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Arthur C. Clarke Reports From Sri Lanka
Jeff Patterson writes "Sir Arthur C. Clarke has filed a damage report from his home in Sri Lanka on the Clarke Foundation page. He is fine, however 'among those affected are my staff based at our diving station in Hikkaduwa and holiday bungalow in Kahawa -- both beachfront properties located in areas worst hit. We still don't know the full extent of damage as both roads and phones have been damaged. Early reports indicate that we have lost most of our diving equipment and boats. Not all our staff members are accounted for -- yet.'"
Who cares about 2130! The world ends on 2029.
Oh, wait.
Cancel that.
-gjr
"Arthur C. Clarke Reports From Sri Lanka, Says It's Pretty Wet"
Diving stuff and boats were the major disaster area.. I think Sri Lanka is a bit more exposed than Kerala was.
...
... East coast was not so lucky.
The wave in kerala went nearly 4 kms inland (though it's through the backwaters) and I'm still having painful memories of seeing a white mercedes floating around in the basement of a building
The Marine Drive is around 6-7 feet above sea level and is the major business/market area in Cochin - thankfully we're on the right side of India to be compared to the earthquake.
Thanks to a timely news on radio and TV , only a few hundreds were caught unawares
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Glad to here he's alright. Although someone who had said he was a neighbor (in another /. article on the tsunami) said Clarke's house was to far inland to be affected there was still a chance he had been spending the day at the beach or some such.
I'd really hate to see one of Great Authors taken by this disaster, not to diminish the loss of life that did occure.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Curses! Foiled again!!!
This sig intentionally left blank.
Regardless of whether the deaths dwarf 9/11 (they do) unless you have proof this tsunami and earthquake were directly caused by humans, it's not exactly a "foreign 9/11" ...
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
Curiously enough, in my first book on Sri Lanka, I had written about another tidal wave reaching the Galle harbour (see Chapter 8 in The Reefs of Taprobane, 1957). That happened in August 1883, following the eruption of Krakatoa in roughly the same part of the Indian Ocean.
..the tide was predictable, nothing or very little was done. Ok not everybody could have been saved , but even one life was worth it, in my humble opinion.
Maybe some people should have remembered Krakatoa cataclism or just simply should have seen Clarke book. Damn, some people should just read to help prevent disasters.
I know it's dark humor, but what can I say
10s of thousands people are dead. This is non news to you ? Jerk.
Activists United
if they stay, that's more people who need food, water and shelter. all of which are in short supply.
and more people to catch disease and use up scarce medical supplies.
rebuilding will take years. it is not feasible for them to stay.
if you really want to help then forget about token gestures designed to make you feel good about yourself and just give them your money (directly through appeals or indirectly via foreign aid).
No, it's not a foreign 9/11, it's WORSE. This tragedy, which cost thousands upon thousands more lives than 9/11, was not preventable.
Sure if warning systems were in placed it could have helped lower the death toll, but there is no way to prevent deaths altogether in this situation. At least 9/11 could have been prevented, but right now we have no way to stop earthquakes/tsunamis from happening.
But hey, we Americans don't care. Since only 8 Americans died (thus far) in the trajedy, the news isn't covering it the way you might think they would for a single event that has caused (so far) over 20,000 dead.
Why isn't primetime TV pre-empted for round the clock coverage of this? 8 Americans dead isn't enough to pre-empt programming.
It's events like this that can get one easily pissed off (yet again) over the bias in the American Media.
What's really sad is that the bias reflects most Americans: They don't care about it, since Americans weren't affected that much (except the 8 that died). Typical Americans, at most, only care enough to ask "Could this happen to us in America?"
Everytime I see FOX NEWS show little coverage of this trajedy and move on to the War in Iraq, I am reminded of the hilarious satire song from Team America: World Police:
"America...f*ck yeah!"
I have seen on the AP wire that this quake was large enough to affect the earth's rotation. Could that possibly in turn affect the earth's magnetic field. I don't really know, I guess that I'm just asking for someone to explain exactly how the rotation has been affected, and what greater ramifications, if any, this entails. Additionally, I was wondering if ther was anyone who could explain what kind of early warning system for earthquakes and tsunamis is in place in the Pacific Ocean. There was evidently not one in place for the Indian Ocean which has magnified the scope of this disaster.
I think you missed the part where he said not all of his staff is accounted for. Or the part where he said he is contributing to the relief efforts. Instead, you picked out the most irrelevant part of what was said, and went with that. Good work.
