Outbreak? Meningitis case reported at another NJ university

Calling for Bexsero! Calling for Bexsero!

Once again Americans have to turn to Europe and Australia for a vaccine not available in this country because of another emergency case of meningitis in a university.

A Princeton connection is feared. The vaccine needed is called Bexsero.

A new case of meningitis was reported at a New Jersey university late Wednesday, raising worries that an outbreak of the potentially deadly infection may have spread beyond Princeton, where seven people have been sickened since March.

An administrator at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, N.J., was hospitalized after becoming "gravely ill," officials at the school reported in a notice to the campus community Thursday. The school, which enrolls nearly 4,800 undergraduate students, is located about 45 miles from Princeton.

There's no confirmation yet about what strain of bacteria infected the employee, or whether it's serotype B, which sickened the six students and a student visitor in the Princeton outbreak, according to Petra Ludwig Shaw, a Monmouth spokeswoman. 

Concern about the outbreak is so great that Princeton officials this week agreed to import and pay for a vaccine that's not approved in the United States to start inoculating students against the infection that kills at least 1 in 10 who contract it. The current U.S. vaccines recommended for college students cover four strains of the bacteria that cause illness -- A, C, Y and W-135 -- but not strain B.

Also on Thursday, a third case of meningitis was confirmed at the University of California at Santa Barbara, according to officials there. But they told the Associated Press that those cases do not appear related to the Princeton outbreak.” full story here

Oops! Oregonian Obamacare Website Didn’t Even Sign Up 1 Person!

Good Day World!

The woes in rolling out Obamacare nationally, were mirrored here in Oregon.

Not one person in the state was able to sign up for it online, despite the state’s eagerness to go along with the program. Why is this happening? What’s with all of the online difficulties?

I thought only the best programmers in the country would be involved in the nation’s – and Oregon’s – rollout of the Affordable Healthcare Act. It sure doesn’t look that way, does it? But why?

Here’s a theory advanced by a number of conservative political pundits:

“Government can’t handle the business of healthcare as well as the private sector.”

Greg Leo, chairman of Oregon's Republican Party and an avowed foe of the 2010 health care reform law, said its troubled rollout in Oregon underscores his view that patients would be better served by a system managed by the private sector.

Is it possible that government doesn’t pay computer programmers a competitive wage so they turn to the private sector? For reasons beyond me, it seems governments have a major problem utilizing internet technology…at least as far as introducing healthcare websites go. Now spying on us is another matter, but I digress.

Out of the estimated 560,000 uninsured Oregonians, not one went the way of the web to get relief.

Here’s a story about it:

“Oregon, a state that fully embraced the Affordable Care Act, is enduring one of the rockiest rollouts of President Barack Obama's signature health care law, with an inoperative online exchange that has yet to enroll a single subscriber, requiring thousands to apply on paper instead.

Unlike most other states, Oregon set an ambitious course to make its insurance exchange, dubbed Cover Oregon, an "all-in-one" website for every individual seeking health coverage, including those who are eligible for Medicaid.

But instead of serving as a national model, Oregon's experience has emerged as a cautionary tale, inviting comparisons to technical glitches that have plagued other state-run portals and the federal government's website for those states lacking exchanges of their own.

Oregon's online exchange has remained inaccessible to the public, requiring the state to sign up applicants the old-fashioned way, using paper forms. This has made comparison shopping more difficult for consumers and severely slowed the enrollment process.” read full story here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

I can’t believe it - endless Afghanistan agreement assures another generation of war!

 Good Day World!

 The never-ending-war in Afghanistan will go on. Forget President Obama’s claim that he was going to end the war in 2014.

It looks like he huddled down with the military industrial complex and plotted out an extension of America’s longest war to date. Sure glad I didn’t believe the lying bastard! Also glad I didn’t vote for him.

I’m a Vietnam veteran (1970) who believes Obama either isn’t aware of prior military quagmires, or else he’s in bed with people who are profiting from this war. Either way, I’m disgusted.

Obama hasn’t signed the final document assuring this…yet. But all indications are he will.

