So Let's Start Talking Facts About COVID-19 (Updated 3/18/20)

(Updates here if you've already read the original post.)

So, over the last few days, I've been reading up on this disease, and along with that, checking out social media to see what fresh misinformation is making the rounds.

There's a lot.

So, in the interest of letting my friends and family, and anyone else who wants to see this, get some real, solid, verifiable information - and put some of the mythological garbage on FB to rest - I'm going to give you some reality.

I am aware I am not a doctor. Accordingly, to prevent the claim that I don't know what I'm talking about, I will source everything I can, and update this post as new information comes down. For those not familiar with my site and its layout, links are underlined. They will also change color if you mouse over them, and I generally will link supporting documentation in my discussion of each factual claim I make, so if I said it, there's a link somewhere. Some of those links will go to .pdf files - sorry, but that's how a lot of papers are published by the medical community.

Now, normally, I am fairly incendiary in my writing; I will try to minimize that, so that when you share this with your elderly relatives who insist that swearing invalidates all the information that follows, they don't clutch their pearls and gasp.

One of the first things I've noticed going around on social media are a trio of memes, two of which purport to be from doctors or nurses - different ones each time, but still - claiming a variety of things as effective against the novel coronavirus, AKA COVID-19, AKA SARS-COV-2, which I will refer to for the duration of this post as CV19.

First, there's one claiming you need to stay hydrated (true because you die of dehydration in 2 days,) but keeping your throat and "tissues" hydrated reduces the impact of CV19.

It does not.

The same meme also claims that warm water will help but cold water can make things worse.

Water temperature has nothing to do with the effect of CV19.

The second meme claims, among other equally silly things, that holding your breath for ten seconds will determine whether or not your lungs are in fibrosis.

It does not.

This one we'll revisit later, because while the test is completely false - holding your breath doesn't test anything and is certainly not an effective test for CV19 - the fibrosis is not false, but by itself doesn't tell you anything. I promise I'll come back to it.

The third thing I've seen going around is a story about a guy in Wuhan who recovered from CV19 by ignoring antibiotics and eating manuka honey.

This one is so stupid it makes me practically burst into flames.

First, correlation isn't causation.

There may be a guy who got better. Hurray! That doesn't impart mystical healing abilities to honey. As you will see, most people who get CV19 do get better.

Ignoring antibiotics double bonus extra doesn't matter. CV19 is a viral pathogen; antibiotics are for bacteria. There is no value to antibiotics in a CV19 case unless the patient is suffering from aggravated secondary infections.

So.

Here is the situation.

Currently, there is an outbreak of unknown scope of a virus from a common family of viruses; known as a betacoronavirus, the strain currently spreading is a new strain, very similar to the virus that causes SARS. (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.) Thus, the actual, official name of the virus at this time is SARS-COV-2.

This virus is dangerous for a number of reasons.

First, it has a lengthy period of asymptomatic incubation during which patients are contagious. By lengthy, I mean it lasts between 2 and 14 days. (Initial estimates were 2-7 days; subsequent information has expanded that estimate.)

This means, in non-medical jargon, that after you are exposed, you can spread the virus to other people for as long as two weeks before you, yourself, show any symptoms at all.

Which is why we're seeing these huge spikes in the numbers of cases reported; a single infected individual can spread the virus to a heck of a lot of people before they actually start to cough. Virus particles can be expelled primarily through coughing and sneezing, but once your upper respiratory system is infected, you can spread it by contact with surfaces that have been exposed, by shaking hands, by leaning in really close and breathing on someone. That's how aerosol viruses work, and it's not new; it's how influenza spreads.

Once symptomatic, the patients split into two main groups; mild and severe. For mild cases, time from onset of symptoms to recovery averages at two weeks.

For severe cases, that time extends to three to six weeks.

During that entire time, the patient is contagious. Even if displaying mild symptoms, and not reporting for medical care, they are still able to transmit the pathogen to others, and since at this time it is not known what causes individual cases to enter the severe phase, that's very dangerous.

It is important to note at this point that although the majority of the patients who have died in the initial outbreak were people with underlying health conditions, the numbers of healthy people who have died are steadily climbing. Having COPD sure doesn't help, but not having it doesn't mean you'll be fine.

So, let's talk about recovery. And then I'm going to scare the crap out of you.

At this time, approximately 80% of the patients who are infected with CV19 experience mild symptoms and then recover in a couple of weeks.

Approximately 20% enter the second, more severe, stage of the virus. Severe phase patients experience significant difficulty breathing; this stage is survivable in hospital, but attempting to ride it out is heavily contraindicated.

Approximately 6% of the total number of infected patients go into a critical phase.

Patients in this critical phase are unable to survive without oxygen therapy, artificial respirators, and significant medical intervention.

Without that medical intervention, they die.

Let me be perfectly clear about this: medical treatment has been effective enough that they have been able to save most of the critical patients at this point.

That absolutely should not reassure you, for reasons I will talk about in a minute.

But first, let's talk about the folks who have survived this disease.

The Hong Kong Hospital Authority is reporting that between 16% and 25% of the people who have recovered from CV19 are experiencing a loss of lung capacity of between 20 and 30%.

A permanent one.

This is where we talk about what CV19 actually does, and that fibrosis thing I promised to talk about earlier.

See, when CV19 enters your lungs, it begins to attack your lung tissue. That's bad. (And heart tissue, which is also bad.)

What's worse, is that it can allow secondary microbial attacks, including damage to the stem cells that allow your lungs to repair damage. Which means that the longer it progresses, the more of your body's ability to self-repair is destroyed.

This has a bonus side effect; it drives your immune system absolutely crazy, causing your immune cells to attack both damaged lung tissue and healthy lung tissue, causing further damage and scarring. The term fibrosis refers to damage and scarring in the lungs; this is absolutely a result, and aftereffect, of CV19; but by the time the patient has fibrosis, they are either too busy dying to hold their breath, or they are "recovered" with permanent lung damage.

But they live.

This is survivable.

However, as I said above, that should not reassure you.

Because resource scarcity is a real thing, regardless of people's opinions.

And keeping critical-phase patients alive long enough to recover is resource-intensive.

Very much so.

At a number of cases measured in thousands, the hospitals in China were overwhelmed. Patients were being treated in the halls.

So let's talk about contagion again.

Because recovered patients continue to be contagious, even after the end of symptoms, for as long as five weeks. (37 days being the longest duration currently recorded.)

This means that even after they're better, even after they're out of the hospital and at home, they can continue to infect people, generating new cases, for over twice as long as they could before they figured out they had it in the first place.

And CV19, while not particularly durable in its aerosol form, can survive on surfaces for a long time as well.

Up to 72 hours.

Which means that China is now reporting patients being re-infected after "recovery" - by going back to their insufficiently sanitized houses, touching their kitchen counter, and then their eyes or nose. (I note here that this has thus far not been lab-tested; so far it's just news reports, and since it's really, really bad news, scientists are denying until it's demonstrated in a lab. So, unproven, but reported. Can't say it's factual, but it's possible. There are at least two different strains of CV19 running around out there, and immunity to one doesn't make you immune to the other.)

Want to take that 80% bet twice?

There is currently no known antiviral agent effective against CV19.

Antibiotics have no effect on it.

There is currently no medication known to work on it.

The only current treatment for it is palliative - they try to ameliorate the symptoms long enough for you to recover on your own.

But guess what? After you "get better," you are *not* necessarily immune to it. It may be possible for you to catch it again, just like the common cold.

And the best estimates I've been able to find so far about the development of a vaccine say that it may take as long as April - of 2021.

Let's be clear; they've gene-sequenced this virus.

They understand its likely origin point (a bat.)

They understand its means of transmission.

They just can't kill it.

And they can't prevent you from getting it except in one way, which we'll talk about in a minute, after I get done showing you why that way is super important.

So, a week or so ago, I started seeing people talking about how H1N1 influenza spread to millions of people.

Yeah - about 80 million people worldwide.

