Bill Barr has no respect for the American voter. He refuses to be accountable.

There are definitely crimes being committed to effect the outcome of the 2020 election.

November 3, 2020
By Jacob Bogage and Christopher Ingraham

The U.S. Postal Service (click here) turned down a federal judge’s order late Tuesday afternoon to sweep mail processing facilities serving 15 states, saying instead it would stick to its own inspection schedule. The court order came after the agency disclosed that more than 300,000 ballots nationwide could not be traced.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the District of Columbia on Tuesday had given the mail agency until 3:30 p.m. to conduct the “all clear” checks to ensure that any found ballots could be delivered before polls closed. His order affected 12 postal districts spanning 15 states.

But in a filing sent to the court just before 5 p.m., Justice Department attorneys representing the Postal Service said the agency would not abide by the order, to better accommodate inspectors’ schedules....

De Joy owes me $7.99 plus tax and postage!

A beautiful Hallmark greeting card intended to raise spirits and put a smile on a person important to me STILL hasn't made it to its destination.

It is all because of a maniacal idiot in the White House. He ruined what was supposed to be a special smile to a very dear person.

He has no regard for the American people and only sees this country as an object of power.

DONALD JOHN TRUMP IS A JERK!

The Vienna shooting could be anti-semitic.

The shooters' location was moving toward a synagogue. Oskar Deutsch is not a popular man. It would be remiss of me to dismiss the idea of an assassination attempt on him.

7 February 2019

By Raphael Ahren

Oskar Deutsch, (click here) left, with Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen, meeting Jews in Jerusalem, February 2019.

It is up to the Israeli government to decide how to deal with the Austrian far-right Freedom Party, the head of the country’s Jewish community said this week, indicating his support for Jerusalem’s boycott of the FPOe. He stressed that many of the party’s members still harbor deeply anti-Semitic sentiments, and that the leadership is not doing enough to act against them.

Asked if the FPOe is truly anti-Semitic or merely far-right, Oskar Deutsch replied: “There have been 50 anti-Semitic incidents and neo-Nazi incidents [involving party members] in about 14 months. There were so many anti-Semitic incidents, that this question is entirely superfluous. It’s totally obvious.”...

The other thing is that a university in Afghanistan was shot up today, too. The only way the two incidents could be linked is if the attackers were Daesh. Daesh can be decentralized. If the two are related they were carried out for the purpose of terrorism with a greater impact. Otherwise, they are separate attacks by coincidence about the same day. In all honesty, I don't believe they are related. 

The Austrian government has one of the attackers in Vienna. They will know upon autopsy who he could be affiliated with.

November 2, 2020

By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Fatima Faizi

Kabul - Three gunmen laid siege to Afghanistan’s largest university (click here) on Monday, taking hostages, killing at least 19 people and wounding more than a dozen, officials said. It was the second deadly assault with mass casualties on an education center in the capital in just over a week.

The three assailants were killed after Afghan security forces and American troops moved to root them out, ending the siege after six hours, the Interior Ministry said.

At least one senior Afghan official blamed the Taliban, but the insurgent group denied responsibility and said the Islamic State had carried out the assault, which shattered the sanctity of the campus on a warm fall day.

The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online messaging of extremist groups, said later that an Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State had claimed responsibility in a statement that referred only to two attackers and described the targets as “graduate judges and investigators belonging to the apostate Afghan government.”...

Honor the National Guard and maintain the domestic peace on election day.

Any candidate declaring victory in tomorrow's election is invalid without a concession speech by their opponent.

Just that simple.

There won't be concession speeches tomorrow in many races, including down-ballot races because all the votes cast in this election year will not be counted immediately. It takes time to conduct an accurate ballot count.

Don't bring your gun!

Respect the National Guard.

November 2, 2020
By Davis Winkle

The National Guard (click here) is gearing up to activate across the country to support the Nov. 3 general election in several capacities. The missions range from assisting with cyber defense, working the polls, and standing-by in case of post-election civil unrest.

There was a new round of newly-disclosed Guard activations Monday, including 1,000 troops in Massachusetts, 300 in Arizona, 300 in Alabama, and an undisclosed number in Florida, Oregon and Illinois.

