No disagreement here. I just get tired of "the attention getters" constantly spinning everything to make it a race issue, when in many cases race had nothing to do with it.

The comparison was to ordinal numbering

first, second, third, fourth, fifth, ...

versus

whole, half, third, fourth (or quarter), fifth.

Nobody suggested that there is a "threed" (except you), but one could validly ask why the #2 ordinal is called "second", and the #3 ordinal is "third". That is a different question however.

As others have pointed out... The less we spend treating cases here, the more we can spend on treating cases overseas. If we have a bunch of outbreaks here, we will no longer have the luxury of providing treatment in Africa because we will be expending resources at home (both money and medicine doses, etc).

Therefore it is more compassionate to be efficient.

He wasn't "turned away." He was provided anti-biotics, which is the standard fare (albeit wrong*) for someone suffering from a cold or flu. Although it was stupid of the hospital doctors/nurses not to take note of his travel, and suspect Ebola as a possibility, given the CDC's messages at the time it might be understandable. In it's early stages Ebola presents similar symtoms to a flu.

Just because you go through the Emergency enterance, doesn't mean you need to be admitted. It just means that you get seen without an appointment. I've been to the Emergency several times (metal chips in eye despite safety glasses, bleeding head wound, heart issues) and never been admitted. Usually just stitched up and sent home. Even with the heart issue, I was "observed" for a while, scheduled for a stress-test, and sent home once they determined that it was not going to kill me right-now. (they also gave me an asprin and a nitroglycerine tablet while they observed me.)

The whole "turned away" thing is being drummed up by the Jessie Jacksons, etc. who are ambulance chasing for another chance to make themselves relevant, and stir up trouble at the same time.

* I can remember several times where doctors have said to me, "I don't know if it is bacterial or viral. I could take cultures, but that would take a while to get the lab work back, so meanwhile I will give you this anti-biotic, which will either work or will do no harm if it doesn't." This was a few years ago. More recently, with the increasing prevalance of resistant diseases, this practice seems to have diminished somewhat.

We might have dozens of other cases already. We won't really know for 21 days.

DOH! I apologize for replying to myself, but I intended this to read more like:

It is entirely possible that "the people" was a sylistic term for "the citizens", rather than used to differentiate between citizens and citizens-and-non-citizens-lumped-together.

As previously written, it says the opposite of what I intended.

Article I, Section 2: The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States,. . .

Hmmm... Foreign residents are not supposed to be able to vote; whether or not they actually do is another discussion altogether. Interestingly, the above quote, and the preamble "We the people of the United States of America," are the only two uses of the word "people" in the text of the Constitution. Citizen is used eleven times, mostly as regards elegibility for office.

The Bill of Rights uses "the people" five times, and "citizen" exactly zero times. The two documents were authored by different people. (The individual doing the original draft, that is. Many of the same people were involved in ratifying both.) It is entirely possible that "the people" was a stylistic term rather than differentiating between citizen and non-citizen. The Tenth Ammendment reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." From this use of the word, one could argue that, as power over a country is not usually held by non-citizens, "the people" referrs to the citizenship.

Also, note the consistant use of the word "the" preceeding the word "people," which implys a specific group of people (citizens of the United States) not just any random set.

Now, where the documents use the word "a person", it is much more literally any person, citizen or not, given that several instances first mention "a person" or "no person", and then modifiy by specifying a length (or status) of citizenship. In the Bill of Rights, the word "person" appears in the fourth and fifth ammendments, and is in regard to search warrents and court procedures.

Now, before somebody starts citing supreme court cases, I am sure that the courts have probably held different interpretations. The above is mine, and I make no claim otherwise.

.begin gallows humor.

Great... Right now we have to worry whether Ebola will mutate to be airborne; at which point you wont be able to be the the room with a sick person. In a few years we may have to worry that Ebola will mutate to tranport itself... Then nowhere will be safe.

.end gallows humor.

(Yes, I know it doesn't work that way.)

and you might find your fancy autonomous car has no wheels, or battery, etc. after a few weeks. I used to work there.