So, at this time, I want you to remember that about 6% of the people infected with CV19 go into the critical phase.

6% of 80 million people is 4.8 million people.

Hospitals in China were overwhelmed with thousands of cases.

No matter how proud you are of the state of medical care in the USA, there is simply no mathematical way for hospitals to absorb, and treat, 4.8 million people who all require respirators, artificial blood filtration, and lung lavage to survive.

Because of resource scarcity.

Limited numbers of respirators.

Limited supplies of IV needles. (They're a large, but finite number.)

Limited numbers of caregivers.

Limited hospital beds.

And against 4.8 million people, those supplies will simply run out.

4.8 million people is more than the 2010 census reported as the total population of Houston and Chicago combined.

That is not a number the medical establishment can simply absorb.

That is not a number the country can simply write off.

That is not an acceptable number.

So. This disease has a contagious period ranging verifiably up to nine weeks. During the majority of that time, it shows no symptoms whatsoever.

The fact that the lethality numbers thus far are as low as they are is a testament to the dedication and skills of hospitals in the areas of initial infection.

The problem is that as the disease spreads to countries which aren't responding with the same quarantine fervor displayed by China and Korea - say, Italy, for example - that lethality number is steadily climbing. The hospitals in Italy are overwhelmed, and as they run out of supplies, they're starting to lose more and more patients.

The US is following the exact, identical epidemiological curve that Italy did.

Except so far, the quarantine measures we've taken are even less effective.

Italy is in lockdown; and although they're struggling to keep people cooperating with it, it's working to reduce the spread of the infection.

The US is not.

They're recommending "social distancing."

They're closing schools.

They aren't closing businesses, unless it's voluntarily.

And we're talking about a disease that - so far - kills roughly 5-6% of the people who get it according to The Lancet; a disease that is contagious for up to 9 weeks, can possibly re-infect, and causes permanent lung damage in up to 30% of the people who recover.

Now, this is not the end of the story.

Quarantine measures appear to greatly reduce the spread of infection.

A nine week quarantine would be a huge burden to everyone.

Major adjustments would need to be made. Business estimates would need to be revised; medical leave - with pay - made available; quarantine enforced. People are already seeing impact, from school closures and child care, to difficulty obtaining basic supplies.

The Senate will be considering the bill to take care of some of the leave, pay, and other issues, hopefully tomorrow.

I don't think it's good enough.

People need to go home and stay there.

Not go to the movies, or take their kids to the park.

Home. Stay there.

If they do, the infection will become a much less significant threat. Doctors and hospitals can handle this disease, provided that they are not inundated with millions of simultaneous cases. Slowing the spread will work; they can handle some cases.

Just not everybody at once.

This disease is scary.

It should be scary.

And we should be doing more about it.

Eating honey doesn't help.

Holding your breath doesn't work.

Drinking warm water exclusively doesn't work.

Gargling with vinegar doesn't work.

Saying "I'm young and healthy, I will be fine" doesn't work. (Lethality still at 0.9 even with no comorbidity factors.)

Quarantine does work.

And we should be doing far more of it, as soon as possible.

At a guess, if the US government manages to catch on to the idea that pretty much everyone currently in it has been exposed thanks to that one staffer, and pretty much everyone in it is in the highest risk category, we'll go into lockdown by the 20th of March.

If they decide to really let the cows out before closing the barn door, the 27th of March.

Honestly, considering how the numbers will jump tomorrow, I hope they freak out and lock everything down in the morning.

The CDC updates its estimates Monday through Friday; as of Friday, their estimate in the US was 1629 cases. That number has doubled over the weekend.

We'll see what that looks like tomorrow - and I will update.

(Updates as of 3/18/20)

So, first up on the list, bad news: the USA now has 9385 reported cases and 154 deaths. Up from 1689 cases on Friday. That is not a good trend. (This tracker seems to be updating far more frequently than CDC, and I'm going to leave this link here for later reference.)

Second, apparently ibuprofen, and other common-use NSAIDs (Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs) can make symptoms worse. So... Take Tylenol.

Third, Italy is swamped; 35,713 cases currently under treatment, 4025 recoveries... and 2978 deaths. Which is why early quarantine measures (like the ones the United States has already skipped) are so important. Running out of hospital beds and treatment options is a death sentence for a lot of people.

Right now, Italy has 591 cases per 1 million people in population.

The USA has 28 cases per 1 million people in population.

Now, we pinky swear that we have more hospital capacity per population, more medical caregivers, more everything.

So, numbers-wise we'll be in a comparable situation to Italy if we hit 200,000 cases. If we can manage 200,000 cases as well as Italy has, we'll end up with 16,755 deaths.

As of right now, we're several days in the contagion spread past the point where Italy began to seriously try to contain the disease. So it will likely be quite a bit worse than that.

Guys, I want you to know, I want nothing more than to be wrong about this. I want this disease to be a flash in the pan and then gone, something that inconveniences us for a few weeks and then disappears.

But right now, Congress is debating the response they'll make to this - because each and every Congresscritter and Senator seems hellbent on riding the necessity of the response into getting their particular legislative wishlist inserted into the bill - and that means that the bill will die. And nothing will get done.

Mayors countrywide are responding.

Governors, the same.

The federal government? Absolute paralysis.

And both teams are to blame. Let nobody be fooled here; it doesn't matter which side of the aisle you're on, both teams are complicit, both teams are playing disaster brinksmanship; and we won't see any serious, immediate action until one of them actually falls ill. (Further update: Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla) and Ben McAdams (D-Utah) are our big winners! Lo and behold, now it affects the political elite! We'll see how Congress reacts to the knowledge that literally every member of Congress has been exposed at this point -  tomorrow, I'd guess.)

Third piece of bad news: as the Italian hospitals are failing, they're finding out that the "survivability" of this disease for younger people is a total illusion. Younger people are less likely to get the severe form, but less likely doesn't mean they don't get it, and without proper treatment, they're dying too. It hasn't happened in the USA yet because the hospital system isn't overwhelmed, but the operative word in that sentence is "yet."

However, there actually is some good news; there are several drugs showing signs of reducing the severity of the symptoms, and reducing the duration of the actual COVID-19 disease. Two different antiviral agents - remdesevir, and a cocktail of Tamiflu combined with several drugs used to treat HIV - have shown serious promise as palliative therapy. There's been some sign that chloroquinine - used to treat malaria - may also help. And there's a Japanese antiflu medication called Favipiravir because scientists aren't any better at names than the U.S. DOD is.

Kaletra, however, has failed its first major clinical trial and is likely to be discarded as a potential treatment.

I will note here that although Cuba has been making loud claims about their plethora of drugs available for treating CV19, so far they have produced zero clinical evidence that those drugs actually help. (If anyone comes up with an actual clinical study showing some effect from any of their suite of medications, I'd love to see it. Please forward it to me so I can read up on it and add it here!)

As far as an actual vaccine, there are several vaccine candidates progressing through different phases of testing. They're all still months away, but they're all solid candidates - which means that this virus may be preventable, even if we're not there yet. Vox - not generally a bastion of fine journalism - actually did a great writeup on the various vaccine trials and the story behind them, so instead of reinventing the wheel I'm just linking it here.

Weapons-Grade Feels (Theory of Persistence Hunting)

I want first to begin with a disclaimer for those among us who are incapable of entertaining any discussion without believing that the act of discussing a behavior entails support for that behavior: it does not. While I am attempting to explain, and shed light on, some human behavior patterns here, that doesn't constitute support for those behaviors. I believe that in order to control an instinctive behavior, one must first accept that the behavior exists; without that, one is left woefully ill equipped to make meaningful change.

I'm going to engage here in somewhat lengthy speculation.

I know, I never do that.

But what I'm going to do is take an established theory - persistence predation - and expand on it, in an attempt to explain some current human social constructs of whose existence we may not even be aware.

So, in order to do that, I must begin by explaining the theory of persistence predation.

