http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140917/us-med--ebola-mutation-3ca919efcd.html
excite news
US scientist: Ebola unlikely to become airborne
Sep 17, 3:13 PM (ET) [ 17 September 2014 Pacific Time USA ]
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
WASHINGTON (AP) — It's incredibly unlikely that Ebola would mutate to spread through the air, and the best way to make sure it doesn't is to stop the epidemic, a top government scientist told concerned lawmakers Wednesday.
"A virus that doesn't replicate, doesn't mutate," Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee.
Fauci said U.S. researchers are monitoring for mutations in the virus, which has killed at least 2,400 people.
But considering all the dire things to worry about with this out-of-control epidemic in West Africa, that mutation concern is not "something I would put at the very top of the radar screen," said Fauci, head of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The unprecedented Ebola outbreak is believed to have sickened nearly 5,000 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The deadly virus also has reached Nigeria and Senegal.
Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of sick patients. But as the epidemic has grown, so have questions about whether, if left unchecked, the virus might transform and become more contagious.
In hearings in the Senate and House on Tuesday and Wednesday, lawmakers asked Fauci if it might even become airborne.
Viruses certainly mutate all the time, making mistakes as they copy themselves in order to grow and spread, Fauci explained. Most of those mutations are irrelevant, not associated with any biological change.
But sometimes, those mutations can make a virus a little more or a little less virulent, or make it a little more or a little less efficient at spreading in whatever way it normally is transmitted, he said.
"Very, very rarely does it completely change the way it's transmitted," Fauci said.
He stressed that he's not saying it's impossible.
"People might think I'm pooh-poohing it. I'm not," Fauci said.
He said the government had funded the Broad Institute in Boston to study the virus' mutations. In a publication last month, the researchers reported a somewhat more rapid rate of mutations than expected at that point in the outbreak, but that nothing had jumped out as being of special concern so far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra
Solyndra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Solyndra was a manufacturer of cylindrical panels of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cells based in Fremont, California. Although the company was once touted for its unusual technology, plummeting silicon prices led to the company's being unable to compete with more conventional solar panels. On 1 September 2011, the company ceased all business activity, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and laid off all employees, costing taxpayers over $500 million. The company is also being sued by employees who were abruptly laid off.
Technology
Solyndra designed, manufactured, and sold solar photovoltaic (PV) systems composed of panels and mounting hardware for large, low-slope commercial rooftops. The panels perform optimally when mounted horizontally and packed closely together, the company claimed, covering significantly more of the typically available roof area and producing more electricity per rooftop on an annual basis than a conventional panel installation.
The solar panels developed by the company were claimed to be unlike any other product ever tried in the industry. The panels were made of racks of cylindrical tubes (also called tubular solar panels), as opposed to traditional flat panels. Solyndra rolled its CIGS thin films into a cylindrical shape and placed 40 of them in each 1-meter-by-2-meter panel. Solyndra designers thought the cylindrical solar panels absorbed energy from any direction (direct, indirect, and reflected light).
Each Solyndra cylinder, one inch in diameter, is made up of two tubes. The company used equipment it had developed to deposit CIGS on the outside of the inner tube, which includes up to 200 CIGS cells. On top of the CIGS material, it added an "optical coupling agent", which concentrates the sunlight that shines through the outer tube. After inserting the inner tube into the outer tube, each cylinder is filled with a silicone oil, then sealed with glass and metal to exclude moisture, which erodes CIGS's performance. The hermetic sealing technology is commonly used in fluorescent lamps.
When combined with a white roof (the fastest growing segment of the commercial roof industry with over 1 billion square feet installed in 2008 and required for any new commercial construction in California), the company claimed that systems that employ the panels on a given rooftop could produce significantly more electricity in a given year. It was thought that on a white roof, the panels can capture up to 20% more light than a black roof. (Note: it is difficult to cite a specific reference for this because the exact gain depends on the latitude of the installation (i.e. sun angle). Solyndra's on-line energy modeling tool allowed designers to specify the roof albedo, and energy output varied as a function of albedo. Twenty percent is cited as typical figure and was validated by careful testing and modeling by the Fraunhofer Institute, among others. However, this report is not available on-line.)
The other advantage claimed by the company was that the panels did not have to move to track the Sun. The panels are always presenting some of their face directly perpendicular to the Sun. The daily production of flat solar panels has an output curve that has a clear peak while Solyndra claimed their system produced more power throughout the day.
The Solyndra panels allow wind to blow through them. According to the company, these factors enable the installation of PV on a broader range of rooftops without anchoring or ballast, which are inherently problematic. Solyndra claimed that wind and snow loads are negligible and that its panels are lighter in weight per area.
The company claimed the cells themselves convert 12 to 14 percent of sunlight into electricity, an efficiency better than competing CIGS thin-film technologies. However, these efficiencies are for the cells laid flat. The company did not post any numbers about performance when the cells are rolled up. The Solyndra 100/200 spec sheet doesn't mention the cells or the panel efficiencies directly. However, calculating from the data provided shows the high-end 210 panel has a field efficiency of about 8.5%.
In 2006, Solyndra began deploying demonstration systems globally. The company stated the total count was 14 systems and that these systems were each instrumented with sensitive radiation, wind speed, temperature, and humidity measurement devices to aid in the development of energy yield forecasting software tools. The company's website claimed there were more than 1,000 Solyndra systems installed around the world, representing 100 megawatts of power.
Government support and politics
Solyndra received a $536 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee before going bankrupt. Under the Solyndra restructuring plan, the government is projected to recoup 19 percent on $142.8 million of the loan and nothing on the remaining $385 million. Additionally, Solyndra received a $25.1 million tax break from California's Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority.
Shutdown and investigation
On 31 August 2011, Solyndra announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, laying off 1,100 employees, and shutting down all operations and manufacturing. In Solyndra's quarterly employee meetings, employees were told that the company was losing money, and that production costs, while declining, were still higher than the also-declining market prices for solar panels. The decision to lay off employees and cease operations came about as the result of a board meeting on 30 August in which terms for the injection of additional capital could not be agreed upon. This left Solyndra with virtually no cash.
On 8 September 2011, Solyndra was raided by the FBI investigating the company.
In September 2011, federal agents visited the homes of Brian Harrison, the company's CEO, and Chris Gronet, the company's founder, to examine computer files and documents. Also, in September 2011, the US Department of the Treasury launched an investigation.
On 29 September 2011, a US Department of the Treasury official[who?] confirmed that the criminal probe of Solyndra is focused on whether the company and its officers misrepresented the firm’s finances to the government in seeking the loan or engaged in accounting fraud.
On 7 October 2011, newly revealed emails showed that the Obama administration had concerns about the legality of the Department of Energy's loan restructuring plan and warned OMB director Jeffrey D. Zients that the plan should be cleared with the Department of Justice first, which the Department of Energy had not done. The emails also revealed that as early as August 2009, an aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had asked a Department of Energy official if he could discuss any concerns among the investment community about Solyndra but that the official dismissed the idea that Solyndra had financial problems.
On 13 October 2011, the bankruptcy court approved the hiring of the chief restructuring officer Todd Neilson.
On 20 October 2011, Rocket Renewables (rocketrenewables.com) incorporated in Delaware with Gronet as the President and CEO.
On 10 October 2012, the US Department of Justice objected to the bankruptcy plan amidst allegations that "the plan's primary purpose is tax avoidance through the preservation of hundreds of millions of dollars of net operating losses after reorganization". Also, the successor company is named 360 Degree Solar Holdings, Inc., which would have control over "approximately US$ 350 million in tax attributes", such as NOL carryovers.
