Monday, October 27, 2014
"Ebola in America" is a second Town Hall from News Channel 8
Tonight, Monday Oct. 27, 2014, WJLA7 News Channel 8
(Washington DC) hosted a second Town Hall, “Your Voice, Your Future:
Ebola in America.” This time, there was
no live audience, and all questions came from twitter or Skype video. The broadcast started with a recap of the
news today, with an emphasis on the partial relaxing of the “quarantine” of
health care workers returning from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, and the
release by New Jersey authorities of nurse Kaci Hickox.
The panel comprised the following: Scott Betzelos, MD at InNOVA Fairfax, Rajani
Ward (nurse, Medstar Washington Hospital Center), Gerry Connolly (D, VA 11th
District rep), Ben Carson (neurosurgeon in Seattle). Scott Thuman moderated. There
was an additional appearance by Joxel Garcia of the DC Health Department. The best link so far seems to be this. WJLA will probably provide a complete
video soon.
Ward said that 85% of nurses in the country say they are not
prepared.
A University of Oklahoma student asked what happens if there
is an outbreak on a campus. But the panel responded that an “outbreak” in a
small geographical area of secondary transmission within the United States was
extremely unlikely.
Labels:
pandemic,
recorded forum events
Sunday, October 19, 2014
CNN: "Shaken: 25 Years Since the Quake" covers rescues after Loma Prieta earthquake in Bay Area in October 1989
CNN’s “Shaken: 25 Years Since the Quake” (link) gives a one-hour riveting account of the rescues of people trapped by the 6.9
Loma Prieta Earthquake, and how they are doing today.
One woman was trapped in a car that pancaked under a
double-decker Oakland freeway. A surgeon
was going to amputate her foot when at the last moment a mechanic got a winch
to work.
The documentary also covered the rescues in the Mission
district, where some row-homes had been built on landfill. It also covered a rescue on the Bay Bridge
where a portion collapsed.
Wikipedia attribution link for picture of USCG picture of
collapsed Viaduct.
What would be important would be the engineering changes to
make new bridge or viaduct spans earthquake resistant, and what could be done
about rebuilding homes safely in less stable soil. The documentary also covered the location of
faults around the area, some almost underneath homes.
I remember the night of the earthquake, which struck while I
was waiting for the DC Metro. The World
Series game had started but was cancelled and delayed about two weeks. Fay Vincent was commissioner of baseball at
the time.
This may be an opportune point to mention the 1996 film "Volcano" (Fox), by Mick Jackson, where a volcano forms in downtown Los Angeles. Don't know if this is even possible.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
"News Channel 8" in Washington DC hosts forum "The New Terror Threat: Your Voice, Your Future" about ISIS and related terror threats; I am "in the movie"
Tonight, WJLA (the Washington DC ABC Affiliate) News Channel
8 sponsored a one hour Town Hall, “The New Terror Threat: Your Voice, Your Future”, in the Artisphere Auditorium in the Rosslyn area of Arlington VA. WJLA has its own account of the event here.
The session was hosted by Leon Harris and Allison Starling. Scott
Thuman took the questions from Twitter.
There were seven panel members, including Lt. Col. Tony
Shaffer, a CIA trained operations officer, Zainab Chaudry, Michael Steele, Col.
Douglas Macgregor, Eleanor Holmes Norton,
Faheem Younnus, and Omri Cerren.
The session was precede by a 4-minute video introduction of the ISIS/ISIL threat.
Shaffer opened by suggesting that the greatest threat within
the US could be lone wolf suicide bombers.
Later, to a Twitter question, Shaffer said that ISIS had hacked one
particular military family in the US to prove that it could threaten it, in
answer to a question about ISIS threats against families of military members or
even reporters at home (as well as threats in Britain and Australia leading to
arrests).
There were six questions from the audience. One person asked about a Senate bill to
declassify a report that suggested that 9/11 had been actually supported by the
Saudi royal family.
There was a suggestion that Iraq should be divided into
three countries, according to religion, and that a single nation was not
possible.
There was also a hint that Turkey’s Sunni government
actually wanted to see ISIS succeed.
Muslim governments in the region have a hard time opposing the creation
of a caliphate if it is believed to be specified in the Koran.
I asked the last question, about unusual WMD’s such as EMP
flux devices and radiological devices. Panel
members did not believe ISIS was capable of deploying such devices in western
countries, but they were concerned that other radical groups, especially in border
areas of Pakistan, still could have such intentions.
In this event, the QA was the “film” so I am “in the film”
as a character and actor playing myself.
Afterward, I got to talk to both Shaffer (to whom I
mentioned the comment from an HRC forum about gays in Russia that ISIS recruits
from Britain were often redheads because they tended to be bullied), and Leon
Harris, who had also heard about the draconian quarantine against Ebola by a
local health department in Ohio (my Issue blog today), where he was from, and
he indicated that many local health departments might panic.
Note: the name of the Town Hall has sometimes been spelled in reverse: "The New Terror Threat: Your Future, Your Voice" ("Future" and "Voice" have interchangeable order.)
The remaining videos (1-9) may be viewed on my Wordpress blog here (or on Google+).
Note: the name of the Town Hall has sometimes been spelled in reverse: "The New Terror Threat: Your Future, Your Voice" ("Future" and "Voice" have interchangeable order.)
The remaining videos (1-9) may be viewed on my Wordpress blog here (or on Google+).
Monday, October 06, 2014
CBS 60 Minutes interview with FBI Director Comey has some sobering warnings
Pat Milton and Robert G. Anderson produced a CBS 60 minute interview with FBI Director James
Comey by Scott Pelley Sunday night, the contents of which were quite sobering. The
link is here.
Comey said that about a dozen or so fighters have returned
from Syria, and have to be watched. It
is very difficult to stop Americans with valid passports from returning.
He indicated that he was still concerned that Khorasan could
be plotting an attack (probably on an inbound airliner) aimed at the US or
western ally country, and that an incident could be imminent.
There was footage of Comey as a teenager. He is now 53, but
looks breathtaking younger at 6 feet 8.
He recounts a home invasion when he was home with his brother in the
late 1970s in northern New Jersey, where he and his brother were captured twice
and escaped twice after a home invasion, and the assailant was never caught. (I lived in New Jersey throughout 1970, and then from late 1972 to late 1974.)
Comey described a lone wolf terrorist as a “lone rat” (the
broadcast mentioned a recent workplace beheading in Oklahoma).
He also talked about state-enhanced hacking of American
business. China was the only country he
would mention, although it’s obvious that he could have talked about Russia and
Putin, which he chose not to comment on.
The basic link has some extra “overtime” video clips, that
have a problem in that the voice part from the interview plays before the video
from the sponsoring ad finishes. CBS
should fix this,
Labels:
airlines,
cyber attacks,
law enforcement
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