An aerial view of debris from an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck northern Japan. The debris was inspected by a helicopter-based search and rescue team from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alexander Tidd

Debris from the March 2011 Japanese tsunami are beginning to arrive on the Pacific Coast. The debris is a collection of items that both float and have a high enough profile off the water to catch the wind. The wind-driven debris, as predicted, is arriving before the current-driven debris.
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UPDATE 5/8/2012 5:14 pm:  Let’s look at the arguments against Warren’s heritage.

1. The son gained no advantage by claiming his mother was Indian.
2. The area where O.C. Sarah Neoma Smith was born was Indian land.
3. The census records are only a valid proof if the census taker had the option to put Indian down for race. One of the comments states that assimilated Indians were listed as white at the time.
4. The Jonathan that is claimed to be the militia member is not Warren’s ancestor but a distant  cousin. There are two Jonathans in the family tree. The report linked below only covers her direct ancestry.

Everyone is forgetting that the Cherokee were one of the “civilized” tribes. They had adopted the English way of life to a great extent, including keeping slaves. They were as civilized as any white settler in the area at that time and cannot be differentiated based on occupation or residence.

UPDATE 5/1/2012 10:19 pm: Child is correct in his research. Neoma or Sarah Smith, born 1794 in North Carolina, seems to be Warren’s Cherokee ancestor. Two caveats. The family is not enrolled with the tribe. The sole reason to believe that she was Cherokee was her son, William’s statement upon his marriage. Clearly it would seem that Warren can claim to be 1/32 Cherokee.

I can find no support for the story that Warren told to the Boston Globe about her pioneering grandmother. While she was the oldest child at the time of the Oklahoma land rush, research appears to show that her mother was still alive.
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The nurse depicted in this 2006 image was administering an intramuscular vaccination in the left shoulder muscle to a young girl. The nurse immobilized the girl’s arm by clutching it tightly, while the girl held up her sleeve in order to facilitate the procedure. CDC/ Judy Schmidt

Two deadly childhood illnesses are back in the news. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) raised all sorts of flags over the number of measles cases in the United States last year. The number of pertussis cases, also called whooping cough, is also rising rapidly across the nation.

The CDC publishes the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report every week. In that report is the data from the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System. The latest report is for week 16, ending April 21, 2012.
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In Afghanistan, a recent change of command ceremony saw Major General Charles M. Gurganus assume command of NATO’s Regional Command Southwest (RC-SW) from Major General John A. Toolan, Jr. RC-SW consists of the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Nimruz.

The U.S. Marine Corps has held the responsibility for RC-SW for some time. Helmand Province has been the scene of fierce fighting against the Taliban while Nimruz has been far calmer. MG Toolan spoke with reporters yesterday about the situation in his AOR at the end of his tour.
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Major General Tony Cucolo, Director of Force Development for the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8 at Headquarters, Department of the Army, and several senior staff members briefed reporters recently on the future of the Army’s vehicle fleet. The over 270,000 vehicles used by the Army give it the lead in vehicle ownership in the Federal government, surpassing even the Postal Service. After over a decade of war, the lessons learned on the battlefield coupled with new budget constraints are changing the composition of the Army’s vehicle fleet. Some of the changes are:
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