On 22 October 2012, in the case In re Solyndra LLC et al., No. 11-12799 (Bankr. D. Del.), Judge Mary F. Walrath of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware ruled "that the evidence does not support a finding that the principal purpose of the plan was tax avoidance." "Solyndra's owners, Argonaut Ventures I LLC and Madrone Partners LP" will "realize the tax benefits of between $ 875 million and $ 975 million of net operating losses, while more senior creditors, including the Department of Energy, which provided a $ 535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, will receive nearly nothing."
On 12 July 2013, the Contra Costa Times reported that Gronet was unlikely to face criminal charges in connection with Solyndra.
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/71211/Clancy_-_Rainbow_Six.html
Tom Clancy
Rainbow Six
CHAPTER 36
FLIGHTS OF NECESSITY
Dr. Carol Brightling walked out of her office, turned left down the wide corridor, then left again and down the steps to her parked car. Twenty minutes later, she locked the car and walked up the steps of her apartment building, there to be greeted by the faithful Jiggs, who jumped into her arms and rubbed his furry head against her breast, as he always did. Her ten years of misery were over, and though the sacrifice had been hard to endure, the reward for it would be a planet turning back to green, and a Nature restored to Her deserved Glory.
It was somehow good to be back in New York. Though he didn't dare to return to his apartment, this was at least a city, and here he could disappear as easily as a rat in a junkyard. He told the taxi driver to take him to Essex House, an upscale hotel on CentralPark South, and there he checked in under the name of Joseph Demetrius. Agreeably, there was a minibar in his room, and he mixed a drink with two miniatures of an American brand of vodka, whose inferior taste he was too anxious to be concerned about. Then, having come to his decision, he called the airline to confirm flight information, checked his watch, then called the front desk and instructed the clerk there to give him a wake-up call at the hellish hour of 3:30 A.m. The Russian collapsed into the bed without undressing. He'd have to do some quick shopping in the morning, and also visit his bank to pull his Demetrius passport out of the safe-deposit box. Then he'd get five hundred dollars out of an ATM cash machine, courtesy of his Demetrius MasterCard, and he'd be safe… well, if not truly safe, then safer than he was now, enough to be somewhat confident in himself and his future, such as it was, if the Project could be stopped. And if not, he told himself behind closed and somewhat drunken eyes, then at least he'd know what to avoid in order to keep himself alive. Probably.
Clark awoke at his accustomed hour. JCwas sleeping better now, after two weeks of life, and this morning he'd at least synchronized himself with the master of the house, John found, as he emerged from his morning shave to hear his grandson's first wake-up chirps in the bedroom where he and Patsy were currently quartered. Sandy was awakened by the sounds, though she'd managed to ignore the alarm on John's side of the bed, her maternal or grandmaternal instincts obviously having their own selective power. Clark headed down to the kitchen to flip on the coffee machine, then opened the front door to collect his morning copies of the Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the Manchester Guardian for his morning news brief. One thing about Brit papers, he'd learned, the quality of the writing was better than in most American newspapers, and the articles were rather more concise.
The little guy was growing, John told himself when Patsy came into the kitchen with JC affixed to her left breast and Sandy in tow behind. But his daughter wasn't drinking coffee, evidently fearful that the caffeine might find its way into her breast milk. Instead she drank milk herself, while Sandy got breakfast going. John Conor Chavez was fully engaged with his breakfast, and in tenminutes, his grandfather was similarly engaged with his own, the radio now on a BBC channel to catch the morning news to supplement the print in front of him. Both modalities confirmed that the world was essentially at peace.
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/71211/Clancy_-_Rainbow_Six.html
Tom Clancy
Rainbow Six
CHAPTER 34
THE GAMES CONTINUE
"You're the guy who ramrodded the stuff in Europe?"
"I contacted various people and made suggestions which they carried out, yes, and so, yes, I do have some blood on my second hands, I suppose, but one cannot take such matters too seriously, can one? It is business, and it has been my business for some time."
"Well, that's a good thing for you,Dmitriy. That's why you're here," Maclean told him. "John is pretty loyal to his people. You must have done okay."
Popov shrugged. "Perhaps so. He never told me why he wanted these things done, but I gather it was to help his friend Henriksen get the consulting contract for the Sydney- Olympics that I've been watching on TV."
"That's right," Killgore confirmed. "That was very important to us." Might as well watch, the epidemiologist thought, they'll be the last ones.
"But why?"
They hesitated at the direct question. The physician and the engineer looked at each other. Then Killgore spoke.
"Dmitriy, what do you think of the environment?"
"What do you mean? Out here? It is beautiful. You've taught me much with these morning rides, my friends," the Russian answered, choosing his words carefully. "The sky and the air, and the beautiful fields of grass and wheat. I have never appreciated how beautiful the world can be. I suppose that's because I grew up in Moscow." Which had been a hideously filthy city, but they didn't know that.
"Yeah, well, it's not all this way."
"I know that, John. In Russia-well, the State didn't care as you Americans do. They nearly killed all life in the Caspian Sea-where caviar comes from-from chemical poisoning. And there is a place just east of the Urals where our original atomic-bomb research created a wasteland. I haven't seen it, but I have heard of it. The highway signs there tell you to drive very fast to be through the zone of dangerous radiation as quickly as possible."
"Yeah, well, if we're not careful, we might just kill the whole planet," Maclean observed next.
"That would be a crime, like the Hitlerites," Popov said next. "It is nekulturny, the work of uncivilized barbarians. In my room, the tapes and the magazines make this clear."
"What do you think of killing people, Dmitriy?" Killgore asked then.
"That depends on who they are. There are many people who deserve to die for one reason or another. But Western culture has this strange notion that taking life is almost always wrong-you Americans cannot even kill your criminals, murderers and such, without jumping through hoops, as you say here. I find that very curious."
"What about crimes against Nature?" Killgore said, staring off into the distance.
"I do not understand."
"Well, things that hurt the whole planet, killing off whole living species, polluting the land and the sea. What about that?"
"Kirk, that is also a barbaric act, and it should be punished severely. But how do you identify the criminals? Is it the industrialist who gives the order and makes the profit from it? Or is it the worker who takes his wages and does what he is told?"
"What did they say at Nuremberg?" Killgore said next.
"The war-crimes trial, you mean? It was decided that following orders is not a defense." Not a concept he'd been taught to consider in the KGB Academy, where he'd learned that the State Was Always Right.
"Right," the epidemiologist agreed. "But you know. nobody ever went after Harry Truman for bombing Hiroshima."
Because he won, you fool, Popov didn't reply. "Do you ask if this was a crime? No, it was not, because he ended a greater evil, and the sacrifice of those people was necessary to restore the peace."
"What about saving the planet?"
"I do not understand."
"If the planet was dying, what would one have to do-what would be right to do, to save it?"
This discussion had all the ideological and philosophical purity of a classroom discussion of the Marxist dialectic at Moscow State University-and about as much relevance to the real world. Kill the whole planet? That was not possible. A full-blown nuclear war, yes, maybe that could have such an effect, but that was no longer possible. The world had changed, and America was the nation that had made it happen. Didn't these two druids see the wonder of that? More than once, the world had been close to loosing nuclear weapons, but today that was a thing of the past.
"I have never considered that question, my friends."
"We have," Maclean responded. "Dmitriy, there are people and forces at work today that could easily kill off everything here. Somebody has to stop that from happening, but how do you do it?"
"You do not mean simply political action, do you?" the former KGB spook observed.
"No, it's too late for that, and not enough people would listen anyway." Killgore turned his horse to the right and the others followed. "I'm afraid you have to take more drastic measures."
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/71211/Clancy_-_Rainbow_Six.html
Tom Clancy
Rainbow Six
CHAPTER 2
SADDLING UP
"So, Dmitriy," the man said.
"Yes?" Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Popov replied, twirling his vodka around in the glass.
