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Ebola Quarantine Center In Liberia Looted

An anonymous reader writes The BBC and other outlets are reporting that a major quarantine center for patients who have been infected with the Ebola virus in Liberia has been looted and ransacked. Reports vary on the motive of the attack, but officials have confirmed that the Ebola patients are missing and that the quarantine center's medical supplies have been stolen. Officials say that the looters are highly likely to contract the virus themselves and worsen the epidemic further, as the WHO counts 1000+ lives claimed by the virus total."

359 comments

  1. If that's not worth a Darwin Award⦠by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    â¦I don't know what is.

  2. Forget the Purple Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Start mass-producing the Darwin Awards.

    1. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Bearhouse · · Score: 2

      Indeed. While you're at it, you can produce some for us (the "West").
      I'm no leftie nutjob, but you've got to admin that the a lot of such problems are historically down to us...Africa, Middle East...)
      We brought technology without knowledge - if we had spent as much time educating these people over the centuries as we had killing and exploiting them, well, maybe things would be better.
      As it stands, this thing spreading out of control is just a short flight away...

    2. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm no leftie nutjob, but you've got to admin that the a lot of such problems are historically down to us...Africa, Middle East...)

      Dude, the Middle East and Africa has been at war since written record.
      We may not have helped, and we may have made their violent tendencies more destructive, but saying their problems are our fault is just excusing the millennia of greed, war and hate which has plagued that part of the world.

    3. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Wait, so now you're implying the West is smarter than Africa and the Middle East and that those places needed to be educated by us? Fuck you.

    4. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you know? Western education is a sin!

    5. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The arabs got the numerical system from India.

    6. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They aren't called "Arabic numerals" for quaintness.

      Indeed, European numerals are called Arabic by mistake (and for propaganda purposes). European numerals are based on several Indian number systems, and bear no resemblance to the numerals used by Arabs.

    7. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Le+Marteau · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > They aren't called "Arabic numerals" for quaintness.

      Actually, they are. Literally.

      "It should be noted that the Arabic numerals were neither invented by nor used by the Arabs. They were developed in India by the Hindus around 600 A.D"

      http://www.mediahistory.umn.ed...

      --
      Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
    8. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah except, Are Arabic Numerals really arabic? Hindus in India were using them long time before Arabs got their hands on em.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_numerals

    9. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Then also keep in mind that the cultured population that devised such a concise and useful numbering scheme and utilized it for many mathematical advances was exterminated by the ancestors of the current populations of those lands.

      To explain what happened in Koran terms, the faction that accepted "when on jihad, do not harm women, children, or people of the book (Jews and Christians)" was murdered by the faction that accepted "take not the Jew or Christian for a friend, execute the infidel." The world lost a lot of beneficial culture and insightful literature (scientific and non) when that happened.

    10. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guess what? You actually ARE a "leftie nutjob".

    11. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by Xugumad · · Score: 1

      Although seriously, it's generally considered in poor taste to award Darwins for a person or group who take out innocent bystanders along with themselves. After all, they're not necessarily improving the gene pool if they take others out too.

    12. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      Some of it. And most of that had it roots in Greece, since they had access to those writings after Rome fell; except maybe Astronomy, which the Babylonians had down pretty pat from further back.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    13. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by CRCulver · · Score: 2

      Some of it. And most of that had it roots in Greece, since they had access to those writings after Rome fell;

      No, Arabic/Indian numerals did not have "roots" in Greece. The classical Greek system of representing numbers was to use letters of the Greek alphabet (sometimes with what looks like a prime symbol following it) that were assigned numerical values. The system was rather clunky, and the adoption of modern numerals from the Near East during the Medieval era was a huge step forward.

    14. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      Like I said; "Some" of it, and "most". I never claimed all or 100% of Arabic science was derived from Greece. This suggests there are other parts, technically up to 49%, theoretically speaking, that did not.
      But you are correct, "Arabic" numbers are in fact Indian.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    15. Re: Forget the Purple Hearts by tigersha · · Score: 1

      Most 'arab' science (and a lot of hellenistic culture) came from the Persians. The Persians civilization had a very large reach.

      --
      The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
    16. Re:Forget the Purple Hearts by man+bear+nerd · · Score: 1

      well they have the christian religion which is big on logic and commonsense and some muslim religion which only improves the the situation.

  3. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is more to it. Media hide a lot of shit. My family got quite repulsed when I told them the problem of contagion is due to in most parts of that area, the ritual ceremony being drinking the water you use to wash the corpse.

  4. 12% of the population is Muslim by Chrisq · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just hope this isn't a deliberate attempt to spread the virus, remove medical supplies and become martyrs

    1. Re:12% of the population is Muslim by hooiberg · · Score: 1

      Well, they cannot become martyrs by just dropping dead. At least they have to kill some unbelievers as well... I think they really have no clue what they are doing.

    2. Re:12% of the population is Muslim by Nyder · · Score: 2

      I just hope this isn't a deliberate attempt to spread the virus, remove medical supplies and become martyrs

      I doubt it. Most likely just the typical bullshit you get in a 3rd world country. Low education, coupled by poverty, corrupt government and when you get a health epidemic, people panic and do stupid shit.

      Family supposed got some of the sick, which is understandable that they want to spend the last days with the people, and same for those that supposedly left when the riot started.

      As for the looting of the place and the start of the riot, who knows the real agenda there. Panic? Planned? Stupidity? Guess we might find out.

         

      --
      Be seeing you...
    3. Re:12% of the population is Muslim by kevingolding2001 · · Score: 0

      At least they have to kill some unbelievers as well...

      Spreading the disease is a pretty effective way of doing just that.

    4. Re:12% of the population is Muslim by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

      Most likely just the typical bullshit you get in a 3rd world country. Low education, coupled by poverty, corrupt government and when you get a health epidemic, people panic and do stupid shit

      Terrorism is pretty common "bullshit" in some 3rd world countries. The culture of some groups that engage in terrorism celebrates self-sacrifice when engaging in terrorism. Indeed, there is essentially a death cult there when they state "we love death more than you love life." Terrible diseases like Ebola induce terror while killing many people. Modern air travel has reduced the what had been the travel of months to a few hours. Hmmm. Hmmm.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    5. Re:12% of the population is Muslim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Allah's Apostle said, "Five are regarded as martyrs: They are those who die because of plague, abdominal disease, drowning or a falling building etc., and the martyrs in Allah's cause. <- source

    6. Re:12% of the population is Muslim by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Trash a clinic in Sierra Leone, then hop a Saudi bizjet to get to London or New York before the incubation period expires. By now they will be down in the subways, coughing on as many rush-hour passengers as they can.

    7. Re:12% of the population is Muslim by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      Well, they cannot become martyrs by just dropping dead. At least they have to kill some unbelievers as well...

      Actualy, they CAN become martyrs by dropping dead - after deliberately NOT leaving the area of a plague and thus avoiding the spreading it, at the cost of their own lives.

      Martyrdom doen't just come from being killed in a religious war.

      Another way to become a martyr, for instance, is to die in childbirth.

      Yet another is to die while defending your home and/or family from robbers or other attackers (as my wife pointed out to a crook who was trying to extort "taxes" for a local gang.)

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    8. Re:12% of the population is Muslim by Nyder · · Score: 1

      Most likely just the typical bullshit you get in a 3rd world country. Low education, coupled by poverty, corrupt government and when you get a health epidemic, people panic and do stupid shit

      Terrorism is pretty common "bullshit" in some 3rd world countries. The culture of some groups that engage in terrorism celebrates self-sacrifice when engaging in terrorism. Indeed, there is essentially a death cult there when they state "we love death more than you love life." Terrible diseases like Ebola induce terror while killing many people. Modern air travel has reduced the what had been the travel of months to a few hours. Hmmm. Hmmm.

      I live in the USA where the terrorist groups are called Politicians and Lawmakers.

      --
      Be seeing you...
    9. Re:12% of the population is Muslim by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      I assume we can agree that US politicians aren't going to try to catch Ebola to kill their constitutents?

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  5. Darwinism as a team sport. by hooiberg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe we can create group Award, now that Darwinism has become a team sport!

    1. Re:Darwinism as a team sport. by Thanshin · · Score: 1

      While keeping the yearly Darwin Award, Maybe it's time to create a World Darwin Championship, every four years. With an opening ceremony, different disciplines and medals, a Shakira song, vuvuzelas,...

      As medal materials, instead of Gold, Silver and Bronze, I propose Polonium, Arsenic and compressed Gunpowder.

    2. Re:Darwinism as a team sport. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe we can create group Award, now that Darwinism has become a team sport!

      Given the horrific nature of the ingredient chosen, I'd say this is more like Iron Chef. There's a hell of a clock ticking.

    3. Re:Darwinism as a team sport. by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 5, Funny

      While keeping the yearly Darwin Award, Maybe it's time to create a World Darwin Championship, every four years. With an opening ceremony, different disciplines and medals, a Shakira song, vuvuzelas,...

      You can keep your smut to yourself. The last thing I want to see on my TV is Shakira's vuvuzela.

      And I think you spelled it wrong.

      --
      If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
    4. Re:Darwinism as a team sport. by RivenAleem · · Score: 1

      The Darwin Awards world cup?

    5. Re:Darwinism as a team sport. by felixrising · · Score: 1

      Damn it! You took my line!

    6. Re: Darwinism as a team sport. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except a Darwin Award is killing oneself, not being killed by others.

    7. Re:Darwinism as a team sport. by amicusNYCL · · Score: 1

      It really should apply to an entire culture. It's hard to blame the individuals in this society, but this kind of thing is what you'll eventually get when you mix modern medicine and science with a large group of people who have beliefs in things like witchcraft and sorcery. Most of the individuals are just products of their culture, but their entire culture is definitely in the running for a Darwin.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    8. Re:Darwinism as a team sport. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So how much do we have? 28 days or maybe more?

  6. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If only we had books and the Internet we could explore the recent history of LIberia to find out why they are so ignorant, superstitious and violent.

    Or we could just blame it on race, because that's easy, and stupid people like easy explanations, no matter how wrong they are.

  7. Quarantine the whole city by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As the quarantine centre has been looted, maybe they should try to contain the outbreak by extending the quarantine to the whole city. Declare martial law and not allow anyone to enter or leave the city.

    1. Re:Quarantine the whole city by mysidia · · Score: 1

      As the quarantine centre has been looted, maybe they should try to contain the outbreak by extending the quarantine to the whole city. Declare martial law and not allow anyone to enter or leave the city.

      Agreed. Armed military blockade around the city and lockdown of major thoroughfares to minimize travel, even quarantine neighborhoods with infected people, until the infected can be re-isolated and those responsible for the riots can be rounded up.

    2. Re:Quarantine the whole city by ihtoit · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I say we dust off and nuke the entire site from orbit.

      It's the only way to be sure.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    3. Re:Quarantine the whole city by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fucking amerikans. Violence is all you know.

    4. Re:Quarantine the whole city by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      violence from afar is all they know.
      when they actually experience any violence them selves its an absolute out rage and the world needs to stop and coddle them.

    5. Re:Quarantine the whole city by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've read your posting history and feel obligated to help you. You are a below average intelligence person who thinks he is above.Frankly, everything you say is just moronic. Not just stupid, but moronic. I assume you are not a moron, but simply a little dull. But when you then pretend to be smart, it makes you appear to be a moron.

      There is nothing to be ashamed of having an IQ of 90. But when you then try to interact with intelligent people as if you were intelligent, it is like the fat girl hanging out with the cheerleaders. It is just embarrassing.

      No need to thank me for this advice. Giving it is reward enough.

  8. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reference?

  9. Re:Niggers. by mousse-man · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wasn't there enough information posted and published everywhere in the mass media in Liberia to inform even the dumbest people not to do that at all? I mean, after 1000 people die in a quite horrid way, a bunch of RFSP (Really F****** Stupid People) storms an Ebola Quarantine Center, lets the infected patients flee, steals the medical supplies and probably believes they just fulfilled the will of their ancestors.