First, let's abolish for good the idea that humans aren't a predatory species. It has nothing to do with your teeth; the definitive sign that you are a predator is literally looking you right in the face every time you look into a mirror: only predators, in our biosphere, have binocular forward-oriented vision.

This is to provide depth perception, something not nearly as useful for prey animals; prey animals need peripheral vision far more than they need accurate depth perception, so virtually all terrestrial prey species have eyes facing out to the sides, so as to provide the greatest possible sweep for danger. (The depth perception is so that when we leap at our prey, you see, we tend not to miss.)

The reason we got to the top of the food chain - and since we're NOT on the endangered species list, but most of this planet's large predators other than humans ARE, that's clearly the case - is because we developed evolutionary advantages allowing us to use a specific method of hunting no other species can use as effectively.

I say "as effectively," because there are a few other species that use a lesser version of one form of our primary hunting strategy; some wolves, hyenas, there's this one spider, but none of them are as good at it as we are, and for specific evolutionary reasons.

First, humans perspire. This gives us more efficient thermoregulation than most other species, allowing us to cool off, and survive heat, more easily than many animal species, which have to pant in order to cool off.

Second, we have little body hair; this gives us a more effective surface for sweat to evaporate from, thus increasing its cooling effects.

Third, we walk - and run - upright, in a particular way. Specifically, we run in such a way that our breathing isn't regulated, or tied to, our stride.

What that means is that while we may not be as fast over short distances as any given animal - hell, an alligator can move 40 miles an hour when it's pissed off - we can keep up our pace longer than virtually any other terrestrial animal.

Which leads me to persistence predation, and how humans learned to weaponize emotion.

See, we don't have big fangs, or claws, or poison, or built-in projectile weapons; we can't change our skin color at will for camouflage, we can't generate electricity from our skin - all things other species can do - but we're scary nonetheless. Not because of size, or strength, or speed, but because we're creepy.

Imagine yourself as a woolly mammoth. You're huge, you're on top of the world, you're the rock star of rock stars; you've fought off tigers that have attacked you, and while you have some scars, you are still standing.

One day, you notice that near your herd - not too close, just not far enough away for comfort - there's this little biped.

It's staring at you.

It's not making threatening moves, it's not loud, it's just watching you.

The kind of gaze you can feel. It's like a weight between your shoulders, that gaze, and no matter how you try to ignore it, that weight just grows the longer that little biped stares at you.

So, you trumpet to your herd; you take the lead, and you move away. Moving around at midday is hot work; soon enough, you've gone about as far as you want to go; you're panting, your feet hurt, and it's time for a drink and a rest in the shade.

And as you look around, you see that little biped again.

It's staring at you.

You try to ignore it, drink some water, eat some grass; there's some really nice clover over there, but it doesn't taste right, because the whole time you're trying to relax, there's that little monkey, staring at you.

Edging a little closer every time you turn your back on it.

So you trumpet again, and your herd moves with you; now complaining a little, because they, too, are tired and hot and hungry.

Finally, there's another good spot; you settle down, and look around.

There's the little monkey again.

Staring.

This time, you're not going to settle for it, and you charge, trumpeting furiously.

It scampers away, and you settle back down, satisfied that you've scared it away.

Then you look up from your meal, and it's there again.

By now; you're tired, angry, confused, and afraid. This is not what predators do; they jump right on you, and bite and claw; this thing is tiny, it's no threat to you, but it's also not scared of you.

Which means it knows something you don't.

Which means maybe you should be afraid of it.

So you move away.

And it follows you.

Over.

And over.

Each time you try to stop, there it is.

Each time you try to rest, there it is.

Each time you try to cool off, there it is, and each time you get a little more afraid.

Soon enough, you panic, and try to run.

Maybe you overheat and collapse; you can't pant and run at the same time.

Maybe you sprain an ankle.

Maybe you just trip and fall down.

But soon enough, you're immobilized.

And that's when the spears come out.

We have this romanticized vision of cavemen hunting mammoths with thrown spears that's ultimately completely silly. Mammoths have thick skin, and a fat layer, and are generally huge. How is a human arm going to impart enough force to a spear to throw it through elephant hide?

It's not, that's how. But it can sure impart enough force to drive it in when your feet are braced and you're shoving it into a downed elephant.

Or a predator.

Like, say, a lion.

Or a cheetah.

You may at this point be thinking I'm nuts; after all, a cheetah is way, way faster than you or I.

I'd like to introduce you to a small group of Kenyans, whose domesticated goats were being menaced by a pair of cheetahs; they chased the cheetahs down on foot, captured them alive, using just some rope, and turned them in to the government.

In 2013.

Humans can run down antelopes; cheetahs; mammoths; it doesn't matter.

Because we're creepy.

Now, this behavior in humans took two forms; pursuit persistence predation, which is what I just described, and manipulative persistence predation, in which we lull animals into a false sense of security using bait, stillness, and kindness, to induce trust in the animal, at which point we either kill the animal, or domesticate it. There are animals who use one or the other of these tactics to some degree. There are literally none which use both, aside from humans.

Here's where I'm going to depart from the established theory and strike out on my own.

The evidence is in; humans are the primary evolutionary example of pursuit persistence predation.

But there's more to it than simply running.

Humans are the only species that ever evolved to intentionally manipulate the emotions of others as a hunting strategy.

Fear.

Kindness.

Trust.

Anger.

Humans provoke animals intentionally into displays of violence that leave the animals too exhausted to defend themselves.

Humans use trust as a weapon.

We use anger as a weapon.

We use fear as a weapon.

We use love as a weapon.

Only humans directly weaponize emotion.

And here is where we come to human social structures: even though we no longer, by and large, have to chase down antelopes to have dinner, we still have the instincts that lead to that behavior.

So we've turned it on each other, instead.

As an example, look at the phenomenon of catcalling.

A woman walks down a sidewalk. A man calls out to her. Maybe it's lewd, maybe simply unwanted, but for whatever reason, he persists.

What is he shooting for? There's no context in which this is a valid mating strategy. 

Literally zero times in ever, has a woman turned around, tackled him to the ground, mated with him, and proceeded to get married.

But it is a valid strategy for predation.

It's scary. It unsettles her emotions - he's looking for her to react, watching to see how much it disturbs her.

If it's a strong enough reaction - regardless of what that reaction is - it's a sign that she perceives herself to be in danger, and thus her emotions are upset; she is, for the purposes of this strategy, a valid target.

His level of aggression goes up.

He tries to disturb her more, maybe resorting to outright threats.

As she becomes more afraid, his level of aggression goes up.

Because this isn't a behavior based in mating. Guys, reading this, you may think it is, but it's not. If you do this, you are engaging in a predatory behavior; one prompted by instincts that end with the death of your target, it is effective, it is menacing - it is an attack.

Let me be clear about that.

This is a use of emotion as a direct attack on another human being.

That's not the only one.

Humans use emotional manipulation on each other all the time; catcalling, gaslighting, guilt-tripping, threats, intimidation, emotional blackmail; they're all behaviors intended to manipulate and control the emotions of others, for predatory reasons.

Those instinct packages are a tricky bunch, particularly since, as a human, you aren't necessarily aware that these behaviors come from the same source.

I'll throw out another one; "the friend zone."

The friend zone isn't a thing, guys.

If you're proclaiming to the world that some woman "friendzoned" you, you're really saying that you tried to use the appearance of friendship to get in her pants, and it didn't work.

So, emotional manipulation.

"What do you mean 'good night,' I bought you dinner, now you owe me....."

Nope. Emotional manipulation as a form of predation.

Women do it just as often, although their predation is a bit more subtle; women tend to manipulate with the goal of securing sustenance for their offspring, instead of as a means of creating offspring, although that does happen as well.

"If you break up with me, I'll kill myself!"

Emotional manipulation.

"That's not really what happened, you're just trying to rewrite history to sound like you're right!"

Emotional manipulation.

We're - in most cases - not out to actually eat each other.

But we practice emotional manipulation as a predatory behavior daily, on everyone around us, mostly because we're not aware that that's what we're doing.

So if you didn't know, now you know.

