October 25th, 2007 — medical, PSA
From the article:
In the United States people are often surprised when they learn that a person who is not African American has sickle cell disease. The disease originated in at least 4 places in Africa and in the Indian/Saudi Arabian subcontinent. It exists in all countries of Africa and in areas where Africans have migrated. The transatlantic slave trade was largely responsible for introducing the sickle cell gene into the Americas and the Caribbean. However, sickle cell disease had already spread from Africa to Southern Europe by the time of the slave trade, so it is present in Portuguese, Spaniards, French Corsicans, Sardinians, Sicilians, mainland Italians, Greeks, Turks and Cypriots. Sickle cell disease appears in most of the Near and Middle East countries including Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Yemen. Sickle-cell in the western part of Saudia is similar to the type that shows up in Africa however, the type of sickle-cell in Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia is called the “Indian” sickle-cell mutation and is thought to have been introduced from/to the sub-continent via ancient maritime trade routes hundreds of years ago.
Ironically, another study claims the reason sickle-cell has spread across so many diverse populations has everything to do with MALARIA. They propose that because people with sickle-cell are protected from malaria, they lived longer than their sickle-cell-free brethren in areas with high incidences of malaria enabling them to reproduce more thus, passing on their malaria-free though, sickle-cell tainted blood to their children. Judging by pictures like this of old Al-Hassa and how my house is filled with mosquitoes every winter during the “wet” season, I can go along with this theory as I imagine malaria used to be a big problem here.
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October 25th, 2007 — political correctness, leftist-jihadist convergence, cartoon censorship, YouTube, smiley, counterjihad, privacy, culture wars, immigration, U.S. law, blogging
Free Speech on Campus Takes Another Hit
Emory:
GWU:
Wisconsin:
Elsewhere in Wackademia:
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (IFAW) has certainly brought out plenty of barking moonbats from the infamous leftist/jihadist convergence:
Stein hoist to Jenn Sierra and to Terp Mole on LGF!
Bad News in the EU
Murder - The Ultimate Censorship
Cartoon Censorship
Privacy and Freedom of the Press
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IN YOUR FACE! FURIOUS PUBLIC BACKLASH FORCES COUNTY ATTORNEY ANDREW THOMAS TO DROP CASE AGAINST NEW TIMES.
Your opinion, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, makes a difference! Although Arpaio remains in office, the prosecution has backed off on this abusive venture. (See Tinpot Tyrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio Invades YOUR Internet Privacy for background.)
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Denmark: Defending Free Speech in the Mainstream Media
Yes, it can be done; this article shows how!
It has been said from time to time that Islam-critics are kept out by a ‘Media Wall’, barring certain viewpoints from the Mainstream Media.
My experience doesn’t substantiate this. Over the last 2½ years, I had something in the league of 150 letters printed in the largest mainstream newspapers. My ‘hit rate’ varies wildly, but has at times been hovering at 60-70 %, well above the average of around 30 % in Danish papers.
“But that’s Denmark, and you guys are special.”
Might be. But a dozen of those letters were printed in International Herald Tribune, which is hardly a Danish special case.
The take-home lesson is encouraging:
Your time and effort is well spent when you write or blog to raise public awareness about threats to our First Amendment rights, or when you write, call, or email to protest against infringements on these rights.
Media Disinformation
Flooding both the blogosphere and traditional media with disinformation is a de facto method of censorship, because it crowds out any attempt to get true information in front of the public. Those using search engines will see the baloney at the top of the list, and most people won’t bother to dig down to find the real information. This technique is well known to black-hat search engine optimization (SEO) and “reputation management” purveyors.
Stein hoist to Little Green Footballs!
“Fairness” Doctrine
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October 25th, 2007 — incident tracking, ecoterrorism, counterjihad, wildfire, disaster preparedness, trees
We have asked this question before:
Wildland Fires in Greece Blamed on Terrorism - Could it Happen in the US?
1389 Blog has been tracking this issue, and we will continue to do so as we await a more definitive answer.
Others are asking the same question too:
Anyone with information about the cause of the Santiago fire (Orange Co) is asked to call a tip line at (800) 540-8282. If you see something, say something!
Malicious motives:
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American Muslim: California Fires Are Allah’s Retribution on Infidels
An American Muslim in Charlotte, North Carolina, named Samir Khan, chimes in on the great is Allah punishing the infidels in California debate:
Most Muslims in America shy from discussing the natural disasters that occur to America especially in light of Allah’s anger. They get this strange idea somehow that Allah’s wrath and anger has nothing to do with the great natural disasters…..
1389 wants to know: Has the FBI gotten around to asking Samir Khan and his associates just how much they know about who set those fires in California?
Past evidence of arson and pyroterrorism:
Other Factors:
Are drought and dry winds to blame?
The answer? Yes, but only up to a point. Drought provides the dry fuel for widespread fires, but it doesn’t provide the trigger that ignites the actual flames. Of course, there’s always room for research to improve the state of the art in firefighting, and for organizational improvements to deploy firefighting resources as efficiently as possible. But none of that explains what ignited the fires in the first place!
Population, terrain, and fuel:
In densely populated areas, more homes and other buildings are exposed to destruction by fire. It is also more difficult to evacuate threatened areas, to protect existing structures, to create firebreaks, and to do controlled burns to remove the dry fuel that allows wildland fires to go out of control.
- Homes Spared, Lost in Fires’ Random Destruction
- The Great Divide - Man and Nature: Learning Brushfire Lessons From America
With bushfire season fast approaching, a contingent of Australian and New Zealand firefighters have recently returned from North America, where they took lessons from their counterparts in managing extreme bushfires.
The Department of Sustainability and Environment’s Richard Teychenne was a member of the group who journeyed from Canada, down the west coast of the USA and into Mississippi, in the south.
“The tour went for about 32 days, we travelled about 60,000 kilometres, took about 16 flights, three bus trips and ended up back at home about a week and a half ago,” Richard told ABC Gippsland’s Gerard Callinan this morning.
. . .
He said issues of population also hampered American firefighters’ ability to conduct fuel-reduction burns in fire-prone areas.
“With a population of over 300 million, compared to Australia’s population over 20 million, the issues that they are facing is how can they actually do fuel reduction burning?”
“In LA they haven’t done burning in two years,” Richard said.
- Fox News Reports, Networks Ignore Consequences of Not Clearing Brush
Fox News, just as Glenn Beck previously, picked up on an observation that the rest of the mainstream media largely ignored: brush left in place under environmental groups’ pressure fueled much of the fires in southern California.
Copycat arson or accidental fires:
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Officials: Boy with matches started fire
According to the article, this particular individual has admitted to starting the Agua Dulce fire, which consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes.
There were numerous separate fires in California; no one is suggesting that all of them were ignited in the same way. One possibility is copycat crime, which is likely whenever high-profile lawbreaking has been reported or even suspected.
In addition, when weather conditions facilitate the rapid spread of fire, it’s all too easy for someone to lose control of a small bonfire or debris fire that was never intended to spread. One carelessly tossed cigarette butt or match can be enough to start a major fire.
Innovations on the horizon?
More Fire News and Information:
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