UNICEF/WHO-Sponsored "Botched Vaccine Campaign For Measles Killed 15 Children"

Were the lives of fifteen little boys and girls who died unnecessarily "worth it" for the UN to push its goals of counting vaccines by the numbers, instead of by the person?

The UN/Feminists' continual push to vaccinate against low-fatality diseases without using proper facilities, personnel, and supplies in undeveloped or unstable areas that lack basic services or education, is misguided at best. And as NPR reports, has potentially deadly consequences.

In this case, a WHO/UNICEF program failed horribly, resulting in a Measles vaccine campaign where errors killed 5% of all who received the shots, and sickened 10% of recipients.

Malaka Gharib writes on June 2nd at NPR, in an article titled "A Botched Vaccine Campaign For Measles Killed 15 Children in South Sudan" :
"[Fifteen] children, all under age 5, died of severe sepsis and toxicity due to a botched vaccination campaign, according to a joint statement issued Thursday by UNICEF and the World Health Organization. ... In addition to the deaths, 32 children were sickened from the 300-person vaccination campaign in South Sudan. "
"...The vaccine had been left unrefrigerated. One syringe was reused over the course of four days.
"The campaign, which took place in early May in the rural town of Kapoeta, was part of an effort by the South Sudanese government to vaccinate 2 million children against measles. The vaccines were provided by UNICEF. The World Health Organization provided some training in how to administer the vaccines." .... "
"...Some reports are saying children as young as 12 years old were administering the vaccine.... "
 According to the CDC in 2015, "Worldwide, an estimated 20 million people get measles and 146,000 people, mostly children, die from the disease each year." That is less than 1/10th of 1%. Most sources cite a higher number of 3/10th of 1%: from 1 to 3 deaths per thousand of all those who fall ill. To give this some context, the mortality rate for measles is far below the Infant Mortality Rate for the United States of 6.9 deaths within 7 days of birth of each 1,000 babies born alive. The Infant Mortality Rate for South Sudan, from all causes, is more than 66 deaths per thousand.

Natural News reports:
"Measles continues to be a huge public health burden in South Sudan. In fact, United Nations (U.N.) data showed that nearly 3,000 people contracted the disease and 28 people died of the infection in 2016 alone. The data also found that 665 people have already been infected and at least one person died of measles so far this year."

With the Nachodokopele village tragedy, half as many people have been killed by UNICEF/WHO's bad planning for the vaccine in South Sudan as died of the disease itself last year.

But fear not! UNICEF/WHO will overcome, and will keep on treating poor children and their families as test subjects for their high "ideals".

From the statement issued by WHO/UNICEF on the deaths caused by their faulty anti-measles program:
"“Ministry of Health, WHO and UNICEF express our deep regret and sadness at the passing of the children. This tragic event could have been prevented by adhering to WHO immunization safety standards…Vaccination is one of the most basic and critical health needs in emergencies to protect populations from the risk of contracting deadly but preventable diseases. The risk of measles and other Vaccine Preventable Diseases in South Sudan remains extremely high because of the challenges being faced by the health system. The country has experienced significant measles outbreaks among unprotected population caused by a backlog of unvaccinated children in areas of insecurity,” a joint statement by the WHO and UNICEF read.

"The Ministry of Health has tapped a multi-agency administrative committee to assess the AEFI report and provide appropriate recommendations for further actions to improve immunization service delivery."

NPR interviewed William Moss, professor of epidemiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the head of epidemiology at the International Vaccine Access Center, and asked him "What went wrong?" Moss replied:
"South Sudan has been plagued by a civil war, conflict, famine and other outbreaks for three years. Measles vaccination campaigns are complex operations with logistical challenges — and this is a place with poor health infrastructure. That's not an excuse, but it provides some context in understanding how such a thing could have happened."

What did UNICEF hope to achieve by moving so aggressively, without strong ground support, in such a poor nation?

Infogalactic notes: "Measles vaccination programs are often used to deliver other child health interventions, as well, such as bed nets to protect against malaria, antiparasite medicine and vitamin A supplements, and so contribute to the reduction of child deaths from other causes. "

Obviously, in this case, these other interventions were not the objective.

Was this a pilot project to get indigenous people to administer the shots to their own communities? That is what it begins to sound like to me.

Why do the UN, WHO, and all sorts of NGOs think it is ok for them to experiment with people's lives in undeveloped countries of the world? Hmmmm?

Why do they think just handing an offhand apology makes it ok for them to continue on, with no added accountability, with their agendas even after they are responsible for such tragedy?

Remember these questions, the next time UNICEF sends those cute Christmas cards begging for our donations, and throw away their exploitive mailings.

Remember those fifteen little children from Nachodokopele village, and remember their parents, who deserve more than official "statements" or "expressions of deep regret" from elites who are living high while monetizing suffering as a fund-raising mechanism.

Those parents deserve to have their children treated with the same concern and care that would be used for children in the hometowns of UN officials and WHO doctors.

QOTD: Twenty Things President Trump Did Not Do

Mr Leo Decaj posted a comment on President Donald J Trump's Facebook page and asked that it be shared.  I shared it in a comment on Bill Quick's fine Deplorable Blog "Daily Pundit", and Bill liked it so well he pulled it up to a stand-alone post:

Twenty Things President Trump Did Not Do

Leo Decaj wrote: “Keep this in mind :

1. Donald Trump did not steal your money.

2. Donald Trump did not raise your taxes.

3. Donald Trump did not quadruple the price of food.

4. Trump is not stirring a race war.

5. Trump did not leave any US soldiers in Benghazi to be slaughtered and desecrated by Muslims.

6. Trump did not send the US Navy to fight for Syrian Al-Qaeda.

7. Trump did not arm ISIS and systematically exterminate Christians throughout the Middle East.

8. Trump did not betray Israel.

9. Trump did not provide financing and technology to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

10. Trump did not give our military secrets to China.

11. Trump did not remove our nuclear missile shield in Poland at the behest of Russia.

12. Trump did not shrivel our military, and betray our veterans.

13. Trump did not cripple our economy.

14. Trump did not increase our debt to 20 trillion dollars.

15. Trump did not ruin our credit, twice.

16. Trump did not double African American unemployment.

17. Trump did not increase welfare to a record level for eight years.

18. Trump did not sign a law making it legal to execute, and imprison Americans.

19. Trump did not set free all of terrorists in Guantanamo bay.

20. Trump did not steal your rights, violate US Constitutional law, or commit treason, hundreds of times.

Yet Trump is being ripped apart in the news, non stop. Barrack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton and the criminals occupying our government, are not. The media is the Democratic Party. Save our culture. Stop listening to them..!! 

He's right! 

Thank you, Mr Leo Decaj, for standing up for America, and for our truly elected "by the people" President, Donald John Trump!

Open Letter to the Cast of Hamilton

A theater company is not responsible for what the audience does, but the persons on stage are responsible for how they react to audiences. Twice this week, Nuclear Hillary Clinton's supporters have reacted with unprofessional cowardice to audience disapproval. In both cases, they have abused the power of the stage and microphone to lash out politically at people who only came and paid to see them give a recreational performance. These supporters of Hillary the WarMonger reacted to their own paranoid imaginings and beat up on people who did nothing to them.