Wikipedia has two articles churning out information about things as they happen besides info about the disaster that have already happened and they contain plenty of links to other news sources. See, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake in India
DG is fine, asshole.
fyi: bbc radio is reading angry messages from listeners directed at the noaa and the usgs
the criticisms are that all you had to do was pick up the phone and call cnn: 3 hours before it hit indian coastline, something could have been done to save lives
the indian ocean has no warning system like the pacific does in place, and no one knew the extent of the wave, and even if someone had acted like the world was ending, calling everyone in the world, the fact that nothing like this has ever happened before in the indian ocean in a few centuries would mean that the bureaucracy in india, sri lanka, etc., and the media, would have moved slowly... and even if the local authorities had somehow miraculously gotten megaphones on the beach in time, you can be certain people there would have just yawned them away...
additionally, unlike in japan and the philippines, for example, the people in the indian ocean do not know to head for high ground if they feel an earthquake... this is simple education that would have saved thousands of lives
but there is no experience with tsunamis on the south side of sumatra, for example, so for the people there, where a warning system would have made no difference, simply feeling the ground shake would be all the warning that was needed to get the heck to high ground asap
so, given the anger and grief and role hindsight plays in how people judge how their reactions would have been different, and you can see a shit storm of blame and finger pointing coming: "americans don't care if we drown"
just like the tsunami, here comes a massive wave of political shitstorms
it is most important to remember that thousands died needlessly in this event had their been a system of warning buoys in place in the indian ocean like in the pacific, and the onus is on the governemnts in the indian ocean to have done that, but considering the fashionable anti-americanism in the world right now, you can easily see how this tragedy can be spun for political ends
political tsunami warning system activated
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's events like this that can get one easily pissed off (yet again) over the bias in the American Media.
This isn't bias in American Media, this is bias in human brains. The further away something is from us personally, the less we care. It's not at all unique to the US.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands of dollars in damnages to people who can't afford a meal a day? And you say that's wonderful?
You *SICK* bastard.
Good gosh, you can't be serious, can you? It was a reference to Arthur Clarke's greatest movie ever, which you obviously never watched.
And besides, what I meant is that I'm glad he's okay.
http://www.clarkefoundation.org/arthurclarke/biogr aphy.html
Clarke first visited Colombo, Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) in December 1954 and has lived there since 1956 pursuing an enthusiasm for underwater exploration along that coast and on the Great Barrier Reef. In recent years, he has been largely confined to a wheelchair due to post-polio syndrome, but his output as a writer has continued undiminished.
Oh, I set my preferences to make the default message format "Code". It means I'm lazy and like hitting the enter key instead of typing <P>.
-gjr
In fact, many many more people have been killed in bombings in Iraq, so I guess they should at least get equal attention.
while true;do echo -e -n "\033[s\n\033[u\134_\033[B";done
Matt... seriously. Just go google a little. That's a little like saying you didn't know Pink Floyd were into having long hair. Faux pas aside, you've got some entertaining reads ahead. Enjoy.
Having some pretty good knowledge of Indonesia and its surrounds (From DSD) I suspect Indonesia is downplaying the 'real' number of fatalities. That part of the world is "HUGELY" populated, Java has a couple of hundred million - it's not exactly a huge country - While Ache is not 'as' populated, overhead shows some massive coastal devistation. (Overhead being satellite imagery - black and white (optical) / infra red / radar)
There are no words to say how horrible it is.
Just heard on the radio: at least some of the finnish tourists who are not injured (and thus are not among the first to leave) are helping out the locals in Thailand.
Wouldn't be surprised if others did too.
Why isn't primetime TV pre-empted for round the clock coverage of this? 8 Americans dead isn't enough to pre-empt programming.
Because by and large:
1. It does not affect most Americans. That is not to say people do not care or are not interested; I have not yet found a person I've mentioned this to who hasn't already told me that they know about it. But the reality is, the number of Americans touched directly isn't high. This isn't media bias, it's audience. Saying the media is biased against this is like saying networks should pre-empt programming to talk about elections in other nations. In many ways that would even be MORE important to us locally than a tsunami that, while terrible, is done with. And that said,
2. It is pretty much done with. Yes, there is a TON of cleanup and humanitarian things going on, but how much is there to say about it? "The UN is helping." Okay, great. Do we need to break into programming or dedicate 24/7 coverage on CNN to say that? Do we need experts brought in to talk about what food is or something? Be reasonable. Things like 9/11 are covered in depth not only because of how directly and vastly it affects the average American, but because of how many questions remain unanswered. This was an earthquake, and a tsunami caused by it. It doesn't NEED vast coverage.