The copy of the draft - the full text is available here --  is dated July 25, 2013. As a working draft, it is particularly revealing because it shows the back and forth negotiations, as U.S. and Afghan officials added words and struck out paragraphs.

The war on terror is a global war now, and we’re wasting our time and lives clinging to outdated strategies to combat terrorism like militarily occupying Arab countries. Will someone please explain that to Obama?

In the news…

“While many Americans have been led to believe the war in Afghanistan will soon be over, a draft of a key U.S.-Afghan security deal obtained by NBC News shows the United States is prepared to maintain military outposts in Afghanistan for many years to come, and pay to support hundreds of thousands of Afghan security forces.

The wide-ranging document, still unsigned by the United States and Afghanistan, has the potential to commit thousands of American troops to Afghanistan and spend billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

The document outlines what appears to be the start of a new, open-ended military commitment in Afghanistan in the name of training and continuing to fight al-Qaeda. The war in Afghanistan doesn’t seem to be ending, but renewed under new, scaled-down U.S.-Afghan terms.

“The Parties acknowledge that continued U.S. military operations to defeat al-Qaeda and its affiliates may be appropriate and agree to continue their close cooperation and coordination toward that end,” the draft states.” full story here

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Has Karma caught up to George Zimmerman? He’s in Jail Again

UPDATE: It was a rough day for George Zimmerman: His wife served him with divorce papers in jail, he was accused in court of choking his girlfriend and threatening suicide, and his lawyer revealed he’s $2.5 million in debt.

Good Day World!

 Do you believe in Karma?

I do. When OJ Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas decades after murdering his wife and her friend, I called it karma.

“The Juice” isn’t doing a life sentence, but OJ is getting a good taste of what it’s like behind bars. You either have good or bad karma. No in between.

I’d say George Zimmerman’s bad karma is catching up to him. As we all know, he got away with murdering Trayvon Martin in a highly charged trial in July. He’s back in a Florida jail again after deputies responded to a “disturbance call” Monday.

Sometime today the sheriff's office said they’ll release the arrest report and 911 calls. Monday’s incident is just Zimmerman's latest run in with the law.

In September, he was released without charges after his wife called 911 to say Zimmerman punched his father-in-law in the nose and threatened to shoot him and his wife.

He claimed that he was acting in a "defensive manner" during the incident, according to police, who later added that they never found a gun on Zimmerman.

It seems karma is biting Zimmerman in the ass. We can only hope he get’s his just dues soon. He had a history of anger problems before he killed Trayvon. Perhaps he thinks because he got away with murder he’s golden.

He’s wrong.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Law Preventing 3D Gun Technology Online Will Expire Soon

Here’s the Good, Bad, and Ugly on 3-D printed guns:

They’re a real advance in firearms, criminals will be able to purchase them online for about a grand if there’s no law against them, and the law currently prohibiting their technology is going to expire soon.

“As the technology to print 3-D firearms advances, a federal law that banned the undetectable guns is about to expire.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer says he's seeking an extension of the law before it expires Dec. 9.

The technology of so-called 3-D printing has advanced to the point anyone with $1,000 and an Internet connection can access the plastic parts that can be fitted into a gun. Those firearms can't be detected by metal detectors or X-ray machines.

Schumer says that means anyone can download a gun cheaply, then take the weapons anywhere, including high-security areas.

The technology has recently advanced to create handguns capable of shooting several shots, rather than just one, before it ceases to function. Schumer also says the guns can now be made with all plastic parts, and no metal.

A blueprint for one such firearm was recently downloaded more than 100,000 times, Schumer said.”

Drone try to kid me – those pilotless planes have accidents all the time

 Good Day World!

 The use of drones has become commonplace in the military. So have accidents involving drones.

For example; A small fire erupted and two sailors were injured after an aerial target drone malfunctioned and struck a guided missile cruiser during training off Southern California on Saturday.

The drone struck the USS Chancellorsville on the side, leaving a 2- to 3-foot hole, said Lt. Lenaya Rotklein of the U.S. Third Fleet.