The Massachusetts and Oregon troops will be on standby in case of civil unrest, and the Arizona forces will be on stand-by for rapid deployment anywhere in the western portion of the nation if requested by any governor. National Guard officials in Illinois would not elaborate on the roles their newly activated troops would play.

At least 3,671 Guard troops have been committed to the effort. The size of the authorized deployments ranges from 1,000 in Texas and Massachusetts to a single soldier in Wyoming. Some states are yet to determine how many troops will be activated, and many states have merely alerted selected units in anticipation of possible post-election unrest.

All of the troops currently activated are on state orders and are under the control of their respective governors....

It didn't have to happen this way.

There were innumerable conservationist groups more than willing to salvage protected species. Trump treated protected species as garbage.

31 October 2020

By Samuel Gilbert

...Four days (click here) before the US election, this is how the new border wall has affected four distinct wilderness areas....

...Construction is occurring mostly on public, often protected lands, because the Department of Homeland Security has sweeping powers to waive environmental protection laws, like the Endangered Species Act, which would otherwise bar construction.

Protected lands “belong to the government because they are so unique and fragile. Because of that same fact, they are being demolished,” said Laiken Jordahl, borderlands campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity, noting the relative ease of border wall construction on public lands compared with the lengthy process of taking private property....

The Rio Grande Valley has been a beautiful legacy for the USA. The Ocelots are rare and endangered (click here). There simply is no reason for the destruction of precious habitat and species. It is unfortunate there was no planning so much as making the border a political icon and a profit for companies that are not normally involved with these lands.

Known as the lower Rio Grande Valley, (click here) the lower four counties of Texas contain a documented 1,200 plants, 300 butterflies, and approximately 700 vertebrates, of which at least 520 are birds. It is to protect this important biodiversity that the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge was established.

"The Strange Case of Fisher Sand and Gravel and the Border Wall" (click here)

Open Letter To Post Master DeJoy.

 I mailed a greeting card to a friend in Raleigh, North Carolina. I mailed it from North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I mailed it on October 14, 2020.

WHERE in the hell DID IT DISAPPEAR TO?!?!

"Good Night, Moon"

The full

16.1 day old moon

98 percent lit

It was a magnificent moon last night.

November 1, 2020
By Jamie Carter

Did you see (click here) the “Halloween Hunter’s Blue Moon” last night?

It was the first full Moon seen in all U.S. time zones on Halloween since 1944 and the last to do so until 2039.

Here are some fabulous images of this rare event—and details of the “Beaver Moon or Frosty Moon Eclipse” coming in 29 days:...

There are ten times the COVID-19 cases today than all of the cases from it's sister SARS 2002-20003.

 

I guess the quarantine worked as did federal vigilance.

Under George W. Bush the number of Americans that contracted SARS in 2003 was SEVEN-FIVE. (click here)

That right, seventy - five. 

75

There has been trouble with oil drilling and gas drilling for a long time, ask Moscow Mitch the importance of maintaining the status quo.

23 October 2020
By Carly Casella

Residents who live downwind of fracking wells (click here) are likely being exposed to radioactive airborne particles, according to a new statistical analysis of public data.

While the levels measured in this case are not extremely dangerous, if inhaled on a regular basis, scientists worry they may cause adverse health outcomes, like lung cancer, in nearby areas.

Once these radioactive particles are in a person's body, they can continue releasing ionising radiation, possibly inducing oxidative stress and inflammation, even at the low levels observed.

Fracking is known to produce radioactive waste, usually from briny water welling up to the surface and bringing isotopes or uranium and radium up from below.

But the potential health effects of these particles are unclear and the current literature is limited. Despite many reasons to worry – including links to high-risk pregnancies, adverse birth outcomes, migraines, chronic rhinosinusitis, and severe fatigue – radioactive drilling waste from fracking is "virtually unregulated" in the United States, and both presidential candidates support the practice.

"If you asked me to go and live downwind [of fracking sites], I would not go," public health scientist Petros Koutrakis from Harvard University told The Guardian....

This is not a new base of knowledge about the oil and gas business. There has been radioactive waste from those sites for a long time. If this is STILL A PROBLEM. then the states need new legislators that aren't owned by the petroleum industry as does the federal government. This is a perfect example of why FEDERAL LEGISLATORS do not put the people first, they are owned by the petroleum industry. It is called corruption. But, hey, there are always tax dollars for cancer research. Right?  

