.

Even Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins had to assure residents that his presence in the apartment where Duncan stayed posed no risk to others, including students at a school attended by his daughter. Jenkins released two letters Tuesday night from state and federal health officials saying he "was not at risk and posed no risk to others through his interactions with the family."

"We can never forget that the enemy here is a virus," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC. "The enemy is Ebola, not people, not countries, not communities - a virus."

Heart House, an after-school program serving the neighborhood, said about 20 volunteers had declined to come in for their shifts due to fear of the virus. Lenita Dunlap, director of Heart House, said the loss of volunteers made it harder to have enough adults to serve the 120 children in the program.

But Heart House remained open, with Dunlap and other staff watching Tuesday as dozens of children ran around a playground.

"We're standing strong," she said. "We believe in this community and we believe in the people here. And we have an incredible opportunity to serve."

Gustavo Villalobos stopped on his way to work at the nearby NorthPark Shopping Center. He said he felt assured by officials that his neighborhood was safe. But he noted that some at the high-end mall seemed nervous.

"People at the mall, if they hear someone coughing, they'll look at them weird" and recoil, he said.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, which is treating Duncan, acknowledged that a small number of patients had changed or canceled appointments because of Ebola fears. But spokesman Wendell Watson said the number was insignificant and that the hospital was safe.

"They don't need to be terrified of this," Watson said.



“Frisco officials say the deputy was transported Wednesday after an urgent care facility reported a patient "exhibiting signs and symptoms" of Ebola claimed to have had contact with relatives of the man diagnosed with the disease in Dallas. Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas confirmed that a patient was admitted 'after reporting possible exposure to the Ebola virus.' Frisco Fire Chief Mark Piland says the deputy entered the apartment where Duncan had been staying and had contact with some members of the family that lived there.”

The scientists keep saying that a patient has to have developed symptoms before he can spread the disease, but I wonder if that is true. One report said that surfaces can retain living Ebola viruses on them, and that touching them can cause exposure. Could it depend on whether the carrier has taken a full shower after contact? Or wore the same clothes as on the day of exposure? One man contracted the disease from helping to wash out the car in which a patient died. Of course that was probably a case of bodily fluids soaking the car seats. Still, it's unnerving.





Majority of Americans Want Flights Banned From Ebola Countries: Survey – NBC
BY PHIL HELSEL
First published October 9th 2014

A majority of Americans support banning all flights to the United States from countries experiencing an Ebola outbreak, an exclusive NBC News online survey reveals.

The survey, which was conducted by SurveyMonkey and then weighted for age, race, sex, education and region to match U.S. Census data, found that 58 percent of Americans want a ban on incoming flights from West African countries hardest hit by the virus, such as Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Twenty percent of respondents opposed a travel ban, and the rest said they didn’t know. The survey was conducted a day before the first person diagnosed with Ebola inside the U.S. died Wednesday.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday announced new screening procedures at five American airports that see the most travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone: New York’s JFK International Airport, Washington-Dulles, Newark, Chicago-O’Hare and Atlanta. Staff will question and take the temperature of everyone coming from those countries and screen for signs of the illness. Approximately 150 passengers come to the U.S. from those countries each day, officials said.

Read the full survey here

The survey found that 51 percent of respondents said they were worried there would be an Ebola outbreak in the United States, and 30 percent worried they or someone in their family would be exposed to the virus.

By an almost 2-1 margin, those surveyed disapproved of sending U.S. troops overseas to help contain the outbreak.

Most Americans surveyed said they did have an accurate understanding of how the deadly disease is spread, with 72 percent correctly answering that it is communicated through bodily fluids.

“People actually have to have a decent understanding in how you contract Ebola. Only 10 percent said through the air, and 15 percent said through the skin,” said John Lapinksi, an associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, who is also director of elections at NBC News and was part of a team of academics who weighted the survey results. “The knowledge [result] is not trivial.”

