When Smoke gets in your eyes! Kids are suffering
By John Amato Wednesday Oct 24, 2007 7:57pm
My heart goes out to the people that have lost their homes or have been slammed by burning embers. Ash has darkened the sky---it's hard to breathe and outside it looks like a day time eclipse.
Joe Gandelman, from The Moderate Voice has been doing a lot of good down in San Diego. He's a professional ventriloquist and has been entertaining kids down there to ease some of the tension..Tell him thanks if you stop by his blog. My eyes have been burning for three days now and I feel like I have the flu, but that's not a big deal. Unfortunately, it's starting to have an impact on a lot of kids too...
Particulates are microscopic pieces of soot, smoke, dust or other materials capable of lodging deep in lungs.---Travis Henson, an emergency room physician at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the northeast San Fernando Valley community of Mission Hills, said larger-than-normal numbers of patients with asthma, chronic bronchitis and emphysema had shown up this week. Henson said he noticed a relatively high number of children with cold symptoms and respiratory problems. Some of these young patients, he said, "maybe have never had asthma before."
Meanwhile, the sickos at Blackwater are using the fires as propaganda...
It seems that some right wing nuts are blaming "environmentalists for the blaze.
Commentator Mary Mostert, on the conservative Web site RenewAmerica.US/ tries to blame the Sierra Club and forest-preservation policies for California’s wildfires. She writes: “It has been known for many years by those actually involved in the forests that the Sierra Club policies which became public policy in the 1990s under Bill Clinton, would cause exactly the kinds of fires we are now experiencing...read on
Here's a few places to check out if you want to help:
–Network for Good: A blog that gives you links to groups where your donations can be put to immediate use.
–U.S. Program of International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC)
–The Los Angeles Times offers THIS VITAL PAGE with lots of info on how to help.
The LA Times has much more...
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If you can't drown it in the bathtub, the thugs would be just as happy burning it to cinders on the grill.
so blackwater wants to be a private army in the USA. Wonder why they broke up the black panthers years ago. Co-incidence fire start right where Blackwater wants to build. Portero California
You know, if we could just turn the entire world into one giant parking lot, there would be no more wildfires.
John, take care of your health. Maybe get out of town for a few days. Go to a spa in Arizona or something.
I live in San Diego near Sea World. There is nowhere to get away from the soot and smoke. The day it happened many of us started talking about our gut feeling that something was strange.
The "Santa Anas" are name for the mountain range over which the hot desert winds blow from Nevada and Utah. If you lived in LA or San Diego very long you know it is a regular event lasting a few days. In Hollywood it actually blows the smell of incredible night blooming Jasmine onto the strip.
But this is the suspicous part. The day the Santa Anas began, suddenly we had a 250 miles fire from the Mexican border to Malibu WTF??? The very last guilty party on my list would be any "terrorists" of any sort.
We all know about false flag events or slight of hand. Think about what is going on in our world and draw your own conclusions. The fires now have the media's attention and we ask, where else should we be looking? What bills are being passed? What events in other parts of the world need our focus.
While it is really horrible to have loss of life and property we are so self absorbed that we forget that for years we have bombed Iraq into the dark ages, killed over a million citizens and every day in Iraq is like the past few in San Diego. Their skies are full of gun smoke, jet and helicopters who want to kill them, not save them.
This isn't our father's world anymore and we must be vigilant about what is going on out there.
Monday morning I happened to be passing 3 Department of Homeland Security labeled buses (two shaded, one not), Homeland Security labeled white Ford Van, white HS Ford SUV and white HS Crown Victoria driving behind them. Direction: Eastward!
I almost blocked that white motorcade and asked them to make a fuc***g U-Turn since the California fires were in the opposite direction, barely 200 miles away. I thought that these guys function so when the tragedy happens, they can do their goddamn duty, not run from it with all their hi-tech tools inside. Well, your tax dollars at work I suppose.
Out of simple civic duty, here’s the location if you’d like to call the authorities and make a complaint against the Homeland Security. Google Earth comes in handy.
Time: 10/22/07
33degrees27’45.11”N
112degrees12’57.39”W
Elevation: 1049Ft
Time: 10:50AM
Speed: 60mph
Necadawg @ 2:
Naw, no coincidence there- hell- that's conspiracy theory stuff, I mean, come on, I, I,I, SpUtTeR,gAsP!!
I'm hearing reports that at least 2 of the fires are suspected arson.
Did you know that some of the vegetation in that region actually depends on forest fires?
If there were no more fires, the Sequoia, for example, would likely become extinct.
Fires make fertile soil. This is why sod farms burn their fields off.
I guess if we let the logging industry cut everything down, the lack of oxygen might just be enough to stop all fires, period.
