The Geography Blog focusing on all things geography: human, physical, technical, space, news, and geopolitics. Also known as Geographic Travels with Catholicgauze!
Proudly served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Today, Friday the 27th of February is the first Friday after the one year anniversary of the start of Egypt's Revolution. The Middle East is still on fire on Egyptians protest against the military junta while liberals slowly realize they lost the country to Islamists, Bahraini Shia begin to violently resist the minority Sunni's monarchy, and Syria continues to be in civil war as Syrians fight against the Arab national socialist Baath Party.
The song "Aloha Oe" is a classic Hawaiian song frequently sung to
express loneliness, homesickness, love, and even Hawaiianess. The song
was composed by then Princess, and future Queen, Liliuokalani
in 1877 during a tour of the island of Oahu. The most accepted story
is the princess based the song off the love one of her officers had for a
Hawaiian female farmgirl.
While the tune is deeply associated with the Hawaiian islands in
many minds, the lyrics themselves also express the geography of eastern
Oahu, where Liliuokalani was when she thought up the song.
English Lyrics
Proudly swept the rain by the
cliffs
As it glided through the
trees
Still following ever the
bud
The `ahihi lehua of the
vale
Chorus:
Farewell to you, farewell to
you
The charming one who dwells in
the shaded bowers
One fond embrace,
'Ere I
depart
Until we meet again
Sweet memories come back to
me
Bringing fresh remembrances
Of
the past
Dearest one, yes, you are mine
own
From you, true love shall never
depart
I have seen and watched your
loveliness
The sweet rose of
Maunawili
And 'tis there the birds of
love dwell
And sip the honey from your
lips
The first line mentions rainswept cliffs. The princess was leaving Maunawili
in eastern Oahu when she first started thinking of the song. Eastern
Oahu is the windward side and is frequently hit by rain showers. The
cliffs, formed due to Oahu's volcanic history, act as a barrier which
causes the eastern side to receive even more rain than it would if the
island were flat.
The British Daily Mail has a great infographic showing the Strait of Hormuz, the regional geography, the oil output of the various countries which use the strait (about 30% of the world's output though not all their oil goes through the strait), and the America-British-French naval coalition which is currently there to ensure Iran does not close the strait.
Click to enlarge. From Daily Mail.
Of interesting note, the United States led an international alliance into the 1990-91 Gulf War to prevent Saddam Hussein from controlling less than seven percent of the world's oil when he annexed Kuwait. If Iraq would have been able to take Saudi Arabia's oil fields in the "doomsday scenario" he would have controlled twenty percent of the world's oil output. Iran currently has five percent of the world's oil output and could control twenty-five to thirty percent of the world's output by closing the strait.
The Strait of Hormuz is now a flashpoint with Iran trying to demonstrate its control of the Persian Gulf with the Allied Coalition trying to keep trade with the Arab Oil states open.
INCOMING CME: Big sunspot 1402 erupted on Jan. 23rd, producing a strong M9-class solar flare and a fast-moving coronal mass ejection (CME). Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say the CME should reach Earth on Jan. 24th at 14:18 UT (+/- 7 hr) and Mars a little more than a day later. Strong geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud reaches Earth. Our magnetic field is still reverberating from a CME impact on Jan. 22nd, so another blow could spark impressive auroras at high latitudes. Sky watchers in northern Europe, Canada, Alaska, and northern-tier US states such as the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin should be alert for Northern Lights.
UT is Universal Time. 14:18 UT is 9:18 am in America's Eastern Standard Time.
The Joshua Project is an Evangelical Protestant effort to preach the Gospels to communities that have very small (or no) Christian population. The project details the many various ethnic and national groups of countries around the world. The website is generally map driven.
The bias in the project is that Catholic and various Orthodox faiths are considered good but not good enough. For a population to be "fully reached" the website rates the group by number of Evangelicals.
A related project is Unreached People of the Day. This website sums up the information of the Joshua Project into daily updates.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently trying to assist the recovery in post-civil war Libya. However, their knowledge of medical facilities in the country is greatly limited. They are creating a user edited map hoping that those who can fill in the gaps will help. Here is a memo I received
We have so far collected more than 400 correct points using the great help of HOT, CrisisMappers and GISCorps but we need more! We know there where more than 1400 Centres in Libya in 2006. How many are there now?
We would need to try to fill the gaps you can see on this map, use it to add you data with just one click! Please ad all the locations you might know!
We need to locate people in Libya than can add new points on the map, using the on line web application (English and Arabic) or by using a paper map (we can provide help if needed), by sending an e.mail a twit or any other mean!
Please we need to develop a network of volunteers living in Libya or that have colleagues in the country that can provide information on where Health canters are located.
Contacts of great help would be people working on 1. Doctors (they might have some contact outside their hospitals) 2. Nurses and medical staff (same as doctors) 3. police officers (they know the territory) 4. Post offices (they are a source of information for locations! they deliver letters all over cities sand towns)) 5. Teachers /school directors (they might know how to use a computer or know someone that can and know a lot of people) 6. Telephone outlets and Telephone companies (they normally use computers and know where their customers are) 7. Cybercafés (computers and knowledge on a single place) 8. Community radios (they can help us spread our message and questions) 9. electrical companies (they know a lot about the territory and they normally have cars to move) 10. Telecom companies (they might have some data regarding use of telephone networks,… 11. bus drivers (for remote locations. They criss-cross the territory) 12. NGO and associations working on the field 8they are on the terrain) 13. Any other person you might think!
Getting this data will help the community, the nation and the people of Libya go back to normality faster. We need all the help we can find!
There are areas where we know there are health facilities but we do not have them located on the map
Can you help? Please, resend this message to anyone you think it can be interested, translate it to Arabic if you can and think your cooperation is crucial and greatly accepted in times of crisis
The sex industry worldwide is huge. About forty million people (0.5% of the world's population) are prostitute and three-forths of all prostitutes are between the age 13 and 25. The United States has one million prostitutes, the same as Nigeria, while East Asian countries rank first with the amount of prostitutes.
Click to enlarge
The international sex tourism industry meanwhile is a pure Western phenomenon. Americans tend to travel aboard to Latin America and South East Asia. Europeans meanwhile travel to Africa, Kenya is an extreme hotspot, and Eastern Europe.
Blue countries have the sex tourists and red countries are the destination. Click to enlarge.