Earlier in the week, comedienne Wanda Sykes cursed her audience with obscene language after some of them booed her inappropriate and unfunny political attacks on President Trump and Americans who voted for him. They came to see a comedy show to support a good non-partisan cause, but she wasn't willing to let them do that.

And now, after some audience members at the Broadway play "Hamilton" were so obtuse as to boo  Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence who was in the audience to see the play, the cast ignored their job, teamed up with the mob (power in deranged numbers) and lectured Mr Pence from the stage about how they are "diverse" and have "feelings" and want "protection".

The same kind of "protection" apparently, that they won't offer to people in their audiences who haven't done anything to harm them. The same kind of "feelings" that they ignore when it isn't someone they see in their dressing room mirrors.

We all have feelings. Adulthood is understanding that we are responsible for controlling our feelings, and maturity includes being self reliant enough to no longer need protectors,  nor group-membership for our self esteem. After witnessing the irrational mental breakdown and destruction and riots and violence against President Trump's supporters, perpetrated by deluded abusive bullies who didn't get their globalist way, my own feelings have developed with remarkable clarity:


Dear Cast of Hamilton,


We are Les Deplorables.  We. Don’t. Care.


Signed,

A sole member of the smallest minority on earth, for whom the Constitution was written to defend me against the fashionably violent tyranny of your diverse elitist bullying mob.




11/20/16 Update: "Little Steven" Van Zandt has rightly named this bullying, and used Twitter to call on the cast of Hamilton to apologize, saying, in part:

"Completely inappropriate. Theater should be a safe haven for Art to speak. Not the actors. He needs to apologize to Mike Pence"

"There has never been a more outspoken politically active artist than me. He was their guest. You protect your guests. Don't embarrass them."

"When artists perform the venue becomes your home. The audience are your guests. It is nothing short of the same bullying tactic we rightly> >have criticized Trump for in the past. It's taking unfair advantage of someone who thought they were a protected guest in your home."

"Nobody on this planet disagrees more with everything Pence represents. But I don't tolerate bullying in any form. Even the respectful kind."

"A guy comes to a Broadway show for a relaxing night out. Instead he gets a lecture from the stage! Not a level playing field. It's bullying."

"You don't single out an audience member and embarrass him from the stage. A terrible precedent to set."

"So because he's a public figure we should be rude to him and bully him at public events? I'm not the one who couldn't be more wrong on this."

I first heard of  "Little Steven" Van Zandt when he stood up against South Africa's legal segregation of races called Apartheid, recording the song "I Ain't Gonna Play Sun City". He is not exaggerating when he says he was politically active before most of the Hamilton actors were born.

Thanks to Steven for modelling professional, adult behavior to a group that apparently never learned the basics of their craft, or of how to live in the wide world.  It's obvious they need an elder statesman to guide them into genuine adult self-control.



.

An Open Letter To President Obama, On His Slander Against Americans

President Obama visited bankrupt Greece, apparently because Greece's government is tired of the "austerity measures" required to pay its debts and wants the EU Reich to write off the billions Greece owes.  While he was there, the has-been race-obsessed President took the opportunity to call Americans "racists" one more time, as reported by White House Correspondent Keith Koffler on White House Dossier, this time because we elected President Donald John Trump:

                 " In our globalized world, with the migration of people and the rapid movement of ideas and cultures and traditions, we see increasingly this blend of forces mixing together in ways that often enrich our societies but also cause tensions . . . Faced with this new reality where cultures clash, it’s inevitable that some will seek a comfort in nationalism or tribe or ethnicity or sect."

Since "open letters to" seem to be in vogue, here's my reply to President Obama, and all who slander anyone for rejecting the false song of globalism :

Dear President Obama,

We are Les Deplorables. We. Don’t. Care.

Signed,

A Natural Born Native Indigenous American Citizen, Daughter of God through Jesus Christ, whose ancestors have been here longer than most Indian Tribes, descended from old European Kings and Serfs, Indentured Servants and Oddlings, all the way back to Adam and Eve.

.

Naming The Enemy, Naming The Crimes

I've written before about the Left's corruption of our language. As Hillary Clinton takes her lies about the Alt-Right public in her never-ending deception road trip,  The Orthosphere takes this analysis a step further:

"Everyone knows the story of Babel. It’s right up there with the Flood. It doesn’t need explanation.

"Babel connotes a profane and impudent and mighty *tower,* a huge evil edifice, the central project of the civil authorities, engaging the efforts of the whole people, willy nilly, first enslaving and then confusing them. It connotes the catastrophe of unbridled hubris.

And, of course, the Babylonians too, like the Canaanites, practiced human sacrifice (almost everyone did, back then).

The discourse of our adversaries is famously incoherent. It is babble. And it is introducing a babble of diverse languages into our cities, as Babel seeks to reconstitute herself."

Who does the author say we are?

Daniel, who was possibly an intercedent to King Cyrus.



*Art: Daniel in the Lion's Den, painted by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), American painter

Is This Why The Unwarranted Hoopla Over Zika? FDA Approves Release of GMO Mosquitos Into the US

In addition to the $1.5 Billion in Scam Dollars the United Nations is holding out their hands for, of course.

The Obama Administration, the UN and the CDC have been eagerly pushing Zika-infected people across US borders as though the brief cold-like illness is not dangerous. Which, scientifically, it isn't. It has not been proven to cause any birth defects. It has not even been "associated with" any microcephaly outside of Brazil  - and Brazil is known to have an extremely high rate of babies born with microcephaly, due to several known, and a number of scientifically suspected causes - none of which are Zika.

From the article in The Guardian:

"A release of genetically engineered mosquitoes that it is hoped could help combat the spread of the Zika virus has been approved in Florida by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

"Oxitec, a spinoff from a project at Oxford University, was recently purchased by Intrexon, the corporation that produces non-browning “Arctic” apples and fast-fattening “AquaBounty” salmon. The FDA announcement nearly clears the way for it to release the mosquitoes in an experimental trial on Key Haven, a small island in the Florida Keys. One obstacle remains, however: the voters of Monroe County.

"In November, roughly 52,000 voters will decide if they want the trial to go forward. The referendum will not be legally binding, but most members of the elected Florida Keys mosquito control board have said they will abide by voters’ wishes. The trial has been hotly contested, with many residents vocally opposed to the mosquitoes’ release."

and:

"Whether Keys voters approve the mosquito, however, may eventually prove irrelevant. Oxitec is releasing the insects on a trial basis in Panama, Brazil and the Cayman Islands, and has applied for experimental release permits in Sri Lanka and India.

"Oxitec is developing another species of mosquito, the Aedes albopictus, Parry said. Like Aedes aegypti, it is capable of transmitting zika, dengue fever and chikungunya."

Meanwhile, there is a mounting and visible lack of evidence that Zika causes anything worse than the mild, brief illness it has been for 60 years.

