Things Look Pretty Bleak

 It's hard to be optimistic these days... brazen killings in several places, rampages in schools, and Ebola.

Canada suffered a "lone wolf" terror attack at their Parliament. It appeared to be a kind of "blitz" attack where the attacker gives no warning, just explodes on the scene. He was likely looking to make a big splash with targets highly unlikely to be able to fight back or give him much trouble. I think he didn't didn't expect the reaction by the Sergeant-at-arms. A similar event then happened in New York City when a wacko (also described as a "recently converted Muslim") attacked some cops with an ax. The attacker died after being shot by other police on the scene. Not religion related, two cops were killed in California by a (we've learned) man who had been deported twice.. Also not religion related was the shooting at a Seattle area high school. That one seems almost normal in that the shooter was distraught over losing his girlfriend to a rival who happened to be his cousin. Definitely a violent few days.

Then we have the doctor who returned from west Africa after working with Ebola patients who came down with the disease a week or so after his return and during his voluntary quarentine. A quarentine that wasn't real because, from what I gathered, he engaged in pretty much what I would call a normal routine: visit friends, dine out, wander around the city. A number of things are apparent from this last incident: he ignored his potential for contamination (though he must have known about his colleague contracting this disease), pretty much ignored his quarentine, and endangered his friends and financee along with numerous unaware citizens. Kudos to those who took this seriously enough to impose mandatory quarentine for anyone returning from west Africa... though I think it only applies to those who worked with Ebola patients there.

In a story about the first medical worker to be affected by the mandatory quarentine, we find this:

In the very early stages of Ebola, patients may still test negative because the virus has not yet reached detectable levels in the blood. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it may take up to three days after the onset of symptoms for the virus to reach detectable levels in some patients, prompting repeat testing in some cases.

This nurse is upset by the mandatory quarentine and feels she was/is being "treated as a criminal."

Ms. Hickox, 33, was placed in quarantine under a new policy announced on Friday by the governors of New York and New Jersey. All people entering the United States through Newark Liberty and Kennedy Airports will now be quarantined for 21 days if they had direct contact with Ebola patients in Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone, even if they show no symptoms of infection. [from a NY Times story]

Any thoughts on how she would have abided by a voluntary one?

Meanwhile, we still have ISIL/ISIS causing trouble in Iraq and Syria and a mid-term election to deal with.