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dannc · 15-10-2014, 11:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by hellosailor

....
And then there's Pearl Harbor, where experts still disagree but a significant number think that the attack was being intentionally allowed, to inflame US anti-war sentiment. The only mistake being that no one really thought an attack could be THAT effective.
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Grrr... My first response disappeared....

Any "expert" that claims FDR knew about the planned attack on Pearl Harbor before 12/7/1941 better show some strong evidence. Right now there is NONE. Zippa. Nada. As the local radio commercial say, "It don't make no sense!"

I am no FDR fan, can't stand the guy, but the accusation that FDR allowed the attack on Pearl Harbor is daft. It gets repeated by revisionist "historians" who do not know diddly. The usually are the same bozos that think dropping the atomic bombs was not needed.

On 12/6/1941, the US was in an undeclared naval war with Germany in the Atlantic. FDR's primary focus was Germany and keeping the UK alive. The Pacific was a backwater, and even after 12/7/1941, Europe remained the focus, though due to bad events, the Pacific got more people and resources than planned early in the war. The last thing FDR wanted, much less needed, was a two front war spanning the globe.

On 12/6/1941, the USN and the IJN still believed that the primary naval weapon was the battleship. Carriers were for scouting and finding the enemy to allow the big gun line of battle fire fight. Yamamoto expected that he would loose most of his carrier plane and aircrew as well as the carriers themselves which was an acceptable trade off if he could sink a few USN battleships. The loss of a couple USN battleships would tip the gun calculus into Japan's favor. The Japanese did not expect they would have the success they did have and expected that the USN would sortie, minus a battleship or two, to come to the rescue of the PI. The final, Nelsonian battle would occur east of the PI between battle ships.

On 12/7/1941, the IJN got some good die rolls and scored big. If they had attacked as planned, US defenses would have been up in force and the Japanese would have suffered greater air losses for sure and maybe some ship loses but the winds of war favored the Japanese on 12/7/41.

The die rolls favored the US in that the carriers were not in harbor due to bad weather. Bad luck for the IJN, good luck of the USN. After 12/7/1941, the USN had no choice but to fight with what it had on hand which were a few carriers, some surface forces, and subs. The USN had to change its tactics because it had no choice, and on 12/8/1941, it was pretty obvious that battleships might not be the wave of the future.

There are other books besides At Dawn We Slept which I read more than a few decades ago.

Here is something important to realize and ponder....

The Japanese rolled the dice on 12/7/1941. Yamamoto and others in the Japanese government knew that the US had more people, money and resources than the Japanese. Why go to war with the US? What would make the Japanese think they could win?

Some/Many in the Japanese leadership figured that fighting spirit was more important than the material aspect of war and the US was soft and would not fight once the initial Japanese push was complete. The Japanese plan was to attack Pearl Harbor to provide time to conquer what is now Indonesia to secure the oil that the Japanese had to have. They also needed time to capture the Pacific islands to form their defensive lines. The figured once this had been done, the US would not fight.

Think about that for a bit.

What it really gets down too is that the Japanese government was gambling, rolling the dice, that the US would not fight or would not fight for long. Meaning once the Nelsonian battleship fight had happened, and the US had lost, the US would stop the war. If the US did fight, Yamamoto knew that Japan would loose. The Japanese rolled the dice and won big at Pearl Harbor on 12/7/1941 but they lost the die roll the next day, 12/8/1941, when Congress declared war. Opps. Then it was only a question of how many millions had to die before the Japanese surrendered.

Later,
Dan

JRM · 15-10-2014, 11:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"Touching the face, rubbing the eyes, etc. Those are all ingrained semi-automatic behaviours that are very hard to defeat. "
Oh, they are actually very simple to defeat. In the BSL4 moonsuits, you put your hand up to your face and CLONK! you hit your facemask. And there's no way to get under or around it, since it is part of a sealed helmet and suit. BSL4 protocols and equipment are all fairly stringently based on "if you make a mistake you are dead" and the entire system is set up so that mistakes cannot be made.
Ebola workers have been shown donning and doffing their garments solo. That's a violation. And they doff them without a full disinfectant wash. Not some guy with a bug sprayer full of chlorox, but they are supposed to be hit with a thorough shower from multiple heads, a real soaking. And that rinsewater doesn't just go down the drain, or into the middle of the courtyard either.
When none of the players follow their own rulebooks, you have to at least wonder, why?