The only sure thing is that the US government and the CDC were not and still are not worried about the emergence of a polio-related illness last summer called " enterovirus D-68 " that left more than 100 American children paralyzed, children who had been healthy a week earlier.

Was It Ben Rhodes or Susan Rice Who Made Up The Lies This Time?

I wonder whether it was Ben Rhodes or Susan Rice who made up the newest fiction to fool Americans and help the Democrats?  As Bill Quick points out, there is not one shred of evidence that Russia is behind the hacks or the email leaks. Not one. 

If it were true, and "the intelligence" really were so classified that the NSA (CIA/FBI/Homeland Security/Barney Fife) knew about it but couldn't tell even Congress, they would not be going public with it now to help the Democrats. 

Everyone who throws a rock and points at Russia yelling "Look over there", is trying to distract us from the hideous truth exposed by these emails.  

 If you are buying what the Democrats, the Republican Elites, the media, the #NeverTruth ers are selling.... you've been had.  

Malcolm Pollack, at waka waka waka, pointed us to a couple of eye openers about the facts. These aren't outliers. Professor Stephen F. Cohen is a mainstream REAL foreign policy expert. Specifically, he is  professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University.   

Zika Virus Claims Don't Pan Out: What Is Really Going On?

Is all of the Zika Virus hysteria just a marketing campaign to sell millions of new vaccines? It is looking more like a false alarm as every week goes by.

As weeks pass,  excess microcephaly cases have not appeared in other countries with Zika Virus outbreaks. If the hypothesis were correct, Columbia should be seeing hundreds of cases by now - but so far they are still within the usual range, according to PAHO WHO's latest update on July 7th.

In Brazil itself, the original thousands of cases turn out not to be associated with Zika after all.

So far, only 255 cases have been confirmed with laboratory data. An additional 1401 cases are cited as associated (but without any lab testing to confirm). A whopping 7,000 microcephaly cases in Brazil are confirmed to be due to other causes - in many cases unknown.

There is no commercial test for Zika, and Zika looks like its close relative Dengue in blood antibody tests, Only a few government labs can review blood samples, so "getting results takes weeks".

To put this in perspective, approximately 25,000 babies in the United States will be diagnosed with microcephaly every year. Some of these babies will grow and develop normally (nearly 90% of those with mild microcephaly will not have any deficits), and some babies born with normal sized heads will become microcephalic after injury or illness. Genetics also play a strong role. And much of the time, the cause remains unknown. Even the criteria for measuring microcephaly varies.

Yet the media campaign trundles on, and even has a new "ZikaCommunicationNetwork" website with "curated resources" for professional health workers that admits the unknowns:

"... to help health and development professionals minimize the spread of Zika and related negative pregnancy outcomes using four key strategies:

*Social behavior change communication (SBCC)
*Vector control
*Delivery of maternal and child health and family planning services
*Research and development

There are many unknowns about the effects of Zika on pregnancy outcomes. We do not know, if a pregnant woman is exposed to Zika, how likely she is to actually contract the virus. We do not know, if a pregnant woman is infected with Zika, how likely she is to pass it on to her fetus. And we do not know, if her fetus is infected, whether, or at what point in the pregnancy, the infection will result in birth defects."   

But here is the marketing part that gets used to fool the public:

"One thing we do know is that a couple of weeks ago, a baby girl was born in the U.S. with Zika and severe microcephaly..."

So there is the narrative, in which the South American mother deliberately traveled to the US after learning her baby was microcephalic and Zika-positive, is used as a trigger to blot out the lack of scientific evidence, to make us imagine this is a danger everywhere, and to persuade us that all cases of Zika result in severe brain defects.   Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has jumped at the chance to pressure Brazil and other Catholic countries to legalize child sacrifice, and is once again pushing their money-making agenda: the UNFPA asking for $10 Million from the US and other governments.

In the past few weeks, I've noticed that the word "microcephaly" is no longer being highlighted, there is a sort of pretense that Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) was the "real" problem all along, and babies born to women who had Zika Virus are said to have something undefined called "Congenital syndrome associated with Zika virus infection". Those are serious conditions, and it is important to be vigilant, but are these just more guesswork, without scientific underpinnings?  Only time will tell.

The troublesome things are not only that something is causing an increase in microcephaly - but  that Brazil's rate of microcephaly was already high.  Investigation of the true cause is being ignored.  Or is it? 

No big conspiracy, but epidemiological reality, according to medical investigators: nearly always, the cause of outbreak clusters is never discovered. Over time, myths and educated guesses fill in the vacuum as a substitute for real knowledge. That is the assessment of experts studying an ongoing epidemic of a similar, fatal birth defect called "anencephaly" in the Yakima Valley, Washington State:

"...investigating a birth-defects cluster is difficult, and often futile. It’s challenging to collect the data and even tougher to prove a cause, said Sever, the retired CDC birth-defects expert who lives in Seattle. “The problem with birth defects is that, with very few exceptions, there are no smoking guns,” said Sever."

In Brazil, some researchers say the incidence of microcephaly started climbing long before Zika made its appearance:

"Since 2012, Mattos’s team found, a strikingly large number of babies—4 percent to 8 percent—appeared to have microcephaly, according to the broadest definitions of the term. Additionally, the number of babies affected peaked in 2014, before Zika had been detected in Brazil.

"Another study of roughly 1,000 babies born in eight states in Brazil from July to December 2007 found the prevalence of microcephaly to be 2.8 percent. " 

There's also disagreement about what criteria to use in diagnosis, which can lead to disparate reporting. A 2009 study of the accuracy of reporting birth defects in Brazil found that microcephaly was under-reported by 75%. 

In addition to genetic conditions, malnutrition, use of alcohol or drugs during pregnancy, there are viruses that have long been known to contribute to microcephaly in babies. These include rubella - which both the USA and Brazil vaccinate against - and two other infections that have high rates in both the US and Brazil: Congenital toxoplasmosis, and Congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV).

The CDC has this to say about CMV:

"In the United States, nearly one in three children are already infected with CMV by age 5 years. Over half of adults by age 40 have been infected with CMV. Once CMV is in a person's body, it stays there for life and can reactivate. Most people infected with CMV show no signs or symptoms. However, CMV infection can cause serious health problems for people with weakened immune systems, as well as babies infected with the virus before they are born (congenital CMV).

"A 2009 study in Brazil found that fully 26.4% of all infants with congenital CMV were also microcephalic (22 out of 87). In this study, 1.8% of all babies were infected with CMV through their mothers.(confirmed in 87 out of 8047 infants).   55.2% of all mothers who had CMV also had other chronic conditions "

What is the CDC's recommendation to protect American mothers from CMV while pregnant? Is it for Congress to allocate a billion dollars for research? Is it to bring the mothers to the best research hospitals?  Nope. It is that "Regular hand washing, particularly after changing diapers, is a commonly recommended step to decrease the spread of infections, and may reduce exposures to CMV. "

The NIH goes further:  "Avoid kissing children under the age of 6 on the mouth or cheek.
Do not share food, drinks, or eating utensils with young children.  Pregnant women working in a day care center should work with children older than age 2½."

