08:05 – The morning paper reports that North Carolina has its first possible Ebola case. An unnamed man arrived from Liberia at Newark Airport, traveled by bus to Durham, NC on Saturday, and on Sunday self-reported to the CDC that he was running a fever. He’s now in an isolation ward at Duke University Hospital, awaiting test results. If the results are negative, he’ll remain in isolation for 72 hours because it’s possible for someone who is infected with Ebola and symptomatic to still test negative.
I’ve gotten several emails from readers asking if there’s a decent prepping book out there that they can use to get started before I finish writing my prepping book. I’ve looked at a bunch of them, and the only one I’ve seen so far that I can recommend as a decent introduction for beginning preppers is Lisa Bedford’s Survival Mom.
Yeah, there are some errors in Bedford’s book. (You don’t, for example, need to chlorinate water after you’ve boiled it, at least if you intend to use it immediately.) And it’s pretty obvious when Bedford is writing about things with which she has little experience, such as firearms. But overall Survival Mom is a decent introduction to the subject. You can probably read it over the course of an evening or two, and it’ll give you lots of good ideas for getting started.
According to USA Today, the preliminary results came back negative, but he’s still quarantined and they are testing him again.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/03/north-carolina-ebola-patient/18399447/
Right now, I’ll bet all those other passengers on the bus are fervently thanking Kaci Hickox for putting the kibosh on NJ’s mandatory quarantine rule.
The scary thing about Ebola is how little we really know, or are being told.
One thing that stands out to me is how closely Ebola is related to HIV/AIDS, both are essentially just pieces of RNA. HIV/AIDS can lie dormant for years, and I bet Ebola does the same, how else do you explain Ebola seeming to “burn out” then recurring years later. IMHO, there is some place or places in our bodies where these nasty RNAs go to hide and do their initial replicating. Until we know where these hiding places are, a blood test is not a sure indicator of infection.
Just something for a Monday morning.
On a more cheerful note, Tux lives!
Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive… It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!–Henry Frankenstein, 1931
I said it before and I’ll say it again; cut off all travel to and from Afrika. Period. Simple as that. You’re coming back from there now? Quarantine and testing, rinse and repeat.
And shut down the Mexican border once and for all and deport as many illegals as we can find. Restrict immigration according to Dr. Bob’s guidelines from now on.
I heard about that penguin spy deal down in Antarctica; hey, I’m no scientist but haven’t they already skewed any possible objective results of this experiment?
hey, I’m no scientist but haven’t they already skewed any possible objective results of this experiment?
Yeah, I thought so too.
They said if they approached the penguins, the fear level raised the penguins’ heart rates.
Apparently they forgot to think making the penguin think it’s about to get laid might raise the heart rate…
If I think I’m about to get laid my haht nearly stops cold. Plus stroke symptoms. YMMV.
This is the title of an article in my Human Events email today:
“LIBERALS ABOUT TO GET CLOBBERED IN MIDTERM ELECTIONS CONCLUDE DEMOCRACY IS OUTDATED”
Hey, libtards; just take a page from the Euro playbook and keep having the damn elections until the fuckin’ voters get it right!
It must have dawned on that dizzy redheaded ditz over in Maine that she has to live in that town after the media whores leave:
“Even though a judge ruled that Maine Gov. Paul LePage can not impose a quarantine on her, she told Chuck Todd this morning that she will not go near any public places in town. Residents have witnessed a media firestorm in their town, and Hickox apologized for that while standing by her criticisms of Gov. Christie.”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/kaci-hickox-vows-to-stay-away-from-public-places-apologizes-to-her-town/
I think it may also have sunk in finally, that when the police chief kept talking about keeping her safe only if she would stay home, he was very obliquely referring to the possibility of catching a bad case of lead poisoning if she started walking the streets.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/kaci-ebola-high-res-3jpg/
Obliquely? Hell, I figured he was saying if she didn’t stay off the streets he’d shoot her himself.
Our betters at the New York Times want get rid of the midterm elections and elect Representatives for four year terms and Senators for eight year terms:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/opinion/cancel-the-midterms.html?_r=1
Hat tip to Rush:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/11/03/new_york_times_op_ed_cancel_the_midterms
“There was a time when midterm elections made sense — at our nation’s founding, the Constitution represented a new form of republican government, and it was important for at least one body of Congress to be closely accountable to the people. But especially at a time when Americans’ confidence in the ability of their government to address pressing concerns is at a record low, two-year House terms no longer make any sense. We should get rid of federal midterm elections entirely.”