As a species, we're only able to deal honestly with each other - something other animal species do automatically - by stepping outside our instincts. We're designed for emotional dishonesty; we're designed to use emotions as our weapon, instead of teeth, claws, speed, or poison, and we use it on each other - and it is just as deadly to us as to that fictitious mammoth.

Or the utterly real antelope.

We talk a lot about how the human race can improve itself.

One thing we could do as a first step is to recognize our primary hunting strategy for what it is; accept our nature as predators, accept that that is, and always will be, part of our genetic legacy, because without that recognition, we can't address the issue directly or effectively, and never will.

We can never stop hunting each other while we continue to believe we're supposed to be herbivores.

So, Lovely Wife Asked A Question... (Taxation)

From time to time, since we share most but not all of our views, Lovely Wife will ask me to explain why I see things the way I do.

She asked me last night why I despise so many forms of taxation, and what I support instead.

So, here goes. Please note that this is about taxation, and not intended to be an exploration of overreach of government.

First, there are currently three primary forms of taxation, and three secondary forms of taxation, used by the government of the United States to fund its operations.

Those are, individual and corporate income taxes, property taxes, fees for specific functions, fees for regulatory compliance certifications, and sales taxes, respectively.

While I primarily want to talk about the federal level, since the differences at a state level are notable, I will annotate those as I go.

First, there is a base premise that gets misunderstood a lot, or is something of which most citizens are simply ignorant, which is that in order for a tax to be justifiable, regardless of any other factor, all entities paying the tax must derive benefit from its use. This is important when it comes to state and local taxes specifically, because the argument can be made that all federal taxes benefit all citizens, thanks to the use of a general fund for all expenditures.

I personally find that argument a bit disingenuous, since the federal government routinely gives out money from that general fund in favor of things that don't benefit anywhere near everyone, but the argument itself isn't totally unsound, if the government actually operated as it was intended to.

With states and localities, however, this premise becomes more crucially important. An example of a justifiable secondary tax would be charging a fee for a dog license, which is then used to provide veterinary care for local dogs. Everyone who pays it benefits from it; nobody is required to participate. Note here that I am not suggesting such a program; merely using it as a hypothetical example.

But forging ahead, there are some major problems with each of the primary methods of taxation used in the United States. And the arguments used to justify those taxes are annoyingly, frustratingly persistent, despite being entirely specious and without merit.

Primary among those being the so-called "social contract" theory, which states that since all the things you have are things that exist in part due to the society, the fact that you live in the society means you enter your life in debt to that society for permitting you to exist.

This argument falls apart on the grounds of volition; in order for a debt to be valid, there must be a means of avoiding incurring that debt, and there must be a way to pay it off. Neither of those exists in our current system. You cannot leave the country and simply emigrate elsewhere without great difficulty and expense, which is simply beyond the means of most citizens; without means of escape, or the ability to reject the contract, the contract itself is inherently null and void. Coercion cannot carry moral authority.

As it stands, as well, there is no means by which a citizen may give such great service to the country that they are deemed to have paid their debt to society; nobody is entirely exempt from taxation, and there is no means in place to permit citizens to become so. A sane means of doing this would be to trade a period of service - military or civil, but with a risk-based premium for hazardous duty - for tax-exempt status; no such system exists in our society.

The social contract theory is invalid in its entirety, simply because it is the age-old argument of original sin revamped; because you are born, it says, you owe a debt from the moment you draw breath, through no fault of you own; that debt can never be retired, can never be relieved, except for the benevolent if condescending gesture of a higher power, and for most citizens, there is no means of escape from it.

...In other words, involuntary, uncompensated labor...

So.

Property taxes and income taxes suffer from the same flaw, and corporate income taxes do as well, but at one level removed. That being, all three primary methods of taxation assume total ownership by the government of all assets, real or intellectual, in the United States.

This directly contradicts the base premise upon which our government is founded; your right to your life. Without the right to own property - and by "own," I mean "can dispose of or use in any way which doesn't directly harm others or infringe on their rights without interference," - you cannot sustain your life. Without the right to own property, the right to life is meaningless.

So. Income taxes, whether individual or corporate, and property taxes, all assume that property, and money, belong to the government first; you have "earned," on payday, only the right to keep what the government permits you to keep.

...Otherwise known as involuntary, uncompensated labor...

Corporate taxes are a bit trickier to explain for most people, but I will cut through the morass.

Corporations do not pay taxes. Their customers and shareholders do. All of those people - those individuals - are the ones paying any tax levied on corporations; those taxes are only "corporate" in name. In actual effect they come directly out of your wallet, as a consumer, in the form of increased prices - effectively a second, sneakier income tax on you.

This, incidentally, is also the reason I hate it so much when people crow about one candidate running a budget surplus, and lambast another for running a deficit. In a free society, where you have the right to own property, a budget surplus cannot be morally justified; if the government has more money than they need, it is their bound duty to return it to the citizens from whom they took it. You will note that this, in fact, does not happen; instead, each year the budget grows, until it consumes any surplus. I'd far rather have a government run at a slight deficit (although the current deficit unquestionably does not qualify under any definition of the word "slight,") than one in which the government steals too much of my money and then finds things to spend it on.

Now, regulatory fees are a whole different ballgame. It is actually fair for the government to require a fee for an inspector to verify that regulations have been followed; however, most of those regulations are absurdly specific for the simple reason that it allows for higher fees, and for no other meaningful reason. This is actually a means for a smaller body of government to fund itself, provided that the fees are not unreasonable and the regulations not unnecessary. (Delving further into this, however, calls for an entirely separate blog post.)

Fees for specific functions are risky. A good example is driver licensing; at heart, it is a simple regulatory compliance inspection. Can you drive well enough to be permitted to join other drivers, or are you a huge danger to all and sundry? However, the immense machinery that has grown up around it has turned renewing your license into a much more expensive proposition than it should be, which makes it unduly expensive for many citizens.

As well, the ever-growing insistence on using it as a means of primary identification makes the growing price of that identification a risk of disfranchisement; a voter cannot be prevented from coming to the polls by means of a mandatory fee, or the entire idea of representative democracy is false. (This is the flaw in most voter ID plans; they propose a series of good ideas, and then want to charge a prohibitively high fee. The only way it's justifiable is if it's available to everyone eligible to vote.)

And then we get to sales taxes.

Sales taxes are entirely justifiable, and come in two forms: the classic "sales" tax, or the European-style "Value-added Tax," or VAT.

You may be a bit on your heels after seeing my flat statement that these taxes are justifiable. So I will add one more comment, and then explain both.

Sales taxes are justifiable but stupid.

One of the primary functions of any duly constituted and morally legitimate government is that it protects its citizens against - what's that phrase - "all enemies, both foreign and domestic."

That seems oddly familiar, somehow.

*Ahem*

So, the government, by performing its primary task, has provided a venue for commerce that could otherwise not exist. As a free citizen, you are protected both from foreign invaders, and from robbers, con artists, fraudsters, and other such predators. (Granted, the government's performance in that regard has not been all that stellar. But it hasn't crossed the line into illegitimacy on that front yet.)

Accordingly, you are able to engage in trade. Sales and VAT taxes are, effectively, paying the government directly for having provided that protection; as such they are justifiable.

Sales taxes and VAT taxes, however, differ widely in the burden they place on the economy.

A sales tax, applied fairly, adds a certain percentage to the price of every transaction full stop.

As a product moves through its development stages to the market, this application happens repeatedly, and causes the total cost of that product to balloon beyond measure, until it simply becomes unaffordable.

This is one of the primary drawbacks of the so-called "FairTax Initiative," which purports to be a flat, fair, across the board tax, until the authors of the plan figure out that the way they designed it absolutely destroys any hope the poor have of ever escaping poverty, and probably of staying alive; at that point they devolve into ever-stranger methods to contort their tax plan around so that it doesn't do exactly what it's designed to do, ultimately finishing in a form that is ruthlessly unfair, lays a gargantuan burden on the rich while allowing the poor to evade it entirely, and demolishes the economy through massive cost inflation (or, in an alternate version, doesn't, but also doesn't provide enough revenue for the government to stay even marginally solvent.)