Here's the NIH's info on just how dangerous CMV is:

"Congenital CMV infection is the most common intrauterine infection in the United States with direct annual costs of over one billion dollars. The live birth prevalence of congenital CMV infection in the developed world is 0.6–0.7% . Of those infected, 10% are symptomatic as neonates  with the majority surviving the initial infection; however, greater than 90% develop long-term neurological [problems] including:
    .....hearing loss (unilateral and bilateral), mental retardation, cerebral palsy, and impaired vision..... Of the remaining 90% of congenital CMV infections, approximately 10–15% will later develop long-term neurological [problems]. 

Congenital CMV infection leads to an estimated 8000 cases of permanent neurologic disability annually. There are more cases of permanent disability due to congenital CMV than other, better 
known, congenital conditions such as Downs syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome and spina bifida."

So where's the big push to develop a vaccine for CMV?

Then there's Toxoplasmosis, a leading cause of microcephaly, hydrocephalus, vision loss, and other birth defects.  For 40+ years, on our first pre-natal visit, the doctor has said "don't empty the cat's litter box while pregnant. Get someone else to do that until the baby is born."  And that was that. No tests for it, no cautions, no offers of treatment. But as it turns out, Toxoplasmosis is very dangerous indeed.  An article at the NIH reports that the parasitic disease is the second leading cause of death from contaminated foods (the 4th leading cause of hospitalizations from same) in the USA.  They estimate that a million Americans are infected each year.

Studies show that the prevalence and virulence of the disease in Brazil is much worse.  One study found that as many as 14 babies out of every thousand are born with congenital toxoplasmosis, due to a 50% to 80% prevalence of infection among pregnant women.  In Guatemala, 11 babies of every thousand are affected, and in Mexico, as many as 3.4 per 100!

The NIH reports that a human vaccine has not been pursued. But promising attempts even to vaccinate *cats* have been discontinued due to lack of interest.

Those are only two out of a dozen preventable conditions that have long been known to cause much higher rates of microcephaly, vision and hearing loss, and other disabling birth defects currently being attributed to Zika Virus without any evidence. But no marketing campaign for them?

We know that it takes years or decades to ascertain the effects of emerging diseases. We know that the causes of sudden clusters are rarely ever discovered - unless the cause is a medicine or other controlled, artificial introduction to the environment.  So why the pretenses and misleading claims about Zika?

A few tidbits that may shed light:

Time Magazine has reported that for-profit companies are already at work "tweaking a vaccine that was originally developed for West Nile virus and they expect to launch a safety trial for it in September."   That was fast!

In blood tests, Zika Virus looks almost identical to Dengue Fever, and is transmitted by the same mosquito. The viruses are closely related. Coincidentally, several new Dengue vaccines are either already in large-scale trials or nearing the point. The Philippines plan to vaccinate 1 million children this year. Brazil is one of the countries introducing the vaccine this year as well. All of the UN/World Bank/WHO/Planned Parenthood groups have mobilized their fundraising arms to draw in financing for these new vaccine programs.

Orlando Nightclub Terror Attack Timeline Review: SWAT Has Become Too Risk Averse

Bringing everything together shows the shameful over-caution of SWAT leadership.  The first officers on the scene engaged the shooter immediately and cornered him. They were prepared to go in, finish him off and save lives but were ordered, no one knows why, to stay put and wait. Twenty minutes later, they were ordered to abandon their mission and leave the building, despite having the upper hand.

When heroes Gruler, Cornwell, Smith, and Backhaus left the building, SWAT was supposed to take over.

But SWAT did not act. The injured and hostages were left to fend for themselves.  One hundred armed police officers of various stripes sat outside that building for nearly three hours before they did anything more than the average grandmother would do.

And the average grandmother would not need to confer and plan and assess and wait for officials for hours before doing what she was equipped to do at the beginning, either.

Police and SWAT leaders' claims of concern about bombs do not stand up to the actual police incident reports, the reports of media on the scene, and the reports of survivors.  SWAT leadership is claiming "rescue" actions that were not police-assisted, or that were accomplished before  the full SWAT Team arrived , or didn't happen until hours later, and what little was done were low risk ventures.

When SWAT leaders did finally get around to doing something, the very thing their unit exists to do, they flubbed the whole thing. Their explosives didn't breach the wall, so they had to ram it with a truck.  They broke through in the wrong place - missed the bathroom completely, and broke into a hallway they could have just walked into from the front door, since the terrorist was holed up in the bathroom.

In three hours, with the nightclub manager on hand, SWAT leadership failed to confirm the locations of the rooms they needed to enter.

There's still no good explanation for why they waited, knowing full well that many hostages in the bathroom had already been shot and were barely clinging to life (at least one of whom died while they dithered), nor for why they finally decided to act after all.  The claim of his threat to put vests on hostages, given that he had already shot and killed so many, does not hold water.

Even after the terrorist was dead, SWAT leadership continued to delay treatment to the injured. Despite having a robot on hand, and knowing the terrorist was in the bathroom, they did not send the robot into the building until after they'd killed him and breached the other walls.   Once the robot was inside, they mistook a broken exit sign for an "explosive device" and further delayed paramedics from entering the building.

It's all on the public record:

[2:00 AM] The Guardian: Terrorist opens fire on the dance floor at Pulse nightclub, and people begin trying to escape.  "Burbano: “By the time it got to 20 to 30 rounds we were already trying to exit the side exitway behind the stage. It was very narrow. There was about 20 to 30 people trying to push themselves through a very small door and there was a huge gaping hole in the fence that looked like people had punched it and kicked it down."

"Imran Yousuf, 24, a bouncer and former Marine who served in Afghanistan, saw people pouring into the back hallway. No one was calm enough to unlatch the exit door.  "I jumped over to open that latch and we got everyone that we can out of there,” he told CBS News, estimating that 60 or 70 people got out that way."

"Hansen was at the bar. “The shooter came in through the front door and was shooting at the dancefloor and the bar,” he recalled. Hansen started crawling towards the club’s outdoor patio.
 Hansen reached the patio and, with others, pushed over a fence. "

"Gonzalez hid behind a bar until he was able to flee.

"Adam Gruler, an off-duty Orlando city police officer who was working security at Pulse that night, began to exchange fire with Mateen. Realising he was outgunned, he called for back-up.

"Gruler and the next ...officers to arrive on scene, Swat team members Scott Smith and Jeffrey Backhaus, went straight into the club and secured a large area where the first victims had been gunned down....."

[2:00 AM]  WNCN:  "Club-goer Rob Rick said it happened around, 2 a.m., just before closing time....  He estimated more than 100 people were still inside when he heard shots, got on the ground and crawled toward a DJ booth. A bouncer knocked down a partition between the club area and an area in the back where only workers are allowed. People inside were able to then escape through the back of the club. "

[2:02 AM]  Adam Gruler, an off-duty Orlando Police Officer who was working security at Pulse, immediately engaged the terrorist and called for back-up.

