Where Are My Keys?

Score one for the Constitution..

CA firearm waiting period is deemed unconstitional:

ROSEVILLE, CA (August 25, 2014) – California’s 10-day waiting period for gun purchases was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge this morning in a significant victory for Second Amendment civil rights. The laws were challenged by California gun owners Jeffrey Silvester and Brandon Combs, as well as two gun rights groups, The Calguns Foundation and Second Amendment Foundation.

In the decision released this morning, Federal Eastern District of California Senior Judge Anthony W. Ishii, appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, found that “the 10-day waiting periods of Penal Code [sections 26815(a) and 27540(a)] violate the Second Amendment” as applied to members of certain classifications, like Silvester and Combs, and “burdens the Second Amendment rights of the Plaintiffs.”

...

Under the court order, the California Department of Justice (DOJ) must change its systems to accommodate the unobstructed release of guns to gun buyers who pass a background check and possess a California license to carry a handgun, or who hold a “Certificate of Eligibility” issued by the DOJ and already possess at least one firearm known to the state.

It will never happen here..

The Ebola outbreak that just won't go away continues to grow:

Ebola continues to spread in West Africa as Sierra Leone voted to pass a new amendment imposing jail time for anyone caught hiding an Ebola patient.

With 142 new cases recorded, the total number is now 2,615 with 1,427 deaths, the World Health Organization said Friday. The group added that the magnitude of the Ebola outbreak has been "underestimated."

"Many families hide infected loved ones in their homes," the organization wrote in an assessment. "Others deny that a patient has Ebola and believe that care in an isolation ward — viewed as an incubator of the disease — will lead to infection and certain death. Most fear the stigma and social rejection that come to patients and families when a diagnosis of Ebola is confirmed."

Most of the new cases are in Liberia. So far, that country has record 1,082 cases and 624 deaths. New treatment centers are overwhelmed by patients that were not previously identified.

One center with 20 beds opened its doors to 70 possibly infected people, likely coming from "shadow-zones" where people fearing authorities won't let doctors enter, the U.N. health agency said.

"This phenomenon strongly suggests the existence of an invisible caseload of patients who are not being detected by the surveillance system," the agency said. This has "never before been seen in an Ebola outbreak."

How I feel after dinner tonight..

 

However much they are paying you, it ain't enough..

 

Hospitals have questions for Ebola treatment..

The CDC says that this is okay for treating an infected patient:

In recent weeks, C.D.C. officials have said repeatedly that any hospital in the United States can safely provide care for a patient with Ebola by following their exacting infection-control procedures and isolating the patient in a private room with an unshared bathroom.

“What’s needed to fight Ebola is not fancy equipment,” Dr. Frieden said in a message posted during a Twitter chat with concerned members of the hospital staff. “What’s needed is standard infection control, rigorously applied.”

Nancy E. Foster, the vice president of quality and patient safety policy at the American Hospital Association, agreed that gloves, gown, face mask and eye protection are “perfectly fine” and called the C.D.C. guidance the “best advice.”

Not surprisingly, some folks think that isn't enough:

But Dr. Michael V. Callahan, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital who has worked in Africa during Ebola outbreaks, does not think it is wrong for hospitals to opt for more protective equipment.

The minimal precautions recommended by the C.D.C. “led to the infection of my nurses and physician co-workers who came in contact with body fluids,” Dr. Callahan said. “I understand the desire to maintain absolute protection in U.S. hospitals.”

Dr. Justin Fairless, an emergency physician in Tulsa, Okla., said that health care workers in Africa “are wearing the highest level of protection, but the C.D.C. recommendation lets us go down to the lowest level of protection.”

Dr. Fairless is considering buying his own air-purifying respirator to pair with a head-to-toe coverall. “I am not comfortable going to see an Ebola patient wearing a paper mask that doesn’t cover my entire face,” he said.

He is hardly alone. In recent weeks, several hospital workers have expressed concerns, asking why head coverage is not necessary and suggesting their emergency department doctors would get hard-to-tear hooded suits.

I would think that the CDC would err on the side of recommending extra levels of protection, especially considering how deadly the disease is.