VAT taxes, however, add a fixed percentage to the full cost on the first transaction, but on subsequent transactions only tax the difference in value. In other words, selling copper ore to the smelter gets taxed; selling the ingots of copper to the wire factory taxes only the increase in value; selling wire to the ISP taxes only the increase in value. Accordingly, its impact on price inflation is much less dramatic than a sales tax, and it can be applied easily across the board without being unfair to anyone.

In fact, a VAT tax is inherently, voluntarily progressive. Luxury goods go through far more stages of improvement than do common ones; accordingly, they are far more heavily taxed, and yet...

...

...And yet, nobody is required to buy a sports car. 

Fresh produce, for example, goes through hardly any taxable stages between the farmer and the supermarket; food ingredients in general are much less developed and refined than more recreational property. A VAT tax would greatly impact the poor, by making fresh produce and less-refined, more healthy foods actually less expensive, just through the process of development and refinement, than today's endlessly processed junk foods.

And on any product, the more steps taken to improve it, the higher the tax burden becomes, while remaining entirely voluntary. Nobody is required to spend the extra money; nobody is statutorily required to undertake a higher share of the tax burden, and yet...

...

...And yet, because rich people have the ability to do so, they will tend to buy luxury goods anyway; thus voluntarily assuming a higher share of the tax burden of the nation, which both satisfies the angry poor (or it would if they thought their way through it, anyway,) and lends the tax the force of moral authority.

Another plan that has been offered, and is quite popular, is a flat tax. This type of thing is typically accompanied with a great outcry about fairness; "everybody pays the same!"

Riiiiight. Except for the fact that poor people use a far higher percentage of their income on subsistence than rich people do, which means that a flat tax has a needlessly, disproportionately high effect on poor people. Rich people love the idea of flat taxes, by the way; it means they can shrug and say "I paid the same as you, what's the problem?" and then fly away in their private jet, secure in their moral justification, while their poorer neighbors still struggle to put food on the table.

I do not support income, property, flat, or sales taxes as a means of financially supporting a government.

I do, however, support a system of primary VAT taxation supplemented with regulatory compliance certification fees limited by some sort of separate blog post about how to set that up, and direct fees for optional  services.

I do not believe in involuntary, uncompensated labor, guys.

And you may have noted my use of that specific phrase.

That's because it is the definition of slavery. And that's what most taxes are: a means of reducing your population into slavery.

Calling someone "slave" in the bedroom is hot.

Calling someone slave when you mean it is as far from hot as you can get and still be in our galaxy.

Instead of trying to justify systems of taxation that have been used for hundreds if not thousands of years as a means of controlling the population, let's think about the concept of a tax permitting voluntary association and commerce to fund the government.

Imagine a social contract in which the government provides you a safe place to exist, and in exchange, you are asked to participate only so far as you want to.

I would sign that.

Because Clearly Geopolitical Analysis Is Not Our Strong Suit... (OPEC)

So, just recently, I've seen people doing something that's making me grit my teeth.

I'm here to make you knock it off.

If you hear me out, you may find yourself agreeing with me.

So, thus far, my personal opinion of the Obama Administration has been much like my opinion on the Bush Administration: the people who hate him, hate him for the wrong reasons, and the people who love him have the same problem.

There were a lot of reasons to hate Bush 2; there are a lot of equally valid reasons to hate Obama, and some of them are, frustratingly, the same ones.

But this is a new thing, and nobody in the media seems to be calling it right.

Whoa, whoa, back up.

History Lesson Time.

So, a long time ago - literally, 55 years - an organization some of you may have heard of was formed, called OPEC.

OPEC stands for Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and its entire purpose is economic warfare.

No, seriously. It's an organization which exists to fix oil prices and use oil prices to shape public policy in their larger, otherwise stronger trade partners.

The members as of 2014 are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

If you read that list and thought to yourself, "Gee, most of those nations have been historically overtly hostile to the U.S.," give yourself a gold star for passing high school history.

At the time when OPEC was formed, the main leaders - Venezuela, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, and Saudi Arabia - were upset with what they saw as absentee landlordism by the multinational oil companies, who affected their economies by changing the price of oil without warning, or increasing or decreasing production.

There is some legitimacy to that view.

However, those nations pulled together a large roster of other small countries whose main export was oil, not to protect themselves as their rhetoric would present, but rather to co-opt the tool of oil production as a means of forcing national policy shifts on their economic enemies.

This was first demonstrated on a massive international scale during the Yom Kippur war in 1973, when they reacted to U.S. support of Israel by steeply raising oil prices. The result of the oil embargo was gas rationing in the United States, a global economic recession, and the first moves in the United States towards fuel efficient vehicles. (Also the establishment of the Strategic Petroluem Reserve, which is one of our primary tools against this kind of attack.)

In the 1980s, the United States and other industrialized nations were taking steps to reduce their dependence on foreign oil, having begun the climb out of the recession, and were beginning to explore alternatives to oil, as well as renewable resources.

OPEC's response to this was to flood the market with oil, increasing production until the price dropped so far that efforts to find alternatives were abandoned, because they were unable to compete economically with petroleum usage.

Bear that part in mind, as you wonder why U.S. energy policy has flailed around so dramatically for decades, and why renewables haven't been an option a long time ago. We're going to come back to that.

Oil prices have been OPEC's tool of choice for five decades.

So, just recently, oil prices have started to drop. This is quickly becoming evident at the pump; gas prices are down to their lowest point in years.

And now we come to it: I've been hearing people cheer on the Obama Administration for this.

"Yay, Obama! I can afford gas now!"

But the problem with that is that it displays a near-cataclysmic ignorance of the world situation.

Amusingly, the folks who have been saying that, are typically the ones who are heavily invested (at least emotionally,) into environmentalism, and renewable resources.

So.

The Obama Administration's efforts at an energy policy have been a mixed bag. He's supported renewables, which everyone pretty much agrees is a good thing, but they've mostly supported the wrong ones.

Not ethanol, dummy, which is a net pollution producer, but biodiesel, which is a net pollution reducer. But good try, at least.

Not "clean coal," whatever that even means, wind, or solar, but nuclear, because despite all the flim-flam, nuclear technology has continued to advance, and modern nuclear plants bear about as much resemblance to the ones from the 50's as a Prius does to a Ford Edsel. But at least it's something.

It's SOMETHING.

And very quietly, Obama has done one thing behind the scenes that may be the one thing he's gotten really right in his Administration: he's pushed for greater domestic oil production, through shale and hydraulic fracturing. ("Fracking," if you can only handle the sound bites.)

Now, especially since his public rhetoric has been slanted quite heavily against domestic oil production, why would he do that?

Why put pressure on Congress to allow continued growth of domestic oil, despite your professed agenda?

...Remember, I'm giving him points for this one, because it's a nifty sort of jiujitsu; he's doing it because of his professed agenda.

See, as long as domestic oil production remains high enough to keep prices low enough that the citizenry doesn't revolt against gas taxes, the folks working on renewable resources for power generation and fuels have the most important thing they can have: time.

Does your TV today look like the ones on store shelves ten or fifteen years ago?

I'd bet the answer was a laugh, and "nope."

Because the technology improved.

Now, you can get a ginormous tv set for a pittance, compared with how big a chunk of your pay it would have taken to get a much less impressive device ten years ago.

A fifty inch TV ten years ago would have cost you $3000, weighed about 400 pounds, and required a team to get it into your house.

By comparison, a fifty inch TV today weighs about 25 pounds, costs between $300 and $500, and is, well, frankly a lot more affordable - and in high def, too!

What this has to do with oil prices is that technology advances. A typical symptom of that advance is falling costs; the better we get at making something, the more efficiently we learn to do it, so it gets cheaper over time.