The Ebola outbreak, the largest in history, has sickened 8,033 people and killed 3,879 as of Wednesday — and the World Health Organization said those numbers are almost certainly an underestimate. Also in the U.S., NBC News freelance camera operator Ashoka Mukpo is being treated for the disease at the Nebraska Medical Center and an unnamed American doctor is being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

The survey found that people trust the CDC more than their local health departments to prevent an outbreak of Ebola in the U.S. The Dallas hospital where the Ebola patient who died, Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, was treated has come under fire after it initially sent Duncan home after the Liberian national complained of symptoms that turned out to be the deadly disease, creating a delay in treatment.

Seventy-six percent of those surveyed said they trusted the CDC to prevent an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. That compared to 62 percent who said they trusted their state health department to take the proper steps to prevent an outbreak.

The survey was conducted Tuesday, Oct. 7, and has a margin of error of 4.6 percent. The company conducted the survey by sending e-mails to 2,517 people; of those, 1,045 started the survey and 1,010 completed it. Those e-mailed were chosen from those who completed other surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform, in age in sex proportions that attempted to mirror U.S. Census numbers. All were over the age of 18.




“Approximately 150 passengers come to the U.S. from those countries each day, officials said.... The survey found that 51 percent of respondents said they were worried there would be an Ebola outbreak in the United States, and 30 percent worried they or someone in their family would be exposed to the virus. By an almost 2-1 margin, those surveyed disapproved of sending U.S. troops overseas to help contain the outbreak.... The survey found that people trust the CDC more than their local health departments to prevent an outbreak of Ebola in the U.S.”

There is a real danger of our soldiers, who have been sent in to set up field hospitals and help out in other ways, contracting Ebola. WHO expressed gratitude, however, so their presence is considered very helpful. Soldiers run the risk of death whenever they enter the army, though we don't want to think about it very much, but this particular form of death is very frightening. As for the fear of every plane entering our airspace bringing the disease, I think if they set up examination stations at all US airports they can catch most of the cases, especially if it is true that asymptomatic patients can't transmit the disease.

The fact that the CDC is keeping up surveillance over all secondary contacts rather than just primary contacts makes me slightly less sure of that concept. Of course they don't expect symptoms to appear in the secondary cases until the end of the incubation period. I just find it hard to feel sure, really certain, that we are in no danger of an epidemic here. Its spread is too mysterious and so many people avoid going in for treatment, at least in Africa. Would someone here who was wanted by the police or by ICE go in for treatment? Then there is this new information about dogs – and who knows, cats and other animals – carrying the disease asymptomatically so that you never know if they have it. I am more uneasy about this disease than I am about radical Islamists setting up enclaves in our cities, for instance. I will keep up the search for information about it each day.





Why One Public Health Expert Thinks Airport Ebola Screening Won't Work – NPR
by ANDERS KELTO
October 08, 2014

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden has said his organization will soon be implementing new health screening procedures at U.S. airports. It's part of an ongoing effort to control the spread of Ebola.

"We'll be strengthening our screening procedures both at the source and at entry," Frieden said at a news conference yesterday. His comments echoed calls for stepped-up screening by President Obama and Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

What will these screenings entail? And will they make Americans safer?

It's difficult to say, because the CDC hasn't released many details yet. Larry Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, says the new requirements will likely mirror procedures already used in some West African airports: travel history, looking for signs for illness, and a temperature reading.

When it comes to the likelihood of these interventions benefiting public health, Gostin is skeptical.

"Fever screening can be unobtrusive, but let's not have the false impression that this is a tried-and-true method and it's going to keep Ebola out of the United States," he says. "It's just not the case."

In fact, there's little evidence that fever screenings for arriving passengers do much to prevent the spread of Ebola or other diseases.

Consider the case of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who traveled to the U.S. from Liberia and is now in critical condition in a Dallas hospital. He would not have been detected either in Africa or the U.S. because he was not exhibiting any signs of the virus.

Or consider the case of Australia and the 2003 SARS outbreak. The country's airports screened more than 1.8 million incoming passengers for the airborne virus and found 794 with elevated temperatures. They held those travelers for additional testing, but no one turned out to have SARS.

Singapore and Canada saw similar results: millions of passengers screened, and few if any SARS cases detected. Meanwhile, thousands of people saw their travel plans disrupted and in some cases were quarantined for a week or longer.

