Measles Outbreak Traced to Fully Vaccinated Patient for First Time
April 14th, 2014Via: Science:
Get the measles vaccine, and you won’t get the measles—or give it to anyone else. Right? Well, not always. A person fully vaccinated against measles has contracted the disease and passed it on to others. The startling case study contradicts received wisdom about the vaccine and suggests that a recent swell of measles outbreaks in developed nations could mean more illnesses even among the vaccinated.
When it comes to the measles vaccine, two shots are better than one. Most people in the United States are initially vaccinated against the virus shortly after their first birthday and return for a booster shot as a toddler. Less than 1% of people who get both shots will contract the potentially lethal skin and respiratory infection. And even if a fully vaccinated person does become infected—a rare situation known as “vaccine failure”—they weren’t thought to be contagious.
That’s why a fully vaccinated 22-year-old theater employee in New York City who developed the measles in 2011 was released without hospitalization or quarantine. But like Typhoid Mary, this patient turned out to be unwittingly contagious. Ultimately, she transmitted the measles to four other people, according to a recent report in Clinical Infectious Diseases that tracked symptoms in the 88 people with whom “Measles Mary” interacted while she was sick. Surprisingly, two of the secondary patients had been fully vaccinated. And although the other two had no record of receiving the vaccine, they both showed signs of previous measles exposure that should have conferred immunity.
Europe’s Top Banks Cut 80,000 More Staff
April 13th, 2014Ah yes, it’s nearly time for riot season in Europe.
Via: Reuters:
Europe’s largest banks cut their staff by another 3.5 percent last year and the prospect of a return to pre-crisis employment levels seems far off, despite the region’s fledgling economic recovery.
Spurred into action by falling revenue, mounting losses and the need to convince regulators they are no longer “too big to fail”, banks across the globe have shrunk radically since the 2008 collapse of U.S. bank Lehman Brothers sparked the financial crisis.
Last year, the tide of bad news began to turn for European banks, which are among the region’s largest employers.
Greystone Denies Its Mercenaries Are Deployed in Ukraine
April 13th, 2014The Russian and U.S. regimes both lie so much that it’s very difficult to know what’s happening here.
Via: ABC News:
The Russian government today claimed there are more than 100 American “mercenaries” from a defense contracting company disguised as Ukrainian troops in the embattled former Soviet nation, a claim the American firm and top U.S. officials deny.
The Russian Foreign Ministry made the allegation in a statement today that accused Ukrainian military forces of working with “illegal armed militias” and others, saying the ministry is “especially concerned” about the involvement of 150 American mercenaries from the private company Greystone Ltd., a former affiliate of Blackwater.
A woman who answered a call for comment from ABC News today at Greystone denied that the company was involved, saying, “We do not have anyone deployed in Ukraine.” Later, the company told other news outlets they had no comment on the Russian allegations.
White House spokesperson Jay Carney told reporters the claim “seems bogus to us” and Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. Ambassador to Russia, called it “rubbish.”
Goldman Sachs Steals Open Source Code, Jails Coder
April 13th, 2014This is an excerpt from, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis.
Via: Cryptome:
He didn’t fully understand how Goldman could think it was okay to benefit so greatly from the work of others and then behave so selfishly toward them. “You don’t create intellectual property,” he said. “You create a program that does something.” But from then on, on instructions from Adam Schlesinger, he treated everything on Goldman Sachs’s servers, even if it had just been transferred there from open source, as Goldman Sachs’s property . (Later, at his trial, his lawyer flashed two pages of computer code: the original, with its open source license on top, and a replica, with the open source license stripped off and replaced by the Goldman Sachs license.)
H5N1 Bird Flu Needs Just 5 Mutations to Spread Easily in People
April 13th, 2014Via: Los Angeles Times:
It’s a flu virus so deadly that scientists once halted research on the disease because governments feared it might be used by terrorists to stage a biological attack.
Yet despite the fact that the H5N1 avian influenza has killed 60% of the 650 humans known to be infected since it was identified in Hong Kong 17 years ago, the “bird flu” virus has yet to evolve a means of spreading easily among people.
Now Dutch researchers have found that the virus needs only five favorable gene mutations to become transmissible through coughing or sneezing, like regular flu viruses.