Obama knows, or someone on his team knows, that if the renewable energy people are left to work on their tech for long enough, the winners and losers will be screechingly evident, because the winners will be much, much cheaper than they are today, and the losers...

...won't.

So, how do you buy them time? By increasing domestic oil production, thus reducing our economic reliance on nations who have directly attacked us using this very tool in the past.

Well played, sir.

Except...

...

...We're not yet at the point when those technological advances have happened. Renewables are still economically nonviable for the most part, and OPEC is watching.

They aren't happy.

So, they're driving production as high as they can, because they know this tool works; drop the price of oil far enough long enough, and even the shale producers and frackers will go out of business. At this point, we're not there yet, but it's an arms race; we're trying to improve our fracking and shale extraction processes faster than OPEC can bankrupt the companies doing it.

They're not even hiding it well, because they know Americans have only the vaguest knowledge of events beyond their own immediate body bubble. They actually did the math to determine how long they could hold out - knowing their budgets require oil prices to be at a certain level to balance - without having to cut production or increase prices. They began this attack in full and certain knowledge that without U.S. governmental intervention, the shale oil producers will cave first, full stop.

It's like the cold equations, except with more economic warfare and less pathos.

The current oil price war is just that; it is a sustained, direct attack on U.S. economic interests, by an external entity whose goal is to keep us forever addicted to foreign oil, and by extension to block those technological advances so key for realistic, viable renewable energy sources from ever happening...

...At least, within the United States.

Nobody should be saying "go Obama!" because of low gas prices.

They should be saying "how will the U.S. respond to end this direct attack on our interests?"

It's quite possible this attack will work.

We should not be cheering for the success of our enemies. However polite and diplomatic they may be. Our best hope, at this point, is that we prove more economically resilient than OPEC is.

...You know how people have been blasting questions about why the Obama Administration isn't acting more directly against ISIS, no matter how depraved and horrible they are?

It's because Iraq, Iran, and Kuwait are all endangered by ISIS's antics, under siege, and unlikely to remain able to support this price war when they need funds desperately to remain viable as governments.

When their tools of waging this war are directly occupied.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are right next door; their pipelines are all interconnected, and thus ISIS is a huge problem for all of them, which leaves half of OPEC's member nations endangered in large or small measure by this group's efforts.

Obama likes to play indirect games of brinksmanship; he is betting that the pressure those OPEC nations are under from ISIS will cause them to cave before he is forced to act - on their behalf, no less - due to pressure at home.

For once, I think we should support Obama entirely in his endeavor.

It doesn't matter if he's on a different political spectrum than half of America. He's still sort of an American, however you feel about his politics or decision-making.

And on this one, he's doing exactly the right thing.

So, Upgrading From "That's Interesting" To "Holy Shit, CDC's Making Excuses Already?"

So, every few years, there's some kind of epidemic, and people panic.

"OMG it aer teh new black death!!1!"

Riiiiiiiight.

One disease tends to get the lion's share of the serious scares, because it's rare, extremely deadly, and frankly really scary, mostly because we know very very little about it.

Thaaaat would be Ebola.

The Ebola virus is unique in a lot of ways. The virus particle itself is odd; it has a distinct shape that makes it recognizable on sight, which is, well, highly unusual, because most viruses look pretty similar in physical structure.

It's unique because we have, frankly, no frigging idea where it comes from. We know monkeys and fruit bats can act as carriers, and we know it's transmissible to humans, but if we knew what monkeys had it, we'd kill them all and then boom! No more Ebola. We can't actually do that, because *incomprehensible noises of ignorance, wide-spread hands, and an innocent face.*

It's also unique because it's one of the three or four most deadly and incurable diseases (mad cow and other prions, hemorrhagic smallpox, inhalational anthrax, and Ebola) known to have occurred in nature. There are deadlier viruses in existence, but those by and large have been engineered and exist only in laboratories. Ebola, on the other hand, kills on average - and I want to emphasize that word "average" for reasons that will become evident - 50% of the people that contract it.

Why is that relevant? Untreated, it goes to around 85-90%.

For relevance, if you discount the diseases (of which there are several) which are equivalently deadly but curable, or at least with more effective treatments than "here's some water, don't die, ok?" then you're left with mad cow and its relatives at 100% case fatality rate (CFR,) hemorrhagic smallpox at 95%, inhalational anthrax at 93%, Ebola at 83-90%, and well... Compare that to, say, pneumonic plague at 50%, malaria at 20%, the Spanish flu at 2.5%...

Yeah, Ebola is a relative badass.

Well, no worries for us, right? The good ol' USA has all the medical care required by law and even more.

...Um, about that...

See, the trick is that there is no effective "treatment" for Ebola. The only thing doctors can do is keep you hydrated and isolated from everyone else. And doing so is ridiculously resource-intensive, requiring a hospital bed (from which we are enthusiastically kicking patients the day after major surgery. Good thing there's no shortage,) medical staff to watch and monitor you, a staggering quantity of intravenous fluids, and safe, hygienic disposal of the inevitable tidal flood of medical waste coming from you, impregnated with simply trillions of infectious viruses.

So, Ebola kills you because your body goes into catastrophic organ failure. It's a hemorrhagic fever, which means (effectively) that it makes your circulatory system break down and leak from simply everywhere, while raising your body temperature until your systems simply stop working. The blood that leaks out is hugely contagious, as this is the virus' primary means of transmission.

Ebola - at this time, and thankfully - isn't airborne, by which I mean to say you can't get infected just by standing ten feet from someone who has it.

It is possible, however, to spread by aerosol, which is slightly different and relevant for reasons I will make clear shortly.

Incubation can take as long as three weeks, which means you can be infected and totally oblivious until holy shit, Ebola, almost a month later. For bonus fun points, men who survive the illness can carry the virus in their semen for as long as an additional seven weeks. (So, ladies, steer clear of those pesky hot-looking Ebola survivors, because even if they have dayum they also have OMG I'M MELTING... MELTINNNNGGGGGGG.)

So, the WHO happily informs you that people exposed to Ebola aren't contagious until they display symptoms.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy waaaait, which symptoms?

I mean, if they weren't contagious until they were staggering drunkenly and leaking blood from the surface of their skin, NOBODY would go near them and it wouldn't even be a thing. "Holy shit, dude, what's wrong with you? No, get the hell away from me."

So which symptoms mark the onset of the contagious stage?

Wellll...

Look at that list again.

Fever.

Muscle pain.

Headache.

Sore throat.

Errrr... So, the common cold?

It's just that a cold lingers and annoys you, and then goes away. Ebola makes you start vomiting blood, and then you die.

So, you're perfectly safe, as long as you stay away from everyone who shows symptoms of Ebola, which you can't actually tell apart from any other minor ailment until it's way, way too fucking late.

A relevant fact in the veracity of which we're getting an object lesson right now.

Meet Thomas Eric Duncan. Mr. Duncan is from Liberia, where you may have noticed in the news they are having an outbreak of - and I know this comes as a surprise given the article so far - Ebola.

Mr. Duncan holds the distinction of being the United States' "patient zero."

Now, we've had people in the States with Ebola before, specifically several of the doctors and nurses who have been helping out in Liberia.

Those people are a little different from Mr. Duncan, for reasons I will explain directly, before embarking on the previously-offset explanations which are, frankly, becoming increasingly overdue.

See, they knew they were infected before coming back to the States.

So, we were ready. They were transported in quarantine, to quarantine, in a secure facility prepared for their specific arrival and set up for treatment.

Awesome!

Mr. Duncan, however, helped a sick pregnant woman in the weeks before traveling; a woman who later died. He was symptomatic before he got on the plane to the States, but he filled out a form when exiting Liberia in which he promised he really, really wasn't sick, hadn't had any contact with sick people, didn't know what all the fuss was about, and no, this sore throat is because the dry air in the airport made me cough.

Or something.

Liberia - and you may find this satisfying rather than ridiculous, based on what happened next - is considering suing him for falsifying his exit documents, in large part because...

Well, at best he's killed a bunch of people. "At worst" is something I don't really want to talk about.