November 23, 2020

By Jodi Peterson

Bags full of radioactive oil filter socks, the nets that strain liquids during the oil production process, piled in an abandoned building in Noonan, North Dakota, in March 2014.

...As HCN reported last year, (click here) in North Dakota alone, the state’s oil and gas operations generate an estimated 70 tons a day of radioactive waste. Because the waste is often too radioactive to be disposed of in landfills, it sometimes gets dumped illegally, creating a health and environmental hazard. There’s no federal oversight of such waste; that job is left to states, many of which don’t have any regulations for handling and disposing of it.

Now, the Western Organization of Resource Councils has produced a report titled “No Time to Waste,” detailing the regulatory situation in six Western states: Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. The report calls for federal regulation of radioactive oil and gas waste and more rigorous and comprehensive state standards. “Without thorough, stringent, and effective regulation of this waste stream, Western communities are left vulnerable to serious health and environmental impacts,” Bob LeResche, the WORC chair from Clearmont, Wyoming, said in a press release accompanying the report....

There is no constitutional reason for the spred of COVID-19 through the population of the USA.

 The George W. Bush Executive Order (click here) 

He never thought herd immunity was ever an option.

You don't have to understand except to know it exists.

October 16, 2020
by Joohyeon Heo

A new nanocatalyst that recycles major greenhouse gasses, (click here) such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), into highly value-added hydrogen (H2) gas has been developed. This catalyst is expected to greatly contribute to the development of various waste-to-energy conversion technologies, as it has more than twice the conversion efficiency from CH4 to H2, compared to the conventional electrode catalysts....

Research scientists continue to work hard in developing technologies to assist Earth, and they sit around their research labs wondering when society will finally act to change the climate crisis.

George W. Bush looked for a legal solution to the SARS virus in 2003.

All the gun-toting nutcases so very, very worried about losing their liberties are a danger to the country and the people that do not want to contract COVID-19. The dilemma about liberty vs. public health has been a problem, but, George W. Bush resolved the problem.

2004 February 20
By James J. Misrahi, Joseph A. Foster, Frederic E. Shaw and Martin S. Cetron

Before the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, (click here) the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) legal authority to apprehend, detain, or conditionally release persons was limited to seven listed diseases, not including SARS, and could only be changed using a two-step process: 1) executive order of the President of the United States on recommendation by the Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and 2) amendment to CDC quarantine regulations (42 CFR Parts 70 and 71). In April 2003, in response to the SARS outbreak, the federal executive branch acted rapidly to add SARS to the list of quarantinable communicable diseases. At the same time, HHS amended the regulations to streamline the process of adding future emerging infectious diseases. Since the emergence of SARS, CDC has increased legal preparedness for future public health emergencies by establishing a multistate teleconference program for public health lawyers and a Web-based clearinghouse of legal documents....

The Permafrost globally has been deteriorating for years. Yale is finding a more sustained length of these fires. Permafrost is carbon-intensive. When they burn it is damaging to the climate in ways other fires are not. I remember how the Alaskan Pipeline had to invent new supports for the pipe through these lands. They had to invent support that was as cold at the base as the Permafrost so they didn't sink into the land hence destroying it. The base of the support was refrigerating the Permafrost.

During warm months, (click here) wildfires can burn across Arctic tundra. When fall arrives, cooler, wetter weather usually helps extinguish the fires. But some only appear to be gone. Despite the blanket of winter snow, they reemerge in spring – returning to life like zombies.

Jessica McCarty is director of the Geospatial Analysis Center at Miami University in Ohio.

She says a zombie fire can occur when wildfire burns in peatlands, areas that are covered with a carbon-rich layer of dead plants. The fire gets so hot that it burrows down into the peat and moves underground, even after the surface fire is extinguished.

“So that when spring melt occurs, it dries out the soil above it and allows the fire to reemerge on the surface,” McCarty says.

She says zombie fires are a growing risk as the climate warms.

“As permafrost thaws, as more Arctic peatland dries out … there’ll just be more fuel for them to burn,” McCarty says. “So the likelihood of them does increase for that reason.”

These fires are hard to find and monitor in the Arctic because of harsh winter weather. So, like their namesake, zombie fires are difficult to kill.         