Then we can deal with the resulting mudslides instead.
Mother Nature is a bitch sometimes, hell, so is mine.
But i love her anyway.
GonzoD @ 8:
they actually shot and killed one "suspect".
I live in San Diego and I must say I was worried with the preznut coming to town today that blackwater wouldnt be far behind. I heard from a co-worker(who is a repub) , who heard it from a friend who is a border patrol agent, that the Harris fire was started by a group of illegals whose campfire got out of control with the strong winds. I have not heard this reported in any local news outlets.
I can certainly see how blackwater could try to spin that as a reason to let them build their training base in Potrero. I dont want blackwater anywhere near me, unfortunately San Diego with a large number of conservatives and the heavy military presence...well I'm not too hopeful that they wont get their way.
First Schwarzhisname blocked the seismic redo of the Bay Bridge (until the legislature forced it back on track).
Then after the catastrophic arson fires of 2003 right after he came to power by vote-fraud (outed in Alameda -- no computer tabulator in the state had legal software in it), he failed to:
1) Start program for logging out beetle-killed tinder dry trees, which account for something like 1/3 of all trees in the forests of OC and SD, where the fires have been so intractable and destructive. Not surprising -- unlike most SCal wildfires (and I've seen a bunch), which generally move slowly, once you have these bone dry trees, their stems and branches and leaves all EXCELLENT first fuel, burning like white hot torches, no fire can be extinguished without
2) Failed to buy any aerial fire equipment for the state's KNOWN wildfire problem (see 1). Failed to lease additional aircraft, even though the drought condition made massive fires inevitable.
3) Took a lot of money from developers and home builders. Too bad they won't make any money on these disasters, eh?
4) Failed to call for the National Guard to be returned to the state, and failed to protest the depletion of NG resources, trucks and other transports especially. All that stuff is in Iraq STARTING fires, not here where it should be, stopping them.
5) Schwarzhisname has fought fire fighters and nurses and teachers the whole way down the line. No wonder he doesn't listen to their needs.
I never thought I'd see a governor worse than Reagan, Deukmejian, or Wilson. Turns out every Republican governor has been and will be a gigantic asshole, not that I'm surprised.
The destruction of SD and OC is a real historical force that could bring a Republican call for Bush (and possibly S.) to resign or be impeached.
Chris @ 11 "I dont want blackwater anywhere near me, unfortunately San Diego with a large number of conservatives and the heavy military presence...well I'm not too hopeful that they wont get their way.
It's not the choice of SD residents per se. So don't abandon hope -- we're still fighting it, and, if you think about it, these fires show very well why it would not be a good idea to have GONZO weapons training going on in the forest.
Brock Samson @ 9:
It's certainly true that CHAPPARAL plants require fire to reseed or reset. But these catastrophic fires in SD and OC are mostly in the PINE FORESTS, which do not have that requirement (for the most part).
A few big coned pines need fire to split open the cones. But these are not those. The cause of these fires has been an active refusal to remove such OBVIOUS disaster fuel from the forests in time.
Rapepublicans don't abate risks. They position themselves to profit on the failure to abate them.
Paul in LA: I wont abandon hope just yet and from what I know most Potrero residents are opposed to the base. Its just everyday I wake up, and it feels like the monkeys have taken over the zoo! So I guess it makes me a more pessimistic than I would like to be.
George_Metesky @ 7:
Now they don't have to clear any brush!
Chris @ 15:
Add to your list of hopes that the site is now in a Democrat's district, Filner, and he is alert and working on blocking this illegal foreign/private military base on California soil. Senator Boxer, who heads a Senate committee with power to possibly block, has mentioned the possibliity of extending the neighboring protected wilderness area to encompass the site.
So it's not entirely falling through the cracks. Btw, though few here will tell you, Speaker Pelosi has broken the Congressional record, now, with more than 1,000 rollcall votes in one year. She's working hard to notch some wins, but the Senate is the main problem.
the CEI thugs are flooding the airwaves
This is really a sad event and for George Bush to try to politicize it is just one of the sickest schemes in his presidency.
In case people are not really tuned in on the sick game he is playing with disaster . The ass hole is attempting to lock in on the 54 electoral votes that California has to offer, but he has another thing coming if that is in fact what he thinks.
California is my home state and I can say they are not now, nor have they ever been stupid enough to go for the bull shit coming from this administration.
I hope they take advantage of all the goodies this bastard is shoving their way and in the end give his ass the finger
This administration has put California through hell for not supporting his miserable candidacy and one thing that comes to mind is the big fat oil deal that Gov. Arnold and Big Dick Cheney screwed them with that has never been rectified. Second is the Black Box Voting Machines, used to screw us out of a real Governor and end up with the ass grabbing bastard we now have in office.