So, Mr. Duncan flew. In a plane. A plane in which he was symptomatic, and therefore contagious; and this is the first of the delayed explanations, that being the relevance of the distinction between "airborne" and "aerosol."

See, a plane is an enclosed environment. Particularly so, since the lack of exterior air pressure means that the cabin air is recycled.

An "airborne" virus can survive on its own in the air; people contract it after being within yards of infected people, like some kind of sinister sorcery. Ebola can't do that.

An "aerosol," however, is when, for example, you clear your throat, and the microscopic water droplets you expel in doing so contain, surprise, Ebola! And then you die.

Ebola can totally do that.

Which is super awesome when the contagious person with a sore throat is enclosed in a tiny space for 12 hours with hundreds of other people all breathing in his air.

You might think the airlines would be outright panicking right now...

...But I'm getting ahead of myself. (Spoiler; they totally are.)

So, Mr. Duncan decided to travel. And did. Now in context, after the doctors had been brought to the States, the CDC rushed to assure everyone that this wasn't a huge, stupid risk, because now that there was "an awareness" of Ebola and its risks, hospitals around the country were set up to recognize, isolate, and treat it, to reduce if not outright eliminate the danger.

So, no worries, it was totally ok for the first - note that word - hospital Mr. Duncan visited in Dallas to tell him it was a cold, pat him on the head, and send him on his merry way with some antibiotics. Even after he told them he had specifically been in the country that specifically has an Ebola outbreak they're supposed to be specifically looking for. Because we're prepared to identify the disease.

We're ready.

We're also caught flat-footed when he vomits blood and collapses a couple of days later, and then goes back to the hospital, where it's "Surprise, Ebola!"

So, let me digress a bit before I scare the shit out of you.

See, earlier, I was talking about how medical treatment reduces mortality significantly, and how it's a good thing there's no shortage of medical care in the USA.

For some values of the phrase, "no shortage."

There are two factors that are relevant to that phrase.

See, each individual under treatment represents a staggering drain on the resources of an individual hospital. Ebola isn't cheap, or easy, to treat, and each person suffering from it is a massive use of hospital staff, supplies, and care. This is why the African outbreaks typically are so deadly; the healthcare system in Africa by and large deserves the finger quotes you saw in your head when I said that, and is almost immediately overwhelmed.

Well, good thing this is the USA.

We can handle dozens of patients with Ebola, all at once!

So it's a good thing Mr. Duncan may have infected as many as 400 people.

Secondly, we have healthcare insurance in this country, but most people are like me - there's a deductible. Go to the doctor, it can cost you. A minor cold, to most lower-income people, is not doctor-worthy simply because they can't pay for it; they have to prioritize their trips to see the doctor according to the severity of their illness, which means that when your common cold turns into "Surprise, Ebola!" it's too late and you're fucked, and so is everyone you've coughed on in the days prior to your very own vomit collapse.

Awesome! Glad, again, that's only maybe 400 people.

Because - and here's the fun part - even if the government and the airline can notify all of those people, and they all come in, and only a few of them actually have it, by the time it's detectable, they will have been symptomatic, and thus contagious, for a while.

During which time they could potentially have infected everyone they came in contact with.

Which means - assuming that the average incubation period is roughly 10 days, 50% of the people he infected will be contagious hmmmmmm, let's see, he became infectious the 24th, today's the 2nd, so... Saturday?

Want to place bets the airline can't catch them all?

I really, really hope they can.

The Dallas County HHS Department pulled three schoolkids out of Richardson Elementary today because they are thought to have been in contact with Mr. Duncan while he was symptomatic.

Want to place bets he talked to, and coughed on, someone else?

Some rando is in the hospital being tested for it in Hawaii right now, because planes. And readiness.

An NBC correspondent in Liberia is infected, as well. Because despite precautions... "Surprise, Ebola!"

So, here's the CDC.

We're ready.

Then, Mr. Duncan shows; he was maybe in contact with five schoolkids.

Errr... Maybe 12 to 18 people.

Well... 80. 80 people, that's it, that's all.

Good to know it was only 400.

Good to know we're ready.

Good to know we have a plan for disposing of that pesky medical waste, like Mr. Duncan's bloody vomit.

Your government is in charge and prepared, citizen.

I wonder what will happen when they have this much trouble dealing with each of several hundred people at once?

Because as I recall saying, once the hospitals get swamped, things go south pretty fast.

This might be a better time to wear the plague masks than during the swine flu scare, guys.

Why You Want Net Neutrality, Even If You Don't Know It

So, you may have heard lots of (very boring) blather in the news about net neutrality recently.

You may not know what it really means, or who has what vested interest in a particular outcome.

Thankfully, I am here to save the day!

Hopefully, I can do so without being boring.

But let me start with a simple, direct statement, and then lengthy and hopefully interesting explanation will follow.

Net neutrality is a concept without which, network providers (the major players are Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T) could bone you six ways from Sunday without lube or the courtesy of a reach-around.

So let's begin by talking about what the internet actually is, how it works, and what you're paying for, versus what you think you're paying for.

Remember a few years ago, Senator Ted Stevens famously said "the internet is a series of tubes," and everyone mocked him publicly for his obvious ignorance?

Everyone but Senator Stevens was wrong.

See, "the internet," as you most likely understand it, is a fiction. There is no vast, swirling cloud of the sum total of all human knowledge in a secret containment vessel, hidden away in a long-buried subterranean laboratory run by the DoD.

Pictured: not a data containment vessel.

What actually exists are individual computers, and groups (sometimes called "server farms") of computers. Each of those places - call them a "node" for simplicity of jargon - contains something. Like a tank filled with some finite, limited, but interesting knowledge.

Or cat pictures.

Or Tumblr.

Whatever.

Those nodes are connected to one another by...

...

...A series of "tubes." Most often, these "tubes" are in fact fiber-optic cables, connecting two separate networks together; they're often less than a foot long.

Back up. What the hell is a network, then?

Well, it's several nodes, all linked together.

For example: if you're at a college, all the computers at that college, or a large portion of them, are linked together. That's a network.

In order for that network to be connected to "the internet," somewhere on that college campus is a box - or a rack of little boxes - called "routers." Their entire job is to figure out where incoming and outgoing data traffic is supposed to go; kind of like a super-fast system of...

...well...

...tubes...

Look, you've been to a bank drive-up window, right?

You know how you have the little container, and you stuff your check, ID, whatever, into it, shove it into the tube, and hit a button, and it goes away? This is what happens when you computer asks for information. That can be a song on iTunes, an ebook, a website, whatever, but your computer puts the request in a container - called a "packet" - and fires it off to the other end of the tube.

The router is a midpoint; it sorts all the containers to make sure they're in the right tubes.

Pictured: what a router does.

Now, at each network border, there's a router, or a series of them (depending on the amount of traffic,) which creates a route - thus the name - for your information, both outbound and inbound.

This happens really, really, really fast.

As in, your at-home little wimpy "router" from Comcast does this as many times a minute as the entire U.S. Postal Service manages in a whole year and then some.

Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with neutrality. We'll get there, I promise.

But back to the college campus...

The college - University of Downloadistan, whatever - pays someone, some company, to connect their campus network to the rest of the world.

To the student, this is transparent; they don't see any of the infrastructure, just the effects.

They click a link, a page loads.

But what really happened, was they clicked a link, their computer closed up the container with the info request, sent it to the college router. That router sent it on to the internet provider's router, which sent it on to another network router, which passed it along to another...

...ad nauseam, until the packet finally arrives at a computer that actually contains the web page the student wants; that computer opens the packet, takes the ID and check, stuffs the website data in, and sends it right back to the student.

Now, as the packet passes through each router, the router adds or updates the routing information on it; kind of like a dynamic mailing address, so that the data knows how to go back home after its hot date.

So, the student clicks, and within instants, the website is loaded and the student is none the wiser, not realizing that the data involved traveled in some cases literally thousands of miles to get there and back in the few seconds you were busy twiddling your thumbs waiting.