Belle Isle, Fla., Police Officer Brandon Cornwell, assisting a traffic stop when he heard the call, arrived "within 36 seconds" after hearing the dispatch.

Orlando Police Officers Scott Smith and Jeffrey Backhaus, who were patrolling nearby when they heard the call, were at the scene, pulling their own assault rifles and gear out of their trunks when Cornwell arrived.

The Washington  Post reported: "After an initial burst of fire between Omar Mateen and a security guard at the Pulse nightclub, a group of five or six police officers arrived on the scene within minutes, broke through a large glass window and entered the club."

"Cornwell estimated that “no more than two minutes” had elapsed since he and the other officers arrived, and they were now inside the club.

"Cornwell and the other officers immediately began “clearing rooms” one by one — not knowing if there was more than one shooter — and trying to locate the source of the gunfire. But fairly quickly — “within minutes,” Cornwell said — officers located Mateen in the bathroom area.

[2:05 AM ] CNN: "Patience Carter says the shooter enters the bathroom and shoots several people hiding there. People scream and scramble as blood flies. Then the gunman stops shooting."

Guardian: "For many who prayed the bathroom would provide refuge, it became a death trap. Mateen entered, barricaded himself in and carried on firing, reportedly laughing as he kept pulling the trigger."

WaPo: "At that point, [Cornwell] said, “we took up a tactical position by the bar standpoint in the middle of the club.” As he aimed his AR-15 assault rifle toward the bathroom door, he said, the shooting stopped. And it was then that the “15 or 20 minute” holding pattern began, he said.

"..... he and his fellow officers were [ordered] to hold their position rather than attempt to go into the bathroom after the shooter.

"He kept aiming, waiting for SWAT. More screaming. He and the other officers held their position, focused on the bathroom, where he could see “some movement inside,” he said.

[2:06 AM]  CNN:  Shooting victim Eddie Jamoldroy Justice texts his mother from a bathroom stall, asks her to call police.

[2:18 AM]  WaPo reports: The SWAT team was called in.

[2:20 AM]  The rescue team who confronted and cornered the terrorist is ordered to abandon their mission. Officer Cornwell, who was still aiming at the bathroom the terrorist was in, and who could see movement, reported: “We got word from higher up, and it was communicated to the OPD lieutenant that we needed to withdraw,” he said. “So we came back outside. And waited for SWAT. SWAT arrived. SWAT handled everything from there.”

"Outside, Cornwell said, he spent the next several hours helping  transport victims to ambulances. He arrived back at the Belle Isle Police Department on Sunday afternoon, his uniform and all his
equipment saturated with blood."

[2:21 AM] NYT:  911 log:"One woman, who called at 2:21 a.m., said her body was going numb.
For 24 minutes, the woman, who the log shows was 18, said everyone in the bathroom was injured and groaning in pain. "Just keeps saying I don’t want to die today,” the operator wrote. At one point, she was losing her eyesight and feeling in her body. “Just keeps pleading, please come to the bathroom,” the log says." At 2:45 a.m., the line went dead.

[2:30 AM] WaPo reports: "While some survivors described harried rescues by individual officers during the first half-hour or so, others inside the club remained trapped for hours."

[2:30 - 2:34 AM]  NYT: "The sheriff’s records also showed that callers reported hearing gunshots at 2:30 and 2:34 a.m., raising questions about earlier police accounts. Chief John Mina of the Orlando police had said the gunman did not fire any shots after 2:18 a.m."

[2:35 AM] Terrorist made his first 911 call

[2:42 AM] Hostage Eddie Justice texted his mother that lots of people were hurt. She asked if he was with the police. At 2:46 AM, he wrote “No. Still here in bathroom. He has us. They need to come get us.”

[2:45 AM] CNN reports: "Some 100 officers from the Orange County Sheriff's Office and the Orlando Police Department respond to the chaotic scene [between 2:02 - 2:47 AM]."

[2:45 AM] LA Times reports: Capt. Mark Canty of the SWAT team arrived on scene.
"Canty said Friday. “We have to step back and position ourselves to contain him and assess what is the best way to enter the building.” [Note: despite the fact that the real heroes had already contained the terrorist within 10 minutes of the attack, and would have neutralized him had they not been ordered to stand down and wait for Canty's SWAT team.]

"Canty and other police began to position themselves outside the darkened building. They considered smashing through a wall to reach the hostages. “We had been discussing the breach from shortly after I got there just because we realized it was going to be difficult to get to the hostages from the interior,” he said.

"An Orange County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office bomb squad was on the way, and Canty asked the commander to prepare an explosive to break through the club’s walls."

"Some of the 44 SWAT team members replaced patrol officers stationed around the club in case the shooter emerged. "

“There was a group in a dressing room. They were kind of isolated from where the shooter was, and we were able to get them out a door on the north side of the building,” Canty said. Outside, officers helped punch holes in a fence so people who had reached a patio could escape. [NOTE: Survivors who reached the patio had escaped through holes in the fence long before SWAT arrived. If police helped with this, it was the original duty officers - not "special" teams. But survivors did not report the presence of police during their escape through the fence. ]

"The club manager was in touch with employees trapped in another dressing room with an air conditioning unit in the wall. “We were able to get that air conditioning unit out and get them out,” he said. About a dozen people were freed from the two dressing rooms. " [NOTE: This did not occur until 3:58 AM, nearly two hours after the shooting started.]

[2:48 AM] Police Negotiator talks to Terrorist for 9 minutes

[2:49 AM ] CNN:  Shooting victim Eddie Jamoldroy Justice texts his mother again. Tells her Terrorist is in the bathroom with them.  Mina Justice told her son the police were there and to let her know when he saw them. “Hurry,” Eddie wrote. “He’s in the bathroom with us.”

[2:50 AM] Eddie Justice sent his final text to his mother. He did not survive. He was killed.

[2:51 AM] NY Times:  "Dispatch log records released on Thursday by the Orange County sheriff’s office showed that officers were first warned about the possibility of explosives at 2:51 a.m., 49 minutes after the shooting began."

 [2:51 AM]  RT:  "“Shooter saying possible explosives in the parking lot,” East reports at 2:51. “Subject is saying that he is a terrorist and has several bombs strapped to him in the downstairs female restroom,” Desk2 reports at 2:54."

[3.03 AM] Police Negotiator talks to Terrorist for 16 minutes

[3:24 AM] Police Negotiator talks to Terrorist for  3 minutes,

CNN:  "While officers are negotiating with the suspect, eight people were able to escape with the help of law enforcement, by removing an air conditioning unit and crawling through the hole created."  [NOTE: this is from the dressing rooms that SWAT commander described. ]
[3:58 AM] Guardian: "police tried creating exit routes for the trapped clubbers. They tore a window air conditioning unit out, after hearing the thumping of fists coming from a dressing room on the other side. At least four people escaped that way." [Note: same dressing room "rescue"]
[4:21 AM] WaPo reports: "Some [survivors] were rescued at 4:21 a.m. — more than two hours after the shooting began — by police working from outside the building. The FBI’s timeline does not describe any SWAT movement into the building until 5 a.m. [Note: same dressing room "rescue"]

[4:09 AM] RT:  "“Subject is in male restroom and is now reloading his guns,” Desk2 reports at 4:09, adding “and is about to start shooting again” at 4:13. "

[5:02 AM] RT (from official Police Incident Report)  "The SWAT team breaches the club at 5:02. Callers report explosions, with Desk1 confirming they can be heard in the background."

