Wednesday 12-16-15

Zombie Apocalypse A Possibility? Rise in Zombie-Like Infection Should Trigger An International Call of Action, An Expert Reveals

Can a zombie apocalypse really occur? Tara Smith, an associate professor from Ohio's Kent State University is issuing an international call to action to fund and promote studies on how to prevent a possible zombie outbreak.
"Zombie expert Matt Mogk defines a zombie with three criteria: it is a reanimated human corpse; it is relentlessly aggressive, and it is biologically infected and infectious. But Mogk notes that this definition has been altered by the recognition of "rage" zombies, which are infected but still alive," Smith wrote on a recently published BMJ study.
Smith cited several scientific studies, news reports and fictional works to back up her research. As listed on Discovery News, the author specified three possible pathogens that could cause an outbreak: the Black Plague bacteria Y. pestis, mad cow disease as well as the Cordyceps fungus.
Out of the three pathogens, it is the Cordyceps fungus which is the most common, with 400 known species. According to the publication, the parasitic fungus invades the body of its host and takes over, using the body as a means to make the fungus spores spread.
In a report by EurekAlert, Smith believes that the increase of similar zombie pathogens should be a sign that additional attention and funding should be provided into studying possible disease outbreaks.
Although the scope of the study appears to sound more like a scene from a movie or television series, researchers from Cornell University believe that the data can prove useful in the event that an outbreak occurs. The Discovery publication says that the researchers went as far as conducting a simulation to show how the zombies would move and spread throughout the United States.

Based on the simulation, it appears the northern Rockies is one of the safest spots to stay in the event a zombie apocalypse does occur.

For Smith, correlating the study to zombies is one way to grab attention.
"We give talks around the country about scientific issues—tied into zombies. It's a way to bring attention to these subjects that otherwise might not seem interesting. In my case, it's infectious disease," Smith told The Washington Post reporters.
Smith states that the recent Ebola outbreak shows how incredibly unprepared governments are in handling an epidemic of such a grand scale. With the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains, perhaps it is about time to consider seeing zombies in a whole new different light.
What would you do if a zombie outbreak occurs? Where would you hide?

http://www.latinoshealth.com/articles/13743/20151215/zombie-apocalypse-possibility-rise-infection-trigger-international-call-action-expert.htm

Glenn Reynolds: Liberals have chosen The Donald as their 'Destructor'

“Choose the form of the Destructor,” says the demon in Ghostbusters. Bill Murray, et al., got the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Our political and media elites, on the other hand, got Donald Trump.
Everyone is aghast at Trump’s latest plan, to suspend all immigration by Muslims. But it’s no coincidence that Trump’s announcement came less than a day after a limp, toneless speech by President Barack Obama on terrorism, one that left Americans feeling much less safe.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, then-president George W. Bush made clear that Muslims weren’t our enemy: Radical Islamists were. Because Bush took steps against those radical Islamists that made people feel safer, there was no significant anti-Muslim backlash, though all the bien-pensant types thought it certain that those rubes in flyover country would get violent.
Obama, on the other hand, responded to an attack by Islamic State-linked Muslims with a mixture of pablum and an effort at distraction by talking about gun bans for people on the no-fly list. (Even lefty publications like the LA Times and Slate thought that idea dumb). Before that attack took place, Obama was already polling terribly on terror: According to a CNN/ORC poll taken between 11/27 and 12/1, only 33% of Americans approved of Obama’s handling of ISIL; 64% disapproved. I doubt that Obama’s ratings will improve when the post-San Bernardino polls come in.
And Obama’s public statements have seemed weak and mired in PC, even as many Americans grow increasingly worried about Islamic terrorism.  As Josh Kraushaar wrote in National Journal, “Demo­crats are at risk of polit­ic­ally mar­gin­al­iz­ing them­selves on na­tion­al se­cur­ity in the run-up to the 2016 pres­id­en­tial elec­tion, ca­ter­ing to a base that seems dis­con­nec­ted from the grow­ing anxi­ety that the pub­lic feels over the threat from Is­lam­ic ter­ror­ism. ... The signs of a pres­id­ent in deni­al over the threat of ter­ror­ism keep pil­ing up.”

USA TODAY

Trump's religious bigotry is as American as apple pie: Column

Enter Donald Trump. People who are unhappy with the things Trump is saying need to understand that he’s only getting so much traction because he’s filling a void. If the responsible people would talk about these issues, and take action, Trump wouldn’t take up so much space.
And there’s a lesson for our ruling class there: Calling Trump a fascist is a bit much (fascism, as Tom Wolfe once reported, is forever descending upon the United States, but somehow it always lands on Europe), but movements like fascism and communism get their start because the mechanisms of liberal democracy seem weak and ineffectual and dishonest. If you don’t want Trump — or, perhaps, some post-Trump figure who really is a fascist — to dominate things, you need to stop being weak and ineffectual and dishonest.
Right now, after years of Obama hope-and-change, a majority of Americans (56%) think Islam is incompatible with American values. That’s true even for 43% of Democrats.
In that sort of environment, where people feel unsafe and where the powers-that-be seem to be, well, weak and ineffectual and dishonest, the appeal of someone who doesn’t seem weak and ineffectual grows stronger.

USA TODAY

Trump's Muslim Derangement Syndrome won't matter to his voters: Column

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media
You can see this in France, where the long-marginalized “far right” National Front is now winning elections all over. It’s doing so well because the French people, after not one but two Islamist mass shootings in Paris, feel that their government is not serious about protecting them, and their way of life, from their enemies.
Likewise, it’s a bit hard to take people seriously about Trump’s threat to civil liberties when President Obama was just endorsing an unconstitutional gun ban, when his attorney general was threatening to prosecute people for anti-Muslim speech (a threat later walked back, thankfully) and when universities and political leaders around the country are making clear their belief that free speech is obsolete.
Hearing that Yale professor Erika Christakis won't be teaching at Yale because of the abuse she received over a respectful but non-PC email, former DNC chair Howard Dean tweeted: “Free speech is good. Respecting others is better.” To his credit, CNN’s Jake Tapper responded: “Of course only one of them is enshrined in the Constitution.”
But Twitter humorist IowaHawk had the last word: ”With the exception of POTUS, the Atty General, both leading presidential candidates, the media, and universities, Americans love free speech.”
If you wish to hold fascism, or even just Trumpism, at bay, then we need elites who are trustworthy, who can be counted on to protect the country, and who respect the Constitution even when it gets in the way of doing something they want to do. By failing to live up to these standards, they have chosen their "Destructor." Let’s hope that they haven’t chosen ours, as well.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/12/09/glenn-reynolds-liberals-have-chosen-donald-their-destructor/76996298/