They are barking up the wrong tree with this disgusting plan and they are up to no good as with everything else.
blackwater is the coming army that bush/cheney will use to shove their illegal authority on the american public when they(bush/cheney) decide to take over the U S govt in a coup. call this a conspiracy theory, but be real, look closely at what bushco has already done to shread the constitution and set themselves above the law.
these bastards will do whatever they want to stay in office, just you watch. and those of you who might agree on some level, it's time to take a stand and follow the second amendment of the constitution to remove this tyrannt.
dadams @ 20:
I think it's clear that WAS the plan, yeah. But Blackwater is in serious danger of collapsing, with their brainchild going to federal pen over his tax evasion, if not all his abetting of murder and stuff.
They already took over the US gov't in a coup. That's on its way to a close. Republicans are fleeing the sinking ship, and the smell of the fishhead rotting makes the candidates say they have headcolds.
There were several bright spots in the SoCal inferno story:
1. The illegal aliens who coagulated in the Qualcom parking lots throwing tailgate parties from the trunks of their 60's Chevvies had an endless supply of baked crickets.
2. Many of the above had their first tastes of Cristal champagne as they claimed their shares of the $30K bundles FEMA was handing out to 'refugees of the fires'.
3. One twenty-three member family of the above successfully claimed they were 'burned out of their home' because the younger daughter dropped her crack pipe in the backseat of the Chevvie she and her 'amor' were balling in while it was parked next to the outhouse on the avocado ranch the family was looting, causing their Chevvie 'home' to burn down to the hubcaps.
4. This may not be a 'bright spot', depending upon which side of the illegal alien/contributing immigrant controversy you fall on, but as soon as the word of the bonanza the fires created reached Nogales and Tijuana, the proposed border fence locations were trampled five to six feet deeper into the ground, by the hoards of new 'Immigrants', causing Chertoff to have to reopen the no-bid contract he had awarded to that Tel Aviv firm, increasing the height of the fence by twelve feet. (And if you thought the Iraq war was expensive, wait'll we get this bill)
I knew it was Clinton's fault!
The stupid Reslugs are to blame for burying their heads in cow shit and ignoring global warming.
Remember Reslugs only care about the fetus and absolutely abandon the child after it's born. They spit on the children and victims affected from this terrible fire.
Here's what the republicans at work told me.
1) the fires are good because the smoke will decrease global warming and
2) the fires are good because they will create new jobs.
The lack of compassion for the people and the magnitude of the cost and suffering is totally beyond their egocentric world.
I notice this morning on MSN.com (the web homepage that comes with Windows) there is not one single item about the fires or the war(s). It's like a fucking People Magazine. America - land of the brainwashed airheads.
Rusty Shackleford @ 23:
According to Faux News, it's Al Quaida's fault.
Limp-Dick Blimpaugh @ 25:
Life only has a value before birth, yes. That does not cost anything. Taking care of children, youth, soldiers, sick people and the elderly? Now that's expensive! If they did that, then how do you expect them to keep the war going? If they can't keep the war going, then how are they supposed to make the big bucks?
hmmph...
you'd think the EPA or the *CDC* would mention that merely wearing a surgical mask would help immensely as far as helping to prevent people from getting permanent lung damage from the smoke. like the 9/11 rescue workers who weren't told by Whitman the air was "bad".
as some diseases take many decades to arise from such exposure, young children are most at risk for having long term negative physical consequences from the exposure.
we could take a lesson from the Japanese, who've seen in news reports have no problems providing masks when there are air quality emergencies.
oh, but wait, this is bush' America.
the Santa Ana winds were reported to be trending as stronger and longer over the years per weather data collected and are thought to be a symptom of global climate warming.
***entering bush' "brain" mode
ohhhh nononono. can't have that.
not in my..not in bush' America. i didn't decide it so it can't be right.
giving masks to the kids at least would be too much like socialism...the rotten li'l kid pinkos. and what about that climate change stuff too? can't have that. why we'd have to *believe in it then and plan ahead for the contingencies*. no...far better to say climate change will provide *benefits*. yeah. that's the ticket. then we can diss gore (hate gore must hate gore...he reads books and gets Nobel Prize), and we can disavow global warming *and* save a bundle of my precious time by not having to take the fires seriously 'cause there *is* no global warming. (my big oil pals and dick told me so)
so i can act all "i might come or i might not" disinterested and stuff.
that's me.
Mr. calm.
i don't have to even think about stuff if it doesn't directly affect me.
i decided that long ago.
***exiting bush mode
phooey.
decide this.
compassionate conservatism and conservation my butt.
Shutdown Blackwater. The nerve of these SOBs.
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