In doing so, it went through not one, but possibly hundreds, of individual networks - all connected by a series of tubes - to its destination.

Wait for it; we're getting the basics out of the way so the neutrality will make some sense, ok?

Now, if you're a private citizen, you most likely have an account with an ISP, or internet service provider. That would be Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Dish Network, Hughes, Verizon, AT&T, and some others.

What you most likely think you're paying for is an unlimited access pass to the collected sum of all human knowledge.

And cat pictures.

And porn.

And 4chan.

Pictured: 4chan.

Moving right along, what you're actually paying for is for the company in question to connect your computer to the series of tubes that connects all the other networks. The way that service is sold in the USA is by speed; the more you pay for, the fatter a tube you get. The fatter a tube you have, the more requests for information and gifs of dancing monkeys and Vine videos you can cram down it at one time, right?

Whoa there.

That's how it SHOULD work.

But only in a net-neutral world.

See, each of these networks has borders.

Pictured: not what those borders look like.

Information has a home; anything you're looking for is available for you to view, but it's stored in a physical place, even if you don't realize it.

Most of those physical places exist as individual networks.

Internet service providers, however, don't mostly have huge server farms like a university or corporation would; they have - drumroll please - you.

See, Verizon's "network," which has borders with the rest of the world's networks, consists of millions of individual people, each owning a computer.

In a net-neutral world, you ask for data; Verizon carries your request to the nearest border, passes it along to another network. Eventually, data comes back, and Verizon carries it to your house.

You pay Verizon to provide that service.

On the other end - somewhere - is a different network, run by a different company. Let's call them Level 3.

Now, Level 3 does the exact same thing Verizon does, except that their clients - instead of being single individual homeowners - are mostly corporations.

Netflix is one of those corporations.

So, in a net-neutral world, you open your browser, type in Netflix.com, and away goes your packet - through Verizon - to the border with Level 3. Verizon hands the packet to Level 3, Level 3 carries it to Netflix, Netflix refills the container with the webpage and sends it back; Level 3 carries it back to Verizon, Verizon carries it to you, you watch movies. Everyone is happy.

But... Wait.

Verizon ISN'T happy. Neither are Comcast or AT&T.

Pictured: a sad rich guy in a corporate boardroom.

They feel that their networks are being unfairly used - for the purpose that you specifically pay them to perform - because lots of data comes and goes from Netflix.

But that doesn't actually matter.

It's a cash grab.

Verizon and Comcast know that you don't know how this works. They're counting on it. They talk endlessly about it, because the more boring they can make it sound, the less attention you'll pay to it.

So they say that Level 3 is overloading their network by pouring so much data into it that it's slowing down connections for everyone else, because that border is getting congested.

You probably have a mental picture of the border between Verizon and Level 3 right now as some kind of Grand Canyonesque continental divide, a huge crevasse only bridged by a tiny rope bridge...

Pictured: What you probably think this looks like.

That's not an accurate picture at all.

Instead, the interconnection points between Verizon's network and Level 3's network are far more simple.

Pictured: network diagram of the Network Service Provider Internet Exchange Point in the Carrier Hotel in L.A.

Imagine a room roughly the size of a broom closet. Along one wall are two nearly identical metal frames, each holding several little flat metal boxes. Between those boxes are a series of cables, each about a foot long, connecting the sets of boxes together.

Not actually Level 3 and Verizon but you get the idea.

That's a network interconnection point. Level 3's border routers, connected to Verizon's, by about a foot of cable.

Now, they're congested; they're congested because they need more cables.

Verizon wants to charge Level 3, and Netflix, more money for the data that goes across those wires, because they're using an "unfair" amount of data.

But that data is there because you - paying Verizon customer - paid them to go get it for you.

And they know they can't simply demand more money from you for that service, so they're trying to make it look like Netflix is owned by unreasonable dicks, so you'll think of them as the bad guy.

Charge Netflix more, Netflix has to raise prices, which YOU have to pay.

Hmmmmmmm...

So, Verizon is trying to charge a company you already pay for the data, to carry the data you pay Verizon to carry.

Hmmmmmm.

Well, it's because there's some huge expense involved in upgrading, right? After all, it's not really fair to expect Verizon to assume all the expense of upgrading their service to actually support the demands they charge their customers to satisfy, right?

Sorry, that was overly sarcastic.

I meant to say that since Verizon already charges you to carry data at a specific speed, it's unfair to demand that they carry data at the speed they charge you for, because that data has to come from someone else like all the other data on the internet, but because it comes from Netflix it's made of sucks and bags of coal and ass cancer, and therefore hurts Verizon more to carry it, or something...

I wish I was kidding, but that's actually what Verizon is claiming...

...But wait, that's obviously bullshit, because...

...Level 3 offered to pay for the upgrades to the Verizon routers. Openly said "we will buy you the equipment, just plug in more goddamn cables," and you know what Verizon said?

"No."

Because their goal is NOT to provide you the service you pay them for, you see? Their goal is to profit off you on as many levels as possible. If Verizon launches a streaming video service - kinda like Comcast's "Xfinity" service - and they're competing against Netflix, they're going to lose.

But if they launch, and THEIR service is super, super fast, and Netflix is slow as hell - because Verizon is intentionally slowing down the traffic from Netflix so that their service looks better, despite the fact that you pay them to bring it to you - they win, and get your monthly service fee AND a subscription fee!

Yay, double-dipping!

If you feel like this is pretty epic douchebaggery, you're entirely right.

If you've read my articles before, you know what I'm gonna say:

But Wait, There's More!

See, it's not just that the villainous douchenazis at Level 3 have offered to pay Verizon's way through the congested links, no; as it turns out, Netflix actually provides - free - a service called the Open Connect Content Delivery Network.

What's that, you ask?

Well, it's the reason that Netflix doesn't experience slowdowns and congestion anywhere on planet Earth except the United States.

Because Netflix provides ISPs servers, containing Netflix data - big containers full of movies, you see - which can be plugged directly into the ISPs own networks, thus avoiding border disputes entirely.

And most of the major ISPs on Earth outside the United States have made deals with Netflix to do this.

Only in the United States do the ISPs have such sway over our governance that they can convince the government to let them even pretend their refusal to provide the service you pay them for is legitimate.

Net neutrality is the rule that says all ISPs have to treat data the same regardless of source.

If you don't have it, the ISPs get to not only refuse to provide you the service you pay them for, but they get to screw you out of extra money besides.

Now if you've read my articles before, you know what I'm gonna say:

But Wait, There's More!

Ever seen a Verizon ad? Or a Comcast ad?

In recent years, the primary thrust of their advertising has been to highlight their ability to provide the fastest, best streaming video service. Both companies loudly tout the ability of their networks to stream video onto any device you own, all over your house, or your neighbor's, or at McDonald's, wherever, because they're awesome.

Both companies also cap data. Both companies have made public statements to the fact that they want to change from a speed-based sales model, to a quantity-based model.

You want to know why?

Because they can charge you way, way, way more if they can charge you for the data, after you're hooked on streaming video services. Video streaming, especially at HD resolution, takes an enormous amount of data, thus the relevance of the speed of your connection; if you're trying to consume huge quantities of data, in the form of movies online, you need fatter tubes.

So they advertise fat tubes. (Look here to see how often Verizon and Comcast talk about their speed.)

Which they intentionally are trying to avoid giving you, specifically so they can gouge you for even more money.

Comcast earned roughly 1.8 billion dollars in net profit - that is, what they have left to throw in the Scrooge McDuck vault after they pay all their bills - in the first quarter of 2014. That adds out to not quite 8 billion dollars in profits expected this year.

Verizon made $11 billion in 2013.

AT&T made $18 Billion in 2013.

Do NOT let these companies snow you into thinking they're as broke as you are.

They're not.

And they're trying to avoid providing the service you specifically pay them for, despite other companies offering to help them overcome the technological hurdles they face utterly free of charge.

Understand that they're trying to steal from you, without your realizing it.

And don't let them succeed.