    Then, after these RFSP let the infected escape, possibly carrying the bodies oozing with Ebola infected fluids in their own arms home, put them on a bed, washing these infected fluids away, and then using the towels to wash and dry themselves, get infected in turn. And if they didn't get infected by just caring for their relative expiring from one of the most horrid diseases, they will get infected when they kiss the deceased or 'ritually' wash him, or when they cuddle up (or doing some more improper things) with the oozing cadaver full of filovirii looking for the next host to infect. And if that was not enough, they will 'celebrate' the death of their relative by eating some bush meat, containing yet another Ebola strain.

    Lather, rinse, repeat, this time multiplied by 500, because the whole clan of course has to conglomerate around the putrid cadaver of a usually quite controllable disease. And of course, these relatives, in the two weeks that the virus takes to manifest itself, return home into their jungle villages in the four corners of Liberia and adjoining countries.

    That's how you make an epidemic spread like wildfire.

    Now, if the authorities in African countries are smart, the next time such crap happens, don't use rifles. Use flame throwers. Disinfects looters, kills the sick in a safe way and prevents more spread. As brutal as it may sound, this will probably save many more lives than just letting these people who just proved that the ancestors of homo sapiens which still live on trees are quite much smarter 'live their culture'.

    And showing the burning looters screaming in agony (because they just got BBQed by desperate authorities trying to contain the outbreak) on national TV will make sure the next bunch of idiots reconsiders their idea of looting a health center trying to contain one of the deadliest viral diseases known to mankind.

  10. Re:Niggers. by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 3, Funny

    Reference?

    None. The librarian is dead...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  11. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I found this reference. Which seams highly credible. But instead drinking the water used to wash a corpse instead they insist on kissing and touching a body which would also be very effective in spreading the disease.

  12. I would call it worst case of darwin award by aepervius · · Score: 2

    but that would be callous because , unfortunately potentially the looter might contaminate other innocent people and worsen the epidemic. And also they are making it worst by destroying the (already strapped) existing infrastructure to treat epidemic. Unfortunately with some people thinking the doctor spread Ebola, and the funerary practice and belief winning over simple science and hygiene, my expectation of the locals are low. Fortunately due to our own procedure ebola is unlikely to become an epidemic in our region.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
    1. Re:I would call it worst case of darwin award by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      Yes, but in all likelihood they will contaminate their relatives and families first.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  13. Quarantine vs. being stubborn by kruach+aum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's probably easier to let these people die of ebola than it is to change the mind of someone who stubbornly believes in things that are false. There have been many information campaigns about the causes and prevention of transmission of ebola, up to and including rap songs, and yet they can't help themselves.

    1. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Totally easier. Good thing the doctors and medical staff who risk their lives to fight the disease are not that lazy.

    2. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by hooiberg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      These are the same people that believe that having sex with a virgin cures aids, and as such rape babies... I wonder if it is a really bad thing if the entire country were to die of ebola.

    3. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Going a bit far, they're not all bad.

    4. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Pino+Grigio · · Score: 1

      I don't believe that story at all. But even if it's true, what we're dealing with here is an ignorant, uneducated population most of whom don't have access to information, don't watch the daily news, don't (can't) read newspapers, haven't ever heard of the germ theory of disease, and with a government the members of which are enriching themselves in the traditional African way through corruption, coercion and violence.

      Thankfully the situation in Africa is slowly improving, though I think the current generation in this locality is probably doomed to plod on in ignorance regardless.

    5. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't believe that story at all.

      Unfortunately, it is true, though maybe not as prevelent in West Africa than in other regions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misconceptions_about_HIV/AIDS

      Flanagan, Jane (2001-11-11). "South African men rape babies as 'cure' for Aids". Telegraph (London). Retrieved 2009-03-25.

      Meel, B.L. (2003). "1. The myth of child rape as a cure for HIV/AIDS in Transkei: a case report". Med. Sci. Law 43 (1): 85–88.

      Groce, N.E.; Trasi, R. (2004). "Rape of individuals with disability: AIDS and the folk belief of virgin cleansing". Lancet 363 (9422): 1663–1664.

    6. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ..let god sort them out.

      captcha: nihilism.

    7. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You don't believe that story? It's very well documented. Google: Africa AIDS myth

      Or click: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_cleansing_myth

    8. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by goose-incarnated · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't believe that story at all.

      Why not? Is the reports by multiple newspapers not enough to convince you? How about a report from a local (me)? It's true, that they believe such crap is fact and is undisputed.

      But even if it's true, what we're dealing with here is an ignorant, uneducated population most of whom don't have access to information, don't watch the daily news, don't (can't) read newspapers, haven't ever heard of the germ theory of disease, and with a government the members of which are enriching themselves in the traditional African way through corruption, coercion and violence.

      You're way off base there. Look up the Marikana massacre. The idiot miners, all well past high-school with extra vocational training, went to a witchdoctor who gave them a muti that they could rub all over their body that will make them immune to bullets. They not only believed it (because that particular belief is common in this country), they bought the stuff, smeared themselves with it and then performed an all-out balls-to-the-wall assault on some 200 armed police officers (who also believe in this shit).

      The results were as bad as you would guess.

      The problem is not one of ignorance - everyone goes through the school system, no exceptions. The problem is one of stupidity; even those locals with advanced degrees still believe in muti that makes one bulletproof, or the virgin cure for HIV. The locals here are just plain stupid and no amount of education over the past two decades has managed to shake them of their beliefs in bulletproof vaseline and/or virgin cures and/or anything else that is stupid.

      Thankfully the situation in Africa is slowly improving, though I think the current generation in this locality is probably doomed to plod on in ignorance regardless.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    9. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Congrats, that's exactly the kind of reply you get from this kind of people if you tell them curing aid by raping a virgin is stupid.

    10. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah! So it's Ebola that you don't believe exists. How about HIV, do you believe it exists?
      What are your criteria for determining whether or not something exists?

    11. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Pino+Grigio · · Score: 0

      Anonymous Coward is making the ridiculous claim that because I have doubt about the assertions of a couple of anthropologists, people in Libera are equally justified in having doubt about what and how the Ebola virus is transmitted.

    12. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      The problem is not one of ignorance - everyone goes through the school system, no exceptions. The problem is one of stupidity; even those locals with advanced degrees still believe in muti that makes one bulletproof, or the virgin cure for HIV. The locals here are just plain stupid and no amount of education over the past two decades has managed to shake them of their beliefs in bulletproof vaseline and/or virgin cures and/or anything else that is stupid.

      I also know of people with advanced degrees who still believe that some guy 2000 years ago, was born from a virgin, walked on water, changed water to wine. Stupidity must be more widespread than you think.

    13. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Eunuchswear · · Score: 0

      Damned. Pino Grigio writing stuff I agree with.

      Thanks for being the voice of reason among all this racist shit.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    14. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      I don't believe that story at all.

      Why not? Is the reports by multiple newspapers not enough to convince you? How about a report from a local (me)? It's true, that they believe such crap is fact and is undisputed.

      Local to where exactly.

      Are all those Kaffirs the same to you?

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    15. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      There have been many information campaigns about the causes and prevention of transmission of ebola, up to and including rap songs...

      I always knew rap was bad, but I never knew it could transmit Ebola. One more reason I'm glad I don't like rap.

    16. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by kruach+aum · · Score: 1

      Guess that means something else is to blame for destroying your ability to judge the scope of modifiers.

    17. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      Guess that means something else is to blame for destroying your ability to judge attempts at humor.

    18. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by flyingsquid · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's probably easier to let these people die of ebola than it is to change the mind of someone who stubbornly believes in things that are false. There have been many information campaigns about the causes and prevention of transmission of ebola, up to and including rap songs, and yet they can't help themselves.

      Yeah, they're idiots. I can think of another country where over twenty thousand people a year- far more than the Ebola epidemic- are killed because the ignorant beliefs of the society and lack of education put everyone in danger. People repeatedly try to educate them and show how with a few precautions, they could dramatically reduce the death rate from the epidemic. But no matter how many times you try to show those Americans the statistics on Canada, Australia, and the UK, no matter how many children are gunned down and slaughtered in school shootings, they stubbornly believe that their savage practice of letting everyone walk around with semiautomatic handguns and assault rifles actually makes them safer! But what are you going to do, they cling to their ignorant ideas and stubbornly believe in things that are false. They can't help themselves; it's probably easier to let these people accidentally shoot themselves than it is to change their minds...

    19. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      I always knew rap was bad, but I never knew it could transmit Ebola.

      I have no intention of listening to it just to find out! However, I suspect that most of the population of West Africa do not actually understand the words of rap music anyway. Perhaps Afrobeat or Highlife would work better?

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    20. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure!

    21. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by amicusNYCL · · Score: 1

      the biologists who were studying the extinction of certain frogs subsequently discovering that the fungus that killed them was mainly transmitted by ... biologists studying rare frogs

      Not to be too on-topic in this thread or anything, but did that actually happen? Can you point me to an article?

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    22. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So you disregard any evidence that doesn't fit your world view which in turn allow you to claim there is no evidence against your world view. That's called confirmation bias.

    23. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you suggesting that the raping of babies to cure AIDS is being caused by anthropologists studying the raping of babies to cure AIDS? I agree that it is a horrible thing to think about, but the world is not all contained inside the white marble halls of justice.

    24. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by goose-incarnated · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sorry, I don't believe it just because a couple of researchers, presumably with an agenda or a desire for further funding of their anthropological tintinnabulations, have written about it.

      WTF is wrong with you? I live here, I've suffered under white rule and my entire family was a struggle family so I've got no agenda. The fact is that this is a belief that is shared by many of the locals here :-( Why don't you believe what newspapers, researchers and people on the ground are telling you - these folk are still stuck in the stone age in many respects. Grab any local newspaper you want and see for yourself the pathetic beliefs these people have:

      Virgin cure belief

      Another one of many

      Here's official african government admitting to the baby-rape problem

      How about bullet-proof vaseline and other stupidities?

      Results of the official inquiry into the massacre

      Strikers use body parts from security gaurd for their muti

      Cutting up a 6 year old girl for body parts for their muti before they even killed her.

      In fact, there are too many stories in the courts to even list. You no longer have the assertions of a couple of anthropologist's, you have the statement of a born-and-bred african who is living here, you have official reports of cases in courts and you also have independent newspapers all verifying the same facts.

      Maintaining your skepticism in the face of all this will just make you look foolish. These thugs from the above stories aren't ignorant; they've all completed high-school (equivalent to a US HS diploma) and many of them even have tertiary education. It has become abundantly clear that the problem cannot be solved by relieving these idiots of their ignorance with education; the problem is not ignorance, it's stupidity.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    25. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks to the 2nd amendment and the difficulty of changing the constitution, pretty much the only choice is to, yes, let Americans shoot themselves.

      The thing is, the original rationale wasn't that the guns keep individuals safer, the thinking was that the guns keep Americans safer from their government becoming a tyrrany.

      Given how many Soviets died at the hands of their government, and the other historical examples such as Hitler exterminating Jews, Pol Pot exterminating his people, etc., perhaps the Americans have a point.

    26. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Pino+Grigio · · Score: 1

      I apologise but as a flabby Western liberal I find it almost impossible to believe Human beings can be both evil and stupid, and actually survive to reach adulthood, especially in an AIDS and Malaria-ridden dump like Africa.

    27. Re:Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're thinking of South Africa, not Liberia. A bit inbred, are you?

    28. Re: Quarantine vs. being stubborn by tigersha · · Score: 1

      I know one of those with a PhD from Harvard.

      --
      The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
  14. Re:Niggers. by kevingolding2001 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Now, if the authorities in African countries are smart,

    I suspect that the authorities are usually just as much RFSP as everyone else.
    And calling for flame-throwers will invoke outrage from the PC RFSP in every other part of the world.
    And you and I will now be called 'racist'.

    Wasn't there enough information posted and published everywhere in the mass media in Liberia to inform even the dumbest people not to do that at all?

    There is never enough information to inform willfully ignorant people.
    And now I'll be called 'racist' again.

  15. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Last I checked, there is a not insignificant number of people in the US who refuse childhood immunizations, and the very white, very old Vatican opposed condoms at the height of the HIV epidemic. You may argue the severity, but these are the same strain of stupidity to which all humans are susceptible.

  16. Re:Motive? by mtthwbrnd · · Score: 0, Interesting

    "Or we could just blame it on race, because that's easy, and stupid people like easy explanations, no matter how wrong they are."