Plus, Gostin says, many people know how to game the system. During the SARS outbreak, Gostin was on a flight to Beijing when the airline flight attendants began handing out Tylenol to first-class passengers. They were encouraged to take the medicine, to be sure they passed fever screenings.

And he worries that false positives could divert money and manpower away from actual Ebola cases.

"Just the other day, at Newark airport, someone came in with vertigo." He claims that high-level officials spent hours dealing with that one false alarm: "It's kind of not what you want."

Given this lack of evidence, why are new entry screenings being implemented? Gostin says it might have to do with an age-old tradition: The public gets scared and demands that the government protect them.

"And governments, even if they know better, will sometimes reply to that political outcry," Gostin says. "They're under a lot of pressure to do something [to] make the public feel reassured, even if it really doesn't make them safer."




“In fact, there's little evidence that fever screenings for arriving passengers do much to prevent the spread of Ebola or other diseases.... Given this lack of evidence, why are new entry screenings being implemented? Gostin says it might have to do with an age-old tradition: The public gets scared and demands that the government protect them.'And governments, even if they know better, will sometimes reply to that political outcry,' Gostin says. 'They're under a lot of pressure to do something [to] make the public feel reassured, even if it really doesn't make them safer.'”

Lack of detectable symptoms, false positives, and people actually trying to prevent the authorities from discovering the disease – such as the airline hostesses giving out Tylenol – though these things are part of the scenario, I still would like for the airport testing to be done. Even if it doesn't always work, on the other hand it sometimes does, and the need for every possible carrier to be discovered is high. Just because we can't do a perfect job doesn't mean we shouldn't try. The real reason Duncan's illness wasn't discovered sooner was because his local health facilities dropped the ball. They gave him some aspirin and sent him home when he reported symptoms. Americans need to be smarter than that. Health departments and hospitals in a country as large and populous as ours can run into a dangerous and contagious pathogen at any time. They must be alert.





Climate Change Worsens Coastal Flooding From High Tides – NPR
by CHRISTOPHER JOYCE
October 08, 2014

A wave of high tides is expected to hit much of the East Coast this week. These special tides — king tides — occur a few times a year when the moon's orbit brings it close to the Earth.

But scientists say that lately, even normal tides throughout the year are pushing water higher up onto land. And that's causing headaches for people who live along coastlines.

As Bob Dylan might have put it, the tides, they are a changin'.

High tides around the East and Gulf coasts are getting higher, to the point where regular high tides are beginning to look more like the rare king tides hitting the East Coast this week.

Ocean scientists say tides are higher because sea levels are higher. The result is a growing epidemic of small floods in coastal communities.

"What we have found," says oceanographer William Sweet, "is that nuisance flooding has substantially increased in frequency." Sweet is with the National Ocean Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and when he says "substantially increased," he means a lot. "We had areas that were increasing by a factor of 9 over the past 50 years," he says. That's nine times as many nuisance floods from high tides in some places.

NOAA scientists say the big increase is the result of shifts in climate — oceans are, on average, 8 inches higher than a century ago. And, Sweet says, it's going to get worse.

"Sea level rise is expected to accelerate during the next century," he says, "as the oceans continue to warm and expand, and the ice shelves lose mass as the water melts and enters into the ocean."

NOAA's conclusions on rising tides come from a century of data collected by tide gauges placed along coastlines. The same data are the basis of a study out this week from an environmental group, the Union of Concerned Scientists. Called Encroaching Tides, the report forecasts what higher tides could mean for 52 communities from Maine to Texas.

"Certainly communities that are unfamiliar with flood conditions will start to see that flooding regularly," says Melanie Fitzpatrick, a climate scientist and one of the study's authors. "And our projections show that in the next 15 years, two-thirds of the communities we looked at could see a tripling or more in the number of high-tide flood events."

This includes cities like Boston; New Haven, Conn.; Washington, D.C.; Charleston, S.C.; and Miami. Fitzpatrick says communities have three options: "First, is living with it. Secondly, is actually moving back — retreating. And the third way to address it is to fortify and defend."

