Africa: " Dream coins for the fountain or to cover your eyes "

Press TV reports

US using Ebola to advance its imperialist agenda in Africa: Azikiwe

The United States is using the epidemic of the Ebola virus to advance its imperialist agenda in West Africa, a civil rights activist and journalist in Detroit says.

Azikiwe is talking shit. I would suggest the so called "civil rights activist " is using the Ebola nightmare occurring in West Africa to advance his personal agenda, quite how denying the Ebola victims and those at risk of becoming victims assistance from America does that is beyond me on a moral level. Clearly Azikiwe has a domestic USA goal and doesn't give a shit how many African lives are lost due to his political gamesmanship.

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday while commenting on President Barack Obama’s announcement that the US military will be involved in tackling the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, arguing that it represents a serious national security concern.

The US military are probably the best organisation in the world to react to this. No they are not doctors but they understand bio-warfare in a way no other military or civilian organisation does. Sure lets get as many health professionals as we can on the ground but that is an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. We stop Ebola by stopping human interactions. It is brutal and without humanity it is also the only way.

"I believe this is just another means for the United States military intelligence’s deeper penetration of the African continent. Already the United States has military presence in Libya, in Sierra Leone, as well in the west African state of Nigeria, all of which have been... impacted by the epidemic of the Ebola virus,” Azikiwe said.

That statement is worthy of a Darwin Award, next the fool will be arguing that the USA perpetrated the Ebola outbreak. Idiots like this often forget the logistics.

"The only way in which this disease can be tackled is through the proliferation of medical personnel, trained doctors, nurses, the development of the field hospitals and clinics, and it’s through this process that the disease can be arrested," he added.

The best way of tackling it is to reduce to a minimum human interactions. Bodies of the dead need to be disposed of in such a way that the dead can't infect the living. Doctors and nurses are not trained in this way. 

"The reason why this disease is having such a traumatic impact on Africa... is the fact that there are not adequate healthcare facilities in these various countries -- adequate research facilities -- so this disease can be tackled both through research as well as through medical treatment," the civil rights activist noted.

The reason this virus is killing is that it is a virus we have no immunity too. If it escaped into the population in New Zealand it would kill at the same levels it does in Africa. Has this fool never heard of AIDS ? Research by all means, there is no proven medical treatment available therefor you isolate. I hate the TINA ( There Is No Alternative ) theory but it is our best option and AFRICOM is probably the best placed outfit to oirganise this.

"This treatment will be designed to contain a virus and also to eliminate it. But it's not a military solution, it's a medical solution, and the medical solution is definitely related to the lack of the development, the lack of resources inside the region," he stated.

"...and the medical solution is definitely related to the lack of the development, the lack of resources inside the region," I am not arguing with the fact that third world health is a bloody disaster it is. I just don't see that that is a reason to sign up to a suicide pact. This clown reminds me of Jim Jones.

"Jonestown" was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project formed by the Peoples Temple, an American religious organization under the leadership of Jim Jones, in northwestern Guyana. It became internationally notorious when on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement, at the nearby airstrip in Port Kaituma, and in Georgetown, Guyana's capital city.

"The Ebola cases that have been sent to the Unites States for treatment have gotten very positive results. That is directly related to the level of medical facilities and healthcare professionals [in the US] that can address this issue," Azikiwe said. "But it's not a military issue, it's a medical issue, and the medical issue is definitely related to the question of development in West Africa."

Bullshit. Just watch the footage. The Ebola victim got out of the ambulance and walked into the clinic. He was not suffering from Ebola.

"[T]his is the only way of which there will be a long-term solution for this crisis. The disease at this point is a threat for West Africa; but it's also an international threat because there's no way it can be contained strictly in the West African region," he emphasized.

Oh please save me from fucking stupid people. You contain it by using draconian measures. We are not signing up to a suicide pact.

He added that “there have been some cases in the northern region of Democratic Republic of Congo. Although they are claiming the outbreak is unrelated to the outbreak in West Africa, still we go back to the question of adequate medical facilities and adequate medical personnel.”

Well he clearly doesn't read this blog. Yes there have and isolation is and remains the only cure.