    Okay. It appears that there is some evidence, apart from the overwhelming evidence of the crapness of black countries and black areas within white countries, and the really clever game of wit and brain that blacks invented called "knock out game", or the one where they set themselves on fire for fun, that blacks have higher testosterone and that high testosterone is not conducive to "civilisation" or to "being civilised".

    Civilisation could only rise once testosterone levels fell, according to "Science",
    http://science-beta.slashdot.o...

    "Serum testosterone levels in healthy young black and white men.

    This report gives the results of assays of circulating steroid hormone levels in white and black college students in Los Angeles, CA. Mean testosterone levels in blacks were 19% higher than in whites, and free testosterone levels were 21% higher. Both these differences were statistically significant. Adjustment by analysis of covariance for time of sampling, age, weight, alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and use of prescription drugs somewhat reduced the differences. After these adjustments were made, blacks had a 15% higher testosterone level and a 13% higher free testosterone level."
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

  17. Re:Niggers. by nospam007 · · Score: 4

    "Wasn't there enough information posted and published everywhere in the mass media in Liberia to inform even the dumbest people not to do that at all? I mean, after 1000 people die in a quite horrid way, a bunch of RFSP (Really F****** Stupid People) storms an Ebola Quarantine Center, lets the infected patients flee, steals the medical supplies and probably believes they just fulfilled the will of their ancestors."

    Think of it as evolution in action.

    People who don't believe in Ebola are removed from the gene pool.

  18. 12% of the population is Muslim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't attribute to malice, what can be adequately explained by stupidity. Probably illiterates, so they didn't get the meaning of the big posters and other warnings. The only ill will here is "lets plunder the new governmental facility; no security we can't overcome". Who would have tought an ebola facility needed a security guard?

    So the looters got what they wanted. Lots of nice second hand bedsheets that only need some blood washed off. Nice for those who normally can't afford any sheets at all. Those who can read and afford stuff, probably stay as far away from the ebola facility as possible.

  19. Quarantine vs. being stubborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Letting the stubborn and stupid kill themselves is an option with ebola - protection is easy enough for those that understand. But lets hope they don't get an airborne pandemy there . . .

  20. You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it's necessary to understand what's going on Liberia. People there are uneducated, prone to superstition and there's a lot of ignorance about the Ebola outbreak over there, however people are acting rationally based on what they see. What they've seen is that when people go to one of these facilities, they tend to end up dead. If you're living there, ignorance of modern medicine and viruses and whatnot and you witness a loved one being taken to a hospital, it's understandable why people will not take it willingly.

    A lot of people think this is some "white-man's poison" that's infecting and killing folks. There's enough bad history with westerners fucking around with Africa that you can't really blame them for being predisposed to being suspicious at what doctor's are doing. Of course, that doesn't mean the situation is great for all concerned - it just isn't that surprising giving the environment.

    1. Re:You have to understand by kruach+aum · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You say they act rationally based on what they see, and then describe them engaging in post hoc ergo propter hoc logic (people going to facilities end up dead, therefore the facilities are killing them), and being prejudiced against white people and doctors. I am unsure if you are clear on what "rational" means. Hint: it's not acting based on what you 'feel' is right or true, because feelings are notoriously bad at ferreting out either.

    2. Re:You have to understand by korbulon · · Score: 0

      People there are uneducated, prone to superstition and there's a lot of ignorance...

      On a related note, I guess it makes sense that the Walking Dead takes place in the Deep South.

    3. Re:You have to understand by Pino+Grigio · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Oh I see, it's the fault of us white males isn't it.

    4. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it's necessary to understand what's going on Liberia. People there are uneducated, prone to superstition and there's a lot of ignorance

      You misspelled "America."

    5. Re:You have to understand by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      What they've seen is that when people go to one of these facilities, they tend to end up dead.

      As oppose to those that are infected that don't go to the facilities who don't just tend to end up dead, but are essentially guaranteed to be die from the virus.

    6. Re:You have to understand by halivar · · Score: 1

      Doesn't quite fit, does it? In that show/comic, only southerners survive.

    7. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If that is what we were doing you'd think we would be more efficient at it and do the job right if we have had all that practice.

    8. Re:You have to understand by mysidia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They are forming a reasonable (but false) hypothesis which they cannot prove, given that they do not understand health or disease, and they do not believe the explanation people give them, because they lack the obedience training that westerners have.

    9. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Good point. There's very little difference between these idiots and Western idiots like anti-vaccers.

    10. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There's a difference between rationality on the one hand and pedantically correct logical analysis on the other.

      People going to facilities and people dying are correlated, so there is reason to believe the two are connected; in fact the two are connected, just not in the imagined way. That gives a logical rationale for action and is therefore perfect rationalism ... it's just not perfect logic.

      By your standard, rationalism was formally impossible before ... well, who is the gold standard for logical analysis, after whom we knew everything about logic? Boole? Russell? Godel? Even some future mathematician, perhaps? Are even the most highly-trained mathematicians in fact "rational" according to future mathematical theories we know nothing about? Of course, yes, because rationalism doesn't require a perfect grasp of formal logic, it just requires some kind of logic to be in operation.

      Anyway, since correlation is formally all that we ever have anyway regarding non-abstract situations - real world situations rather than mathematical theorems - by your standard all scientific thinking is a priori irrational.

      So perhaps it is you who are not clear on what "rational" means.

    11. Re:You have to understand by kruach+aum · · Score: 3, Informative

      Or perhaps it is you who should google "reductio ad absurdum". Just because I claim that believing invalid arguments are valid is irrational does not mean that to behave rationally means having to know all the laws of logic. It is perfectly rational to believe in inductive arguments, but it is not rational to believe in logical fallacies.

    12. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope that's what happened, actually, and I think it's 99% likely that you are correct. But it's not too difficult to image another scenario - a terrorist group bent on conducting biological warfare wants to get their hands on some raw material. I don't think that's what happened here. I sure as hell hope not. But do any of these facilities where highly contagious infectious diseases get treated have protection against such things? Should they?

    13. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What they've seen is that when people go to one of these facilities, they tend to end up dead.

      As oppose to those that are infected that don't go to the facilities who don't just tend to end up dead, but are essentially guaranteed to be die from the virus.

      Exactly. It's ideological selective filtering of data, just like in American politics. And equally deadly....

    14. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They don't really see that because the witnesses get taken out as well.

    15. Re:You have to understand by nedlohs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "post hoc ergo propter hoc" is rational.

      "Everyone who has eaten those berries has died frothing at the mouth a few hours afterwards, thus we should probably not eat those berries" is rational. It might not actually be true, but it's a good first step. When people keep dieing in the same way after everyone has stopped eating said berries then you can move to a different hypothesis - but when that's all the information you have it would be irrational to keep eating the berries.

      In this case they already have other information - well I'm assuming the health care workers and government and so on are telling them something other than "oh yes, these are death camps where we torture and kill everyone who comes in the door".

    16. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meh. As David Hume pointed out, we can never really infer cause from observation. Still, if there were a building on your street that people went into all the time, but no one ever left alive, I dout you would go into it voluntarily, either.

    17. Re:You have to understand by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure looting an ebola quarantine facility is not "equally deadly" to having a view on one side or the other on US healthcare.

    18. Re:You have to understand by The+Raven · · Score: 1

      You are conflating 'understandable' with similar but different terms like 'reasonable' and 'rational'. Their superstitions and fears are understandable, but they are not based on reason.

      --
      "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
    19. Re:You have to understand by felixrising · · Score: 1

      This. This is why universal education for every human is the greatest long term solution to poverty there is. It's combating ignorance.

    20. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like cake.

    21. Re:You have to understand by kruach+aum · · Score: 1

      Post hoc ergo propter hoc is sometimes irrational, otherwise it would be rational to believe that because day is followed by night day causes night, while in fact it is the rotation of the earth while being located near the sun that causes both. The specific example I mentioned in my post (people going to facilities end up dead, therefore the facilities are killing them) is also irrational, because it assumes causation where there is only correlation. Assuming causation when faced with correlation is really easy to do, but that doesn't make it rational. In fact, it's how we ended up with superstition, and contagious and sympathetic magic.

    22. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone has just had their first critical thinking lecture.

    23. Re:You have to understand by sosume · · Score: 1, Interesting

      > There's enough bad history with westerners fucking around with Africa
      You mean, like greatly extending the life expectancy of Africans and providing education regarding prevention and hygiene? Really, these Western people you speak of must be some wicked tribe! To be honest, sometimes I think that this has lead directly to the massive overpopulation we see nowadays. Should we have let Darwin in charge?

    24. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "People go to a medicine man when they are sick. Sometimes those people die. Therefore the medicine man kills them."

      My first instinct is not to believe people could think like that. But then, again, there is the anti-vaccine crowd...

    25. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Just wait until you figure out what logic "scientists" have been using to build up the modern info on ebola/etc. They disprove a theory they don't believe then take that as support for a theory they do believe.

    26. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People going to facilities end up dead IS EVIDENCE that facilities are killing them, in the bayesian sense.

    27. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's true... ebola won't affect nearly as many lives since it kills its host so quickly. Stupidity and selfishness, on the other hand, are both virulent and deadly for bystanders while allowing the host to linger far too long.

    28. Re:You have to understand by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      ...they do not believe the explanation people give them, because they lack the obedience training...

      Inability to accept a rational explanation is not inability to obey, is inability to reason.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    29. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can only act on what you trust, and you can usually trust your own eyes but that's pretty limited, at some point you have to trust other people. The problem in these countries is that there is so much corruption and an history of lies and exploitation, that people don't trust the government and sometimes not even the foreign doctors. And of course there are people that, knowingly or not, spread these conspiracy theories, sometimes for personal gain.

    30. Re:You have to understand by vyvepe · · Score: 1

      The specific example I mentioned in my post (people going to facilities end up dead, therefore the facilities are killing them) is also irrational, because it assumes causation where there is only correlation.

      It may be rational if they do not have any other data. Especially the data whether the ill would die if they are not taken to the hospital. They may be trying to collect these data by taking people from hospital and waiting whether they die too. Though they should rather try not to even bring the ill to the hospital. Maybe that is the reason for destroing the hospital. So that it cannot accept future patiens and they can collect the right data (would ill people die even if they are not exposed to a hostiall).

      A word from a white man telling them they would die outside a hosptital too is not worth much if white folks were lying before.

    31. Re:You have to understand by ilparatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think that we're all taking this a bit too far down the rabbit hole and forgetting the simple answer ...

      "They have stuff over there that I could sell for money. I don't have money. I'm not a doctor, I don't know what is going on in those tents and I'm not allowed in. How about I just go and take all that stuff and sell it? If I get sick, that's okay, I've been sick before."

      Unless you're trying to write a book and need to up that word count, what more philosophical understanding does it take then that? If you're not careful, scientific over-analysis can just take you farther from the simple truth of a situation or at a minimum overly complicate it.

    32. Re:You have to understand by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      I hope that's what happened, actually, and I think it's 99% likely that you are correct. But it's not too difficult to image another scenario - a terrorist group bent on conducting biological warfare wants to get their hands on some raw material. I don't think that's what happened here. I sure as hell hope not. But do any of these facilities where highly contagious infectious diseases get treated have protection against such things? Should they?

      Not a sensible strategy (at least if you are a sensible terrorist). All you need is a single victim which, presumably, you would knock on the head, drain a couple of liters of blood and poof, you have a crude bio weapon. If you were planning on doing more sophisticated things, you would likely just need a couple of vials.

      No need for all the fuss.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    33. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If someone does not trust you, and then refuses to accept your explanations for situations, that should have been an expected outcome.

      The problem is the lack of trust, and that lack of trust can be traced back to concrete circumstances in many cases.

    34. Re:You have to understand by Ozymandias_KoK · · Score: 1

      No. We've only seen that (some!) southerners survive, because we are only shown the south. We have no information about anywhere else.

    35. Re:You have to understand by nedlohs · · Score: 2

      Your specific example is not irrational. It's the same situation as my eating berries example. At least until people keep dieing even after not going to said facilities. Assuming causation is what rational people do. It's the people who grab the hot pot, yell "ouch" and drop it and then proceed to grab it and yell "ouch" and drop it over and over again because they refuse to assume causation are the ones being irrational.

