Sunday, October 5, 2014

This Is Getting Really Stupid

Teacher Carries Plastic Sword on “Talk Like A Pirate Day”, Police Lock-Down 4 Schools



Four North Carolina schools were recently placed on lock-down by police, after a “suspicious person” was seen entering Richlands Elementary School on September 19th.

An initial investigation turned up empty handed, but two weeks later the police announced that they solved the mystery behind the suspicious person at the school.

The “suspicious person” that caused the lock down was not actually an intruder, but was one of the school’s teachers, who had decided to celebrate “talk like a pirate day”, by dressing up for students.

A school representative explained to local reporters that the district has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to reports of suspicious people.

“We have this new psy lock system, there was an immediate lockdown done of the school and check in with all the teachers to make sure to make sure everybody was safe and secure. Law enforcement of course came to the scene,” Suzie Ulbrich, a spokesperson for Onslow Co. Schools said.

The staff member, whose name has not yet been revealed by police, was allegedly wearing a full pirate costume, complete with a pirate hat and a plastic sword.  Another member of the staff who was not in on the joke was apparently threatened by the teacher’s costume, and notified the school office, who then called police.

According to multiple reports, the staff member was under the impress
ion that the person was carrying a gun, not a plastic sword.

When police received reports of a strangely dressed person carrying a weapon, they shut down every nearby school in the district and searched each school with police and K-9 units.  Each search turned up empty handed and the lock-down was lifted after three hours.  It is not yet clear as to whether the festive teacher knew that the lock-down was intended for them at the time.

After a thorough review of this incident, it has been determined that school personnel working in conjunction with law enforcement agencies handled the situation in a very professional manner and followed all protocols to the letter, Jerry Morse of the Sheriff’s Office said in a press release.

The Nanny state seems to be running amok. Last month we reported the story of a middle school being placed on lockdown for a student wearing a military-style jacket. A few weeks before that, an entire campus was shut down and SWAT descended on Cal State San Marcos in response to a man carrying an umbrella. After witnessing these reactions to such minuscule and irrelevant matters, is it any surprise that police are so quick to shoot first and ask questions later?

http://www.dcclothesline.com/NANNY STATE  for the original article

Thursday, October 2, 2014

What? Don't Worry

Don’t Worry? 10 Quotes From Health Experts Promising That Ebola Will Not Be A Problem In America

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Michael Snyder

Ebola Sneeze - Public DomainHealth experts all over the United States are promising us that we do not need to be worried about Ebola whatsoever.  Even though one case has already been confirmed in Dallas, Texas and another potential case is being monitored, health authorities assure us that we have the greatest health system in the history of the planet and that we will be able to handle any isolated cases very easily.  And all over the mainstream media on Wednesday, there were headlines declaring that the arrival of Ebola in America is a non-event.  One example is this headline from Bloomberg: “Ebola in America? Don’t Worry About It”.  So are they right?  Should the rest of us just kick back and relax because a bunch of really smart guys are assuring us that our health system can easily deal with anything that Ebola can throw at us?  The following are 10 quotes from prominent experts promising us that Ebola will not be a problem in this country…


#1 Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: “We feel confident that there won’t be an outbreak.”

#2 University of Chicago professor Michael Z. David: “While this all sounds very frightening, there’s no need to worry at this point about Ebola spreading widely here.”

#3 Gerardo Chowell-Puente, an associate professor of mathematical epidemiology at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University: “Math and history show us that decisive efforts to isolate those who are infected with Ebola and to follow up quickly with the potential contacts of the infected can help to get an outbreak under control. We’re lucky that we have such capacities in the United States; even with the Ebola case in Dallas, the epidemic should not get much of a foothold here.”

#4 Texas Health Director David Lakey: “This is a very sophisticated city, a very sophisticated hospital, … and the chances of it being spread are very, very scarce.”

#5 Zachary Thompson, director of Dallas County Health & Human Services: “This is not Africa. We have a great infrastructure to deal with an outbreak.”

#6 Dr. William Shaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center: “We’re very prepared: Infection-control people in hospitals over the past two months have been reviewing all their infection- control procedures because we anticipated just this sort of thing happening—a person coming from West Africa, they were healthy at the time they traveled, but got sick here.”

#7 Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC: “It is certainly possible that someone who has had contact with this patient could develop Ebola, but there is no doubt in my mind that we will stop it here.”

#8 Dr. William Shaffner: “Even Doctors Without Borders in West Africa are moving the fatality rate from 50 percent down to 30 percent—I bet we can do substantially better than that here.”

#9 Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston: “The Ebola virus is not easily transmitted from person to person, and we have an outstanding infrastructure in place both to contain the virus and trace contacts. There will not be an Ebola epidemic in the United States.”

#10 Thomas Frieden: “The bottom line here is that I have no doubt that we will control this importation or this case of Ebola so that it does not spread widely throughout this country.”

So are they right?

I don’t know.

I hope that they are.

But considering how out of control the Ebola pandemic in West Africa is, I wouldn’t be as dogmatic as those experts are being.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama continues to act as if nothing has changed either.  Even though a number of other nations have shut down all air traffic to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, Obama still refuses to restrict air travel to and from those countries…


After U.S. officials disclosed another potential case of Ebola in Dallas, Texas, this morning, the question remains whether the Obama administration will finally stop flights from Ebola-stricken countries as multiple nations did over a month ago.

In mid-August, Korean Air and Kenya Airways announced they were halting flights to the West African countries ravaged by Ebola, and British Airways and Air France also decided to suspend service to the Ebola hot zone a few weeks later.

“France is recommending that its citizens leave Sierra Leone and Liberia, two of the countries hardest hit by the worst ever outbreak of the disease,” Jessica Plautz reported forMashable. “The government said the increasing spread of the disease prompted its request that the airline to suspend flights.”

Yet the Obama administration made no such request to U.S. airlines and government flights, despite the Center of Disease Control advising Americans to avoid “non-essential travel” to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea several weeks ago.

Obama says that he has a tremendous amount of confidence in the “extensive screening” at our airports.

Would that be the same “extensive screening” that some CNN employees recently experienced?…

http://www.dcclothesline.com/  for the rest of the story

A Little Humor

OK, I'm going to try and revive this blog.  Let's see what happens.