STOIC

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  5. Posted

    The cost of the first date should be split between the two parties-you guys are strangers to each other anyway!.I know in an ideal world where men are expected to be the "gentlemen" they are supposed to foot the bill but don't you think this would hurt the "independent" woman self-esteem?

  6. Posted

    I couldn't help but laugh (pardon me)at your experience.Lets hope you gained some erudition that will help you in your future dating game.If a girl did that to me, i would have immediately told my Doctor to prescribe ZOLOFT(antidepressant) for me-i am kidding!.

  7. Posted

    In Africa, Lifting the Pall of Smoke From Cooking

     

    By Susan P. Williams

    Washington Post Staff Writer

    Monday, May 23, 2005; Page A07

     

    In the highlands of Ethiopia, the temperature dips to an average 37 degrees at night. A typical family's one-room house has no chimney, and the stove consists of three stones supporting a pot over an open wood fire. The mother fixes dinner as her toddlers edge closer, trying to stay warm in the swirling smoke.

     

    And as they do, the air they breathe may be killing them.

    A recent study estimated that in the next 25 years, 10 million women and children in sub-Saharan Africa will die prematurely from the smoke produced by the most basic and comforting of sources: the family cookstove.

     

    "The actual physical exposure to smoke is off the scale, as far as our standards are concerned," Kim Mulholland, a clinical pediatrician at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said in a recent telephone interview.

     

    The chemical compounds and minute particles that make up wood smoke affect growing and full-grown lungs in different, but equally dangerous, ways. Among children younger than 5, indoor smoke makes them much more susceptible to respiratory infections; in adults, the result is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

     

    The lower respiratory infections in children usually end up as pneumonia, Mulholland said. Worldwide, such infections are responsible for 19 percent of deaths in children younger than 5, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported recently.

     

    Public health workers have been trying for decades to reduce the toll of cooking fires by introducing less-polluting stoves. But a recent study by U.S. scientists concluded that in sub-Saharan Africa, where 80 percent of families depend on wood for fuel, the best approach must address energy and environmental issues, as well as the impact on women's and children's lungs.

     

    The smoke from cooking fires hangs indoors because few stoves in sub-Saharan Africa vent to the outside, said Majid Ezzati, one of the authors of the study published last month in the journal Science. Chimneys are impractical because often "the roofs are made of grass, and there's the possibility of fire." In the semi-nomadic communities, he said, houses are constructed quickly and cheaply. Even if a family has the money for chimney materials, it is unlikely to invest in a home it plans to leave soon.

     

    Because of the time a mother spends over the cookstove, her exposure to smoke is substantially greater than her children's, Mulholland said. He noted that research has shown that carbon monoxide, one of the compounds in wood smoke, reduces a pregnant woman's placental blood flow, and she is more likely to bear an underweight child.

     

    Although chimneys would improve indoor air quality, they would just move the problem outdoors. By 2050, the study's authors estimated, smoke from wood fires will release at least 7 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the environment each year. That is about 6 percent of the total expected to be produced from the African continent.

     

    Today, Africa produces only about 5 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, said Daniel M. Kammen of the University of California at Berkeley, another of the study's authors. But it will probably produce much more, he wrote in an e-mail, because "after decades of trailing Asia, Africa now has the fastest rate of urbanization in the world," and city dwellers use more energy.

     

    The best-case scenario would be for Africans to switch from "biomass" fuels, such as wood, charcoal or dung, to fossil fuels, such as kerosene or liquid propane gas, for cooking, said Robert Bailis, a graduate student at UC-Berkeley and the study's principal author.

     

     

    "If you promote fuel switching, then not only are you going to have health benefits, you are going to have these global benefits," Bailis said.

     

    He acknowledged that talk of nonrenewable oil-based fuels "raises a greenhouse-gas flag," because emissions from fossil fuels are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gases believed to contribute to global warming.

     

    But more immediate obstacles prevent Africans from seeking alternative cooking fuels.

     

    Africa's limited infrastructure for distilling and transporting fossil fuels is one of them, the study found.

     

    But Robert J. van der Plas, an energy consultant in the Netherlands, disagreed. In a review of the Bailis team's study, he wrote that "kerosene is available in every nook and cranny of the urban and rural environment" in Africa.

     

    The real problem, he noted in a study of energy use in Chad published earlier this year, is money. "A household would have to at least double its cooking fuel budget to switch to modern fuels, and there are not many households willing -- or able -- to do this."

     

    As long as a switch to petroleum-based fuels is out of reach economically, Bailis and his team believe that in sub-Saharan Africa, the next best approach would be to switch to charcoal. It offers twice as much energy per unit of weight, Bailis said. It resists rot, termites will not eat it, "and compared to wood, it's fairly clean-burning."

     

    Depending on how quickly the transition took place, the researchers said, using charcoal could prevent 1 million to 2.8 million premature deaths.

     

    Switching from wood to charcoal, however, raises another set of issues.

     

    To make charcoal, one or two men usually cut down a tree, light it, cover it with dirt and wait a few days for the end product -- a method that creates significant air pollution. However, if you "increase the efficiency of charcoal-making, you can improve health without having large environmental consequences," said Ezzati, an assistant professor at Harvard's School of Public Health.

     

    Bailis also acknowledged that wider use of charcoal would do little to reduce deforestation. "We want the people who make these policies . . . to think about what kind of land-management policies can be put in place . . . for sustainable energy," he said.

     

    WHO points out that reducing indoor air pollution would make progress toward at least half of the millennium development goals for improving the health and welfare of poor people everywhere, which each United Nations member pledged to reach by 2015. The less time women spend collecting fuel, the more time they have for education or careers, thus fighting poverty and promoting gender equality. The less smoke children breathe, the more likely they are to live to adulthood.