      That we "know" it's an incorrect hypothesis doesn't change that it's a rational first attempt for people without all the information that you have.

    36. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right. A couple hundred years of human slavery was just bringing them "civilisation". Fuck you and the hole you crawled out of, your racism will only limit you in life so I do really hope you enjoy asking the rest of us if we want fries with that.

    37. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think education plays a big role. Look at Ferguson and New Orleans after Katrina... lots of looting going on and look at the type of people that did the looting... uneducated people.

      They think that having sex with a 12 year old female virgin can cure all diseases and AIDS... yeah darwinism is at work there.

    38. Re:You have to understand by maliqua · · Score: 1

      Let's see how 'rational' everyone acts if this type of outbreak occurred in suburban united states. I'm sure it would be picture of order and rational behavior

    39. Re:You have to understand by reanjr · · Score: 1

      Ummm... the people were angry they setup an ebola hospital in their neighborhood. I think they're at least vaguely aware of modern medicine and germ theory or they wouldn't be distraught about the disease center being close to where they live.

    40. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Early symptoms also resemble malaria (they tested the first infected patient in Lagos for it before they even had the idea to test for Ebola), which is a matter of inevitability for Africans. They aren't buying it when the man comes in and says it ain't malaria.

    41. Re:You have to understand by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      Let's see how 'rational' everyone acts if this type of outbreak occurred in suburban united states. I'm sure it would be picture of order and rational behavior

      With moar guns.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    42. Re:You have to understand by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      I think education plays a big role. Look at [...] New Orleans after Katrina... lots of looting going on and look at the type of people that did the looting... uneducated people.

      Nope, after Katrina the people who were "looting" were mostly getting necessary supplies after being abandoned.

      Nothing to do with eduucation, everything to do with need.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    43. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      But they are. They base it on flawed reasoning .

      For me, it is not understandable at all. I would rather learn more before endangering myself and others. These people have experienced enough to doubt anything they've been told by the authorities, and rightfully so.

    44. Re:You have to understand by sjames · · Score: 1

      But day causes night and night causes day *IS* a reasonable model which will correctly predict what will happen next.

      It is far from a perfect model but it's a start. A more complex model is necessary to make finer predictions (exactly when will the sun rise again, seasons, etc).

    45. Re:You have to understand by sjames · · Score: 1

      No, American Politics is more pernicious. Certain views in the U.S. cause OTHER people to die. At least the clowns who looted the quarantine center will pay the price personally.

    46. Re:You have to understand by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      a sensible terrorist

      I like your planet - can I live on it too?

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    47. Re:You have to understand by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      Doesn't quite fit, does it? In that show/comic, only southerners survive.

      Actually, no. In Season 2 Rick, Herschel, and Glenn run into a group of guys from Philly at the bar near Herschels farm. And the past season and upcoming season involve getting a scientist to DC on government orders. So it's been proven that at least up until that point there are survivors from outside the South.

      Having not read the comics I can only comment on the show

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    48. Re:You have to understand by dcollins117 · · Score: 1

      These people have experienced enough to doubt anything they've been told by the authorities, and rightfully so.

      Not sure whether you are talking about Africa or America...

    49. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... because they lack the obedience training that westerners have.

      They don't lack obedience training.

      It's just not to the same authority as westerners.

      Just sayin'.

    50. Re:You have to understand by nedlohs · · Score: 1

      Sure, but other people don't matter...

    51. Re: You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely education is super important but good morals need to be taught as well and shown.

      I know a lot of highly educated people that are very smart but their morals suck. It's surprising to see that a lot of the "bad people" out in the world aren't as ignorant as you'd think, they just have bad attitudes and outlooks on life.

      Going back onto your point, I think this should be built into the education system. That's why the students that go on mass shootings are usually described as "well he was such a nice boy, good student, etc" We only tend to focus on logic and numbers based on tests but we don't test or focus on emotions or morals which are probably even more important in life overall than memorized facts and intelligence.

    52. Re:You have to understand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slavery? The black slaves was sold by black king to Arabic slave merchants, which was sold to Jews slaves merchants which sold them to europeans. Blame the white men!

      The white men fought, kill and die to end slavery because it was the fucking right thing to do. Mean while in 2014 slavery still happen in Africa, middle east and Asia. But blame the white men!

      No please. Fuck YOU.

  21. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    > I'm not sure if you have noticed but...

    What a twat. What is it with you cave men that makes you insist on lisping out trite, sarcastic, passive-agressive faggy little lines like that? Just say what you mean... no need to resort to faggotry.

  22. Re:Oh yes... by mtthwbrnd · · Score: 0, Troll

    Hey they are exactly the same as us, okay. It is only their skin color that is different. They evolved in a different environment which gave them a different skin color, but it could not possibly impact their IQ or anything like that, because IQ is fixed and the same for all people - it is the one thing that did not evolve and would not be impacted at all by different environments. Okay? Got it? If you say otherwise then you are a racist and want to holocaust 6 gazillion poor innocent Jews who have already almost been holocausted, again!, by Hamas rockets.

    The reason they behave so badly is because we oppressed them. White people are to blame for all of this. We are so evil. Thank god for the white genoc... I mean, for diversity.

  23. Re:Motive? by SpzToid · · Score: 1

    Should Not Feed Trolls(!), but yet again I can not help myself. What about former playmate, former co-anchor Jenny McCarthy, last seen on the (Oprah Winfrey replacement) daytime television show primarily aimed towards women called The View? Considering her anti-vaccination rhetoric, she was lucky to even be given her prominent seat at the table to begin with. Yet there she was, (until she wasn't).

    --
    You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
  24. Where were the guards? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anyone trying to breach a quarantine center should be shot.

    1. Re:Where were the guards? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the head. Always destroy the brain. That way when the zombie apocalypse happens we're already trained on how to respond.

    2. Re:Where were the guards? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyone trying to breach a quarantine center should be shot.

      Guns are bad. Mkay?!

  25. Truly sad by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Unfortunately this is the sort of event that can make this virus' infections rates soar beyond control.

    Because of a small group of idiots the majority will suffer needlessly.

    I see some say "fuck 'em" and some have this attitude of not our problem - for lack of understanding that their problem can become our problem. If that's not a case for a reason to put more resources into education I don't know what is.

    It's everyone's problem when some person in Liberia, is now scared for his life and flees without knowing he is carrying the virus. In 48 hours he might be sitting next to you on a bus! -what are you going to say when people start bleeding their internal organs out of all orifices?

    You want to give out Darwin awards? start by considering you may get one yourself with such an attitude.

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
    1. Re:Truly sad by kruach+aum · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, it's fear mongers like you who are the problem. Ebola is spread by coming into contact with bodily fluids of an infected person. I don't know how you interact with people on the bus, but rarely do I get bled on on my way to work. Furthermore, people in 1st world countries are also less inclined to break people out of quarantine, think doctors are evil killers, or think that black magic is involved. On top of that, most of the people in the affected countries lack the wealth to transport themselves here, and I'm sure that people from infected countries are treated with all possible precautions when they arrive at the airport of a 1st world country.

    2. Re:Truly sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      and I'm sure that people from infected countries are treated with all possible precautions when they arrive at the airport of a 1st world country.

      Dream on.

    3. Re:Truly sad by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 3, Insightful


      People cough, they sneeze, they perspire and touch things. If they carry a deadly virus then this is a deadly problem.

      Did you ever use the toilet at work? - ever had issues of a bad stomach doing the rounds? any idea how many people don't wash their hands after taking a piss? -people you shook hands with. I'd not bet my life on this scenario being impossible.

      The fact that this is LESS likely to happen in a "1st world country" does not help right now. I'm not trying to terrify you into wearing a face mask; I am telling you this can get out of hand if we do not do more to help get this under control.
      Look at the hate some morons choose to spew at this very moment, racists, bigots and foolhardy posts. These so called "1st world" people might just ignore what they stupidly think is an African problem.

      While it's a shame that many people simply do not care about the suffering of others; if you ignore this it may just end up killing people you do care about. Does that sink in or are they not the people you typically see when you go to work?

      --
      A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
    4. Re:Truly sad by kruach+aum · · Score: 1

      If I ignore this it won't end up killing people I care about. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I am saying I'm willing to bet against those odds, much like I'm willing to bet that we're not in the matrix, that the sun will rise tomorrow, that I have hands, that solipsism is false, and that there is no god.

    5. Re:Truly sad by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's everyone's problem when some person in Liberia, is now scared for his life and flees without knowing he is carrying the virus. In 48 hours he might be sitting next to you on a bus!

      Ha! Ain't going to happen.

      I live in a suburb in the US with ZERO public transportation options. Not only that I won't pass them on the street either as there are no frickin' sidewalks as well.

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    6. Re:Truly sad by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1



      Honestly, just substitute "bus" for any other mode of transportation. Go out on a limb and consider the greater possibilities.

      There will always be something/someone that this will not affect, great. Maybe you living in a nuclear bunker with a sophisticated air and water filtration system, good for you.

      What about the people at risk?

      --
      A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
    7. Re:Truly sad by ruir · · Score: 2

      They dont. I am outraged people are coming back from Africa, and they are not placed into a two week quarantine. There are already two cases heavily noticed, one in Portugal, an expat fleeing from Liberian, and another in Spain, a Nigerian boy.

    8. Re:Truly sad by mysidia · · Score: 1

      No, it's fear mongers like you who are the problem. Ebola is spread by coming into contact with bodily fluids of an infected person. I don't know how you interact with people on the bus, but rarely do I get bled on on my way to work.

      Ebola can be transmitted through saliva. Often people cough, and there is a "fine mist"; if any of this lands on your skin, you can contract the disease through micro-abrasions in your skin

    9. Re:Truly sad by OzPeter · · Score: 1

      Honestly, just substitute "bus" for any other mode of transportation. Go out on a limb and consider the greater possibilities.

      There will always be something/someone that this will not affect, great. Maybe you living in a nuclear bunker with a sophisticated air and water filtration system, good for you.

      What about the people at risk?

      Apparently Facebook's expertise is needed here as well

      --
      I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    10. Re:Truly sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you are going to help with what ? You just post a comment and thats it, just stop the b.s.

    11. Re:Truly sad by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1


      I am not arguing for intelligent design or alternate realities or my take on them. Ebola turning into a deadly mass plague is a real possibility,

      I understand there are few people you care about and it seems that unless this disease is likely to kill you then you're likely to ignore it killing some people "over there".

      Base on the above I would like to thank you for your application to the Darwin awards.

      While the chances are rather low; I wanted to inform you, as you are evidently a betting man, that the dice are rolling to determine if you're a winner, good luck.

      --
      A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
    12. Re:Truly sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ebola turning into a deadly mass plague is a real possibility

      Before lecturing about risks of a plague you should read up on it (Ebola) more. For example, you mention a face mask. Ebola is not airborne. The fact that it is spread through physical contact is exactly what makes it (relatively) easy to contain in contrast with, say, influenza.

      That actually brings me to the next point - the flu is a much more deadly disease and kills lots more people. But here you are worrying about an Ebola plague.

      Do that thing that Slashdot blowhards rarely do: read up a little on something before you start stridently opining about it.

    13. Re:Truly sad by Carewolf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Did you ever use the toilet at work? - ever had issues of a bad stomach doing the rounds? any idea how many people don't wash their hands after taking a piss? -people you shook hands with. I'd not bet my life on this scenario being impossible.

      Ebola is not as infectious as the flu. Absolute none of those scenarios would be able to transmit the disease. So yes, you are safe.

    14. Re:Truly sad by Herder+Of+Code · · Score: 1

      You know, pee is mostly sterile, so pee on hands is not exactly a disease vector :p

    15. Re:Truly sad by ilparatzo · · Score: 1

      "for lack of understanding that their problem can become our problem"

      That's a slippery slope my friend, as we have found with countless wars and international interventions.

    16. Re:Truly sad by ilparatzo · · Score: 1

      "That actually brings me to the next point - the flu is a much more deadly disease and kills lots more people. But here you are worrying about an Ebola plague."

      Not to mention HIV and Aids, which given the topic of Africa is a good example. At least 40% of the people who get Ebola are likely to survive it and then lead an ordinary life Ebola free. Those with HIV and Aids live with the the rest of their life. Not to mention that HIV and Aids are already covering the globe.