In my line we call it "Level A" but it's still full encapsulation. It's a real PITA to work in, and it takes regular practice. Those two factors are pretty much mutually exclusive, so the boss man has to ride us hard to stay profficient. The worst is trying to drive in the thing, which is pretty likely depending on the size of the exclusion zone.

But here's the real rub. In a town of over 200,000 people, there are three technicians regularly staffed, with anywhere from 1-5 more that can be pulled from other on-duty assignments. That's one team. In our county, there are four others. So what exactly are 20 some odd folks going to do if something really bad happens? Now extrapolate that on out and you can see why, even if the powers that be wanted to, there is no way to properly respond.

This thing doesn't even have to really get going for it to wreak havoc here in the US. All it needs is for people to think it is, or even might.

Kids home from school... Check.
Avoiding public assemblies... there goes the entertainment, travel, and restaurant business... check.
Staying home from work... check.
Stock market crash... check.

I can't tell you how many "victims" were symptomatic during the "white powder" call heyday post 9/11. And the one time the quickie strip registered a false positive for biologic, it was sheer pandemonium. Those were isolated incidents, imagine people afraid of something invisible that they believe can just reach out and touch them.

No, I'm not overly worried about contracting Ebola. Compared to the death toll of malaria it isn't even a bump on the curve. But none of that matters, nor do any facts, because crowd response isn't logical or based on facts. It's group panic, plain and simple. And that's what I worry about...

JRM

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

**atoll** · 15-10-2014, 12:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by JRM

In my line we call it "Level A" but it's still full encapsulation. It's a real PITA to work in, and it takes regular practice. Those two factors are pretty much mutually exclusive, so the boss man has to ride us hard to stay profficient. The worst is trying to drive in the thing, which is pretty likely depending on the size of the exclusion zone.

But here's the real rub. In a town of over 200,000 people, there are three technicians regularly staffed, with anywhere from 1-5 more that can be pulled from other on-duty assignments. That's one team. In our county, there are four others. So what exactly are 20 some odd folks going to do if something really bad happens? Now extrapolate that on out and you can see why, even if the powers that be wanted to, there is no way to properly respond.

This thing doesn't even have to really get going for it to wreak havoc here in the US. All it needs is for people to think it is, or even might.

Kids home from school... Check.
Avoiding public assemblies... there goes the entertainment, travel, and restaurant business... check.
Staying home from work... check.
Stock market crash... check.

I can't tell you how many "victims" were symptomatic during the "white powder" call heyday post 9/11. And the one time the quickie strip registered a false positive for biologic, it was sheer pandemonium. Those were isolated incidents, imagine people afraid of something invisible that they believe can just reach out and touch them.

No, I'm not overly worried about contracting Ebola. Compared to the death toll of malaria it isn't even a bump on the curve. But none of that matters, nor do any facts, because crowd response isn't logical or based on facts. It's group panic, plain and simple. And that's what I worry about...

JRM

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

great post and very true but where is the line between awareness and caution

DeepFrz · 15-10-2014, 12:36

If you really want to get angry with your politicians watch the Frontline episode on antibiotics. I think some of them should stand trial for murder. It is the same mind set that allows nurses to treat a critically sick patient without the proper gear and training because it is expensive. I did see a picture, supposedly of a nurse treating the sick nurse in Dallas, wearing a suit with an open neck. The breach of protocol is, in my opinion, the fault of the hospital and your federal politicians in not being prepared. Preparation costs money.

