Free Republic

U.S. standards for protecting healthcare workers from Ebola are weaker than those widely used in West Africa, according to the leader of a group treating victims of the virus in Liberia. “We’re not comfortable with [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] procedures,” Ken Isaacs, the vice president of Samaritan's Purse, told The Hill. When Samaritan's Purse health workers treat patients in Liberia, they wear two pairs of gloves and spray themselves with disinfectant twice before leaving the isolation ward. They have a three-foot “no touch” policy and hold safety meetings every day. In U.S. hospitals — such as Texas...

The man seen not wearing a hazmat suit while standing just feet away from the second nurse with Ebola as she was transported to Emory University hospital did not need to wear the protective gear, the medical airline said. The airline confirmed to ABC News that the man was their medical protocol supervisor who was purposefully not wearing protective gear. "Our medical professionals in the biohazard suits have limited vision and mobility and it is the protocol supervisor’s job to watch each person carefully and give them verbal directions to insure no close contact protocols are violated," a spokesperson from...

He says the diagnosis of the worker - who's not identified - clearly shows that there was a breach of protocol.

The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said there was "clearly" a breach in protocol that led to a Texas health care worker contracting Ebola after treating a Liberian man who later died from the virus, although authorities do not yet know what that breach was. "We're deeply concerned about this new development," Dr. Thomas Frieden said in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. "I think the fact that we don't know of a breach in protocol is concerning because clearly there was a breach in protocol. We have the ability to prevent the...

A Dayton police officer followed protocol when he shot a St. Bernard while investigating an aggressive dog complaint Monday evening, officials said Tuesday. Officer Devin Portis was trying to contain the dog in the 700 block of Edgemont Avenue so that it could be transported to the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center. But it "turned on him," and charged Portis, said Dayton police Lt. Matthew Dickey. "(Portis) tried to back up and he fell over and then pulled his gun and fired," Dickey said. "It was pretty straight forward." The case is still under investigation. The dog was injured by...

"Lawyers for two men on death row in Oklahoma say the state has informed them it has a new execution protocol that would allow it to choose from any of five lethal injections. The change comes days after the state revealed that it had been unable to obtain the chemicals for its existing protocol: pentobarbital and vecuronium — prompting a court to delay the executions of convicted murderers Charles Warner and Clayton Lockett for a month. In the revised protocol given to the men's defense team, prison officials outline five possible one-drug and three-drug injections it could use to kill...

A “massive and concerted attack” has been launched by a bot system on numerous bitcoin exchanges, Andreas Antonopoulos has revealed. This has lead to popular exchange Bitstamp putting a temporary halt on all bitcoin withdrawals. Antonopoulos, who is the chief security officer of Blockchain.info, said a DDoS attack is taking Bitcoin’s transaction malleability problem and applying it to many transactions in the network, simultaneously. “So as transactions are being created, malformed/parallel transactions are also being created so as to create a fog of confusion over the entire network, which then affects almost every single implementation out there,” he added.

There are many reasons to be excited about bitcoin: it could enable totally new business and technology models; it resembles the Internet in the early ‘90s in the sense that it is a network that no one owns and everyone can contribute to; it could revolutionise legal concepts of ownership; it could disrupt the payments industry; and it could even become a huge tax haven. It could also flop.

Sweden's newly appointed ambassador in Tehran has reportedly upset Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - by crossing his legs during a meeting. According to Iranian website Asriran.com the Swedish ambassador, Peter Tejler, committed the apparently offensive act after a ceremony in which he presented his credentials to the president. It is unclear, though, whether the president himself was offended by the ambassador's cross-legged pose or whether this was, in fact, the interpretation of events by Asriran.com. Photos from the meeting show Ahmadinejad himself sitting cross-legged, too. Armenian website Panorama translated the Iranian website's report, which explains that crossing one's legs "contradicts...

Leaking military intelligence for Campaign Propaganda. Appointing admitted Communists to high federal positions. Possible cover up of evidence after assassination of US Ambassador. Apologizing to terrorists while blaming Americans and our constitution Dubious communication to Russian President of cooperation and possible subordination of US interests. Selling arms to drug cartels and then blaming deaths on US Constitution Suing states for protecting borders Those are just a few of the recent issues that I believe suggest possible treason by this administration. Barack Obama has made it clear from the beginning that he plans to "reshape" America. His greatest influences in life...