"Where and how do we begin?" the man asked.
They'd met by a fortunate accident, both thought, albeit for very different reasons.It had happened in Paris, at some sidewalk cafe, tables right next to each other, where one had noted that the other was Russian, and wanted to ask a few simple questions about business in Russia. Popov, a former KGB official, RIF'ed and scouting around for opportunities for entering the world of capitalism, had quickly determined that this American had a great deal of money, and was therefore worthy of stroking. He had answered the questions openly and clearly, leading the American to deduce his former occupation rapidly - the language skills (Popov was highly fluent in English, French, and Czech) had been a giveaway, as had Popov's knowledge of Washington, D.C. Popov was clearly not a diplomat, being too open and forthright in his opinions, which factor had terminated his promotion in the former Soviet KGB at the rank of Colonel - he still thought himself worthy of general's stars. As usual, one thing had led to another, first the exchange of business cards, then a trip to America, first class on Air France, as a security consultant, and a series of meetings that had moved ever so subtly in a direction that came more as a surprise to the Russian than the American. Popov had impressed the American with his knowledge of safety issues on the streets of foreign cities, then the discussion had moved into very different areas of expertise.
"How do you know all this?" the American had asked in his New York office.
The response had been a broad grin, after three double vodkas. "I know these people, of course. Come, you must know what I did before leaving the service of my country."
"You actually worked with terrorists?" he'd asked, surprised, and thinking about this bit of information, even back then.
It was necessary for Popov to explain in the proper ideological context: "You must remember that to us they were not terrorists at all. They were fellow believers in world peace and Marxism-Leninism, fellow soldiers in the struggle for human freedom - and, truth be told, useful fools, all too willing to sacrifice their lives in return for a little support of one sort or another."
"Really?" the American asked again, in surprise. "I would have thought that they were motivated by something important-"
"Oh, they are," Popov assured him, "but idealists are foolish people, are they not?"
"Some are," his host admitted, nodding for his guest to go on.
"They believe all the rhetoric, all the promises. Don't you see? I, too, was a Party member. I said the words, filled out the bluebook answers, attended the meetings, paid my Party dues. I did all I had to do, but, really, I was KGB. I traveled abroad. I saw what life was like in the West. I much preferred to travel abroad on, ah, `business' than to work at Number Two Dzerzhinsky Square. Better food, better clothes, better everything. Unlike these foolish youths, I knew what the truth was," he concluded, saluting with his half-full glass.
"So, what are they doing now?"
"Hiding," Popov answered. "For the most part, hiding.
Some may have jobs of one sort or another-probably menial ones, I would imagine, despite the university education most of them have."
"I wonder…" A sleepy look reflected the man's own imbibing, so skillfully delivered that Popov wondered if it were genuine or not.
"Wonder what?"
"If one could still contact them…"
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/71211/Clancy_-_Rainbow_Six.html
Tom Clancy
Rainbow Six
CHAPTER 17
BUSHES
"You know, sometimes I think the Earth First people are right," Kevin Mayflower said in the Palm restaurant.
"Oh? How so?" Carol Brightling asked.
The president of the Sierra Club looked into his wine. "We destroy everything we touch. The shores, the tidal wetlands, the forests-look at what `civilization' has done to them all. Oh, sure, we preserve some areas-and that's what? A hot three percent, maybe? Big fucking deal. We're poisoning everything, including ourselves. The ozone problem is really getting worse, according to the new NASA study."
"Yeah, but did you hear about the proposed fix?" the President's science advisor asked.
"Fix? How?"
She grimaced. "Well, you get a bunch of jumbo jets, fill them up with ozone, fly them out of Australia, and release ozone at high altitude to patch it up. I have that proposal on my desk right now."
"And?"
"And it's like doing abortions at half-time in a football game, with instant replay and color commentary. No way it can possibly work. We have to let the planet heal herself - but we won't, of course."
"Any more good news?"
"Oh, yeah, the CO, issue. There's a guy up at Harvard who says if we dump iron filings into the Indian Ocean, we can encourage the growth of phytoplankton, and that will fix the CID, problem almost overnight. The math looks pretty good. All these geniuses who say they can fix the planet, like she needs fixing instead of leaving her the hell alone."
"And the President says what?" Mayflower asked.
"He says for me to tell him if it'll work or not, and if it looks like it's going to work, then test it to make sure, then try it for real. He hasn't got a clue, and he doesn't listen." She didn't add that she had to follow his orders whether she liked them or not.
"Well, maybe our friends at Earth First are right, Carol. Maybe we are a parasitic species on the face of the earth, and maybe we're going to destroy the whole damned planet before we're done."
"Rachel Carson come to life, eh?" she asked.
"Look, you know the science as well as I do - maybe better. We're doing things like-like the Alvarez Event that took the dinosaurs out, except we're doing it willfully. It took how long for the planet to recover from that?"
"Alvarez? The planet didn't recover, Kevin," Carol Brightling pointed out. "It jump-started mammals-us, remember? The preexisting ecological order never returned. Something new happened, and that took a couple of million years just to stabilize." Must have been something to see, she told herself. To watch something like that in progress, what a scientific and personal blessing it must have been, but there'd probably been nobody back then to appreciate it. Unlike today.
"Well, in a few more years we'll get to see the first part of it, won't we? How many more species will we kill of this year, and if the ozone situation keeps getting worse - my God, Carol, why don't people get it? Don't they see what's happening? Don't they care?"
"Kevin, no, they don't see, and, no, they don't care. Look around." The restaurant was filled with important people wearing important-looking clothes, doubtless discussing important things over their important dinners, none of which had a thing to do with the planetary crisis that hung quite literally over all their heads. If the ozone layer really evaporated, as it might, well, they'd start using sunblock just to walk the streets, and maybe that would protect them enough… but what of the natural species. the birds, the lizards, all the creatures on the planet who had no such option? The studies suggested that their eyes would be seared by the unblocked ultraviolet radiation, which would kill them off, and so the entire global ecosystem would rapidly come apart. "Do you think any of these people know about it-or give a damn if they do?"
"I suppose not." He sipped down some more of his white wine. "Well, we keep plugging away, don't we?"
"It's funny," she went on. "Not too long ago we fought wars, which kept the population down enough that we couldn't damage the planet all that much- but now peace is breaking out all over, and we're advancing our industrial capacity, and so, peace is destroying us a lot more efficiently than war ever did. Ironic, isn't it?"
"And modern medicine. The anopheles mosquito was pretty good at keeping the numbers down-you know that Washington was once a malarial swamp, diplomats deemed it a hazardous-duty post! So then we invented DDT. Good for controlling mosquitoes, but tough on the peregrine falcon. We never get it right. Never," Mayflower concluded.
"What if?…" she asked wistfully.
"What if what, Carol?"
http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2011953479_apusobama.html
The Seattle Times
Originally published Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12:05 AM
As oil spills, Obama touts alternative energy
With the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico calling into question his plans to expand offshore drilling, President Barack Obama looks Wednesday to highlight the benefits of alternative energy sources.
By JULIE PACE
Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO —
With the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico calling into question his plans to expand offshore drilling, President Barack Obama looks Wednesday to highlight the benefits of alternative energy sources.
Obama was to tour Solyndra Inc., a solar panel manufacturing facility in northern California, where he also planned to speak to workers about how expanding the clean energy sector can create jobs and aid the nation's economic recovery.
The president has long said renewable sources of energy, like wind and solar, will play a vital role in the nation's energy future. He is asking Congress for $9 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects, a request that would be tacked onto a multibillion-dollar spending bill for Afghanistan and other programs.
But Obama has also moved to expand offshore drilling, recognizing the practical reality that the U.S. dependence on oil will continue for many years, and the political reality that more drilling could help him win Republican support for a broad-ranging energy bill.