This was the second military drone crash in one week. On Tuesday, a drone from Fort Drum in upstate New York crashed into Lake Ontario during a training flight. The Air Force is still investigating that incident.

July 2013:

A remote stretch of the Florida Panhandle highway was closed after an Air Force drone crashed near the area. Tyndall Air Force Base reported the QF-4 drone crashed on takeoff.

The Air Force closed Highway 98 west of Panama City and east of Mexico Beach because of fires from the crash. Officials say the drone had a limited, 24-hour battery life.

In the news last week:

The U.S. military was forced to relocate a large fleet of drones from a key counterterrorism base on the Horn of Africa after a string of crashes fanned local fears that the unmanned aircraft were at risk of colliding with passenger planes, according to documents and interviews.

Air Force drones ceased flying this month from Camp Lemonnier, a U.S. installation in Djibouti, after local officials expressed alarm about several drone accidents and mishaps in recent years. The base serves as the combat hub for counterterrorism operations in Yemen and Somalia, playing a critical role in U.S. operations against al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist militia that has asserted responsibility for the Nairobi shopping mall attack, which killed more than 60 people.

The Pentagon has temporarily moved the unmanned aircraft from the U.S. base in Djibouti’s capital to a makeshift airstrip in a more remote part of the country.

It’s pretty clear to me there’s a pattern of drone accidents. What’s scary is such a high tech weapon can suddenly do something really unexpected…like hit one of our own cruisers. The Pakistan government has been howling for years about errant drones killing their citizens. For good reason, they do…intended or not.

When I hear people talk about national security depending on drones, I get a queasy feeling in my gut because if that’s the case, we’re in BIG TROUBLE!

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Patriot-News: Sorry Mr. Lincoln – Our editor was probably drunk at the time!

Good Day World!

It’s bad enough when we make a mistake, but to have a record of that mistake for all to see can be humiliating. Even if it was made back in 1863.

A Pennsylvania newspaper recently retracted an 1863 editorial that dismissed President Abraham Lincoln's now revered Gettysburg Address delivered during the U.S. Civil War as "silly remarks" deserving a "veil of oblivion."

The editorial published on November 24, 1863, missed the "momentous importance, timeless eloquence, and lasting significance" of Lincoln's speech delivered days earlier, The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said on its website.

"Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time, called President Lincoln's words 'silly remarks,' deserving 'a veil of oblivion'," the newspaper said.

"The Patriot-News regrets the error." source

Time for me o walk on down the road….

Princeton students at risk of getting meningitis B – CDC takes unusual steps to stop it

  Good Day World!

 What happens when a sudden outbreak of a fast-moving infection shows up at an Ivy league University and there’s nothing to stop it in America?

That’s been the case at Princeton, and now the 8,000 students there are going to get a vaccine for the deadly infection…as soon as it arrives from overseas.

American students, for reasons I couldn’t tell you, aren’t vaccinated again meningitis B, which presents a serious problem:

According to the CDC, between 10 percent and 12 percent of those who get meningitis B die, and about 20 percent of those who recover can wind up with severe side effects including deafness, mental retardation and limb amputations.

There’s so many scary bugs out there these days. Every time I hear about some kind of health outbreak due to some nasty new (and/or old) bug I shudder. Here’s what’s happening:

Emergency doses of a meningitis vaccine not approved for use in the U.S. may soon be on the way to Princeton University to halt an outbreak of the potentially deadly infection that has sickened seven students since March.

Government health officials said Friday they have agreed to import Bexsero, a vaccine licensed only in Europe and Australia that protects against meningitis B, a strain not covered by the shots recommended for college students in the U.S.

"This is a bad disease and we know how devastating it is," Dr. Thomas Clark, acting head of the Centers for Disease Control's meningitis and vaccine preventable diseases branch, told NBC News. "A lot of us had a gut feeling that there would be more cases and we should get the ball rolling."

The unprecedented move could aim to inoculate the nearly 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students at the Ivy League school in hopes of stopping the spread of an illness that kills 10 percent or more of teens and young adults who get it.

"If you're a student at Princeton University right now, your risk is quite high," Clark said. Full story here

Time for me to walk on down the road…