I know where to start with the guillotines!
La Coulter got in hot wottuh back in the day when she said the 9/11 hadji bastids hit the wrong building.
The Maine PD chief was hyping the possibility of mob violence, of course. That dint stop her and the alleged bf from riding out on their bikes, while the cameras and mikes were still live there. Presumably once those go away, she and the bf may find themselves targeted, mainly for being assholes than anything else.
I know where to start with the guillotines!
I hear you, Lynn.
Once Mrs. SteveB had to make a command appearance as part of her job at a political function sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. One of those pancake breakfast things.
The local County Commission chairman made the mistake of asking for her opinion on campaign reform, which was a hot topic at the time.
“As a career politician, you really don’t want to hear my opinion,” she said.
“No, really. We’re all big boys here. We can take it,” he chided her.
“If you’re sure,” she replied. “I think any citizen not only can but should be encouraged to run for office. Any office he desires, as many times as he wishes until he gets elected. At the end of his term, he can return to private life, or he can run for re-election or for another office. However, if he loses a bid, any bid for a second term in any office, since the people have made their wishes known by not electing him a second time, he should be hung in the town square. It would do away with career politicians and all the problems that go with them.”
As everyone else (all career politicos) in the room sat there with their mouths hanging open, the reporter from the local paper said, “Mrs. B., can I quote you on that?”
Heh. I clicked on the link below that Washington Times Kaci thing to see a slideshow of Hollywood’s Hottest Gunslingers. What morons. Not a single representative from Buffy or Firefly.
But my favorite in the slideshow was Kiera Knightley:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/collection/hollywoods-hottest-gunslingers/?page=9
Apparently, no one noticed that the rifle rounds in her bandoleer are a bit small for the shotgun she’s carrying. Geez.
My mistake. Looking at a larger version of the image, I see that it’s not a bandoleer at all, but belted ammo for the machine gun she’s not carrying.
Boy, that woulda got rid of more than one former President…
“…I see that it’s not a bandoleer at all, but belted ammo for the machine gun she’s not carrying.”
Still not a problem, and possibly a tip of the hat for accuracy; other members of a squad or platoon routinely carried/carry the machine-gunner’s extra ammo. So her main weapon is her shotgun and maybe she’s got the ammo for that somewhere else on her and the machine gun ammo is for that person.
Not a single representative from Buffy or Firefly.
True, but Joss Whedon did get an honorable mention with Scarlett Johansson…
Ewwww… just what we need, another ugly, diseased hooker.
That’s OK. Lead poisoning is rarely communicable once caught…
This one is from the chewing gum and peroxide poisoning department:
Oh, boo hoo! What am I to do? I went out and got drunk Friday night and princess that I am I needed a special chariot now I can’t pay my rent!
“Thanks for the ride, Muhammed.”
This begs for further investigation.
True, although I’d imagine as a doorgunner your buddies didn’t have to hump the stuff. I always felt sorry for the poor bastards who had to hump the extra ammo for an MG42.
RBT! Last chance to vote early and vote often for the anarchy party!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2818443/James-O-Keefe-s-video-shows-North-Carolina-poll-workers-offering-ballots.html
RBT! Last chance to vote early and vote often for the anarchy party!
And of course Holderbama is sending poll watchers to a lot of States because Redumblicans are cheating fucks! I wonder if he’ll send New Black Panthers like last time. Billy clubs and all. Bust some Dumblican kneecaps.
I am often reminded that “I am a leaf on the wind” did not end well for Wash.
Just a thought as I try to push a major release of our software package out the door tomorrow.
I wonder if he’ll send New Black Panthers like last time. Billy clubs and all. Bust some Dumblican kneecaps.
I would not be surprised if 10% of the Republican voters are carrying tomorrow in the voting booth here in the Great State of Texas. Most of them legal too! And a large amount of Democrat voters also.
I’ll be voting here in Vegas tomorrow. Redumblican all the way cause I’m dumb (also they’ll all win anyway, I wish Dirty Harry Reid was up this time). For all the non-partisan judges and sech, I’ll be using Mr. OFD’s advice and NOT voting for any incumbent. Give someone else a chance at the trough. Here piggy, piggy.
I’ve gotten several emails from readers asking if there’s a decent prepping book out there that they can use to get started before I finish writing my prepping book.