The expansion Obama announced in March allows drilling from Delaware to central Florida, plus the northern waters of Alaska. Exploration could begin 50 miles off the coast of Virginia by 2012. He also wants Congress to lift a drilling ban in the oil-rich eastern Gulf, 125 miles from Florida beaches.
But those projects are in limbo following the oil spill, which is dumping millions of gallons of oil into the waters near the Louisiana coastline. Obama planned to travel to the region Friday to assess the spill, which has confounded experts in the government and at BP, the company which holds the lease for the rig that exploded and sank April 20.
The White House has said no new drilling will occur until the causes of the accident are thoroughly examined. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is due to deliver a report to the president Thursday.
At the Solyndra plant, the president planned to reaffirm his earlier assertions that the spill only reinforces the need to find alternatives to oil.
The White House says Solyndra is one of the most successful investments made as part of the president's $826 billion economic stimulus. The company received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Energy Department last year to help build a new manufacturing plant, a project that now employs 1,000 workers.
The company estimates the construction project could create up to 3,000 jobs total, and as many as 1,000 permanent jobs when the facility opens up.
Obama was to return to Washington late Wednesday following the two-day trip to California, where he also headlined a series of fundraisers for Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is facing a tough re-election challenge.
From 8/2/1999 ( premiere US film "The Sixth Sense" ) To 5/26/2010 is 3950 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 8/26/1976 ( the first known human case of Ebola ) is 3950 days
From 8/26/1976 ( the first known human case of Ebola ) To 5/26/2010 is 12326 days
12326 = 6163 + 6163
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/17/1982 ( premiere US TV movie "Charles & Diana: A Royal Love Story" ) is 6163 days
From 8/3/1998 ( Tom Clancy "Rainbow Six" ) To 5/26/2010 is 4314 days
4314 = 2157 + 2157
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/29/1971 ( premiere US TV series "McMillan and Wife" ) is 2157 days
From 2/21/1958 ( the Gerald Holtom peace symbol design ) To 9/14/2002 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - at Overlake hospital in Bellevue Washington State the announced birth of Phoebe Gates the daughter of Microsoft Bill Gates the transvestite and Microsoft Bill Gates the 100% female gender as born and Microsoft Bill Gates the Soviet Union prostitute ) is 16276 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 5/26/2010 is 16276 days
[ See also: To Be Continued? ]
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/manning-to-be-court-martialed/
WIRED
Bradley Manning to Face All Charges in Court-Martial
BY KIM ZETTER 02.03.12 6:43 PM
It’s not known when Manning’s court-martial proceedings will begin, but the speedy-trial rule under the Uniform Code of Military Justice requires that suspects be tried within 120 days of being arrested or 120 days of the “preferral of charges.”
It’s unclear how many days are left on Manning’s 120-day clock. He was arrested May 26, 2010
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=87950
The American Presidency Project
Barack Obama
XLIV President of the United States: 2009 - present
Remarks at Solyndra, Inc., in Fremont, California
May 26, 2010
Hello, everybody. Thank you. Everybody, please have a seat. It is wonderful to be here and to see all of you here today. And I would be remiss if I did not note the presence of your Governor, give him a big round of applause, Arnold Schwarzenegger. All right, I'm just going to go ahead and mention our district attorney, Kamala Harris, who's here.
It is great to be in Fremont, good to be back in northern California. I was reminiscing a little bit. Michelle and I took our honeymoon in Napa Valley. That was almost 17 years ago when we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway, and so I was fantasizing about going and renting a car. [Laughter] But I was told that would cause a stir--[Laughter]--so next time.
But it's wonderful to be here in northern California. It is always nice to get out of Washington a little bit. Now, don't get me wrong, the Capital is a beautiful place, nice monuments. I have no commute--[Laughter]--which very few people in California can say is true for them.
But the truth of the matter is, is that when you're in Washington, a lot of times all you're thinking about or all that's being talked about is politics--who's up, who's down, the contest between the parties--instead of people remembering why it is that they aspired to go into politics in the first place. We end up getting caught up in the moment instead of what is important for the future.
So I try to visit places like this about once a week, hear from folks as often as possible who are actually doing the extraordinary work of building up America. And I appreciated the chance to tour your plant and to see the incredible, cutting-edge solar panels that you're manufacturing, but also the process that goes into the manufacturing of these solar panels. And it is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly, the best workers in the world. And you guys all represent that. So thank you very much for that.
And while I'm at it, I also want to give some credit to those guys in the back who have been building this facility so that we can put more people back to work and build more solar panels to send all across the country. Thank you for the great work that you guys are doing.
Now, it's fitting that this technology is being pioneered here in California. Where else, right? For generations, this part of the country has embodied the entrepreneurial spirit that has always defined America's success: People heading west.
It was here where weary but hopeful travelers came with pickaxes in search of a fortune. It was here that tinkerers and engineers turned a sleepy valley into a center of innovation and industry. It's here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.
And you're doing so at a time of real challenge for America. I don't have to tell you that. The Governor doesn't have to tell you that. California was hit as hard as any State by the home mortgage crisis and the economic storms that followed. Even this high-tech corridor wasn't immune. Foreclosures skyrocketed; home values fell. Businesses slowed, from family restaurants to Fortune 500 companies. Fremont lost thousands of jobs as the NUMMI auto plant slowed production and shut down, and that hurt not only autoworkers but local businesses and parts suppliers.
Many in this community are still reeling from the effects of the recession, and that followed a decade of struggle and growing economic insecurity for a lot of middle class families. The truth is, even though the economy is growing and adding jobs again, it's going to take a while to create the favorable conditions for communities like this one to rebound and to flourish. But what was clear when I walked through the Oval Office door, at a time of maximum peril in our economy, when economists were warning we might be going into a great depression and the financial system might be on the verge of collapse, what was clear was that even though it might be difficult and even though some of the things we had to do might not be politically popular, we had to act. We couldn't accept a future that was marked by decline.
And that's why we took a series of steps to stop what was nothing short of an economic freefall. We passed a series of tax cuts to put more money in the pockets of working families right away, including more than 12 million families in California. We increased the Pell grant, which brought 4 million additional dollars--$4 million of additional aid to students right here in Fremont. We backed loans to small businesses, including 20 million to companies in this community alone.
We also provided relief for those hardest hit, who not only needed help but would most likely use the relief to generate more economic activity. So we extended unemployment benefits for more than 3 million California residents and made COBRA cheaper for people who'd lost their jobs so they could keep their health care for their families. We provided $250 in relief to more than 5 million California seniors, many whose life savings had taken a big hit in the financial crisis. And we provided emergency assistance to our Governors to prevent teachers and police officers and firefighters from being laid off as a result of State budget shortfalls. At a time when California is facing a fiscal crisis, we know that this has saved the jobs of tens of thousands of educators and other needed public servants just in this State. And what was true in California was true all across the country.
But our goal in dealing with this economic crisis wasn't just about bringing an end to the recession. We said to ourselves, we've got to build a new foundation for lasting growth. We can't have an economy that's just built on maxing out on credit cards and home equity loans and complex financial instruments that are generating big bonuses but can potentially bring an entire economy down.
So we recognized that we've got to go back to basics. We've got to go back to making things. We've got to go back to exports. We've got to go back to innovation. And we recognized that there was only so much Government could do. The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra, will always be America's businesses. But that doesn't mean the Government can just sit on the sidelines. Government still has the responsibility to help create the conditions in which students can gain an education so they can work at Solyndra and entrepreneurs can get financing so they can start a company and new industries can take hold.