Sailor_Hutch · 15-10-2014, 13:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by sneuman

Here we go again! "No virus that causes disease in humans has ever been known to mutate to change its mode of transmission. This means it is highly unlikely that Ebola has mutated to become airborne." Read this to get a better understanding of how Ebola spreads | The Great Debate

Well, when it comes to medicine, I'm just one of those blaggard google experts. (i.e. have read a bunch of things out of context, which assume broader understanding to ever put into the correct context). I'm guilty there. I know the party line on the issue, which includes both the current facts of the matter on the ground, and which is coupled with public policies for preventing hysteria. Yet - I do read things on the net suggesting that while it is not happening now, it's not really impossible either. It's been airborne transmitted between primates according to one book, and airborne transmitted from pigs to primates in another lab experiment.

A nature.com article included the following (snipped) comment from reader Ryan Waters :

"...replication within the respiratory tract is not essential. High titres in the blood, resulting in spill over into the respiratory fluids is enough..." which was meant to refute a standard reason for the low likelihood of airborne transmission.

http://www.nature.com/news/will-the-...rborne-1.15943

Apparently, everybody agrees that the current beast to be slayed does not have wings, and yes - it's probably not advisable to make much mention of the low likelihood events that have nothing to do with fighting the enemy in our face today. I guess at some point we take the majority experts opinions and forget about the fringe theories. Hopefully airborne ebola is forever fringe - and forever theory.

crazyoldboatguy · 15-10-2014, 13:21

Re Pearl Harbor.....what dannc said +++1!!!

Won't comment anymore about that unrelated folderol. Ebola is the issue being discussed here. Whether or not the chaos occurring in some parts of Africa, a place more familiar with Ebola than we are, comes here is speculation. We certainly hope it doesn't. I had read that when the disease moved beyond the areas historically hit is when the chaos began to spread. Mostly because those regions were not familiar. While we can be generally familiar with the illness in the US, the kinds of strict protocols needed, the number of folks intimately familiar with ongoing protocols is of real concern. We have trained folks available but not on the scale needed for a wide spread breakout.

Why is this particular breakout in Africa spreading beyond the historical boundaries? I have not heard a decent explanation for that. That is where the concern is - in the past, the breakout would burn out after a few months and the disease would disappear almost as quickly as it had appeared. I had also heard that this particular disease didn't have much of a history of mutating. I have not read that since so wonder if I heard correctly. People seeking to escape the containment zones in Africa are a cause for concern. They certainly won't alert anyone to the fact that they had contact with an ill person. Why do that? If they travel before symptoms appear - before the fever appears - they could go far and wide before they become too ill to move around anymore. That would be a reason to quarantine those areas in Africa to commercial air travel. Passports and/or Visas from those areas would be enough reason to prevent movement. Any supplies or medical staff could be moved into and out of the area on charter flights specifically secured for those purposes. Military transports could be used as well.

There was a time in our world when quarantines meant something. When a medical correspondent violated quarantine protocol to get some coffee, I began to believe that there are some folks who don't even believe their own press. Unbelievable.

DeepFrz · 15-10-2014, 13:35

One of the reasons this outbreak is so dangerous is because it has spread to major cities with major transportation facilities, ie: airports. Previous outbreaks were contained within remote communities that had relatively small populations and no major airports. The disease burned itself out because it essentially ran out of hosts.

crazyoldboatguy · 15-10-2014, 13:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

One of the reasons this outbreak is so dangerous is because it has spread to major cities with major transportation facilities, ie: airports. Previous outbreaks were contained within remote communities that had relatively small populations and no major airports. The disease burned itself out because it essentially ran out of hosts.

I agree.

**atoll** · 15-10-2014, 13:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

One of the reasons this outbreak is so dangerous is because it has spread to major cities with major transportation facilities, ie: airports. Previous outbreaks were contained within remote communities that had relatively small populations and no major airports. The disease burned itself out because it essentially ran out of hosts.

+2 exactamente
de proverbial cat is out de bag....

drastic scorched earth policies are what we need

crazyoldboatguy · 15-10-2014, 13:51

The problem with a scorched earth program is that it is politically impossible to close off Africa without severe political repercussions. Did I mention that it is also a political problem?

**atoll** · 15-10-2014, 13:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazyoldboatguy

The problem with a scorched earth program is that it is politically impossible to close off Africa without severe political repercussions. Did I mention that it is also a political problem?

ha ha we did it quite well till 1990 in some republics in the south of africa