I’ve been reading “The Survivalist Blog” lately. A bunch of good ideas there. I am guessing that the M. D. Creekmore is retired as he seems to post deep articles quite a bit. And articles from other authors.
http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/
OK. Now I’m creeped out…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2818915/Is-strangest-online-dating-website-Dead-Meet-matches-grave-diggers-death-industry-professionals.html
“…I’d imagine as a doorgunner your buddies didn’t have to hump the stuff.”
I was only a door gunner for my last six months on active duty, and I had to hump a lot of it myself, though sometimes the pararescue guys or a crew chief would give me a hand with it. On the C130 gunships all the ammo was loaded for us by the loadmasters and their crews. Tall guys like us ended up back then as military police and machine-gunners.
“… Holderbama is sending poll watchers to a lot of States because Redumblicans are cheating fucks!”
Stories abound on the net of a lot of fraud and cheating anticipated; past performances would tend to indicate that this is mostly done by the Dem half of the War Party. I hope there is some kinda poll-watcher action with NBP’s and Tea Party types clashing or sumthin; I’ll be sitting by with my Moxie and pretzels and hoping for a rilly good shoo.
“…carrying tomorrow in the voting booth here in the Great State of Texas. Most of them legal too! And a large amount of Democrat voters also.”
And also in the great Green Mountain State, no doubt, yours truly included.
“Give someone else a chance at the trough.”
I like Mrs. B’s suggestion, posted early by Mr. SteveB. Anyone can run anytime. Run again and lose and you go to the scaffold.
“I’ve been reading “The Survivalist Blog” lately.”
Their stuff gets linked to pretty regularly at lewrockwell.com, too.
As does this guy:
http://graywolfsurvival.com/start/
“OK. Now I’m creeped out…”
As almost always, the comments are funnier than the story itself.
Re: tomorrow:
“The question of who will govern me is moot because I don’t care to be governed, at least by the present rules. More than anything, I don’t want any votes I cast to be used to exact violence against others. I don’t want to be responsible for the debt that politicians accrue which must be paid by future generations including my children and grandchildren. And I don’t want to enable politicians to wage endless wars which inevitably murder innocent non-combatants. As far as deciding who will lead us, that’s none of my business. If someone chooses to give up their sovereignty and be lead then fine. Just don’t ask me to participate in the charade.”
http://thirdway.crosstherubicon.us/why-i-dont-vote/
“MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — If incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is re-elected, national immigration experts are sure of one thing: Families, children, and mothers in New Hampshire won’t be safe from looming crime from illegal aliens’ gangs—which are absolutely, law enforcement says, active in the region.”:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/11/03/Immigration-Leaders-NH-Fertile-For-Illegal-Alien-Gangs-Crime-More-Chaos-If-Jeanne-Shaheen-Re-Elected
There you go, OFD.
If Shaheen gets re-elected you can just hop across the border and hire on for a security gig protecting those wimmins and chilluns…
I might just do that and link up with like-minded folks in the area, of which there are plenty.
Manchester is along the interstate that goes between it and Boston, and no doubt gangsta chit makes its way back and forth. With similar links to the other major New England cities, Providence, Woostuh, Springfield and Hahtfud. Rutland and Burlington here in Vermont get some of that up from Babylon-On-The-Hudson.
And here is some IT security chit for anyone interested:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/28/smuggling-snowden-secrets/
https://securityinabox.org/
Tails, by the way, can have persistence enabled on it, so that would include documents and other types of files. You boot it on whatever pooter, do yer thing, pull it, and vamoose, with the existing o.s. unaffected. Highly recommended. For whatevuh.
Also check out Whonix. You import the gateway and workstation into Virtual Box on, preferably, a Linux pooter. Harden up VB and Bob’s yer uncle. (also harden the router).
What are they teaching college kids these days?
From the comments at the original link:
“I’ve always said trying to reform education is fighting a rearguard action.”
Harden up Visual Basic? Man, if you can do that, you can do anything. (Ref the Chinese saying about catching a fly with chopsticks.)
As for Bob being my uncle, I think you have been misinformed. I still have my drunken hillbilly uncle John, but of the other uncles one is dead and the other is missing and presumed dead.
What a bunch of assholes.
What are they teaching college kids these days?
Well, you realize that most Havahd grads become either lawyers or politicians. Those are useful real world skills they’re being taught.