The city of Annapolis in Maryland is doing all three. Annapolis sits at the mouth of the Severn River on the Chesapeake Bay. Founded in 1649, it was a colonial port.

Life still revolves around the city dock; workers today are preparing for the nation's largest sailboat show. Historic buildings from the 18th century surround the dock. "Our historic district is the economic core," says Lisa Craig, who runs the city's historic preservation division. She directs my attention to the tower of the statehouse, built in the 18th century.

"Look, we're standing here looking straight up at the statehouse dome," Craig says. "It's the capital city — I mean this is an iconic, historic community." And many of the city's buildings are now threatened by freakish high tides.

In fact, nuisance floods here have increased from about four each year in the 1950s to nearly 40 per year now. Annapolis leads the country in the increase in nuisance flooding recorded by NOAA — a nearly tenfold increase since the 1950s.

Craig says people have learned to live with it. "I walk down to the yacht club at 11:45 to go to lunch," she says. "And I anticipate, on some high-tide days, that I'm not going to be able to walk back; I'm going to have to take the long way around."

But the city is fortifying itself too. New flood maps identify buildings that are in jeopardy. There's a tax break for owners who prepare for flooding. Prep could mean simply building a barrier across a door sill or windows, or something more robust.

"Some businesses may want to increase the height of the interior of the property and create a step up or two steps up if that's the case, or a ramp," Craig says.

Holding back water has now become business as usual in downtown Annapolis. And if sea level keeps rising, it will be routine in a lot of other places as well.




“Ocean scientists say tides are higher because sea levels are higher. The result is a growing epidemic of small floods in coastal communities. 'What we have found,' says oceanographer William Sweet, 'is that nuisance flooding has substantially increased in frequency.' Sweet is with the National Ocean Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and when he says 'substantially increased,' he means a lot. 'We had areas that were increasing by a factor of 9 over the past 50 years,' he says. That's nine times as many nuisance floods from high tides in some places....
NOAA's conclusions on rising tides come from a century of data collected by tide gauges placed along coastlines. The same data are the basis of a study out this week from an environmental group, the Union of Concerned Scientists. Called Encroaching Tides, the report forecasts what higher tides could mean for 52 communities from Maine to Texas.... says Melanie Fitzpatrick, a climate scientist and one of the study's authors. 'And our projections show that in the next 15 years, two-thirds of the communities we looked at could see a tripling or more in the number of high-tide flood events.'... Fitzpatrick says communities have three options: 'First, is living with it. Secondly, is actually moving back — retreating. And the third way to address it is to fortify and defend.'...In fact, nuisance floods here have increased from about four each year in the 1950s to nearly 40 per year now. Annapolis leads the country in the increase in nuisance flooding recorded by NOAA — a nearly tenfold increase since the 1950s.”

So here we have it. The problem doesn't start 50 years in the future, it began in the 1950's and we can now “retreat” or “fortify and defend.” We'd better be studying the Netherlands and other places that have sea walls. Moving our cities away from the water will be difficult. It seems to me we're more likely to condemn or downgrade those waterfront properties, and rent them to poor people who can't afford higher ground. That sounds like a good basis for a futuristic novel.




Indonesian Cave Paintings As Old As Europe's Ancient Art – NPR
by NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE
October 08, 2014

Prehistoric cave paintings of animals and human hands in Indonesia are as ancient as similar paintings found in Western Europe, according to a new study that suggests humans may have carried this art tradition with them when they migrated out of Africa.

"Until now, we've always believed that cave painting was part of a suite of complex symbolic behavior that humans invented in Europe," says archaeologist Alistair Pike of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. "This is actually showing that it's highly unlikely that the origin of painting caves was in Europe."

For decades, Indonesian researchers have known about rock art in limestone caves and rock shelters on an island called Sulawesi. The hand stencils and images of local animals, such as the "pig-deer," or babirusa, were assumed to be less than 10,000 years old, because scientists thought that the humid tropical environment would have destroyed anything older.

"The truth of it was, no one had really tried to date it," says Matt Tocheri of the Human Origins Program of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. "It's not easy to date rock art."