     

    Success could raise the pall from millions.

  8. Posted

    ^^^ Suldanka last weekend i attended S/Land night at my village-it was impressive.The night before the event i had a deep conversation with my uncle-who was at the time preparing "gabay" for the event(i thought this was the right time to question his stands on S/land politics).The questions-which are inquisitive-that i asked were, why Somaliland should be breakaway, is there any clan politics playing a role, and would Somaliland ever go back to the fold.The answers that i got were not different from the rest of die-hard Somalilanders stance in this political forum.His argument were based on the wrongs done to the notherner and that they existed separate from the South for couple of days during the independance from the British.I was getting in to the conversation at the time, i asked him if he will attend the LA meeting-his response was a mixed a reaction.He argued that his reason for not attending the meeting is because it is a sub-clan get together and that it does not represent his sub-clan. One thing that i learned from the conversation is that clan plays a big role even within Somaliland politics.They all do group think instead of individual think.Somali politics is one that will only change -may be after couple centuries - when all the clanism group think is getted over with by the Somalis.

    *** i did ask him if i qualify to be citizen, since he didn't like my questions he denied my application, may be you will be of help when S/land becomes independant***

  11. Posted

    You guys need to leave Ngonge alone, the guy works his fingers to the bone to bring good topics-though they may (topics) sometime pull the wool over your eye(if you are not MAREIKAN-that means deceive)!.

  13. Posted

    Suldanka,what are the qualification of becoming Somaliland citizen to succeed in gaining the possesion of that passport?.Do you have any right to be citizen even if your only connection to the country is that your grandfather was born there (Hargeysa)?.Somalia was welcoming any Somali from anywhere around the world.Do you think Somaliland will follow the same foot step and allow any law abiding Somali to gain citizenship to this "African best kept secret" country?.

  15. Posted

    "Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."--Eric Hoffer

    When are we getting over with the childish ploy in the political section?

  16. Posted

    Ngonge i think the Abu Mazen Comparison with Abu Ummar will be fair Debate because the rest are daily news bombardment.It's not my choice to call the shot-it is TRM choice- but i think i will appreciate to read different view on Palestinian leadership.

  17. Posted

    When the Jews came to the western world especially Europe they were looked down upon by the natives since their mode of dressing and their preference of seclusion was not received with pleasure and hospitality.

     

    Sorry i had to write that in a rush while doing multiple things at work...sorry!.

  18. Posted

    Whatever the etymological sources, the term anti-semitism refers only to anti-Jewish sentiment.Arabs as well as Ethiopians can be affected by anti- semitic sentiment but since the term has only been restricted to the Jews objectional trait it hasn't been directed to any other race other than them.When we look at the historical background, anti-semitism goes far beyond the current notion that Jews control the world through proxy.Before the creation of the state of Israel, the term Anti-semitism was restricted to theological beleif-the Jews are anti-christ and anti-Islam.When the Jews came to the western world especially Europe they were looked down upon by the natives since their mode of dressing and their preference of seclusion.The establishment of Israel in 1948 created a vacuum for attack and anti-semitism against the Jews by the muslims (with the help of readilly available anti-semitic art in europe at the time-Nazi).

    Zionism on the hand refers to self-rule within the Jewish community and a two-state solution is unacceptable to the Jewish community around the world.Anti-zionism conflates into anti-judaism within the Jewish people.They beleif(not all of them) that once you oppose the state of Israel, you are an enemy of their existance!.

  20. Posted

    Continent part made me laugh loud.The brother, Somarican sounded more like Ann Coulter- the Pathetic scold-When she said Canada must be "lucky we allowed them to exist on the same continent".The environment part-as an environmentalist-i think Canada is a good "tree hugging" country.

  21. Posted

    Smilez, The corruption issue in the American politics is not something that is out in the public.It is a hard nut to crack unless you are an insider in the white house!. America’s motto is E Pluribus Unum, out of many one.This shows that Americans have honored individualism before the Canadians got a grip on individualism-don't forget your country was formed under the umbrella of two nationalities, French and English culture-You guys did not denounced your European culture yet!.Canadians still dwell on the concept of collective responsibility(reminds of Nyerere-Tanzania).

  22. Posted

    The fact is that Canada is nothing without the mighty USA.Canada would not exist without the USA.The united State have provided and paid for a large portion of Canadian nationaly security for years and years!.

  23. Posted

    Conscientious people derive pleasure from clear objective perception, whereas malicious people derive pleasure from blind biased perception.When you read most of the posting from the frequent contributor of this forum, you will realise most of the information are not completely neutral-it doesn't have to be that way always-and that the author or the cut&paste person has a stake in the information he is presenting.Clear objectivity with no bias in it is what separate the "wheat from the chaff"(as the common idiom goes).We all know as a human we have a bias within ourselves (i am personally bias sometimes) but as our fellow nomad(Ngonge) stated shall we compromise our integrity and honesty for our beloved region/clan loyalty?.

    It's obvious that there is a complete bias in all the information that is being presented on the political forum of this site.There is some furor know about this guy's article, much fuss about nothing, since it is clear that such kind of Unintelligible or nonsensical writing make its way through this forum everytime.Its good that this article has raised some eyebrows! (may be).

  24. Posted

    When i put two and two together i came up with the assumption that SOL is a day care for the married folks.Whenever they get under the skin of the children/wife/husband, they resort to log inn SOL.I might be barking up the wrong tree here but hey make your own assumption about them!.