True story: One of my co-workers had a flat tire on the expressway. While he was taking the flat off, another car pulls up, the driver gets out, and pops the hood of the car exclaiming "You can have the tires, Brother. I'll go for the battery." At least the (potential) battery thief left nicely when informed that the car wasn't abandoned.

There was a reason that the plant at which I worked had a fence and guard around the parking-lot.

Good point. Bags of crap have a very good use in the garden. Music files on the other hand aren't good for much of anything.

Someone correct me, but I think you have to symlink to link to another drive. (not hardlink)

I don't see this as a huge problem. Not particularly invasive. If you don't like U2, don't click on the cloud. If you have things set in a particular way, it might download automatically, but you can now "delete" things directly from your phone (as against the way that it used to be where you needed to do everything from iTunes); so again, not too big of a deal. OTOH, it shows up as an entry in your list of albums, which could become annoying if this were to become any sort of standard practice, but only because at some point it makes it harder to find the items which you want to be there.

In this way it isn't too much different from the new Amazon Prime Music app, which lists all the "free" streamed albums offered through Amazon Prime membership. It becomes hard to browse for something I am interested in because there are so many things that I am NOT interested in. That being said, I can't complain too much as I haven't paid for any of them (I paid for the prime membership for other reasons) and it is occasionally nice when I want to hear something that haven't thought to purchase outright. Search works well, just browsing not-so-much, and even then sometimes one _wants_ to browse through things unknown to find something new.

Mechanical engineer and former seat-mechanism engineer here to correct one small error. From all of the flights that I have ever been on, the tray angle is not affected by the recline of the seat, because the tray is attached (and its angle set) at the bottom of the seat, well below the pivot point of the recliner mechanism. What does happen is that the distance between the tray and the alcove in which the tray stores decreases a bit, resulting in potential damage to a laptop which has been "improperly" wedged between the two. (stay calm... I put the quotes there to indicate that I don't really mean that there is an improper location. However, one should be aware of the issue and be careful in how you position your equipment.)

Now, I will also add that, personally, I try to avoid doing any work while on the airplane (in coach). If my employer wants me to do work, then they can pay for first class, where I can have a (closer to) ergonomic workspace. (ergonimic workstations are required by OSHA etc. after all) My job for those hours is to allow myself to be transported in space to a different point on the globe, and I try to make the best of that by doing some pleasure reading. If necessary, I will earn some comp-time once I get to the hotel, where I usually have a desk of some kind to do work; I redeem it unofficially elsewhere on the trip, or officially on another day after I return home.

Myself, I find it rude when people try to conduct business in the airplane. Reading a document quietly is one thing, holding a meeting on the cell-phone (prior to takeoff or after landing) or insisting that everyone else treat the cabin as their office-space is another thing all-together. It's also a bad idea if you have any sort of proprietary or otherwise sensitive material (legal, financial, HR-related, etc.) as you never know who might be reading over your shoulder. (Me! Well, not really... But it makes me have to try to avert my eyes to politely not see what you are rudely putting almost directly in front of my face.)

I've been on more than one flight where my seat was broken such that I couldn't NOT recline. (or to avoid the double negative, the seat would ONLY recline, as it would not stay latched in the upright position). This was annoying, as I wanted to read and actually wanted the more upright position.

While I don't always recline, I don't find it "rude", and am not insulted / offended / bothered when the person in front of me does so. When I do recline, it is often only to the center of the travel of the recliner (which isn't very far to begin with).

What I find annoying is the FMVSS 202A requirements for car head-restraints that are further forward than the original 202 regulation. This was implemented to reduce the travel of your head in an impact, but is only necessary IMHO because many people recline their driver's-seats so much that the headrestraints are less effective. In contrast, I prefer to sit more upright; as a result, the 202A head-restraints are actually forcing my head forward and down. (This has been somewhat alieveated by the development of active head-restraints which only come forward in the case of a crash. Yeaa, more pyrotechnics right behind my noggin. Just what I wanted.)

I've been on a few flights where the seat foam was so worn out that sitting on a board would have been preferable. At least it would have been consistantly flat, instead of havng pressure points from the structure underneath.