    17. Re:Truly sad by ColdWetDog · · Score: 0

      You are forgetting d) Nuke 'em from orbit.

      It's the only way to be sure.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    18. Re:Truly sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would you notice a small amount of blood smeared on one of those hand holds before you touched your face with that hand?

    19. Re:Truly sad by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Except in the case of a systemic infection like Ebola. Even sweat is a disease vector with Ebola, because it breaks down the endothelial cells.

    20. Re:Truly sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have presented the exact reason why many argue that we should shut down the US border, with the military as necessary, quarantine foreigners, and become a far more closed society.

      Education is an unproven method of preventing the spread of the plague. The three proven methods are: (a) kill the sick, burn the bodies; (b) quarantine all the sick and their families until they all die; (c) vaccine. Also, combinations of a and b and c.

      There is no amount of education that will guarantee that an infected carrier doesn't make it to the US, spread the infection, and become patient zero for a stateside epidemic.

      So your plan to resolve an outbreak is.... to kill those suspected of being infected and their families. Whelp, no reason to lie and pretend you feel fine in that situation, while trying to get somewhere else, none at all. Great plan. That means anyone with any money and feeling ill will hightail it out of there on a plane to a regime that doesn't proactively immolate anyone with the sniffles for fear of it being Ebola 9000 Z.

    21. Re:Truly sad by holmstar · · Score: 1

      Ebola is not as infectious as the flu.

      Yet.

      So, right now there's at least few thousand people carrying the virus. At least a few of them probably have other cold/flu viruses in their systems. If both Ebola and flu infect the same cell, they can exchange genetic information, potentially resulting in a much more easily transmitted strain of Ebola. The more people that are infected, the greater the chance such genetic exchange could occur. It wouldn't take much for Ebola to become a first world threat.

    22. Re:Truly sad by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      Africa is a good example. At least 40% of the people who get Ebola are likely to survive it

      However, in Europe, who knows?

      There is a reasonable chance a significant portion of the West African population has some degree of immunity. There is NO chance the same is true of Europeans - It may well turn out like when the Spanish invaded South America. - or plague in Europe in 14th century.

      Sure we might be better prepared, but with incubation of 20 days or so, who did you shake hands with three weeks ago? Come on, make a list - we need to interrogate them NOW!

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    23. Re:Truly sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [citation needed]

      Or to quote Arthur Dent, "Ah, this is obviously some new meaning of the word 'safe' with which I was previously unfamiliar."

      Ebola is one mutation away from being airborne transmissable. It already happened with Ebola Reston -- fortunately for us all, that turned out to be transmissable to monkeys but not humans.

    24. Re:Truly sad by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      Ebola is one mutation away from being airborne transmissable. It already happened with Ebola Reston -- fortunately for us all, that turned out to be transmissable to monkeys but not humans.

      I've heard reports that it may have happened with this one, too.

      It doesn't have to be as GOOD at doing airborne transmission as, say, the common cold, to be a BIG problem.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    25. Re:Truly sad by Carewolf · · Score: 1

      Ebola is not as infectious as the flu.

      Yet.

      So, right now there's at least few thousand people carrying the virus. At least a few of them probably have other cold/flu viruses in their systems. If both Ebola and flu infect the same cell, they can exchange genetic information, potentially resulting in a much more easily transmitted strain of Ebola. The more people that are infected, the greater the chance such genetic exchange could occur. It wouldn't take much for Ebola to become a first world threat.

      Ebola is less infectious than HIV and has infected orders of magnitudes fewer people for much shorter periods of time. While it could happen, chances are airborne AIDS is more likely than Ebola, in other words, go back to sleep dear, you were just having a nightmare.

    26. Re:Truly sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ebola is not contagious during the incubation period.

    27. Re:Truly sad by holmstar · · Score: 1

      That HIV has not acquired other methods of transmission does not guarantee that Ebola will not. Ebola has infected far fewer people, and we simply don't know the likelihood of it doing so.

    28. Re:Truly sad by Sciath · · Score: 1

      That's not necessarily the correct conceptualization of "contact with bodily fluids". The bodily fluids don't necessarily mean you have to touch the person's body. Contact can occur with contaminated objects such as bus and stairway handrails, contaminated medical equipment such as used needles (addicts?), sneezing in a small enclosed area, shaking someone's hand, etc. Any situation in which one come in direct contact with bodily fluids. And, it is unknown just how long the virus can survive in the external environment.

      --
      "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
    29. Re:Truly sad by Sciath · · Score: 1

      Your assertion is not sacrosanct. The spread mechanism of the virus is NOT completely understood. Infectious disease professionals are basing their conclusions merely upon the obvious, not upon definitive medical science. The very fact they have asserted it is spread by contact with bodily fluids does not rule out contact with fluids deposited or transmitted outside the body. Since the actual method of transmission is not completely understood it is a bit premature to make such conclusive statements about the contagion method. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

      --
      "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
  26. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3

    Rumors, childrens gossip and Resident Evil plot lines do not constitute reliable information sources.

  27. Re:Oh yes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    lol. you forgot to post anonymously.

  28. meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it's just scare mongering for the upcoming Ebola vaccine

    1. Re:Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Call it eBola and we'll have another bubble

      ahhhhhhhahahaha, the depth of that comment

    2. Re:Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      eBola is so '90s, it's iBola these days...

    3. Re: Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dear customer,

      We regret to inform you that you are now being sued for 6000000 dollars for infringing on Apple's (tm) trademark "iBola" (tm). Because we trademark everything that starts with a lowercase i, you know. Pay up now and we will settle this case for only $2000000. Because we care about you, of course, so that's why we will give you a reduced rate.

      Thank you for your continued interest in Apple products. Have a nice day.

      Sincerely,
      Your friends at Apple (tm)

    4. Re:Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And then Apple will Think Different and call it iBola.

    5. Re: Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's official: Apple now owns the entire Zulu language.

    6. Re:Meh by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      I'm off to trademark iBola right now!

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
  29. Re:Motive? by Pino+Grigio · · Score: 1

    You wanted to blame it on race, didn't you Anonymous Coward. You were going to blame it on white males.

  30. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .. the very white, very old Vatican opposed condoms at the height of the HIV epidemic. ...

    They also opposed gay sex and drug abuse. No gay sex means the vast majority of the AIDS infections never happen. No drug abuse takes care of most of the rest. You're right that people often act stupidly, but you misidentified the key stupidity. And really, nearly all of the men having unprotected sex with other men during the last few heights of the AIDs epidemic were doing it because they wanted to, not because of the Vatican. Funny you didn't comment on that stupidity. Oh, and guess what - it is still going on, and AIDS is still spreading.

  31. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Find me the white or asian equivalent. For sheer monumental self-destructive stupidity, niggers are unbeatable.

    The Ganges river: Bathing water source, sewer, and final destination for (often partially) cremated remains. Your one on-stop-shopping source for all diseases spread by the fecal-oral route.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganges#Pollution

    Black people do not have a monopoly on medically self-destructive traditions.

  32. Re:Oh yes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    lol. you forgot to post anonymously.

    That guy only posts on matters concerning race or pedophilia. He's a winner.

  33. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I cant decide if you are talking about Africa or the USA. I mean, the whole of your fucked up country is a shithole of violence, ignorane and stupidity.

    Like you.

  34. Stupidity by mean+pun · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Do you really believe that a culture/tribe/village/group can develop such stupid rituals to deal with the dead and diseased and survive to this day? Do you really think that `primitive' people don't know anything about quarantaine or other measures against infectious diseases? Do you really think that a group of people that has just seen some of their own die in a horrible way will quietly slink off to meditate on their sins rather than seek (quite possibly rough) justice for this? But you're not one of the RFSP, right?

    It is quite possible that this attack was stupid, but clearly we're not getting all of the story here.

    1. Re:Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Their culture has survived because undesirable mutations were occasionally culled from the gene pool. What we are witnessing is such a culling.

    2. Re:Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Cultural rituals wipe out societies all the time, especially when presented with new diseases. There are thoughts that cannibalism societies of south pacific mostly died out due to a human-equivalent mad cow disease---eat one unlucky tourist, and anyone who feats on anyone after that is a goner.

    3. Re:Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fucking retarded Slashdot moderators.

      His reasoning is, "Could any group actually be so stupid? No. Therefore, we're being lied to."

      THAT gets a +4 Insightful.

      What a shithole this place is. It's worse that Ebola Land.

    4. Re:Stupidity by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 2

      You are more ignorant than you think. Usually these groups survive because diseases and stupid behaviors are usually not strong enough to kill all the members of the group. Think about, our furry ancestors were even more stupid, and yet some of then survived to continue the species.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    5. Re:Stupidity by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

      Welcome to the new world where - for good and for evil - a computer is now simple enough to be used by any ignorant.

      --
      Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
    6. Re:Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It used to be something of a tradition in the west for doctors not to wash their hands. After all, all disease was based in an imbalance of the "humours" of the body.

      Then this guy appeared. Zemmel? Something like that. He realized that the doctors who worked for him at his two hospitals were helping with childbirths while also doing a bit of corpse work on the side. He noticed that by having his doctors wash their hands after handling dead bodies, the amount of deaths to a particular disease dropped considerable.

      Of course nobody believed him, because HUMOURS.

      Then he died and another doctor took over. He scrapped the handwashing regime and deaths from disease immediately spiked back up to SIX TIMES what it had been when Zemmel (or whatever his name was) was the chief doctor. And nobody cared: Because obviously humours were the true cause.

    7. Re:Stupidity by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      The second-most populous religion in the world has a tradition of chopping off foreskins. They inherited it from an older religion. Before the discovery that sterilising the blade really matters, infection was a serious issue. They still did it.

      People are stupid.

    8. Re:Stupidity by Japie_H · · Score: 5, Informative

      That was Semmelweis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

    9. Re:Stupidity by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      It was, however, a religion that understood that contact with dead bodies could be dangerous.

    10. Re:Stupidity by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      Plus, that part of the body that gets cut off itself tends to harbor infections.

      That is why that "horrible superstitious religious practice" became a common medical practice once society realized that you should sterilize surgical instruments.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    11. Re:Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And *THAT* is why I *LOVE* Gentoo! Particularly its insistence on never having an easy-to-use installer, and forcing people to follow a string of relatively complex install instructions ;-)

    12. Re:Stupidity by chihowa · · Score: 2

      Almost as important, and exceedingly disturbing, is that this connection (between handling corpses and starting infections during surgery) was only made in 1847.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
    13. Re:Stupidity by Kojiro+Ganryu+Sasaki · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes. That's what I was getting at in my original post. The fact that despite the evidence that exists, they ignore it because it contradicts their beliefs.

      It's really quite fascinating.

      (i'm the anon you're replying to)

    14. Re:Stupidity by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      Not at all. It was reintroduced to the US by a load of idiots who believed that it would save males from the terrible evils of masturbation - something that medical knowledge of the time still claimed lead to insanity, epilepsy and distrophy. That's why it's still comparatively rare in Europe.

    15. Re:Stupidity by mjwx · · Score: 1

      Do you really believe that a culture/tribe/village/group can develop such stupid rituals to deal with the dead and diseased and survive to this day? Do you really think that `primitive' people don't know anything about quarantaine or other measures against infectious diseases? Do you really think that a group of people that has just seen some of their own die in a horrible way will quietly slink off to meditate on their sins rather than seek (quite possibly rough) justice for this? But you're not one of the RFSP, right?

      If they remain isolated enough, yes.

      A lot of tribes that remain isolated in Africa and even South America this day and age. They aren't exposed to a lot of diseases that we carry.

      Beyond this, because formal education is limited or non-existent in parts of Africa like Liberia a lot of them end up getting their education from lay preachers (Islam and Christianity are the biggest offenders). This would likely be the real story you're looking for. A preacher will have said that the plague is a curse from god and it's being spread by the godless foreign doctors (because the doctors follow the disease but precede the deaths, it's easy to sell this). Lack of education combined with religious fervor and the fear that accompanies an outbreak of a deadly disease and even people who are ordinarily rational and intelligent will do stupid things.