World health officials have long feared that the H5N1 virus will someday evolve a knack for airborne transmission, setting off a devastating pandemic. While the new study suggests the mutations needed are relatively few, it remains unclear whether they’re likely to happen outside the laboratory.
Ukraine Prepares Armed Response as City Seized by Pro-Russia Forces
April 12th, 2014Via: Reuters:
Armed separatists took virtual control of a city in eastern Ukraine on Saturday and Kiev prepared troops to deal with what it called an “act of aggression by Russia”.
Pro-Russian activists carrying automatic weapons seized government buildings in Slaviansk and set up barricades on the outskirts of the city. Official buildings in several neighboring towns were also attacked.
The developments have increased concerns of a possible “gas war” that could disrupt energy supplies across the continent.
“The Ukrainian authorities consider the events of the day as a display of external aggression from Russia,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a statement.
“Units of the interior and defense ministries are implementing an operational response plan,” he added.
‘The Astounding Conspiracy Theories of Wall Street Genius Mark Gorton’
April 12th, 2014Via: Gawker:
This week, we were forwarded documents that Gorton was sending out to employees at Tower Research. These documents—embedded at the bottom of this post—are essays by Mark Gorton, laying out his theories on the secret high-level murderous criminal “Cabal” that is responsible for, among other things, the JFK and RFK assassinations, the presidential careers of the Bushes, Clinton, and Obama, the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 plot, and the murder of countless witnesses, politicians, and journalists who sought to expose them, including Sen. Paul Wellstone and even Hunter S. Thompson. Everything, according to Gorton, has been an inside job.
Research Credit: CG
Unidentified Gunmen Seize Government Buildings in Ukraine
April 12th, 2014Via: BBC:
Further seizures of official buildings have been reported in east Ukraine as tensions between the new government and pro-Russian protesters rise.
Gunmen occupied a police station and a security services building in the town of Sloviansk. Official buildings in Druzhkovka were reportedly taken over.
A Donetsk police chief quit after pro-Russian crowds marched on a police station demanding his resignation.
The interim interior minister says firing has broken out in Kramatorsk.
Arsen Avakov said exchanges of fire erupted as gunmen tried to storm local administration buildings in Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region.
Advanced Tactics Black Knight Transformer Successfully Completes First Flights
April 12th, 2014Via: Advanced Tactics:
Advanced Tactics Inc. announced that it has successfully completed the first flight test of the Black Knight Transformer, a modular and roadable vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft.
…
The patented AT Transformer technology combines the capabilities of a helicopter, such as the ability to take off and land anywhere, with the capabilities of an off-road automobile. The AT Black Knight Transformer completed driving tests in December 2013 and completed its first flight tests in March 2014. The Black Knight Transformer is the world’s largest multicopter that is controlled and stabilized with propeller speed. The aircraft has a maximum takeoff weight of 4,400 lb.
I’m Now a New Zealand Citizen
April 12th, 2014I became a New Zealand citizen yesterday.
Wow, you should have heard how disgruntled the Americans were at the ceremony I attended! Holy cow. I was content to just calmly maintain appearances, but other Americans were saying that they consider themselves to be political refugees and that they’re never going back to the U.S.
In general, it was mostly Americans and British people who felt extremely lucky to have a new country to call home. I don’t know what the usual breakdown is at these things, but about 1/3 of us being granted NZ citizenship at this particular ceremony were Americans.
It was very strange to be at an event for “normal” people and encounter a bunch of Americans openly unfurling about what a mess the U.S. has become.
Is this fairly standard with members of the American diaspora around the world now?
When you encounter a group of Americans abroad, are they talking about the U.S. in terms that range from total disappointment to quivering, tear inducing horror? Are they saying that they never want to return and noting the Kafkaesque process of trying to renounce their U.S. citizenship? How about the manic fascist financial reporting requirements for Americans living abroad?
Woh.
After the ceremony, several of us were standing around talking and I said that lots of people, including my father, thought that I was insane for thinking that any country in the world would be a better place to live than the U.S. There were nods of agreement from the others in the group who had heard similar things from their friends and family members.
After a few minutes of unburdening herself about all of this, one of the women asked, rhetorically, “What happened to our country?”
I didn’t have the heart to say, “The same thing that will happen here if we let it.”
