herding cats
herding cats's JournalThere are words that you just don't say in specific situations.
The newest word to enter the lexicon of "Don't say this out loud, you bonehead, especially in a 767 packed with paranoia," is "Ebola." And with pretty good reason.
As if we needed a wake-up call about cautious use of the name of the world's scariest virus (at the moment, anyway), on Oct. 8, a passenger on a U.S. Airways flight from Philadelphia to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, made enough of a joke about having the virus that the flight was grounded and the plane isolated, according to a video posted on YouTube by fellow passenger Patrick Narvaez, who as of Thursday had 21 subscribers.
http://blog.sfgate.com/travel/2014/10/09/ebola-joke-gets-passenger-kicked-off-plane-leads-to-latest-no-fly-word/
This was sent to me and I decided to share the article for the first sentence alone.
Health officials: Test results are negative for Dallas County deputy. He does NOT have Ebola.
DALLAS -- The Texas Department of State Health Services says negative results were returned from a lab in Austin Thursday, indicating that a Dallas County deputy does not have the Ebola virus.
This is a breaking news update. Check back for more on this developing story.
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/health/2014/10/09/ebola-test-results-negative-dallas-county-deputy/16984093/
Huge Increase In Voter Registrations In Ferguson Apparently Never Happened
The St. Louis County elections board reported that 3,287 Ferguson residents had registered to vote. That is a huge surge for a city of 21,000, particularly as controversy swelled about the racial make-up of the city government after the shooting. Ferguson is two-thirds African-American, but its mayor and all but one member of the six-person city council are white.
But apparently that first report was in error. There was no voter registration spike. The county elections board reversed course on Tuesday and said that, actually, only 128 people had registered to vote since the shooting.
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St. Louis County director of elections Rita Heard Days told TPM in a phone interview Tuesday that the county had mistakenly used a report that records all changes to a voter's registration information -- new address, change in marital status, etc. -- to get the initial 3,287 number. Somebody within the office pointed out the issue after the huge spike was reported, and the board worked with the secretary of state's office to get the actual 128 new registrants.
Days said she thought the original report of 3,000-plus new voters was "odd," but that it was at least possible because a lot of people had asked for voter registration information since the Brown shooting.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/ferguson-missouri-voter-registration-drive-didnt-happen
I'm quite interested in what the League of Women Voters and the local chapter of the NAACP have to say about their voter registration drives.
IL GOPer Allegedly Threatened CEO Over Lawsuit: 'I Will Bury Her'
A former CEO said that Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner made rather direct threats against her, allegedly saying that if she decided to "go legal" Rauner and his colleagues at the Chicago investment firm GTCR would "hurt you and your family."
Those comments, allegedly made by Rauner to Christine Kirk, were published in a report from The Chicago Sun-Times on Tuesday. Rauner's alleged threats were directed at Christine Kirk, a CEO of a national accounting firm who Rauner and GTCR recruited to help run the business-outsourcing company LeapSource. Rauner was a member of LeapSource's board.
The threats the Sun-Times reported came from a 2005 deposition that came out of a "corporate divorce" between Kirk and Rauner as a result of the LeapSource project collapsing. The Chicago Sun-Times was able to obtain records of the lawsuit Kirk filed against Rauner and GTCR. In it Kirk alleged that Rauner very directly threatened her.
"If you go legal on us, we’ll hurt you and your family," Rauner allegedly threatened to Kirk in February 2001.
According to Kirk, Rauner also suggested to another board member, Thomas Gilman, that he might go after her.
"I will bury her," Rauner allegedly said to Gilman.
There's more. Rauner also allegedly told Gilman that he would make Kirk "radioactive."
"She will never get another job anywhere, ever. I will bankrupt her with legal fees," Rauner said. "I don't know if she has a family or not, but if she does, she better think twice about this."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bruce-rauner-christine-kirk-lawsuit-threats
Feds Stole a Woman's Identity and Made a Fake Facebook Page for Her
Search "Sondra Price" on Facebook and you'll find a profile for the woman shown above. From the information that's publicly displayed, you'll learn a few things about her: She went to Watertown High School, she drives a BMW, her nickname is "Sosa," and judging by one picture, she might have young children.
All of this is true—the children in the photo are her son and niece, it turns out—but she didn't create the Facebook page—a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent named Timothy Sinnigen did. Sondra Arniquett was arrested in 2010 for a minor role in a cocaine-dealing ring (she went by Sondra Prince at the time). Ultimately, she was sentenced to probation, BuzzFeed reports, and without her knowledge, Sinnigen used photos and information taken from her seized cell phone to set up the profile in hopes of luring in other offenders. Now, Arniquett is suing Sinnigen, and government attorneys are claiming that the identity theft was permissible. From BuzzFeed:
In a court filing, a U.S. attorney acknowledges that, unbeknownst to Arquiett, Sinnigen created the fake Facebook account, posed as her, posted photos, sent a friend request to a fugitive, accepted other friend requests, and used the account "for a legitimate law enforcement purpose."
The U.S. Attorney defending Sinnigen claims that the agent's actions were OK: while Arquiett did not give "express permission" for Sinnigen to use the photos, it is argued, she "implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cell phone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in an ongoing criminal investigations." To which Anita L. Allen, a University of Pennsylvania law professor interviewed by BuzzFeed, replied: "I may allow someone to come into my home and search, but that doesn't mean they can take the photos from my coffee table and post them online."
http://gawker.com/feds-stole-a-womans-identity-and-made-a-fake-facebook-p-1643348368
I have $100 to donate to the senate races this week. Where should I spend it?
This isn't some sort of test. I really do have an extra $100 to donate and I'm asking here where it should go. I have my local races taken care of, so this one is completely extra. Where can I do the most good with my money?
I wish it were more, but it's where I am right now. Help me spend it in the right place, please. I'll donate it on Monday but I'll be checking back here off and on over the weekend to see what DUers have to say.
Liberia to Prosecute Man Who Brought Ebola to US
Source: Associated Press/ABC
Liberia plans to prosecute the airline passenger who brought Ebola into the U.S., alleging that he lied on an airport questionnaire about not having any contact with an infected person, authorities said Thursday.
Thomas Eric Duncan filled out a series of questions about his health and activities before leaving on his journey to Dallas. On a Sept. 19 form obtained by The Associated Press, he answered no to all of them.
Among other questions, the form asked whether Duncan had cared for an Ebola patient or touched the body of anyone who had died in an area affected by Ebola.
"We expect people to do the honorable thing," said Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the board of directors of the Liberia Airport Authority in Monrovia. The agency obtained permission from the Ministry of Justice to pursue the matter.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/dallas-er-ebola-infected-patient-home-25908233
A man from Liberia comes to the ER presenting Ebola like symptoms
He told the staff where he'd been, and they sent him home with a round of antibiotics instead of admitting, isolating and testing him. That's incompetence beyond what I was expecting in this incident.
Health officials in Texas revealed on Wednesday that the first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola outside Africa told hospital staff on his first visit that he had recently travelled from Liberia, where the disease is prevalent, but was nevertheless sent home.
An official at the Dallas hospital where he is being treated told a news conference that the patient told an emergency-room nurse about his travel history. But the information was not shared widely enough with the medical team treating him, and he was diagnosed as suffering from a “low-grade common viral disease”.
The man, identified on Wednesday by his family as Thomas Eric Duncan, was sent home with a course of antibiotics, an outcome that the hospital described as a matter of “regret”.
We can do better than this, we have to do better than this. There's a chance, a better than slim one, other cases of Ebola will be the result of this incompetent action by the hospital staff. That's inexcusable.
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