There has been some debate -- and consternation among purists – over whether Wednesday’s White House dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron is technically a “state dinner” because Cameron is not the British head of the state. True, the queen is the head of state. And Cameron’s visit therefore is not considered a “state visit” but rather an “official visit.” But the dinner is technically a state dinner because the president is hosting it, according to the office of protocol at the State Department. “When it comes to the dinner, as the chief of state, President Obama is hosting...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Folks, I'm telling you look how unsure Obama is. He doesn't even dare to speak to audiences in the United States now! He has to go to Europe to find an audience with grownups, and look! He loves hanging around with monarchs. He really envies the Queen. He hopes to be that someday. (He's gotta learn how to do a toast.) You see that? That's hilarious. Now, if that had been Bush? (snorts) Well, you know what they'd be doing. The media today for Obama says, "Couldn't the Queen have bailed him out? Couldn't the Queen have...

He placed a wreath at Ground Zero, met with 9/11 firefighters and vowed that, “when we say ‘we will never forgot,’ we mean what we say.” But it seems like the president did overlook one detail — putting names on the invitations to 9/11 families. The administration apparently sent out form-letter invites to 50 hand-picked relatives of 9/11 victims, which began “Dear 9/11 family member.” At least one family has turned down the request, saying that they felt the letter was impersonal. “If this form letter was the invitation, it was kinda lame,” said John Vigiano, who lost two heroic...

After a number of conservatives criticized the White House for sitting idly by while Chinese pianist Lang Lang tickled the ivories with an anti-American ballad at last week’s State Dinner for President Hu Jintao, the White House responded Monday condemning the criticism and insisting the song, “My Motherland,” was no insult to the United States. As we reported Sunday, the pianist claims to have chosen the song because “playing the tune at the White House banquet can help us, as Chinese people, feel extremely proud of ourselves and express our feelings through the song.” The song was written for the...

I notice the honor guard all turn at once except for 1. He seems to pause intentionally, then turn much slower than the others. Was this intentional or a mess up?

First, I would like to express my condolences to all of the victims' families from the January 8 shooting in Tucson. It is a tragedy and I am sorry for your loss.That being said, does anyone else see the presidential directive to fly the flag at half staff as inappropriate? I know that Title 4, Chapter 1 section 7m of the US Flag Code allows that it can be done at the direction of the president or state governor. But the criteria in the code says in part:"By order of the President, the flag shall be flown at half-staff upon...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — A senior Chinese delegate on Friday urged his fellow international officials to extend the commitments of the environmental Kyoto Protocol, which is set expire in 2012 and has been a contentious issue at this week’s U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico. “If any balanced outcome can be produced in international climate change, there must be a continuation of KP,” said China’s Huikang Huang at a press conference in Cancún, in reference to the Kyoto Protocol. “There must be a second period. Without this element there will be no balance.” Huang’s comments come as the nearly...

sns-ap-as-indonesia-michelles-handshake JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A conservative Muslim government minister admits he shook hands with first lady Michelle Obama in welcoming her to Indonesia but says it wasn't his choice. Footage on YouTube shows otherwise, sparking a debate that has lit up Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the blogosphere. "I tried to prevent (being touched) with my hands but Mrs. Michelle held her hands too far toward me (so) we touched," Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring told tens of thousands of followers on Twitter.

Mumbai: There's been a major protocol glitch on the eve of Barack Obama's visit to Mumbai that has top Maharashtra politicians, including the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister taking a stand against attending the functions arranged for the US President. The reason for the outrage, a questionnaire sent to the political and bureaucratic big wigs by the US Consulate demanding identity details including date of birth and even blood type.

Posted on October 14th, 2010 Kyoto Fraud Revealed Walter Russell Mead Posted In: General When the idiotic Kyoto Protocol was put before the US Senate, 95 senators voted against this confused and destructive initiative on the grounds that, as designed, the measure would simply ship American jobs to China and other countries without reducing greenhouse gasses. For years, green activists have mourned and bemoaned the shortsightedness of the US. How could we sit out from something so noble, so planet saving, so wise as the sacred Kyoto Protocol? We have been listening to the green moral scolds for twenty years:...