So that's why, even as we've cut taxes and provided emergency relief over the past year, we also invested in basic research, in broadband networks, in rebuilding roads and bridges, in health information technology, and in clean energy. Because not only would this spur hiring by businesses, it would create jobs in sectors with incredible potential to propel our economy for years, for decades to come. There is no better example than energy.
We all know the price we pay as a country as a result of how we produce and use--and yes, waste--energy today. We've been talking about it for decades, since the gas shortages of the 1970s. Our dependence on foreign oil endangers our security and our economy. Climate change poses a threat to our way of life; in fact, we're already beginning to see its profound and costly impact. And the spill in the Gulf, which is just heartbreaking, only underscores the necessity of seeking alternative fuel sources. We're not going to transition out of oil next year or 10 years from now, but think about it: Part of what's happening in the Gulf is that oil companies are drilling a mile underwater before they hit ground and then a mile below that before they hit oil.
With the increased risks, the increased costs, it gives you a sense of where we're going. We're not going to be able to sustain this kind of fossil fuel use. This planet can't sustain it. And think about when China and India--where consumers there are starting to buy cars and use energy the way we are. So we've known that we've had to shift in a fundamental way, and that's true for all of us.
Now, earlier today I spoke to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who, as you know, is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. And he's been on the scene in the Gulf, deeply involved in our efforts to bring this crisis to an end. And we discussed today's attempt to stop the leak through what's known as the top kill, plugging the well with densely packed mud to prevent any more oil from escaping. If it's successful--and there are no guarantees--it should greatly reduce or eliminate the flow of oil now streaming into the Gulf from the sea floor. And if it's not, there are other approaches that may be viable.
And as work continues in the next couple of months to complete relief wells, my administration is intensively engaged with scientists and engineers to explore all alternative options, and we're going to bring every resource necessary to put a stop to this thing. But a lot of damage has been done already: livelihoods destroyed, landscapes scarred, wildlife affected, lives have been lost. Our thoughts and prayers are very much with the people along the Gulf Coast.
And then let me reiterate: We will not rest until this well is shut, the environment is repaired, and the cleanup is complete. And I look forward to returning there on Friday to review the efforts currently underway and lend my support to the region.
But even as we are dealing with this immediate crisis, we've got to remember that the risks our current dependence on oil holds for our environment and our coastal communities is not the only cost involved in our dependence on these fossil fuels. Around the world, from China to Germany, our competitors are waging a historic effort to lead in developing new energy technologies. There are factories like this being built in China, factories like this being built in Germany. Nobody is playing for second place. These countries recognize that the nation that leads the clean energy economy is likely to lead the global economy. And if we fail to recognize that same imperative, we risk falling behind. We risk falling behind.
Fifteen years ago, the United States produced 40 percent of the world's solar panels--40 percent. That was just 15 years ago. By 2008, our share had fallen to just over 5 percent. I don't know about you, but I'm not prepared to cede American leadership in this industry, because I'm not prepared to cede America's leadership in the global economy.
So that's why we've placed a big emphasis on clean energy. It's the right thing to do with our--for our environment, it's the right thing to do for our national security, but it's also the right thing to do for our economy.
And we can see the positive impacts right here at Solyndra. Less than a year ago, we were standing on what was an empty lot. But through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations. This new factory is the result of those loans.
Since the project broke ground last fall, more than 3,000 construction workers have been employed building this plant. Across the country, workers in 22 States are manufacturing the supplies for this project. Workers in a dozen States are building the advanced manufacturing equipment that will power this new facility. When it's completed in a few months, Solyndra expects to hire a thousand workers to manufacture solar panels and sell them across America and around the world.
And this in turn will generate business for companies throughout our country who will create jobs supplying this factory with parts and materials. So there's a ripple effect. It's not just localized to this area.
Meanwhile, down the road, we're seeing some other welcome signs. I know the closure of the NUMMI plant was devastating to this community and thousands of jobs were lost. And it was all the more painful and heartbreaking because the factory had been held up as an example of how America could lead in manufacturing.
But thanks to loans through the Department of Energy, which helped provide Tesla Motors with the financial wherewithal to expand, that shuttered plant is soon going to reopen. And once again it will be a symbol of promise, an example of what's possible here in America.
Tesla is joining with Toyota in a venture to put a thousand skilled workers back to work manufacturing an all-electric car. And this is only the beginning. We're investing in advanced battery technologies to power plug-in hybrid cars. In fact, today in Tennessee, there's a groundbreaking for an advanced battery manufacturing facility that will generate hundreds of jobs. And it was made possible by loans through the Department of Energy, as well as tax credits and grants to increase demand for these vehicles.
We used to account for about 2 percent of advanced battery technologies for cars. We're expecting, in the next couple of years, to get up to 20, 30, maybe even 40 percent, building our market share right here in the United States of America.
We're investing in an advanced electricity grid--and Governor Schwarzenegger and I were just talking about this before we came out, because this has been a big priority for him--that will be more efficient and better able to harness renewable energy sources. We're providing grants to build wind farms and install these solar panels, helping us double our ability to generate renewable energy. We're expanding our capacity in biofuels to reduce our dependence on oil. We've helped forge one historic agreement--and are on track to produce a second--to dramatically increase the fuel efficiency of America's cars and trucks. So we are making progress. It's progress that's going to produce jobs, that's going to help secure our future.
But we've still got more work to do, and that's why I'm going to keep fighting to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation in Washington. We're going to try to get it done this year, because what we want to do is create incentives that will fully unleash the potential for jobs and growth in this sector.
So already we're seeing the results of the steps we've taken. As I said, before the Recovery Act, we had the capacity to make less than 2 percent of the world's advanced vehicle batteries. In the next 5 years, we'll make 40 percent of these batteries here in the United States. Before the Recovery Act, we could build just 5 percent of the world's solar panels. In the next few years, we're going to double our share to more than 10 percent.
Here at this site, Solyndra expects to make enough solar panels each year to generate 500 megawatts of electricity. And over the lifetime of this expanded facility, that could be like replacing as many as eight coal-fired power plants. It's also worth noting, to achieve this doubling of our share of solar capacity, we actually need to make four times as many solar panels because other countries are adding capacity too. Nobody in this race is standing still.
So these steps are helping to safeguard our environment. They're helping to lower our dependence on oil. At a time when people are struggling and looking for work, these steps are helping to strengthen our economy and create jobs. And we all know how important that is, because times here in California are still tough. It's going to take time to replace the millions of jobs we lost in this recession.
Unemployment remains high, even though the economy is growing and has started adding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. So it took years to dig our way into this hole; we're not going to dig our way out overnight. But what you are proving here--all of you, collectively--is that as difficult as it will be, as far as we've got to go, we will recover. We will rebuild. We will emerge from this period of turmoil stronger than ever before.
That's not all. You're also proving something more. Every day that you build this expanded facility, as you fill orders for solar panels to ship around the world, you're demonstrating that the promise of clean energy isn't just an article of faith, not anymore. It's not some abstract possibility for science fiction movies or a distant future, for 10 years down the road or 20 years down the road. It's happening right now. The future is here. We're poised to transform the ways we power our homes and our cars and our businesses. And we're poised to lead our competitors in the development of new technologies and products and businesses. And we are poised to generate countless new jobs, good-paying, middle class jobs right here in the United States of America.
That's the promise of clean energy. And thanks to the men and women here today and the innovators and the workers all across America, it's a promise that we've already begun to fulfill.
So thank you very much. God bless you. God bless the United States of America.
Note: The President spoke at 10:20 a.m.
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0003020/quotes
IMDb
Quotes for
Charles Montgomery Burns (Character)
from "The Simpsons" (1989)
Mr. Burns: Before you begin, let me make one thing clear to you. I want your legal advice, I even pay for it.
[building]
Mr. Burns: But to me you're all vipers! You live on personal injury, you live on divorces, you live on pain and misery...!