It is amazing to realize the moral content in which the USA conducted itself when the land was actually important. We were that country once. Land mattered, its preservation mattered and scientists' words actually carried brevity.

Ecology. Earth Day. Endangered Species Act. Clean Air Act. Clean Water Act. They all were required vocabulary words in the USA. What the heck happened?

Art Lachenbruch (click here) was a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California, when he first caught wind of the Trans-Alaska pipeline project. Lachenbruch was an expert in permafrost, the rock-like layer of frozen soil just below the thin, insulated cover of soil and vegetation. In December 1970, he released a study in which he explained the damage a hot pipe would inflict upon the permafrost. At a temperature of 158 to 176 degrees, the oil in the pipe would thaw a cylindrical area 20 to 30 feet in diameter within a decade. The thawing would cause damage not only to the pipe, but also to the landscape. It's legend at the USGS that Lachenbruch's conversation with Tailleur -- in the office men's room -- led to the complete redesign of the pipeline....

...Across 420 miles of the pipeline's route, where the permafrost was unstable and the pipe could not be buried, the engineers designed vertical support members (VSM). These H-shaped pilings elevate the pipe several feet above the ground. The pipe is placed in a Teflon-coated steel shoe that sits on top of the crossbeam. This allows the pipe to slide sideways as it expands (when it's hot) and contracts (when it's cold). In particularly sensitive areas where the permafrost hovers just above the freezing temperature, the engineers added a passive refrigeration system. At those sites, each VSM was equipped with a pair of tubes that sit inside the VSM and descend into the ground. The tubes are filled with anhydrous ammonia, which absorbs the heat, releases it in to the air and then circulates back into the ground.

Buried Pipe with Refrigeration

For four miles of the route, neither the conventional buried method nor the elevated one was possible. At these locations, pipe had to be buried in the permafrost to avoid getting in the way of the highway or animal migration as well as a precaution against rockslides and avalanches. These stretches of pipe got their own refrigeration system. The pipe sits on two six-inch coolant pipes. Refrigerated brine is circulated through these lines, powered by electric motors that are housed in a nearby building, which also contains a heat exchanger that removes the heat from the coolant to the outside air. The brine goes into the ground at 8-10 degrees Fahrenheit and comes out at 18-21 degrees Fahrenheit, absorbing a significant amount of heat from the oil in the pipeline.

There was no one authority educating governments about SARS-CoV-2.

The current White House administration likes to point fingers at the WHO failures to justify their failures. The facts are obvious, the medical community has been involved and within an advocacy for the rapid end to this virus. The White House DOES NOT CARE about the people so much as their own agenda for their own purposes.

This professional article is an example of how the medical community it trying to reach the unreachable Donald John Trump.

June 2, 2020
By Wei Feng, Wei Zong, Feng Wang & Shaoqing Ju

In recent years, (click here) the prevalence and spread of coronavirus has had a huge impact on global public health. Due to the incomplete understanding of the pathogenic mechanism of the virus, it is difficult for humans to fight against the virus quickly and effectively once the outbreak occurs. In early 2020, a novel coronavirus was discovered in Wuhan, China. Soon after, similar cases were found in other countries around the world, and the number of infected people increased rapidly. So far, the global cumulative number of infected people has exceeded 3 million, and more than 200,000 people have died, which has had a huge impact on global human health and economic development. Every outbreak of disease makes a deep impression on mankind. Herein, we summarize the virology, epidemiology, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of SARS-CoV-2, and hope that countries can control the outbreak as soon as possible to minimize the loss....

The government is a problem in fighting the climate crisis.

There are inventions that started decades ago. During the "W" administration he stated in speeches that technology would solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions. I don't know if Bush thought it was a good thing to say in a speech or not, but, people took him seriously and went to work. WHEN IS THE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED GOING TO BE MANDATED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

Right now there are CO2 emissions that could be controlled by devices like that at MIT, but, state and federal government will not implement the technology, instead, these polluters of greenhouse gases are provided a status of "unattainable."

These polluters continue their operations with impunity because it may cost money to change their emission stacks. The government won't insist on implementing technology that works because it may cause the loss of business and jobs. That is not a reason to delay any implementation of climate crisis technology.