      It's probably going to get worse too before the outbreak burns itself out.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    16. Re: Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, in Papua New Guinean the ritual was to eat the dead thus spreading the human variant of CJD long before we spread it via bad farming

  35. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Racis! You be hatin on Ebola because its black!

  36. Nah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hate on the Bubonic plague. I mean after all it's the black death of white people! :)

    1. Re:Nah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You just call it black death because your racist!

    2. Re:Nah... by ihtoit · · Score: 2

      You just called half of fourteenth Century Europe racist.

      The half that survived - most likely were. They went on to perform the most horrible atrocities on each other and throughout the rest of the known world over the next six hundred years.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    3. Re:Nah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you are on to something.
      800 years ago, Europe was a backwater diseased shithole much like Africa is right now.
      Then we ruled the world.
      Jews got more than their fair share of Nobel prizes after the dumb ones were killed for being greedy bastards.
      Guess what? Natural selection works!
      Help Africans! Close borders and stop all "humanitarian" help!

    4. Re:Nah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you are on to something. 800 years ago, Europe was a backwater diseased shithole much like Africa is right now

      800 years ago, lots of people in Europe died because of a disease pandemic in a continent-wide society with lots of trade and urbanization, and no modern medicine.

  37. Re:Motive? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No gay sex means the vast majority of the AIDS infections never happen.

    It's good for Africa that they never liked gays there, otherwise they would have an AIDS epidemic on their hands by now. Oh, wait...

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  38. Apocalypse Now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds as though it is time to quote Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like [sniffing, pondering] victory. Someday this war is going to end."

  39. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Rumors, childrens gossip and Resident Evil plot lines do not constitute reliable information sources.

    Great, Now where am I supposed to get all of my information on infectious diseases?

  40. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    She's pretty stupid but those who attacking a quarantine center is far more risky and stupid than refusing vaccination.

  41. Re:ALREADY HAPPENED! (New Mexico) by storkus · · Score: 1

    They don't think it's Ebola but they want to be sure:

    http://www.kob.com/article/sto...

    And this is just ONE person! Even if this one is not the one, statistics says a plane or boat full of carriers is coming sooner or later. May be time to stock up on Tyvek suits and bleach, for starters...

  42. Re:Motive? by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

    It isn't an isolated problem.

    Afghan Men Struggle With Sexual Identity, Study Finds

    An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns -- though they seem to be in complete denial about it.

    The study, obtained by Fox News, found that Pashtun men commonly have sex with other men, admire other men physically, have sexual relationships with boys and shun women both socially and sexually -- yet they completely reject the label of "homosexual." ...

    Apparently, according to the report, Pashtun men interpret the Islamic prohibition on homosexuality to mean they cannot "love" another man -- but that doesn't mean they can't use men for "sexual gratification."

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  43. Re:Niggers. by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yor idea is sound, but will be downmodded because people in the civilized world do not understand that civilized world solutions do not usually work in a country that culturally is still in the Stone Age.

    --
    Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
  44. Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Call it eBola and we'll have another bubble

  45. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or we could just blame it on race, because that's easy, and stupid people like easy explanations, no matter how wrong they are.

    The "I'm smart, other people are less smart therefore there are always wrong therefore I should always think the contrary of what those non smart people think" reasonning. Even dumb people can be right from time to time.

  46. Re:Motive? by SpzToid · · Score: 2

    The word you are looking for is ignorant I believe, and there's actually a cure for it.

    --
    You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
  47. Re:Motive? by kevingolding2001 · · Score: 1

    and stupid people like easy explanations, no matter how wrong they are

    So tell me...

    What is the 'right' explanation for looting the "Blood-stained mattresses, bedding and medical equipment" from a quarantine center set up specifically to deal with Ebola?

  48. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    voice of reason is flamebait?

  49. Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For our sins we may be punished in the next life. For our stupidity we shall certainly suffer in this one (Schopenhauer).

    These people will be able to test both parts quite soon.

  50. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Post-racial society my ass!

  51. Zombie literature seem so prescient.. by swb · · Score: 2

    I'd say at least half of them have some kind of scene where panicked/ignorant locals ignore the medical experts and raid the quarantine centers. And usually it's one of those turning point moments in the narrative with disastrous consequences.

     

  52. Please stop and think by TeethWhitener · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You live in a country with a wildly corrupt government that repeatedly lies to you and regularly unburdens you of your basic human rights. Then one day, officials from this government force you and everyone you know at gunpoint to submit to a series of "tests." You notice that, all of a sudden, many of the most social and/or eldest (therefore vocal, therefore most likely to be community leaders/government dissenters) among you go missing and later mysteriously die. For good measure, a number of kids randomly disappear and die as well. The ones that survive tell horrible stories about the dismal conditions in which they were held, where they were injected with any number of things and only a few days later, became sick . The government (the same government that lies to you and considers you subhuman) tells you that the cultural practices that have been with your group for a thousand years are all of a sudden, just now, for reasons they don't have time to explain, causing you to get sick and die, and it just happens to selectively be wiping out the kids and the community leaders.

    If it were the US doing this, I conjecture that at the very least, this comment thread would have a radically different tone. Less "these guys are idiots," and more "these guys are heroes." What we're witnessing in Liberia is a tragic consequence of a corrupt power structure attempting, maybe for the first time, to legitimately help people that it has previously subjugated. The whole thing smacks of people acting in their and their community's best interests based on many many previous data points telling them government=bad, therefore avoid government. Unfortunately, it takes time to build a relationship of trust between a government and its citizens, and in the face of the calamity that Liberia is confronting, neither the government nor its citizens have any time to spare.

    1. Re:Please stop and think by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 2

      Thank you for an insightful post. No discussion of this will make sense without the point you made. IMO, it only makes the whole situation seem that much more tragic.

    2. Re:Please stop and think by pehrs · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A good and insightful post.

      The only thing you forgot is to mention why Liberia is one of the most miserable parts of Africa.

      Liberia is the only country in Africa founded by United States colonization while occupied by native Africans. It was financed by the American Colonization Society, an organization created to remove unwanted freed black slaves from America, to avoid a slave uprising like what happened in Tahiti. The colonizers became known as Americo-Liberians and promptly started to enslave the locals and selling them back to the US (with support from the American Colonization Society). The Americo-Liberians, led the political, social, cultural and economic sectors of the country and ruled the nation for over 130 years as a dominant minority. The atrocities under that regime were too many to count.

      The US continued to keep it a hell hole in the effort to fight communism, and from 1940 and forward pumped enormous sums into the budget country (about half the GNP was American aid for a while...). Of course most of this money vanished in corruption. But in return the evil communists were kept out. Eventually there was a coup in 1980, finally removing the Americo-Liberians, and starting two civil wars, killing about half a million and displacing about half of the country population. About 85% of the people live under the poverty level today.

      We sometimes speak of the Ghost of King Leopold, after the horrors in Congo. But when it comes to colonialism the American version seen in Liberia was at least as bad. And by doing it as a private enterprise they ensured that, unlike the state colonies, there never was a decolonization with support for forming a stable state.

    3. Re:Please stop and think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In a rather dangerous and disturbing way, this sort of Totalitarianism, in the situation at hand, is self-correcting. Ebola might be 'limited' in it's reach of the public at the moment, but with an event like this taking place, the possibility for widescale infection, including it being introduced to members of the Government and ruling parties becomes much greater. Which, if taken to possibility, begins said Totalitarian demise.

      I don't wish this 'plague' upon anyone, but there is a grim 'poetic justice' in there somewhere.

    4. Re:Please stop and think by Major+Blud · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, I think the only way to stop such corruption in Liberia would be through massive aid combined with a foreign military presence (probably a U.N. peacekeeping scenario). Such scenarios end-up lasting years with no end-game in sight, and are almost always labeled as empire-building or meddling in the country's internal affairs (like happened in Somalia). It's a nasty catch-22 that doesn't work out for anyone in the end.

      I'm not saying that help shouldn't be offered in some way, but as long as such countries have illegitimate governments, I'm not sure there is going to be a non-violent solution.

      --
      If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
    5. Re:Please stop and think by fnj · · Score: 2

      Yes, I DO live in a country with a wildly corrupt government that repeatedly lies to me and regularly unburdens many people's basic human rights. I live in the USA.

      Funny thing, though. My IQ is greater than 10 (fine; I did not lose the genetic lottery), and I CHOOSE not to be profoundly ignorant. I know that amidst all those negatives, health measures are a good thing, not some underhanded nefarious attempt to harm the people when those in charge could far more easily and efficiently just mow us down with bullets.

    6. Re:Please stop and think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The least you could do is give Wikipedia credit for your copy/pasting

    7. Re:Please stop and think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Close the borders and let the problem solve itself. All of the African borders. Shoot down any plane and sink any boat that leave the continent.

      If locking them in doesn't help, nuke it. The benefit being the fallout would also spill over to the middle east and two rat nests would be taken care of.

    8. Re:Please stop and think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, I DO live in a country with a wildly corrupt government that repeatedly lies to me and regularly unburdens many people's basic human rights. I live in the USA.

      i remember when george bush ran on the slogan 'he killed my mom, he killed my dad, but i'm going to vote for him".

    9. Re:Please stop and think by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 1

      I was reading this, and the first thing that popped in my head wasn't the Ebola outbreak, but the Syphilis Experiments here in the US. That and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, in which her cells were taken from her and experimented with, without consent or notice, much less compensation. If you've read the book, her kids are still wary of hospitals because of the lies and stonewalling from them. Other than the last line (actually the first phrase only of the last line) of the first paragraph would not work in the US.

    10. Re:Please stop and think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think your definition of "wildly corrupt", "repeatedly lies", and "basic human rights" are different than those of somebody who lives in Liberia. Things like corruption, government lies, and civil rights violations are so rare that when they happen it's actually a newsworthy event! In places like Liberia it's the status quo.

      Likewise, you probably have a different definition of "poverty". In the US, even homeless people have access to sanitation, clean water, education, and health care. A US welfare recipient is probably considered "middle class" in a place like Liberia.

      dom

    11. Re:Please stop and think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you think the US government is "wildly corrupt... repeatedly lies to me and regularly unburdens many people's basic human rights", then you have not the faintest glimmerings of a notion of an inkling of an idea of what you are talking about. You're so ignorant, you don't even know how ignorant you are.

      There is no, repeat no, comparison between the governments of Liberia and the USA, and to pretend there is is just moronic.

  53. Re: Motive? by PIBM · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Develop a biological weapon, using one of the strongest strain of Ebola?

  54. Re:Niggers. by ruir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    http://www.refworld.org/docid/... Considering often they have lots of wives...however I can swear it is not only the wives that drink it.

  55. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You don't know the race of the OP. They could be black. Black people use the word too, you know, in both a positive and negative context. However, I suspect such deep thinking is beyond your grasp.

  56. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's all.

    Since this racial slur appears to be condoned - it gives a pretty good idea about the demographics of this forum.

    Demographics of slashdot: smart people.

  57. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    You obviously haven't spent any time around real niggers. Comedian Chris Rock will tell you. There's black people, then there's niggers. You evidently don't know the difference. You only know how to stroke the PC cock.

  58. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Except the GP was specifically talking about white America, where AIDS was/is spread primarily through homosexual sex and intravenous drug use.

  59. Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Isn't this story basically the plot from Tom Clancy's Executive Order?

    1. Re:Sounds familiar by Lester67 · · Score: 2

      Yes it is. It's funny how most of this thread is centered on "idiot looters", when there is a real possibility that someone grabbed a whole bunch of Ebola patients for the purpose of weaponizing it.

    2. Re:Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or maybe it's a political move for the US to speed up the manufacture and release of the TKM-Ebola.

    3. Re:Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not a doctor but what I know of ebola is that it is spread by contact with bodily fluids, like blood.
       
      What if someone were to drain the blood of an ebola victim, centrifuge, or even just let it sit for a time, it to separate the blood cells from the plasma then put the plasma into hand sprayers, go to a mall or market area with large groups of people and spray the plasma into the air?
       
      what if they did that in a major air or see port? Or got on a plan and released it at a rugby game in Brittan.
       
      Can somebody please tell me why this couldn't work.

    4. Re:Sounds familiar by mjwx · · Score: 1

      Yes it is. It's funny how most of this thread is centered on "idiot looters", when there is a real possibility that someone grabbed a whole bunch of Ebola patients for the purpose of weaponizing it.