[calms down]
Mr. Burns: But I'm rambling. Anybody want any coffee?
Blue Haired Lawyer: I'll have some coffee.
Mr. Burns: Want it black, don't you? Black like your heart! It's so hard for me to listen to you...
[shouts]
Mr. Burns: I hate you all so much!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167404/releaseinfo
IMDb
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Release Info
USA 2 August 1999 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) (premiere)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167404/fullcredits
IMDb
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Full Cast & Crew
Directed by
M. Night Shyamalan
Writing Credits (WGA)
M. Night Shyamalan ... (written by)
Cast
Bruce Willis ... Dr. Malcolm Crowe
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4153011/
NCBI
PMC
US National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health
Epidemiol Health. 2014; 36: e2014014.
Published online Aug 18, 2014. doi: 10.4178/epih/e2014014
PMCID: PMC4153011
What do we really fear? The epidemiological characteristics of Ebola and our preparedness
Moran Ki
Abstract.
Ebola virus disease (hereafter Ebola) has a high fatality rate; currently lacks a treatment or vaccine with proven safety and efficacy, and thus many people fear this infection. As of August 13, 2014, 2,127 patients across four West African countries have been infected with the Ebola virus over the past nine months. Among these patients, approximately 1 in 2 has subsequently died from the disease. In response, the World Health Organization has declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. However, Ebola is only transmitted by patients who already present symptoms of the disease, and infection only occurs upon direct contact with the blood or body fluids of an Ebola patient. Consequently, transmission of the outbreak can be contained through careful monitoring for fever among persons who have visited, or come into contact with persons from, the site of the outbreak. Thus, patients suspected of presenting symptoms characteristic of Ebola should be quarantined. To date, South Korea is not equipped with the special containment clinical units and biosafety level 4 facilities required to contain the outbreak of a fatal virus disease, such as Ebola. Therefore, it is necessary for South Korea to make strategies to the outbreak by using present facilities as quickly as possible. It is also imperative that the government establish suitable communication with its citizens to prevent the spread of uninformed fear and anxiety regarding the Ebola outbreak.
The current Ebola epidemic has garnered wide media attention throughout the world. As a result, many people fear that the disease, which is generally limited to the African continent, may cause an outbreak in their local community at any given moment.
The present paper will examine the epidemiological characteristics of Ebola, our level of preparedness, and discuss what we fear.
Ebola is a viral disease. Although it has previously been referred to as “Ebola hemorrhagic fever,” some Ebola patients did not present hemorrhage, and thus, it is now referred to as Ebola virus disease. The first known Ebola patient was a 44-year old man who had managed the construction of a school in northern Zaire (currently the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC). On August 26, 1976, the patient presented at a hospital with a high fever. He received an injection of chloroquine for presumptive malaria and had a clinical remission of his symptoms the next four days. On the sixth day, the patient had a fever of 39.2°C and began to hemorrhage. On September 8 (the 14th day), the patient died with severe hemorrhage. For the following months, until late-October, there was an outbreak of Ebola, with 280 of the 318 patients subsequently dying from the disease
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167404/quotes
IMDb
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Quotes
Cole Sear: [angrily] I don't like it when people look at me like that!
Stanley Cunningham: Like what?
Cole Sear: Stop it!
Stanley Cunningham: I don't know how else to look, I...
Cole Sear: You're a stuttering Stanley!
Stanley Cunningham: Excuse me?
Cole Sear: You talked funny when you went to school. You talked funny all the way to high school.
Stanley Cunningham: What...
Cole Sear: You shouldn't look at people, it makes them feel bad!
Stanley Cunningham: How did you...
Cole Sear: [screams] Stop looking at me!
Stanley Cunningham: [stutters] Who have you b-b-been speaking to?
Cole Sear: [repeatedly] Stuttering Stanley! Stuttering Stanley!
Stanley Cunningham: S-s-stop it!
Stanley Cunningham: [bangs his fist on the Cole's desk] SHUT UP! You f-f-freak!
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/opinion/what-were-afraid-to-say-about-ebola.html
The New York Times
What We’re Afraid to Say About Ebola
By MICHAEL T. OSTERHOLMSEPT. 11, 2014
MINNEAPOLIS — THE Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done.
There have been more than 4,300 cases and 2,300 deaths over the past six months. Last week, the World Health Organization warned that, by early October, there may be thousands of new cases per week in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. What is not getting said publicly, despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies, is that we are in totally uncharted waters and that Mother Nature is the only force in charge of the crisis at this time.
There are two possible future chapters to this story that should keep us up at night.
The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world. This outbreak is very different from the 19 that have occurred in Africa over the past 40 years. It is much easier to control Ebola infections in isolated villages. But there has been a 300 percent increase in Africa’s population over the last four decades, much of it in large city slums. What happens when an infected person yet to become ill travels by plane to Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa or Mogadishu — or even Karachi, Jakarta, Mexico City or Dhaka?
The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air. You can now get Ebola only through direct contact with bodily fluids. But viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice.
If certain mutations occurred, it would mean that just breathing would put one at risk of contracting Ebola. Infections could spread quickly to every part of the globe, as the H1N1 influenza virus did in 2009, after its birth in Mexico.
Why are public officials afraid to discuss this? They don’t want to be accused of screaming “Fire!” in a crowded theater — as I’m sure some will accuse me of doing. But the risk is real, and until we consider it, the world will not be prepared to do what is necessary to end the epidemic.
In 2012, a team of Canadian researchers proved that Ebola Zaire, the same virus that is causing the West Africa outbreak, could be transmitted by the respiratory route from pigs to monkeys, both of whose lungs are very similar to those of humans. Richard Preston’s 1994 best seller “The Hot Zone” chronicled a 1989 outbreak of a different strain, Ebola Reston virus, among monkeys at a quarantine station near Washington. The virus was transmitted through breathing, and the outbreak ended only when all the monkeys were euthanized. We must consider that such transmissions could happen between humans, if the virus mutates.
So what must we do that we are not doing?
First, we need someone to take over the position of “command and control.” The United Nations is the only international organization that can direct the immense amount of medical, public health and humanitarian aid that must come from many different countries and nongovernmental groups to smother this epidemic. Thus far it has played at best a collaborating role, and with everyone in charge, no one is in charge.
A Security Council resolution could give the United Nations total responsibility for controlling the outbreak, while respecting West African nations’ sovereignty as much as possible. The United Nations could, for instance, secure aircraft and landing rights. Many private airlines are refusing to fly into the affected countries, making it very difficult to deploy critical supplies and personnel. The Group of 7 countries’ military air and ground support must be brought in to ensure supply chains for medical and infection-control products, as well as food and water for quarantined areas.
The United Nations should provide whatever number of beds are needed; the World Health Organization has recommended 1,500, but we may need thousands more. It should also coordinate the recruitment and training around the world of medical and nursing staff, in particular by bringing in local residents who have survived Ebola, and are no longer at risk of infection. Many countries are pledging medical resources, but donations will not result in an effective treatment system if no single group is responsible for coordinating them.
Finally, we have to remember that Ebola isn’t West Africa’s only problem. Tens of thousands die there each year from diseases like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have among the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Because people are now too afraid of contracting Ebola to go to the hospital, very few are getting basic medical care. In addition, many health care workers have been infected with Ebola, and more than 120 have died. Liberia has only 250 doctors left, for a population of four million.
This is about humanitarianism and self-interest. If we wait for vaccines and new drugs to arrive to end the Ebola epidemic, instead of taking major action now, we risk the disease’s reaching from West Africa to our own backyards.