The climate crisis is costing the USA billions year after year after year. Where are the funds in the form of grants provided to those that can assemble this technology in businesses? The federal government must fund the implementation of technology and in that regulation. Without regulation, there will be no reason to change very dangerous emission methods currently in use. The USA MUST change it's way of looking at the climate crisis and it's resolve. Moscow Mitch's status quo may ensure his wealth and that of his family, but, it does nothing to generations of Americans with diminished quality of life on a deteriorating planet.

October 31, 2020

On the right is a porous anodized aluminum oxide membrane. The left side shows the same membrane after coating it with a thin layer of gold, making the membrane conductive for electrochemical gas gating.

"MIT Developed a Controllable Membrane to Pull Carbon Dioxide Out of Exhaust Streams"

By David L. Chandler

Electrically switchable system (click here) could continuously separate gases without the need for moving parts or wasted space.

A new system developed by chemical engineers at MIT could provide a way of continuously removing carbon dioxide from a stream of waste gases, or even from the air. The key component is an electrochemically assisted membrane whose permeability to gas can be switched on and off at will, using no moving parts and relatively little energy.

The membranes themselves, made of anodized aluminum oxide, have a honeycomb-like structure made up of hexagonal openings that allow gas molecules to flow in and out when in the open state. However, gas passage can be blocked when a thin layer of metal is electrically deposited to cover the pores of the membrane. The work is described in a paper by Professor T. Alan Hatton, postdoc Yayuan Liu, and four others that was published in the journal Science Advances on October 16, 2020.

This new “gas gating” mechanism could be applied to the continuous removal of carbon dioxide from a range of industrial exhaust streams and from ambient air, the team says. They have built a proof-of-concept device to show this process in action.

The device uses a redox-active carbon-absorbing material, sandwiched between two switchable gas gating membranes. The sorbent and the gating membranes are in close contact with each other and are immersed in an organic electrolyte to provide a medium for zinc ions to shuttle back and forth. These two gating membranes can be opened or closed electrically by switching the polarity of a voltage between them, causing ions of zinc to shuttle from one side to the other. The ions simultaneously block one side, by forming a metallic film over it, while opening the other, by dissolving its film away....

I recall there was discussion about November 2019 as the discovery of SARS-COV-2.

2020 March 17

By Kristian G. Anderson, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes and Robert F. Garry

...SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans; (click here) SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe disease, whereas HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E are associated with mild symptoms6. Here we review what can be deduced about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 from comparative analysis of genomic data. We offer a perspective on the notable features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and discuss scenarios by which they could have arisen. Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus....

The timeline of SARS-CoV-2 officially dates December 2019 the beginning of global awareness.

31 Dec 2019

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China, (click here) reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus was eventually identified.

1 January 2020

WHO had set up the IMST (Incident Management Support Team) across the three levels of the organization: headquarters, regional headquarters and country level, putting the organization on an emergency footing for dealing with the outbreak.

4  January 2020

WHO reported on social media that there was a cluster of pneumonia cases – with no deaths – in Wuhan, Hubei province.

5 January 2020

WHO published our first Disease Outbreak News on the new virus. This is a flagship technical publication to the scientific and public health community as well as global media. It contained a risk assessment and advice, and reported on what China had told the organization about the status of patients and the public health response on the cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan....

What is obvious to me is that WHO wanted to date this pneumonia in 2019. It's name is COVID-19. The 19 places the beginning of the virus in 2019. While the official timeline hasn't been updated, the fact December 31, 2019 appears as first discovery is very telling.

What is more the truth is the intense tracing back occurring after the virus was officially genetically declared "novel." It takes at least three separate reporting of the virus to determine it is "novel." If the pneumonia was moving wildly that genetic fingerprint would be less important so much as symptomatology that was deadly.

...It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus. As noted above, the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 is optimized for binding to human ACE2 with an efficient solution different from those previously predicted. Furthermore, if genetic manipulation had been performed, one of the several reverse-genetic systems available for betacoronaviruses would probably have been used. However, the genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone. Instead, we propose two scenarios that can plausibly explain the origin of SARS-CoV-2: (i) natural selection in an animal host before zoonotic transfer; and (ii) natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer. We also discuss whether selection during passage could have given rise to SARS-CoV-2....

26 March 2020

"Origins of SARS-CoV-2" (click here)

Trump's budget cuts to the agencies needed to fulfill inspections and reviews...