And what *else* are colleges teaching these days? Hah-vud also has this gem, all too typical of the shit that’s out there now:
“In addition to the anal sex workshop, other planned activities, according to the agenda, include “Brown Girlz Do it Well: a Queer Diaspora Remix,” a workshop that will “situate our personal narratives within broader systems of racism, casteism, classism, islamophobia, and imperialism.”
Fucking commie scum. I’d put ’em all up against a wall and cheerfully.
And SteveB is right; once you’re merely *accepted* to places like that, you’re in with the in-crowd forever. They all go on to the One Percent or serving the One Percent in a very close and personal way. Lawyers, politicians, financiers, hedge fund managers, bankers, CEO’s, etc.
“…I still have my drunken hillbilly uncle John, but of the other uncles one is dead and the other is missing and presumed dead.”
We have no hillbillies in our family, just us descendants of pirates, hoss thieves, brigands, militia ruffians, drunks, Indians, Quakers, enlisted scum, hired thugs (cops), mailmen, ditch-diggers, and failed grad students (me, also a drunk). One uncle, the other ‘Nam vet in the family, is deceased; he never took care of himself and mainly drank and smoked hisself to death in New Bedford, at 63. Bronze Star off ‘Nam. My remaining uncle does sumthin with cars down in the Hahtfud area but hasn’t been in touch for years; always a funny guy, too; I should make the effort. Used to say we all only saw each other at weddings and funerals, “buncha cold English ice people.”
That’s about right.
Not hardly. I was accepted by Harvard, amongst many others, and I’m sure not part of that crowd.
Well, Linux is good for one thing: recovering itself.
I did something stupid yesterday, seeing as how my main machine has been Linux since May. Not being able to get to the bottom of my audio trials and tribulations, I found that somehow, three versions of the virtual audio patch bay program were installed, JACK, JACKd, and JACKd2, and none of them worked. I only needed that last one, so last night I figured I would uninstall all of them and reinstall d2.
As I was watching the removal process, I saw a message flash by “removing Pulseaudio”. I did not really want to do that, but it was too late when I saw the message. Things looked okay, however, so I went to bed.
Got up to a locked up computer. Rebooted and all I got after logging in was a black screen with a cursor pointer that moved about freely. That was when I remembered reading somewhere that removing Pulse was not the way to solve its problems; just disabling it was. Because removing Pulse also removed the desktop in Ubuntu/Mint, as they are inexorably tied together.
The whole thing would have been resolved much more quickly had I known that in troubles like these, external keyboards plugged into laptops do not behave properly. Although it appeared that the keyboard was working, I later found — by accident — that only by using the laptop keyboard could I access BIOS, boot order, and a terminal. That accidental discovery was after I had worked on and off through the day to resolve the problem, and finally took the laptop away from my desk setup and moved it next to the Windows computer in the kitchen, so I could more easily implement the research from the Windows computer. All of a sudden, the keystrokes started working.
The solution was to bring up a terminal with Ctrl-Alt-F2, log on, reinstall the Cinnamon desktop with some apt-get commands, and reboot. So here I am with everything fully working, not losing a thing (except some audio programs uninstalled along with JACK, but their configurations and data still untouched), and not having to reinstall from scratch — which is what would have been necessary had I done this in Windows.
Linux can be wonderful.
“…I was accepted by Harvard, amongst many others…”
Because you didn’t actually attend there, did you? If you’d gone in and kept going you, too, could be sitting pretty right now, lording it over the rest of us, as we bow and scrape…
Maybe they’ll accept you again now and you can then take advantage of these great new course offerings…
I coulda told ya that about the laptop/external keyboard/BIOS thing, Mr. Chuck; I found that out myself a while back. Also the hard way. I have an external keyboard for the old Toshiba laptop here, running CrunchBang Linux; gotta now find the power cord so I can hook it up and upgrade to latest version. And a refurbished laptop on the way so I can install AbsoluteFreeBSD on it from scratch and build it to do network flow analysis hooked up to my Cisco lab machines.
Right now there’s only one Windows machine in the house. I’d dump this, too, if it wasn’t for wife’s needs and the media streaming.
RBT wrote:
“Heh. I clicked on the link below that Washington Times Kaci thing to see a slideshow of Hollywood’s Hottest Gunslingers.”
Halle! I surrender! I surrender!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/collection/hollywoods-hottest-gunslingers/?page=3
Bob, can you check if I’m in the prepping list? I received an e-mail and think I confirmed. It no longer works (it’s only a few days old, not 14) but when I go to the site it asks for a e-mail address and password. I don’t think I have the latter.