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/09/experts-raise-specter-more-contagious-ebola-virus
University of Minnesota
CIDRAP Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
Experts raise specter of more-contagious Ebola virus
Robert Roos News Editor CIDRAP News Sep 12, 2014
Amid fears that West Africa's Ebola epidemic may spiral out of control, two experts are using the pages of leading newspapers to raise the specter of a mutant Ebola virus that could become airborne, and appealing for massive interventions to preclude that nightmare scenario.
Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, wrote in a New York Times commentary today that the scale of the epidemic is offering the virus unprecedented opportunities to evolve toward greater transmissibility, which could give it the capability to spread worldwide. He is director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, publisher of CIDRAP News.
Richard E. Besser, MD, chief health editor at ABC News and a former acting director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), wrote in the Washington Post last night that a more-contagious Ebola virus could threaten the United States and said the crisis warrants the deployment of thousands of American troops to the affected countries.
What virologists don't like to talk about
The possibility of an airborne-transmissible Ebola virus is one "that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private," wrote Osterholm. In its current form, the virus spreads only through contact with bodily fluids, he noted, but with more human transmission in the past few months than probably occurred in the past 500 years, the virus is getting plenty of chances to evolve.
"Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice," he said.
"If certain mutations occurred, it would mean that just breathing would put one at risk of contracting Ebola. Infections could spread quickly to every part of the globe, as the H1N1 influenza virus did in 2009, after its birth in Mexico."
Osterholm added that public officials are reluctant to talk about this risk because they fear being accused of screaming "Fire!" in a crowded theater. "But the risk is real, and until we consider it, the world will not be prepared to do what is necessary to end the epidemic."
As evidence of the risk, he noted that Canadian researchers in 2012 showed that Ebola Zaire, the species in the West African epidemic, could spread by the respiratory route from pigs to monkeys.
Even without airborne Ebola contagion, there's a risk of Ebola migrating to developing-world megacities such as Nairobi, Kinshasa, or Karachi, possibly touching off new epidemics, Osterholm wrote.
In the face of the grave risks, someone needs to exercise "command and control," and the best candidate is the United Nations, he asserted.
The UN "is the only international organization that can direct the immense amount of medical, public health, and humanitarian aid that must come from many different countries and nongovernmental groups to smother this epidemic. Thus far it has played at best a collaborating role, and with everyone in charge, no one is in charge."
Besser: US must take the lead
Besser, in appealing for a vastly greater Ebola response from the United States, sketched bleak scenes of sick people in Monrovia, Liberia, waiting to get into overcrowded treatment centers and burial teams trying to collect bodies from the homes of terrified people who deny that their loved ones died of Ebola.
Recalling the warning last week from current CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, that the window of opportunity to stop the epidemic is closing, Besser wrote, "I don’t think the world is getting the message. The magnitude of the response needed for a deadly outbreak like this in a staggeringly poor country demands both dollars and people."
He said his CDC experience taught him that "a military-style response during a major health crisis saves lives." In foreign public health emergencies, the CDC usually provides technical support to governments, but "this crisis calls for much more."
Noting that the epidemic is threatening the stability of the affected countries, Besser asserted that an expanded American response would improve both global security and health security.
"While one Ebola case in the United States is unlikely to spark an outbreak, things could change if the virus becomes more easily transmittable," he added. "We already know it's mutating." He called the outbreak more disturbing than anything he witnessed in 13 years at the CDC.
Besser welcomed recent moves to scale up US aid to West Africa, including the Obama administration's request for more funds, but he said much more is needed.
He called for large field hospitals staffed by Americans to treat Ebola patients, plus active US involvement in strengthening infection control, staffing burial teams, and detecting new cases.
"A few thousand U.S. troops could provide the support that is so desperately needed," he added. "There could be casualties, but what military operation is ruled out solely because it is dangerous?"
"We know how to control Ebola. It’s time to step up and get the job done," he concluded.
MSF president speaks out
Some similar points were made in another Washington Post commentary, this one from Joanne Liu, MD, president of Doctors without Borders (MSF), the leading private aid group fighting Ebola in West Africa.
Using words similar to those she used at a UN briefing last week, Liu described the grim situation in West Africa and said MSF has been "completely overwhelmed."
"We need a large-scale deployment of highly trained personnel who know the protocols for protecting themselves against highly contagious diseases and who have the necessary logistical support to be immediately operational. Private aid groups simply cannot confront this alone," she wrote.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/08/05/338059797/the-ebola-outbreak-a-dress-rehearsal-for-the-next-big-one
npr
The Ebola Outbreak: 'A Dress Rehearsal For The Next Big One'
by NPR Staff
August 05, 2014 7:48 PM ET
Until this year, the world had recorded 1,640 deaths from Ebola since the virus was discovered in 1976.
Then Ebola appeared in West Africa.
So far this year, 887 people have died of Ebola in West Africa, the World Health Organization said Monday.
To put that into perspective, more than a third of all people known to have died from the Ebola virus have died in the current outbreak.
And the outbreak is still spreading at a frightening rate. Last week, there were more than 200 new cases reported across four countries.
To find out more about the origins of Ebola — and what may lie ahead — we talked to author David Quammen. He wrote the book Spillover, which traces the evolution of Ebola, HIV and other diseases that move from animals to people.
Here's an excerpt from our conversation, which has been edited for clarity.
The title of your book is Spillover. What does this term mean?
Spillover is the event when a disease, or the agent that causes it, moves from one species to another.
In particular, there's a group of diseases, called zoonotic diseases, which pass from nonhuman animals into humans. And spillover is the moment when a new virus has the opportunity to leap from a bat, monkey or rodent into its first human victim.
We're pretty sure that's what happened with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
How widespread is the Ebola virus in Africa? Are there pockets of wild animals, such as fruit bats, carrying Ebola in certain regions? Or is the virus really widespread in animals?
The Ebola virus seems to be confined to the moist forests of Central and West Africa.
We don't know where Ebola lives permanently — its so-called reservoir host. A reservoir is the animal in which a pathogen or virus lives inconspicuously, without causing symptoms. That's its refuge, its home. The virus replicates in the reservoir host at a relatively low rate and doesn't cause trouble.
For Ebola, bats are a key suspect. Three species have been found to carry antibodies to Ebola. But nobody has actually found live Ebola viruses in those bats.
Scientists don't know how the Ebola outbreak in West Africa started. But how have other Ebola outbreaks begun?
Each of these new, emerging diseases is sort of a mystery story. The first mystery to be solved is what's the reservoir host and what caused it to spill over into humans.
There was one Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it was suspected that the first case involved contact with a big fruit bat.
There were some large, migratory fruit bats roosting along the river in this area. One man in particular bought a bat at a market and carried it home. Then, I believe, the infection passed from him to his daughter. There was a strong, but not definite, implication that the killing of fruit bats, and the selling and buying of them in the market, is what triggered an outbreak.
How did we go from a virus that's found largely in animals to a virus that can be deadly for humans — and spread across four countries?
Human behavior is causing this problem. More and more, we're going into wild, diverse ecosystems around the world, especially tropical forests.
Some scientists believe that each individual species of animal, plant, bacterium and fungus in these places carries at least one unique virus, maybe even 10 of them.
We, humans, go into those wild ecosystems. We cut down trees. We build mines, roads and villages. We kill the animals and eat them. Or we capture them and transport them around the world.
In doing that, we expose ourselves to all these viruses living around the world. That gives the viruses the opportunity to spill over into humans. Then in some cases, once the virus makes that first spillover, it discovers that it might be highly transmissible in humans. Then you might have an epidemic or a pandemic.
Is the Ebola virus in West Africa changing over time and becoming more contagious in people?
Potentially. That's a real concern.
Viruses evolve by way of Darwinian natural selection. The more cases of Ebola we have, the more chances the virus gets to replicate. And the more chances there [are] for it to mutate in a particular way that it adapts well to living in humans — and perhaps transmitting more easily from human to human.