...for pesticides have not caused the government to collapse, it just created a bottleneck that is adverse to the industry.

October 31, 2020
By Rachel Frazin

A dwindling number of Environmental Protection Agency lab inspectors (click here) for studies supporting pesticide re-approval is prompting industry calls for more government oversight.

The EPA has just five inspectors tasked with evaluating the laboratory practices of hundreds of labs that conduct studies surrounding pesticide regulations, marking a steady decline over the past 25 years for the officials in charge of inspecting compliance with the agency's Good Laboratory Practice Standards....

The industry REQUIRES inspections, reviews, and certifications because their competition has those reassurances for customers. Just because Trumps want to remove the federal government from every aspect of Americans' lives don't mean it goes away.

...Proponents argue the lend legitimacy to industry lab results in the eyes of worldwide regulators. A lack of inspections, in turn, is seen as hurting the integrity of U.S. industry in a global marketplace.

Under the Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) program, the EPA inspects the quality and integrity of data submitted in support of approving a pesticide. But some industry groups say the agency should augment its program....

..."The GLP inspection and audit program is being starved of resources and personnel," Ray McAllister wrote.

"There are some 1400 laboratories, facilities, and field sites in the US participating in GLP research on pesticides," he added in the email. "With current staffing of the audit and inspection program, keeping up with that number of facilities seems like an impossible task."...

...The EPA said it has five inspectors and two in training. From 2016 through 2019, the agency had four inspectors.

CropLife's McAllister told The Hill that staffing has been in "a gradual decline over the past 26 years." His email to the EPA noted that there were 19 inspectors and six support staffers in 1994.

He argued in the 2018 email that in other countries, the ratio of labs to inspectors is more "balanced."...

The quality of American production is important. The regulations are important. The industry is not interested in eliminating regulation or inspection, they actually want more of it to remain competitive.

Regulation is not a bad word. It keeps products in the USA in high demand.

There was a cultural shift in the USA after the placement of George W. Bush in the presidency.

The culture was about the individual, "America's Got Talent," "My Space," and "Facebook" assisted in creating a commercialized imagining of average Americans. For no money at all, a person could have their own space on the internet where their entire lives could be recorded. It was a boom for marketing and every person who cared to found instant friends and some fame.

This all occurred after September 11, 2001. Facebook launched on February 4, 2004. 

Americans were distracted by their own security after those attacks. But, while the USA was still quaking from those attacks and personal privacy was under attack, across the Pacific a virus was finding life.

Nov. 16, 2002 -- The first case of an atypical pneumonia is reported in the Guangdong province in southern China.

Feb. 26, 2003 -- First cases of unusual pneumonia reported in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Feb 28, 2003 -- World Health Organization officer Carlo Urbani, MD, examines an American businessman with an unknown form of pneumonia in a French hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam.

March 10, 2003 -- Urbani reports an unusual outbreak of the illness, which he calls sudden acute respiratory syndrome or SARS, to the main office of the WHO. He notes that the disease has infected an usually high number of healthcare workers (22) at the hospital.

March 11, 2003 -- A similar outbreak of a mysterious respiratory disease is reported among healthcare workers in Hong Kong.

March 12, 2003 -- WHO issues a global alert about a new infectious disease of unknown origin in both Vietnam and Hong Kong....

The WHO is not an alarmist organization. They gather facts and when there is a danger they then announce an unknown origin of what appears to be a very dangerous virus.

It was nearly 4 months before SARS-CoV-1 became an awareness to the world.

It's Sunday Night

Ms. McKibbin, (click here) who finished third on the inaugural season of the reality talent show in 2002, died on Sunday because of a brain aneurysm, her husband said....

The song that helped her rise to notoriety was "Black Velvet." It is a song with an interesting history. It was written by a Canadian after visiting the USA and got to know the legend that still lives today in Memphis, namely Elvis Presley. 

Black Velvet canvases were used to capture Elvis for his fans. An interesting parody is that "Black Velvet" is also an 8-year-old oak barrel mellowed Canadian Whiskey owned by Heaven Hill and produced in the Black Velvet Distillery in Lethbridge, Alberta

It is a powerful song for at least three female artists. It helped move their careers forward. The third singer is Robin Lee.

I am quite sure Nikki McKibbin will be missed by many people. Sympathy to her family and friends.