[Approximately 5:00 AM]  CNN: "SWAT members detonate an explosive to blow a hole in the wall but its only partially effective. They then use an armored vehicle to breach the final hole in the wall. But it leads them only to the hallway, not to the bathroom. They continue trying to breach using the vehicle.

"They also smash down a door at the club, clearing the way for some 30 people inside to flee to safety."  [ NOTE: is this the other dressing room Canty mentioned above?]

[shortly before 5:00 AM] LA Times:  “He talked about putting vests on the hostages and sending them out to the four corners of the club,” Canty said. Mateen claimed to have a vest for himself too, according to the police chief. And the gunman said he’d take action in 15 minutes.

“We had started prepping [an explosive] charge. We were getting ready as quickly as we could.”

Canty was at the command post a few blocks from the club with Orlando Police Chief John Mina. They reviewed the plan to rescue the hostages, and Mina made the call to use the explosive to break through a wall of the club.

In the bathrooms, Aiken, 29, heard police on a loudspeaker: “Move as far away from the walls as you can.” He said the gunman then started shooting again.

The first explosion didn’t quite break the wall, so the SWAT team used an armored, Humvee-style BearCat vehicle to ram it, Canty said.

“The hole was in the wrong spot. It was in the hall between the two bathrooms. So they attempted to make a second hole,” he said.

[5:00 AM]   When officers heard gunshots inside, they hurled in some nonlethal explosive flash-bang devices to divert the shooter and then rammed the wall a few more times, finally breaking into one of the bathrooms where the hostages were trapped with the gunman.

That’s when they faced off with Mateen. “He starts coming out of the first hole, and that’s where he engages the officers in gunfire,” Canty said. Ten SWAT team members opened fire and killed the shooter.

The team freed more than 20 hostages, helping those who could not walk.

Canty said the rescue showed why police increasingly invest in military-style equipment like the BearCat. He said his team followed “accepted tactics” and did all it could to help those trapped inside the club.

The Guardian:  "For those imprisoned inside, it was the moment of salvation. Torres recalled a loud explosion and the bathroom filling with dust. Within seconds members of the police Swat team had burst in. Torres was dragged up and virtually hurled through the hole in the wall, landing on the hard ground outside the club, grazing his arm and side. He was quickly taken to Florida hospital. Later on Sunday, he was released.

"Santiago, still on the ground in a pool of blood, said he heard the police arrive, yelling: “Drop it! Hands up!” Then he heard police chatter on a distant radio. Unable to walk, he dragged himself under the stall to exit it. He saw a body in front of the door on the opposite side. There was no one else. He dragged himself out of the bathroom towards the bar area and saw the face of a police officer.

"Santiago waved the light of his cellphone so the officers could see him. They told him to lift his hands and drop whatever he was carrying. Santiago complied and dragged himself towards them.

"They grabbed him by the arms and took him outside, where he told them there were at least 15 people in the bathroom needing help.

“At that point they asked me instructions on exactly where the bathroom was,” he said. “After I told them, they put me in an ambulance.”

"Mateen himself came through the hole, still shooting. He hit Swat officer Michael Napolitano’s Kevlar helmet, directly in front of his forehead. But now he was outnumbered, by 14 law enforcement officers, and outgunned."

[5:15 AM]  CNN:  "CNN field team and affiliates report hearing multiple gunshots.
As SWAT officers attempt to breach another wall, the suspect leaves the bathroom and he begins shooting at them. Police return fire and kill him."

[SOMETIME AFTER 5:15 AM]  WNCN:  "Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer says at first officers mistakenly thought the gunman had strapped explosives to the dead victims and that the club was booby-trapped. A bomb robot sent back images of a battery part next to a body.

"Dyer says that held up paramedics from going in until it was determined it was something that fell out of an exit sign or a smoke detector.

"The robot was sent in after SWAT team members put explosive charges on a wall and an armored vehicle knocked the wall down in an effort to rescue hostages."

[10:00 AM] LA Times:  "Many SWAT team members stayed until 10 a.m., when they were sent home to rest. By 5 p.m., they were back on duty, Canty said, “ready for anything else that may occur in the city of Orlando.”