      If that's a real possibility (its not) then it's not a plausible threat.

      Ebola isn't a disease you can drop into the water supply, infect food with or put into gas canisters. It's basically blood borne so to get infected you need direct contact with bodily fluids (because Ebola causes excessive bleeding just about any bodily fluid will contain blood) and skin contact on it's own isn't enough. So weaponising it means either dropping infected courses en mass or direct injection of Ebola into the victims.

      However the real reason why that's complete and utter bollocks is the fact that the patients are believed to have walked out of their own accord. The looters were likely after drugs (which are not cheap in Liberia).

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  60. A rational response, more-or-less. by sirwired · · Score: 0

    Okay... you are an uneducated person who's never had any experience with modern medicine before (Liberia has 250 doctors (and heavens knows if their training is any good) to serve the entire country of 4M people; the US has 834,000 doctors to serve about 100x the people.), your family member is ill, and a bunch of people in really scary outfits right out of a Hollywood movie just grabbed your sick family member and loaded him/her in a truck to a quarantine facility. You are naturally suspicious because lots of people have died in your village before, and the authorities (who have a well-earned reputation for being a bunch of useless kleptocrats) have never given a flying *bleep!* before. But you certainly do have plenty of experience with the thugs hauling your family members off in trucks, never to be seen again.

    Deciding you want your family member back home is not an unreasonable thing to want to do, in the face of whatever sinister purposes you think the central government might have in mind.

    That said, I'm sure more than enough of them, like many rioters and protestors everywhere, were there for the looting. Because nothing says "Fight The Man" like taking a bunch of swag.

    1. Re:A rational response, more-or-less. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  61. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To gift them to your enemies, of course.

  62. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Smart people? Holy crap, you're not serious, are you?

  63. Re:Niggers. by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

    I find it funny that this thread has so many replies, when similar titled ones usually only get a few responses.

    --
    If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  64. Was the quarantine center using Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because otherwise I don't see the relevance of this story for a tech news web site.

    1. Re:Was the quarantine center using Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I fully agree. The quarantine site was using niggers, and niggers aren't smart enough to use Linux!

  65. Re: Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is a civilized solution that civilized cultures can use to defend themselves against inferior stone-age primitives who also happen to spread disease: it's called the A-bomb.

  66. 12% of the population is Muslim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Those who can read and afford stuff, probably stay as far away from the ebola facility as possible."

    So you mean whites. Might as well just come out and say it rather than trying to mask it.

  67. Truly sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's everyone's problem and Africa is not doing anything to stop it. Truth is they have been governing themselves for a long time by now and they aren't able to do shit without killing each other and spreading diseases all over the world.
    Are they genetically inferior or just culturally inferior, maybe they are just unlucky? I don't give a fucking shit because it doesn't matter.
    Close all borders to and from countries with confirmed cases. Shoot down any plane and bomb any road vehicle infringing it. Instate a quarantine for citizens and visitors to countries allowing flight or fast travel from and to any of these countries.
    As for the affected countries, they should block all access to cities in a similar way.
    BTW If/when this shit or another monkey-rapist disease spreads to my country I'll be happy if the same measures are applied to my city instead of letting it kill everyone. Being isolated with few resources in a diseased community sucks, but do you know what sucks more than that? Being dead because nobody did anything.

  68. Re:Oh yes... by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

    He forgot the [Sarcasm] tag.

    --
    If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  69. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They also opposed gay sex and drug abuse.

    And pre-marital sex. A child born with HIV would normally die before marriageable age, so two virgins marrying would be AIDS free.

  70. Re: Niggers. by ihtoit · · Score: 1

    kill tens of millions to save millions?

    That'll work ::coughcoughsneezeGODZILLA:coughcough::

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
  71. Re:Niggers. by ihtoit · · Score: 1

    *A* person is smart.
    *PEOPLE* are dumb, panicky animals and you know it.

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
  72. I know! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what are you going to say when people start bleeding their internal organs out of all orifices?

    "Ewwwwww!"

  73. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's all.

    Don't be pointing out obvious but uncomfortable shit. That makes you a racist. Even when it happens in St. Louis and they loot the local markets and liquor stores.

  74. Re: Motive? by wooferhound · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I was thinking that they were planning to spread the disease intentionally

    --
    We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
  75. A sad demonstration of why education matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apart from being a terrible event this is also an excellent demonstration of why education matters. A rudimentary understanding of the biological causes of disease would have told these people why their actions were extremely dangerous for themselves and their families (and likewise why traditional practices like washing the dead are also a really, really bad idea).

    I hope that people who deride scientific knowledge and education in favour of religious quackery and ignorance in the west are paying close attention.

  76. Re:Niggers. by udoschuermann · · Score: 1

    But they DID fulfill the will of their ancestors: "You buggers didn't listen to us when you were young, you will die a horribe death. EBOLA!"

    /They are a dying people. Let them pass.

    --
    --Udo.
  77. Not fully correct by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "and only a few days later, became sick" usually by the time the people are given in the hand of governmental instiuttion theyalready have been sick. Furhtermore a lot of people died at home and at some village a sizable percentage died (50 out of 500 persons was in article recently). So it is not as if people were taken and became sick afterward.

  78. there goes that by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    Africa's amazing level of civility is going to screw this up for everyone. I would immediately send UN armed troops there to guard it 24/7 and stop all flights and trains and buses out of Liberia as a precaution and punishment.

  79. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  80. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Right, because proscribing lifelong chastity was *such* a noble and effective strategy!

  81. Another take on the matter... by cjjjer · · Score: 1

    The 30 patients taken and the contaminated materials are now in some field being killed and or and burned. It's not unthinkable that people in the government or just scared individuals will "purge" the area of all infected individuals. I would suspect this more than anything since the areas are prone to religious superstition. They could see this as punishment and the only way to fix the solution is cleansing of the infected.

    1. Re:Another take on the matter... by Remus+Shepherd · · Score: 1

      Nope. From the article, the looters were chanting that they believed Ebola was a scam. They do not believe it exists. So they're not going to bother trying to sterilize the objects stolen or 'purge' the infected. They're going to treat them as if they're going to get better. But they won't, and now the entire neighborhood is vulnerable to the disease.

      --
      Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
  82. It's actually even simpler than this. by jmhobrien · · Score: 1

    1) I imagine they do not realise the significance of this particular disease. Disease is far more prevalent there than it is here, why is this one special? How will you convince them that this is so?
    2) The familiies are literally being seperated with a very high chance of never seeing their loved ones alive.
    I'm sure there are other contributing factors, but do you honestly belive that you would act differently in the same circumstances?

    --
    Where is moderation: -1 False?
  83. Re:Niggers (can we change this title yet?) by Sperbels · · Score: 1

    People who don't believe in Ebola are removed from the gene pool.

    Won't do any good. Producing more stupid people is relatively easy. You simply don't educate them.

  84. Re:Motive? by BronsCon · · Score: 2

    I'm in no way defending the use of the word, but I do want to point out that there has been somewhat of a movement, in the past few years, to redefine it to refer to a class, rather than a race. This is very much something I'd expect that particular class of people to do, regardless is the color of their skin; and I dare say that I know people of all races who are members of that class, just as I know people of all races who are not. Hell, in some areas I've lived in, most of them are white.

    That said, its use in this thread probably *is* racist; typically when someone utters the word, outside of their small group of friends who have already agreed on the refined definition, that's the intent.

    --
    APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
  85. Re: Motive? by TheDarkMaster · · Score: 1

    "Warlords" on Liberia are so, so stupid they may have had exactly this idea.

    --
    Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
  86. More proof by DougDot · · Score: 1

    that Darwin was right.

  87. Re:Niggers. by Herder+Of+Code · · Score: 1

    Lol, I've seen the poor parts of Liberia (very briefly, yay!) and I don't think there's any kind of mass media reaching those places beside word of mouth.

  88. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Sure, but when Jenny doesn't get Dakota vaccinated, it affects only them and they don't start looting and setting fire to stuff. We whites ain't perfect, but we ain't niggers.

  89. We have no idea how westerners handle quarantine by clay_shooter · · Score: 1

    Furthermore, people in 1st world countries are also less inclined to break people out of quarantine...

    Do you have any evidence of this? There hasn't been a major contagious outbreak in most of the west for decades. I predict people well break themselves and their families out of quarantine in an attempt to "save them".

  90. ... information ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... what we're dealing with here is an ignorant, uneducated population most of whom don't have access to information ...

    For some reason people like to equate "ignorance" with the lack of access to information --- which I think is patently false

    Those who are ignorant are ignorant not because they did not have any access to information - they DO !!

    It is that the information that they rely on is false !!

    1. Re:... information ... by tsqr · · Score: 1

      For some reason people like to equate "ignorance" with the lack of access to information --- which I think is patently false

      Perhaps the "some reason" you're searching for is the fact that they are right and you are wrong with regard to the definition of ignorance:

      ignorant
      adjective
      1. lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned
      2. lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact
      3. uninformed; unaware
      4. due to or showing a lack of knowledge or training

  91. Re: Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It conveniently doesn't require you to look them in the eye as you kill them.

    Very convenient. Also, terrible.

    The GP's idea of flame throwers has several benefits over your "A-bomb" plan:
    1) humanizes the people being "cleansed", thus minimizing the risk that those administering the "cleansing" will do it unnecessarily
    2) does not "cleanse" people who don't need it
    3) leaves most of the landscape intact and livable
    4) cooks any nearby "bush meat" into edible and disease-free submission (as needed)

  92. And give them out to blind fools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    who don't realize that there isn't a "them" in the Ebola battle, it's "us" that's threatened. If we hadn't been so self-centered and had worked to improve basic education and healthcare where people need it, we wouldn't be facing an epidemic that could find itself in "our" cities. Darwin awards go to the narcissistic, for sure.

  93. Re: Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A cure, yeah, Ebola!

  94. Re:ALREADY HAPPENED! (New Mexico) by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

    Naw, for the equipped Slashdotter, you will want one of these bad boys.

    Gotta cover all your bases.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  95. looted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps someone actually wanted a sample of ebola to use elsewhere...

  96. Re:Motive? by king+neckbeard · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately for the Vatican, humans are humans, and fighting biology is not all that effective. The Vatican provided a great theoretical solution that doesn't play out that well in reality as practical advice.

    --
    This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  97. Re: Motive? by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

    Exactly what I was wondering. Even worse if it's a terrorist group behind it with ties to Boka Haram or something along those lines. On the bright side (?) they don't likely have the tech to weaponize anything, and will wind up killing a lot of themselves instead.. or so one can hope. On the dark side, it's likely to make the epidemic much worse no matter what they do.

    --

    Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
  98. Motive by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    I think motive is rather obvious. I would discard the idea of superstition and the like.

    1) Liberia is poor, like really poor.
    2) Drugs are expensive, like really expensive.
    3) Drugs in a quarantine zone for a deadly epidemic are in high demand, very high demand.
    4) Profit!

    I think someone decided that the personal risk was worth it.

    I mean, what are these communists doctors doing giving all these profitable drugs to poor people for free. Why not let the invisible hand of the market allow people to sell the expensive drugs to unaffected but scared wealthy people in the area? I mean the rising tide raises all boats, and the trickle down effect, and whatever and the like right?

    1. Re:Motive by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      I think motive is rather obvious. I would discard the idea of superstition and the like.

      1) Liberia is poor, like really poor.
      2) Drugs are expensive, like really expensive.
      3) Drugs in a quarantine zone for a deadly epidemic are in high demand, very high demand.
      4) Profit!

      That would make sense if there were any drugs.

      The treatment for Ebola is paracetemol (acetaminophen, aka Tylenol for Americans). Even in Liberia it's not that expensive.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    2. Re:Motive by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      don't laugh too hard at the "invisible hand of the market", last I checked that's what is mostly funding any and all humanitarian efforts in LIberia

  99. Actually, I LOVE IT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At least that land of misery will receive some cleansment. As Russians say: Us too many...!

  100. Re:Niggers. by stephanruby · · Score: 1

    There is more to it. Media hide a lot of shit. My family got quite repulsed when I told them the problem of contagion is due to in most parts of that area, the ritual ceremony being drinking the water you use to wash the corpse.