Now, though, in the journal Nature, a group of researchers from Indonesia and Australia, led by Maxime Aubert and Adam Brumm, have analyzed mineral deposits that formed on top of these paintings in seven caves.

Their analysis shows that one hand stencil is at least 39,900 years old and a painting of a babirusa is at least 35,400 years old.

Those ages are comparable to the age of a painted rhinoceros from the famous Chauvet Cave in France, which has been dated to 35,300 to 38,827 years ago. The oldest known cave painting is a red disk found on the wall of a Spanish cave that's at least 40,800 years old.

The fact that people in Indonesia were also painting cave walls way back then suggests "it is possible that rock art emerged independently at around the same time and at roughly both ends of the spatial distribution of early modern humans," the research team writes in Nature.

But another possibility is that this type of art is much older, though scientists haven't found evidence of it in the archaeological record.

"When something like this shows up almost instantaneously, all over the distribution of humans, within say 10,000 years, the odds are it's something from our ancestors," says John Shea of Stony Brook University in New York.

In Africa, our species goes back 200,000 years, Shea notes. But archaeological sites there tend to be found in shallow caves that are relatively exposed to wind and the hot, humid conditions — unlike the deep, cold caves in Europe that are ideal for preserving artwork.

"What we can find in older archaeological sites is evidence of symbolic behavior, such as the production of little beads and personal adornments, the production of mineral pigments — of red ochre and other kinds of colored pigments that people used, presumably, to decorate themselves — and traces of artistic embellishments on stone tools and on bone artifacts," says Shea.

Figurative artwork depicting animals has been found on stone slabs in a rock shelter known as Apollo 11 in Namibia, points out Alison Brooks of George Washington University, who says these images were made more than 30,000 years ago.

"What this suggests is that this whole ability to make these things and possibly the tradition of making them is part of the cultural repertoire of the people who left Africa," says Brooks. She says that the paintings in Indonesia are very similar to images seen in Europe — for example, the babirusa in profile, with hair, is similar to European depictions of hairy mammoths.

But the Indonesian animals have stick legs and feet, instead of more detailed limbs. And there's a hint of a red line that might depict the ground surface of the land that the animal is standing on, which is not found in other places.

"There are some things that are a little bit different about this," says Brooks, though "it does seem to be that it's part of the tradition."




“'The truth of it was, no one had really tried to date it," says Matt Tocheri of the Human Origins Program of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. "It's not easy to date rock art.' Now, though, in the journal Nature, a group of researchers from Indonesia and Australia, led by Maxime Aubert and Adam Brumm, have analyzed mineral deposits that formed on top of these paintings in seven caves. Their analysis shows that one hand stencil is at least 39,900 years old and a painting of a babirusa is at least 35,400 years old. Those ages are comparable to the age of a painted rhinoceros from the famous Chauvet Cave in France, which has been dated to 35,300 to 38,827 years ago. The oldest known cave painting is a red disk found on the wall of a Spanish cave that's at least 40,800 years old.... But another possibility is that this type of art is much older, though scientists haven't found evidence of it in the archaeological record. 'When something like this shows up almost instantaneously, all over the distribution of humans, within say 10,000 years, the odds are it's something from our ancestors,' says John Shea of Stony Brook University in New York.”

The pursuit of artistic and possibly symbolic things such as body painting, decorating their tools, and producing beads for bodily adornment or possibly trading, goes back some 200,000 years at the beginning of the Homo Sapiens lineage, says this article, but the hot and humid weather there intruded it is assumed into the shallow African caves where our remains were found, so possibly cave art from that time period wouldn't have survived. It should be noted that Neanderthal Man, who has been described as lacking the gift for art, did in fact use red ocher in their burials, as traces of it were found on the bones, so they were using “symbolic thinking,” too.

The European caves are deeper and colder, which preserves the art work better. While the people all over Europe and SE Asia painted the same kinds of things, there are some differences in style. I personally, thinking about the French and Spanish cave art, believe that it is more “artistic” and oriented toward beauty rather than mere depiction in Europe. The horse from Lascaux Cave in France could be sold in an art auction in modern times and fit right in. Have a look at them on the Internet if you want to see their elegance.