WNCN:  "The Orlando mayor says of the 50 victims who died from the shooting, 39 were killed at the club and 11 people died at hospitals."

~~~  ~~~  ~~~~~


SWAT Captain Mark Canty's remark, after leaving unarmed, injured people at the mercy of a terrorist for hours, that "that is why police need military-style equipment" sounds more like the comment of a tone-deaf, self-serving politician than of the police we once trusted to have courage.

The men without equipment  - those officers first on the scene - acted like Men, and the men with equipment - the SWAT team - acted like Insurance Adjusters.

If anything, the actions of Orlando SWAT leadership make a case for every citizen to be trained and armed equally with the police.

The Science Isn't Settled on the Zika Marketing Campaign Yet

There's another new report out that firmly points to a chemical mosquito control program as the specific cause of Brazil's microcephaly increase.

This year's terrifying biological epidemic is Zika - the one our government refuses to quarantine for, despite CDC projections that travelers bringing it here will spread it to mosquitoes, causing it to get into the US ecosystem where the virus will become a constant infection risk for Americans - the one our President and much of Congress want to spend a billion dollars on while blithely inviting "undocumented" "migrants" from countries where it is endemic.

During the Ebola outbreak, the US Government opposed testing or quarantine for travelers (or their pets) from nations with Ebola outbreaks, while agressively quarantining all troops who returned from helping with the outbreaks.

In the Zika epidemic, the US government is allowing human carriers unfettered entrance - and these human carriers have infected others while in the United States - but monkeys and apes are subject to 31 days of quarantine.

The first suggestion that Zika causes microcephaly originated innocently enough, from educated guesses by a few Brazilian doctors. But they had no scientific evidence to confirm it. And despite media reports and claims otherwise, they still don't.

The data is not conforming to the narrative.

In fact, the biggest question on everyone's mind is: why aren't other countries with active Zika outbreaks experiencing a rise in microcephaly?

Sharyl Attkisson reports, in her excellent June 23rd overview, on many of the inconsistencies between the "official" narrative, and the facts about Microcephaly and Zika Virus: "35 Facts (and Controversies) About Zika", notes two indicators that other factors are in play: Brazil's decision to inject all pregnant women with the Tdap vaccine in late 2014; and Brazil's use of Pyriproxyfen in drinking water supplies in the areas with the highest prevalence of microcephaly.

It's the Pyriproxyfen that looks most likely.

Attkisson references the February 2016 report by Argentinian Pediatrician Dr. Medardo Avila Vazquez, who points directly at contaminated water supplies:

"Since the second half of 2014, the Brazilian Ministry of Health(5) stopped using temephos (an organophosphate agrotoxic to which Aedes larvae became resistant) as larvicide, [and then began using] ....the poison Pyroproxyfen, commercially known as Sumilarv and manufactured by Sumimoto Chemical, a Japanese company associated to or subsidiary of Monsanto in Latin America (1,5).

"Pyroproxyfen is applied directly by the Brazilian Ministry of Health on drinking-water reservoirs used by the people of Pernambuco, where the proliferation of the Aedes mosquito is very high (a situation similar to the Pacific Islands).(6) This poison, recommended by the WHO, is a growth inhibitor of mosquito larvae, which alters the
development process larva-pupa-adult, thus generating malformations in developing mosquitoes and causing their death or incapacity. .... Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added pyriproxyfen to drinking water is not a coincidence, ..."

Since then, other reports emerge to challenge the Zika Marketing Campaign's claims, and to demand a scientific look at the increasingly mounting evidence for some other cause of Brazil's Microcephaly epidemic.

Here's the newest one.  A June 22, 2016 report * from the New England Complex Systems Insitute states outright that in Columbia, which has a very high rate of Zika:

"The total number of pregnancies with Zika infections is much larger, with 11,944 cases with Zika symptoms being observed in clinical settings. No cases of microcephaly occurred in all of these 12,000 pregnancies."

They go on to conclude that:

"Combining the symptomless and symptomatic individuals we would expect 5 X 6.5 = 33 times as many cases as the cohort, i.e. 22 and 37 cases in the two exposure models. This would seem to rule out Zika as a cause of microcephaly.

"We can, however, consider the alternative that Zika is not the cause of microcephaly." ... "An alternative cause of microcephaly in Brazil could be the pesticide pyriproxyfen, which is cross-reactive with retinoic acid, which causes microcephaly, and is being used in drinking water. "

The NECSI published a study in April 2016 which establishes a strong link between microcephaly and Pyriproxyfen:

"Here we consider the alternative that the insecticide pyriproxyfen, used in Brazilian drinking water for mosquito control, may actually be the cause. Pyriproxifen is an analog of juvenile hormone, which corresponds in mammals to regulatory molecules including retinoic acid, a vitamin A metabolite, with which it has cross-reactivity and whose application during development causes microcephaly.

Methoprene, another juvenile hormone analog approved as an insecticide has metabolites that bind to the retinoid X receptor, and causes developmental disorders in mammals. Isotretinoin is another example of a retinoid causing microcephaly in human babies via activation of the retinoid X receptor.

Moreover, tests of pyriproxyfen by the manufacturer, Sumitomo, widely quoted as giving no evidence for developmental toxicity, actually found some evidence for such an effect, including low brain mass and arhinencephaly—incomplete formation of the anterior cerebral hemispheres—in rat pups.

Finally, the pyriproxyfen use in Brazil is unprecedented—it has never before been applied to a water supply on such a scale. Claims that it is not being used in Recife, the epicenter of microcephaly cases, do not distinguish the metropolitan area of Recife, where it is widely used, and the municipality, where it is not. Given this combination of information we strongly recommend that the use of pyriproxyfen in Brazil be suspended pending further investigation. "

This corresponds with the earlier concerns expressed by Dr. Medardo Avila Vazquez.

The second possibility being put forward for the high and sudden increase in Microcephaly in Brazil alone is a faulty vaccine:  Around the same time that Brazil changed larvacides, they also mandated giving the Tdap vaccine to all pregnant women:
" A dose of Tdap for pregnant women (administered during each pregnancy between 27 through 36 weeks gestation and as early as 20 weeks gestation in hard-to-reach areas) was implemented in 2014."

"Tdap" stands for Tetanus, Diptheria, and Pertussis. The Tdap vaccine has been given to pregnant women in the USA for several years and is considered safe for both mother and child.  Neonatal Tetanus will directly cause microcephaly in infants who survive, and it kills most, so Brazil is trying to solve a serious and very real health problem with these vaccines.

But because it is a new program, used in rural areas of Brazil that correspond directly with the locations of the microcephaly increase, this needs to be examined.  There is a case report of an infant who developed microcephaly after her first DPT booster.  Is it possible that the vaccines - or some of them - were faulty in some way, or given inappropriately?  Are the vaccines that are safe for American women still safe for women whose disease exposure history is completely different?

Finally, could some of the "Zika Linked" microcephaly incidents be cases of mistaken identity?

The more significant health crisis, Dengue Fever, is rampant in Brazil. USA Today reports

"Dengue is spread by the same mosquito species as Zika, and the two viruses are so similar that blood tests sometimes can't tell the two apart.

"When people are infected with dengue, or any virus, the immune system releases key proteins called antibodies to neutralize the invaders. Authors of a study published Thursday in Nature found that two of the antibodies the body makes to fight dengue also prevent Zika infections."

So why is the Official Narrative all about Zika,  and the drive to certainty, in denial of the science?

We know that the global elites and the US government will lie to us, and will eagerly grab any crisis to push through their objectives, no matter how unsafe. Did Zika look like the perfect opportunity to achieve another UN Millennium Development Goal?

You may have noticed a subtle change in the language TPTB are using now: they no longer talk about babies born with microcephaly. Instead, the phrasing is "Zika babies could appear normal" and counts every baby, even those born healthy, as "Zika-affected births" or "poor birth outcomes". The numbers even include babies voluntarily killed by abortion, as well as miscarriages which could be related to other causes. Despite the foreign status of all the US-located births of babies whose mothers had Zika, the headlines claim "Zika: 7 US Babies Born With Birth Defects". None of these women from other countries contracted Zika in the US.

The US & Brazil have been actively cooperating in development of a Dengue vaccine, with Brazil beginning clinical trials in 2013 and approving marketing of a larger test in December 2015.

Is Zika being built up with other causes of microcephaly ignored, in an effort to increase funding (and tangentally to force abortion and birth control on devout Catholic nations)?