The longer this outbreak in West Africa goes on, the more chances there are for the Ebola virus to mutate and adapt. That's no small concern.
http://gerald-holtom.inmemoriam.org/
Gerald Herbert Holtom
Gerald Herbert Holtom was a professional designer and artist.
A graduate of the Royal College of Art, Holtom was a conscientious objector in World War II. On 21 February 1958 he designed the Nuclear Disarmament logo for the first Aldermaston March, organised by the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War, Easter 1958 (4–7 April). The logo was not copyrighted, and was available for use by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, also founded in 1958; it later became known in the wider world as a general-purpose peace symbol.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=75176196
Find A Grave
Birth: 1914
Death: Sep. 18, 1985, England
A popular explanation of the PEACE symbol is that Gerald Herbert Holtom (1914-1985) created this symbol on February 21, 1958.
http://www.newarkpeace.org/peace-symbol
THE NEWARK PEACE EDUCATION SUMMIT
Peace Symbol
In 1958, British artist Gerald Holtom drew a circle with three lines inside, intending the design to be a symbol for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC). The design incorporates a circle with the lines within it representing the simplified positions of two semaphore letters (the system of using flags to send information great distances, such as from ship to ship). The letters "N" and "D" were used to represent "nuclear disarmament." (The "N" is formed by a person holding a flag in each hand and then pointing them toward the ground at a 45 degree angle. The "D" is formed by holding one flag straight down and one straight up.)
Holtom finished his design on February 21, 1958
http://www.historychannel.com.au/classroom/day-in-history/445/peace-symbol-is-completed
HISTORY
Australia & New Zealand
This Day In HISTORY
February 21, 1958
Peace Symbol Is Completed
On this day in 1958, the peace symbol design was completed by Gerald Holtom. It was commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.
Gerald Herbert Holtom was a British artist and designer and a conscientious objector in WWII. He originally designed the sign for the British nuclear disarmament movement, to be used for a march from Trafalgar Square in London to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment in the village of Aldermaston.
The design, a circle with three lines inside, represents the simplified semaphore letters symbolising nuclear disarmament. The design itself is a circle with two semaphore letters, "N" and "D", for Nuclear Disarmament. Semaphore is the system of using flags to send information great distances, such as from one ship to another ship. In this case, the "N" is formed by a person holding a flag in each hand and pointing it toward the ground at a 45-degree angle. The "D" is formed by a person holding one flag straight down and one straight up.
Holtom described his design in a letter to Hugh Brock, editor of Peace News: "I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle around it."
Holtom’s designs were made into ceramic lapel badges for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament march and the peace sign quickly became a symbol of the CND. Buttons with the peace symbol were brought to the US in 1960 by University of Chicago freshman Philip Altbach, who persuaded the Student Peace Union to adopt the symbol. Between 1960 and 1964 they sold thousands of buttons on college campuses. By the end of the 1960s, the peace sign had become a generic symbol for peace, recognised around the world.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20020917&slug=dige17m
The Seattle Times
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
Local Digest
Gates family adds baby girl [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
SEATTLE — Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, are parents for the third time.
Phoebe Adelle Gates was born Saturday at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue.
DSC05122.JPG
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2016066351_apussolarmanufacturerbankruptcy.html
The Seattle Times
Originally published Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 10:33 AM
Solar company that got federal loan shuts down
A California solar-panel manufacturer once touted by President Barack Obama as a beneficiary of his administration's economic policies - as well as a half-billion-dollar federal loan - is laying off 1,100 workers and filing for bankruptcy.
BY KEVIN FREKING and JASON DEAREN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON —
A California solar-panel manufacturer once touted by President Barack Obama as a beneficiary of his administration's economic policies - as well as a half-billion-dollar federal loan - is laying off 1,100 workers and filing for bankruptcy.
Solyndra LLC of Fremont, Calif., had become the poster child for government investment in green technology. The president visited the company in May 2010 and noted that Solyndra expected to hire 1,000 workers to manufacture solar panels. Other state and federal officials such as former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Energy Secretary Steven Chu also visited the company's facilities.
But hard times have hit the nation's solar industry. Solyndra is the third solar company to seek bankruptcy protection this month. Officials said Wednesday that the global economy as well as unfavorable conditions in the solar industry combined to force the company to suspend its manufacturing operations.
The price for solar panels has tanked in part because of heavy competition from Chinese companies, dropping by about 42 percent this year.
Republicans have been looking into the Solyndra loan for months. The House Energy and Commerce Committee subpoenaed documents relating to the loan from the White House Office of Management and Budget. GOP Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and Cliff Stearns of Florida issued a joint statement on Wednesday saying it was clear that Solyndra was a dubious investment.
"We smelled a rat from the onset," the two lawmakers said.
Shortly after the company's announcement, it became clear that the bankruptcy would serve as further ammunition to criticize an economic stimulus bill that provided seed money for solar startups - even though officials said interest in providing Solyndra with guaranteed government loans was first sought under the Bush administration.
Upton and Stearns said they would continue to seek documents that would provide more details about the Solyndra loan.
"Unfortunately, Solyndra is just the latest casualty of the Obama administration's failed stimulus, emblematic of an economic policy that has not worked and will not work. We hope this informs the president ahead of his address to Congress next week," the GOP lawmakers said.
When Obama, who is seeking to address Congress to unveil a new jobs plan, toured the company's facilities, he said the investment was important because more clean energy would benefit the environment, the economy and national security.
"The future is here," Obama said during his visit. "We're poised to transform the ways we power our homes and our cars and our businesses. ... And we are poised to generate countless new jobs, good-paying, middle-class jobs, right here in the United States of America."
In a blog posting, Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow said Solyndra was a once promising company that had increased sales revenue by 2,000 percent in the past three years. The $535 million loan guarantee was sought by both the Bush and Obama administrations, he said, and private investors also put more than $1 billion into Solyndra.
"We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed, but we can't stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America's leadership in the global economy," Leistikow said.
Solyndra was heralded as one of the nation's bright spots of green technology innovation, creating a solar tube of sorts that could soak up sunlight from many different angles, producing energy more efficiently and using less space. The company's panels were also light and easy to install, which was meant to save up front costs.
But over the past few years, other companies caught up and provided similar products at a lower cost.
Brian Harrison, Solynda's president and CEO, said that raising capital became impossible.
"This was an unexpected outcome and is most unfortunate," Harrison said in a statement.
Another solar company, Spectrawatt Inc. of Hopewell Junction, N.Y., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Aug. 19. Its CEO said in the filing that it could not compete with solar manufacturers in China, which receive "considerable government and financial support."
Spectrawatt's filing came four days after Evergreen Solar Inc. of Marlboro, Mass., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Solar industry advocates said the failure of these three companies is not indicative of the health of the U.S. solar industry as a whole and that overall the Energy Department's loan guarantee program has been a success.
"In the last 18 months, solar companies have either added or expanded almost 60 factories in the U.S. and driven the installed cost of solar down by 30 percent," said Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association.
"To date, solar projects that have received loan guarantees will help to deploy enough clean solar energy to power nearly 1 million homes and create tens of thousands of jobs across 28 states," he said.
Jesse Pichel, a clean energy analyst with New York-based investment firm Jefferies & Co. said Solyndra's products used unique technology that was more expensive to install, "and the improvement was marginal at best."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167404/quotes
IMDb
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Quotes
Cole Sear: Walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they want to see.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=87950
The American Presidency Project
Barack Obama
XLIV President of the United States: 2009 - present
Remarks at Solyndra, Inc., in Fremont, California
May 26, 2010
So it took years to dig our way into this hole; we're not going to dig our way out overnight.
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 1:18 PM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Monday 22 September 2014