“So this is the real solution and [regarding] AFRICOM - the United States Army Command for the Africa Region - these military intuitions are not established for the purposes of healthcare. They are established for the purpose of carrying out the United States' imperialist foreign policy in Africa and this is just another mechanism for Barack Obama to move in that direction,” Azikiwe concluded.

I might suggest he has a look at AFRICOM a serious look. Then he might understand why I am laughing at him. 

Tanzania: " This is the dead land ....... Here the stone images Are raised "

The Smithsonian reports

This Alkaline African Lake Turns Animals into Stone

                                                                    A    Calcified Fish Eagle

Photographer Nick Brandt captures haunting images of calcified animals, preserved by the extreme waters of Tanzania's Lake Natron

In 2011, when he was traveling to shoot photos for a new book on the disappearing wildlife of East Africa, Across the Ravaged Land, photographer Nick Brandt came across a truly astounding place: A natural lake that seemingly turns all sorts of animals into stone.

All the photos are of birds. However it would seem all animals including mammals have this option of immortality. 

                                                                              A Calcified Buffalo

“When I saw those creatures for the first time alongside the lake, I was completely blown away,” says Brandt. “The idea for me, instantly, was to take portraits of them as if they were alive.”

                                                                             A Calcified Dove

The ghastly Lake Natron, in northern Tanzania, is a salt lake—meaning that water flows in, but doesn’t flow out, so it can only escape by evaporation. Over time, as water evaporates, it leaves behind high concentrations of salt and other minerals, like at the Dead Sea and Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

Why do minerals and Africa all ways seem to result in death.
" The Western world has for centuries nicked everything we could get our thieving hands on in Africa, including at our worst its people. From slavery in the past to Coltan today we have been complicit in the deaths of millions of Africans."

I guess we are off the hook for these deaths.

Unlike those other lakes, though, Lake Natron is extremely alkaline, due to high amounts of the chemical natron (a mix of sodium carbonate and baking soda) in the water. The water’s pH has been measured as high as 10.5—nearly as high as ammonia. “It’s so high that it would strip the ink off my Kodak film boxes within a few seconds,” Brandt says.

As you might expect, few creatures live in the harsh waters, which can reach 140 degrees Fahreinheit—they’re home to just a single fish species (Alcolapia latilabris), some algae and a colony of flamingos that feeds on the algae and breeds on the shore.

The Smithsonian should really know better than to publish such rubbish.

" In fact, Lake Natron's alkaline waters support a thriving ecosystem of salt marshes, freshwater wetlands, flamingos and other wetland birds, tilapia and the algae on which large flocks of flamingos feed."

Frequently, though, migrating birds crash into the lake’s surface. Brandt theorizes that the highly-reflective, chemical dense waters act like a glass door, fooling birds into thinking they’re flying through empty space (not long ago, a helicopter pilot tragically fell victim to the same illusion, and his crashed aircraft was rapidly corroded by the lake’s waters). During dry season, Brandt discovered, when the water recedes, the birds’ desiccated, chemically-preserved carcasses wash up along the coastline.

“It was amazing. I saw entire flocks of dead birds all washed ashore together, lemming-like,” he says. “You’d literally get, say, a hundred finches washed ashore in a 50-yard stretch.”
At the risk of sounding really gruesome, I would love to have a specimen.  

                                                                                  A Calcified Bat

Over the course of about three weeks, Brandt worked with locals to collect some of the most finely-preserved specimens. “They thought I was absolutely insane—some crazy white guy, coming along offering money for people to basically go on a treasure hunt around the lake for dead birds,” he says. “When, one time, someone showed up with an entire, well-preserved fish eagle, it was extraordinary.”

I suspect that there would be a market for such curios I hope that Brandt pointed out the possible economic opportunities to the local people.


Just coming into contact with the water was dangerous. “It’s so caustic, that even if you’ve got the tiniest cut, it’s very painful,” he says. “Nobody would ever swim in this—it’d be complete madness.”

A very narrow perspective of an ecosystem.

For the series of photos, titled “The Calcified” and featured in this month’s issue of New Scientist, Brandt posed the carcasses in life-like positions. “But the bodies themselves are exactly the way the birds were found,” he insists. “All I did was position them on the branches, feeding them through their stiff talons.”

Hey it is his art and he can do what he wants. It is also bloody interesting.

The hard part:

Hat Tip : Whaleoil