As Newsweek so calmly put it:

"Speaking of prophylactics—perhaps the real panacea would be a vaccine, distributed to every citizen of every troubled country. "  

Golly. I wonder who they can get to pay for all of that?


*This week's update to the NECSI report noted Columbia has added 5 cases of Zika-associated microcephaly to the previous 6, bringing their total to 11 cases (in over 60,000 Zika-infected pregnant women) from Jan 1 through June 18th. While researchers noted this as a slight increase, it is still far below the more than 200 that would be expected if Zika were truly the cause of microcephaly:

"Using an estimated rate of microcephaly induced by Zika of 1 in 100 pregnancies exposed in the first trimester, or alternatively 0.5 in 100 of all pregnancies exposed in the first and second trimester [5], there should be 200 microcephaly cases arising from Zika exposure in Colombia of pregnancies infected until March 28. Zika infections
rose rapidly starting in October 2015 and peaked at the beginning of February. If Zika is the cause of microcephaly, we expect the number of reported cases to increase to more than 10 per week over upcoming weeks.

"These Zika induced cases should be in addition to the background rate of 2 in 10,000 births [6], which is consistent with the 6 or 7 cases reported from Colombia till this week.

"The 5 additional cases reported this week are therefore the first indication that Zika is causing microcephaly in Colombia, while earlier reported cases are consistent with random co-occurrence of microcephaly and Zika infections. Confirmation will depend on reports in upcoming weeks."

Hubbubs Over Haboobs

In an article titled "Arabic weather term ‘haboob’ is apparently troubling for some Texans",    Washington Post Weather Editor Jason Samenow claims Texans and Arizonans are "prejudiced" if they object to using exotic neologisms from half a world away to describe local phenomena. He wrote:

"Of course, the actions of a few shouldn’t color all Texans and Arizonans as prejudiced."

But he didn't cite a single comment that talked badly about people or races or ethnicities - all specified the difference in REGIONAL weather terminology as opposed to global. Every comment clearly objected to sudden use of rare and impenetrable words for the simple reason that they are unintelligible to the audience.

But does Mr Samenow comprehend the actual words his audience uses, listening to them at face value? No. Instead, he and other weather writers project onto them attitudes, intentions and histories from their own minds. They turn defensive, never imagining that this is not a debate about nations or culture, but instead about the rules of effective communication.

Clueless and projecting, these weather writers seem to think people who have listened to weathermen describe dust storms and sand storms for fifty years using words like "dust storm" and "sand storm", should not object to media suddenly deciding to boycott effective, descriptive terms in favor of  too-cute-by-half virtue signals that are so obscure the only English use prior to 2001 that even meteorologists can find is:

"a 1925 paper in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society was titled “Haboobs.” "

In 2014, faced with similar objections, National Weather Service's Dan Satterfield quoted  the American Meteorological Society atmospheric science dictionary. Note that in March of 2014, the word was still applied ONLY to the country of Sudan, and only portions at that. Officially, in 2014, "haboob" had no relationship to any dust storm or sandstorm outside that tiny region - and the definition itself was originally described in 1925:

HABOOB
(Many variant spellings, including habbub, habub, haboub, hubbob, hubbub.) A strong wind and sandstorm or duststorm in northern and central Sudan, especially around Khartoum, where the average number is about 24 a year.
The name comes from the Arabic word habb, meaning “wind.” Haboobs are most frequent from May through September, especially in June, but they have occurred in every month except November. Their average duration is three hours; they are most severe in April and May when the soil is driest. They may approach from any direction, but most commonly from the north in winter and from the south, southeast, or east in summer. The average maximum wind velocity is over 13 m s-1 (30 mph) and a speed of 28 m s-1 (62 mph) has been recorded. The sand and dust form a dense whirling wall that may be 1000 m (3000 ft) high; it is often preceded by isolated dust whirls. During these storms, enormous quantities of sand are deposited. Haboobs usually occur after a few days of rising temperature and falling pressure.
Sutton, L. J. 1925. Haboobs. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc.. 51. 25–30.

Weather writers who use the word are ignoring its etymology in their drive to muddle their vocabularies.

Claims that this silly-sounding (to English-speaking ears) word from 1925 has 'been in common use' for years are false and misleading. The entry in the American Meteorology Society's Glossary was updated a few months later , in Dec 2014, to enable it to support the claims. Yet, aside from the original 1925 description, they found only a single other scholarly use to cite, from 1972:

"The name comes from the Arabic word habb, meaning “wind.” The term “haboob” originated as a description for wind and sandstorms/duststorms in central and northern Sudan, especially around the Khartoum area, where the average number is about 24 per year, with the most frequent occurrences from May through September. However, the term is now commonly used to describe any wind-driven sandstorm or dust storm in arid or semiarid regions around the world, and haboobs have been observed in the Middle East/Arabian Peninsula, the Sahara Desert, central Australia, and the arid regions of southwest North America, from the Sonoran Desert of northwest Mexico and Arizona to the western portions of the Great Plains of the United States..
References:
Idso, S. B., R. S. Ingram, and J. M. Pritchard, 1972: An American haboob. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 53, 930–935,doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1972)053<0930:aah>2.0.CO;2. [1]
Sutton, L. J. 1925. Haboobs. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc.. 51. 25–30. 

Categories: TermTerms H

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The Thesaurus.com entry for synonyms of "Sandstorm" lists:
black blizzard, devil, dust devil, duster, harmattan, khamsin, peesash, samiel, sand column, sandspout, shaitan, simoom, sirocco

"Haboob" is also not even on the list of fifty synonyms for dust storm in PowerThesaurus.org.

Google Ngram's search of books back to the year 1800 shows the long and respectable history of the accepted terms: sand storm, and even more common, dust storm.  Despite its invention in the Roaring Twenties, it is obvious that "haboob" has been rarely, if ever used in print since it was coined, through the Millenium Year.

Google Ngram:


"Now commonly used to describe any wind-driven sandstorm or dust storm"  Sure. So common the literature only contains two references. I don't gamble. but I would bet no meteorologist who graduated before 2001 ever heard or used the word "haboob" in school.

Obviously, the silly word never quite "caught on". It is silly sounding, it's proponents don't offer any meaningful history to support its adoption, and it is needlessly obfuscative. Replacing clearly descriptive terms with a nonsense word benefits no one, although it does give us a chance to see which meteorologists disdain their audiences.

American English is a language that easily and happily adopts words from every other language and makes them our own.  And guess what? We Texans knew that and were adopting foreign  words long before Samenow, Satterfield, et al had the hubris to project their own motives into the push-back they got for making their forecasts unintelligible.

Texans are not objecting to the natural adoption or coinage of new words from any source.

Texans are not objecting to the adoption of "Arabic" words or words from any language that are useful for conditions where extant  English terms are lacking in specificity, eg "sirocco".

What Texans are objecting to is silly weather writers trying to prove their leftist globalist sensibilities while they look down their long long noses at their audience, trying to shame their legitimate critics while gleefully crowing "They didn't even know what "haboob" means! Can you imagine?".

For some progressive weather writers who put their politics before their science, their use of non-standard words may be about race or religion or culture or immigration or national borders or any other political issue.

But don't project that onto us, because politics has nothing to do with it for the people you disparage without cause.

 For US, it is about safety, and the proper use of settled language to communicate safety information.

When it comes to weather reports, in Texas our lives and property are at stake. We need clear, comprehensible data unhampered by foolish philosophical urges.  Just because you are bored with saying the same old things the same old ways, does not mean it will help us to change standardized terms, words, and phrases.

We don't have time to try to figure out what you mean if you wake up one morning and decide to announce that  "Brown County is under a Gorwynt warning until 15:00 GMT. A Gorwynt has been sighted and all residents are advised to sich unterstellen immediately."

When it comes to weather, speak clearly and communicate effectively. If you want to provide forecasts in foreign languages, go for it, but make sure you are using the established language of your "hearers" or else they won't understand you.

Our lives and safety depend on it.


6/2/16 Update: Thanks to Bill Quick at Daily Pundit for the link!