    Yes, that's obviously why Western Doctors coming to help are getting infected too.

    They're all in it for the cultural exchange.

  101. Re: Motive? by PapayaSF · · Score: 3, Interesting

    On the bright side (?) they don't likely have the tech to weaponize anything, and will wind up killing a lot of themselves instead.. or so one can hope.

    Suicidal fanatics don't need tech to weaponize ebola. They can just infect themselves, hop on a plane, and leave spit and sweat on the bathroom door handles on the plane, plus whatever they can do when they get to their destination. The incubation period is long enough for them to fly to Mexico City, get to the US border, and join a group of illegals heading north, before they become too incapacitated to travel. But they need not bother with entering illegally: they can just fly straight in to a US airport.

    --
    Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
  102. Re:Niggers. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

    Some parts of Nigeria.

    Where the only infected people have been the heath care staff who tried to help a sick US citizen.

    What is the relevance to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea?

    Oh, you thought all black people were the same.

    Boy, am I going to be able to fill up my foes list with ignorant racists (tautology) on this one.

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video
  103. Re:Niggers. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 2

    Demographics of slashdot: smart people.

    Hahahahahahhahah!!

    Demographics of slashdot - mostly overprivileged ignorant morons who think they're smart.

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video
  104. Re:Motive? by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

    We whites ain't perfect, but we ain't niggers.

    Frankly, you are. I've never met a black person who behaved like your crazy stereotype of a "nigger" (and, as it happens I'm writing this from Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire), but you are it.

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video
  105. Re:Niggers. by Narcocide · · Score: 1

    Speaking purely hypothetically here, would flame throwers even work? I thought I had read that you can't "cook" Ebola out of the meat that easily...

  106. Re:Niggers. by ruir · · Score: 2

    Most of the delimitation of the countries in Angola where made by white people, and the culture/tribes are another matter. And I know for sure they surely do it in Angola too. Do not be so fast playing the stupid racism card, the last resort of the stupid.

  107. Re: Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Different anon here: I would absolutely *enthralled* if someone could create and release a pathogen that killed everyone with a below 90 IQ level. Over population would be a thing of the past, there'd be way more resources per person, etc. E.g., I want a very deadly pathogen that's relatively easy to protect yourself and your family against if you're not braindead.

  108. Re: Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That is *so* spot on! You only fear for your life as the skin tones of your street decrease in tone, proportionately, too!

  109. Re:Motive? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    >where AIDS was/is spread primarily through homosexual sex and intravenous drug use.

    and blood transfusions.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  110. Re: Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bush meat is monkeys, long pork is people.

  111. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You were a French colony, yes? They knocked some sense into you.

  112. CIA/NSA infiltration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure they were part of it in some way.

    Where is General Butt naked when you need him?

  113. it is just not the same world..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From their perspective, this whole thing is absurd. The 'sick' people in this place 'clinic' have mattress and sheets and get taken care of while they have so much less and not even cared for. So they see this as bullshit white people stuff. The latter have so much that stealing from them is not big deal.

    Unless you have the support of to the local authority (church/drug lord/shaman), you can't stop such actions.

    It is a totally different world. Things that seem so obvious and logical to you and I just can't be applied there.

  114. Re:Niggers. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

    Angola? Please buy a map.

    If you're trying to say "the white man made the boarders in Africa" then you are to some extent right, but if you are assuming cultural practices in countries thousands of kilometers appart are the same you're wrong.

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video
  115. Paracetemol? by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    Well I didn't know that, and I am supposedly smart and well education with resources available to me to even easily find that out. All I know is that some doctors have already tried an alternative experimental drug, and that the UN recently authorized the use of experimental drugs that haven't gone though human trials yet. Though it is probably too soon for large volumes of said experimental drugs to be available (or maybe not, this is an emergency).

    Nobody said criminals are smart, only that they are sometimes desperate individuals.

    1. Re:Paracetemol? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody said criminals are smart, only that they are sometimes desperate individuals.

      Amen. "We need equal rights and justice, and there will be no crime.... no criminals." - Peter Tosh.

  116. Re:Niggers. by Xyrus · · Score: 1

    Darwin wins. Again.

    --
    ~X~
  117. Re:ALREADY HAPPENED! (New Mexico) by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

    Naw, for the equipped Slashdotter, you will want one of these bad boys.

    Gotta cover all your bases.

    Just what you need for any apocalyptic scenario. It has heat resistant layers, a bulletproof layer, and a layer for make you comfortable in your worktime.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  118. TV Fodder by JimSadler · · Score: 1

    These thieves belong on the World's Dumbest Criminals TV show. It's very hard to understand some nut breaking in your home and finding powder in that fancy vase and trying to snort your grandmother's ashes. But i do think people screwed up enough to break in a medical lab and steal deadly plague materials while taking zero precautions to keep it contained may top the charts for stupidity. It is rather like Larry, Moe and Curly with a severe suicidal and homicidal personality changes. On the other hand Ebola widely distributed in the Arab nations might be the way to stop all the fussing.

  119. Re:Niggers. by ruir · · Score: 2

    I do know for sure Angola does it, but only found an explicit link about it about Nigeria. Boarders and borders are also two different things. And I dont need a map, I worked in Angola. "Death and Funerary Rites Many Angolan communities expect proper funeral rites to be observed and certain rituals to be performed for a dead person. Funerary rites vary somewhat from one group to another, but there are also general elements: ritual mourning, ceremonial washing of the body, and the embracing and kissing of the body by family members."

  120. Public transportation! by DRMShill · · Score: 1

    When will people ever learn!

  121. Early reports indicate they may have had reasons. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2

    According to a report I saw (following a link from the Drudge Report yesterday):

    1)The early symptoms of Ebola are very similar to those of Malaria, to the point that people with malaria are being thrown into the ebola quarantine camps. (Also: Many of the people who HAVE ebola, or their support network, may THINK thay have malaria.)
    2) The camp ran out of gloves and other protective gear - leaving the staff and patients unable to clean up after and avoid contagin from the body fluid spillages of the actual ebola patients. Come in with SUSPECTED ebola and you soon have ebola for sure.

    That, alone, would make it rational for someone not yet sick or mildly sick, incarcerated in the camp, to break out and hide out.

    3) Stories are circulating in the area that ebola is a myth and the oppressive government factions/first worlders/take your pick of enemies are using this story, plus the odd malaria case here and there, to create death camps and commit genocide in a way that gives them plausible deniability.

    That idea, of course, can lead to mass action by some of the local population to "rescue" their fellows and sabotage the camps.

    The whole think is a real-world example of the cautionary tale "The Boy who Cried 'Wolf'". When the officials lie to the people for their own benefit, repeatedly, until the people come to expect it, the people won't believe them when they are telling the truth about a real threat - and all suffer.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  122. Re: Motive? by JDeane · · Score: 1

    Sorry I know it's not a joke but.... I know have this image stuck in my head of Bin Laden licking the door handles at various rest rooms... lol

  123. This coming from a culture..... by gelfling · · Score: 1

    That believes raping a virgin can cure you of AIDS.........

    Set the bar low. Very low.

  124. Re:Motive? by rmdingler · · Score: 1

    And by birth to some number, which is too many whatever it is, of infants.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  125. I Wouldn't Brag. by rmdingler · · Score: 1
    McDonald's franchises?

    The jobs normally pay enough that the worker has to be a kid living at home or an adult subsidizing his/her income with a subscription to government benefits.

    How is it you test for violence and impulsiveness? he wondered aloud.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  126. Re:Oh yes... by mtthwbrnd · · Score: 0

    No. I never post anon until I run out of of posts for the day.

    It is funny how up until the point that I started to write the truth about Gaza and race issues that my karma went over night from "funny" to "bad" which means that I am not allowed more than 10 posts a day. But the libtards, who are marking each other up all the time still have a karma which allows them to post their version of events all day long.

    It just goes to show: If you want to know what a "liberal" thinks about free speech, say something his boyfriend disagrees with and you will find out from his lawyer!

    The karma issue on /. is one of the reasons why you get skewed impression of how people actually feel about "taboo" issues such as Jewish Supremacism and Race. They have more people lined up who want to stop a debate by marking "troll" every time they disagree with something than we do - because we believe in debate and they do not. So they close us down, but we do not close them down. Which leads to skewing in the opinion on /. (not that it is not already skewed due to self-censorship).

  127. Snipers sans Frontieres by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The West will begin mining the harbors and cratering the airports so
    nothing can leave. They will landmine the jungle. Anything that
    leaves is sunk or shot. Snipers sans Frontieres. Quarantine with
    extreme prejudice.

    Civilization is a choice. Make it. Soon.

    Or don't, and the population goes back to the under-billion level
    before the West started feeding everyone...

    Ebola... gets rid of african parasites like magic!

    Looting isolation ward... game over.

  128. Re:Oh yes... by mtthwbrnd · · Score: 0

    FYI it is interesting to see how much the libtards want to bury my message, and how many others want it displayed:

    Comment Moderation
    sent by Slashdot Message System on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @12:05AM
    Re:Oh yes..., posted to Ebola Quarantine Center In Liberia Looted, has been moderated Insightful (+1).

    It is currently scored Normal (1).

    Re:Oh yes..., posted to Ebola Quarantine Center In Liberia Looted, has been moderated Troll (-1).

    It is currently scored Insightful (0).

    Re:Motive?, posted to Ebola Quarantine Center In Liberia Looted, has been moderated Interesting (+1).

    It is currently scored Normal (1).

    Re:Oh yes..., posted to Ebola Quarantine Center In Liberia Looted, has been moderated Flamebait (-1).

    It is currently scored Troll (-1).

    So unoriginal, posted to Microsoft's Windows 8 App Store Is Full of Scamware, has been moderated Interesting (+1).

    It is currently scored Normal (1).

    Re:Oh yes..., posted to Ebola Quarantine Center In Liberia Looted, has been moderated Informative (+1).

    It is currently scored Troll (0).

  129. Re:Motive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, I'm pretty sure it's stupid. The evidence has been presented to both parties, and they both refuse to believe it.

  130. Re:Niggers. by ruir · · Score: 1

    Being sleepy does not help. I was thinking of Angola and write Angola instead of Africa. Read please most of the delimitation of borders in AFRICA...nevertheless, the same applies to Angola.

  131. Re: Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess it was a subtle way of calling blacks monkeys.

  132. Darwin awards by geroy · · Score: 1

    Darwin awards... nothing else to say.

  133. Re:Oh yes... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Yeah, in that environment intelligence had to be selected for, so their average IQ, assuming identical education and upbringing, will be higher than normal.

    Seems as plausible as any other possibility.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  134. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reference?

    None. The librarian is dead...

    Ook? Oook ook Ook

  135. Re:Niggers. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

    Ok, so now it's one typo for me (boarders/borders) and two for you (Angola/Africa and where/were).

    Funerary rites vary somewhat from one group to another, but there are also general elements: ritual mourning, ceremonial washing of the body, and the embracing and kissing of the body by family members."

    Sounds like Ireland.

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video
  136. Re:Oh yes... by mtthwbrnd · · Score: 0

    Your comment is too poorly written to grasp what your point is. Please take the time to restate your point more clearly.

  137. Re:Niggers. by ruir · · Score: 1

    Yep, and in Ireland they drink the water too...as far as I remember in Catholic countries, some members of the family kiss THE FACE. However they are educated enough to not do that *after* them dying from some horrible disease. So it is not really the same. (and I am against that habit, and against having an open coffin) Then again, you were very quick of accusing me of being racist, however, 1) you do not know my race 2) you ignore one of my ex-wives was black and 3) you do not known your own history, where all the major black inhabitants came all from the regions nowadays known as Congo and Nigeria. There are more pressing matters here than grammar errors, et l'anglais n'est pas notre langue maternelle.

  138. Re:Oh yes... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Your implication was that races might well vary in average IQ (and presumably also its distribution). You then went off on a mockery of white guilt. I'm suggesting that it's plausible that, if racial IQ does vary, it might well be that blacks, having faced more adverse conditions for a long time, might have the advantage when starting conditions are reasonably equal.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  139. Re:Niggers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Overprivileged? I'm sure you meant people who are paid going wages for the work they produce.