Yes, you’re signed up under your email that starts with E_
Thanks, but what’s the password? Is it something I set?
I can’t view your password. If you want to reset or get an email reminder of it, just connect to your member page and click the appropriate item.
Well, my Libre Office freeze-up problems seem to have been cured (just try to teach a foreigner why you use that tense) by my missteps causing the re-installation of the desktop. I really do not think it is true that just by doing the updates, you have the same working installation as installing the latest from scratch.
In fact, one of the things I did was to download the latest Mint 17 Live DVD and stick that in, attempting to repair the installation. I have one directory with 30,000 MP3’s in it. The Live CD displayed those folder contents INSTANTLY with file manager Nemo, whereas, even the new Cinnamon installation (which includes a new Nemo) takes about 5 minutes to read that folder. Figure that one out.
Ya know, it’s nice to have instant, but five minutes ain’t bad, either, to read through 30,000 files. Windows would undoubtedly take a LOT longer, as has been my experience.
Whenever we get our wired internet back, I’ll be updating all the Linux machines accordingly, might even try the Fedora 21 when it comes out next month, although we can get the Alpha right now, not a good ideer.
OFD, you’ve fallen for the elite universities’ sales pitch. And I mean hook, line, and sinker. There’s no way to justify the ridiculous prices they charge, other than to figure that getting your kid into one is a way to slide him/her into a life of luxury and power. But it really doesn’t work that way. Oh, sure, a degree from one of them is a good credential, helpful for getting an entry-level job, but after that it’s mostly job performance (or the appearance thereof) that matters. And sure, when you go to a place like that you can get to know the kids of the rich and powerful, and make friendships that can be helpful for the rest of your life. But you actually have to make an effort to do that; the vast majority of kids there aren’t on any particular track to power or fame. Well, except insofar as being a mid-level bureaucrat in some government agency or a mid-level manager in some large company counts as “power”. Granted, such people have more power and money than the average person, but not enough of a salary to make it into the top 1%, and not enough power to boast about it.
By the way, these places do teach technical subjects, and that’s a whole different ball game.
Yes, once you’re in there, the average schmuck has to work pretty hard to maintain and get through the program, but the key was getting in there in the first place. And based on Mrs. OFD’s experiences back at Brown and McGill, and what I saw during mine at lower-tier universities, you stand a fah bettuh chance of making it very successfully in life at one of the Ivy’s, one way or another. Is the fah higher expense justified? Not by my reckoning, but by plenty of other peoples’ and no, I haven’t fallen for their sale pitches, not by a long shot. Degrees to me mean nothing anymore, unless they’re in a STEM subject area and the person is clearly capable, or in increasingly rare cases, certain doctorates in the humanities.
A kid comes to me with an English BA from Harvard or Yale? I’m not in the least impressed. Geology? Engineering? Math? Sure. Or pre-med.
That’s not going to change anytime soon unless we experience the collapse you foresee.
It’s simply not politically-correct to acknowledge that gigantic differences in cognitive abilities exist between people, let alone state explicitly as I so often do that the really bright, the 99.9th percentile and better, are the only ones who really matter, and that ultimately the geniuses, the 99.999th percentile, are the seed-corn of humanity.
“…the really bright, the 99.9th percentile and better, are the only ones who really matter, and that ultimately the geniuses, the 99.999th percentile, are the seed-corn of humanity.”
Agreed, to a point.
But there are many millions not in those percentiles who are decent and good people and innocent of any, or very much, evil, and they also matter. The really bright and the geniuses are seed-corn, and a gift, but without the masses of good folks, what’s the point? As you have pointed out a couple of times, it’s the decent folks who come out and pitch in during disasters; they may not be geniuses but they know what to do and feel they have a duty. Without people like them we’re lost.
I imply nothing bad about people of average intelligence, or even below average intelligence. Yes, they matter to their family and friends, and rightly so. Yes, they have useful skills and contribute to society. I’m not saying otherwise.
What I’m saying is that to humanity as a species it’s the brilliant ones who matter. They must be cherished and encouraged. Without them, we’d still be starving in caves and dying of old age at 23. Every one of them that decides to become a banker or a stock broker instead of a scientist or an engineer is a huge loss to humanity.
OK, agreed, but I tend to think you may be overstating your case just a bit.