RELATED: The Country with the most deaths from this outbreak have potentially infected patients roaming the slums.  Dirty linens, mattresses and instruments were also removed rom the hospital:

Liberian officials fear Ebola could soon spread through the capital's largest slum after residents raided a quarantine center for suspected patients and took items including bloody sheets and mattresses.

The violence in the West Point slum occurred late Saturday and was led by residents angry that patients were brought to the holding center from other parts of Monrovia, Tolbert Nyenswah, assistant health minister, said Sunday.

Local witnesses told Agence France Presse that there were armed men among the group that attacked the clinic.

"They broke down the doors and looted the place. The patients all fled," said Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the attack and whose report was confirmed by residents and the head of Health Workers Association of Liberian, George Williams.

Up to 30 patients were staying at the center and many of them fled at the time of the raid, said Nyenswah. Once they are located they will be transferred to the Ebola center at Monrovia's largest hospital, he said.

The attack comes just one day after a report of a crowd of several hundred local residents, chanting, 'No Ebola in West Point,' drove away a burial team and their police escort that had come to collect the bodies of suspected Ebola victims in a slum in the capital, Reuters reports.

West Point residents went on a "looting spree," stealing items from the clinic that were likely infected, said a senior police official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the press. The residents took medical equipment and mattresses and sheets that had bloodstains, he said. Ebola is spread through bodily fluids including blood, vomit, feces and sweat.

"All between the houses you could see people fleeing with items looted from the patients," the official said, adding that he now feared "the whole of West Point will be infected."

Some of the looted items were visibly stained with blood, vomit and excrement, said Richard Kieh, who lives in the area.

I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.

"So to clarify: American troops won't be in Iraq in a combat role. They just might happen to engage in combat, if circumstances require."..

Nuance.

Who knew?! Colorado Pot tax revenues waaay under projections..

It's always been the easy argument for legal drugs: "Legalize, regulate, and tax.  The Government will make a fortune!"

As is typically the case, what is intended, and what is reality are not the same:

Colorado's tax collections from recreational marijuana sales in the past fiscal year came in more than 60 percent below early predictions, and now a state lawmaker says it may be time to reconsider the tax formula.

State Rep. Dan Pabon, who is leading a special legislative committee on marijuana revenue, said the medical-marijuana system also may come under scrutiny.

"There's some real impact that the medical marijuana market is having on the recreational marijuana market," said Pabon, D-Denver. "I think it's worth looking at the taxation on the recreational side but also looking at the rules and regulations on the medical side."

...

When Colorado voters approved special taxes on recreational marijuana in November, the official fiscal analysis estimated the taxes would bring in a combined $33.5 million through that fiscal year, which ended this summer. Budgeters for Gov. John Hickenlooper had similarly optimistic projections.

But the actual number came in at just more than $12 million.

A market study for the Colorado Department of Revenue says the lower-taxed medical-marijuana market, which continues to outpace the recreational market in sales, is to blame.

Rather than pulling consumers out of the medical-marijuana market, the recreational market largely has feasted on tourists and people who previously bought pot on the black market.

The problem lies with how it is taxed.  "Medical" pot is taxed at a much lower rate than "Retail" dope.  It's not too difficult to get a note from your doctor for weed, so smart smokers are going the medicinal route.

Big deal, WAMK.  So tax revenues are down.  What difference does it make?  Well, when the Governor puts tax revenue numbers at $98 million this year from pot, there may be a healthy shortfall.  Considering voters were told to expect around $70 million in tax revenue when it was put on the ballot, it may have been a better idea to underpromise, and overdeliver this year.

Hopefully, the tax revenues catch up to projections.  If it's legal, we may as well get every penny we can from it.

Substitute Teacher..

 

 

Ebola has now been exported to the United States and Spain..

Nothing to worry about, I'm sure.  No danger whatsoever in removing infected folks from the place where they got it, and moving them to a place where it doesn't historically occur.

"Why do you need guns?"

I bet these storeowners in MO are happy there is a Second Amendment.

When seconds count, the Police are minutes away.