Damn.. I was also hoping it was gone... poetic justice in its best form!
-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
Human death is always unfortunate, and tens of thousands dying is a major tragedy indeed. But there are so many people now, living on just about every habitable patch of ground on earth, that any kind of a natural disaster happening anywhere in the world kills massive numbers.
The thing is, vast majority of humans today still live in impoverished, technologically backward societies. 6 billion is too many people for a primitve infrastructure to handle.
Actually Earth can easily handle hundreds of billions, but we would need advanced technology like the Puppeteers. And not just advanced technology, but also advanced cultural and societal organization far ahead of what we have today... plus a fundamental change in how people think and behave. Now we can't just suddenly become a herbivorous herd society like the Puppeteers, but we can be nicer to others and try not to be such assholes.
Solution to earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters lie in advanced technolgy. Fleet of Worlds!
It's not only the death toll.
This tragedy affects the life of millions of people.
I was in Sri Lanka two weeks ago and I got to
know a few inhabitants there, who are living from
tourism.
They now have to go back to fishing again (I'm not joking) until the tourists are coming back
(hopefully next year).
Moreover this region is not linked to the pacific ocean tsunami network. There are no bouys here. Now the Indian Govt is planning to place deep sea sensors as well as tsunami detection system. This data will be linked with pacific ocean tsunami network.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
you say of me that "all you're concerned about is how the USA will be perceived"
where did you miss me say "it is most important to remember that thousands died needlessly" in my original post?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
it would be an even more useful saying if you had directed it at those who blame the usa 100% for everything bad that happens, even the things it has no control over or only shares partial accountability for
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I disagree. Here in the UK there has been rather a lot of coverage. Most of the newspapers here have several pages worth of articles covering how bad things are, and how the humanitarian efforts are proceeding in the various affected countries. I'm not sure how many British people died in this tragedy, but I think it's got to be a dozen at most. So this tragedy is no 'closer' to us personally in the UK than it is in the US, but if the media coverage really is as bad in the US as grandparent poster seems to imply, then I think that really is a clear indication of the different attitudes taken by the media in our two countries.
Santa's suicide mission go!
Some south asian bloggers have created a blog tsunamihelp.blogspot.com blogging about the latest news and information about the tsunami, agencies suppoting the victims and involved in relief, places where donations can be made, volunteering information and much more.
I realise that it's only your sig, however, I would like to point out that last year an Indonesian official blamed the earthquake on zionists !
If anyone is going to take retribution for this event it is not going to be the U.S., but some whacked out Islamic Fundamentalist nation.
Yeah, 2001, satellites, all pretty minor and inconsequential stuff.
This wasn't an attack, it was an unstoppable and unpredictable event. Yes, it's sad. No, it's not an ongoing threat nor can we do anything about it (except send food and hope for the best)
So far as I can see (and I live in CA, Earthquake country), the media is covering this quite a bit... But it's not incredibly important to someone on the other side of the world.
Incidently, several thousand people starved to death today, more died in accidents, civil wars and from disease. Why no outrage over the poor media coverage for these?
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
I remember that someone explained the famous english black humour like this to me:
headline: Major disaster, no british victims
that some would flee, if you concede that:
1. there are people in this world who distrust authority ("they just me to leave because they want to steal my stuff... what a joke! a tsunami? where did they make that up!")
2. or prioritize or judge things badly ("ok, i'll leave, just as soon as i find my all of my pets... they say this tsunami thing is a wave in the middle of the ocean, and i've seen waves, they don't travel very fast")
3. or have mob-driven behavior ("why all the fuss? i don't see anyone panicking, and there some people over there laughing and making jokes... i never heard of this tsunami thing before, it sounds like a joke to me, everyone is relaxing, so will i")
4. or cry wolf
etc., etc., etc.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sorry to disagree with you, but worst hit would be the natives that will stay there to face all the conseqences of the disaster, people that have lost everything they had, people that have lost their loved ones.
Sorry, but I got really pissed today watching the news and seeing a tourist comming back from Phuket complaining that they (he and his wife) lost everything they took on their holidays. What have you lost, little men? Two suitcases of clothes and a digital camera??? Look around you, little men, and see all those people that had little and now have nothing, look at the corpses floating and mothers mourning for their children. Then go on complaining about your digital camera little men. I won't cry for you.
Unpreventable tragedies: File under "Shit Happens." It's not that we don't care, it's that there's nothing to be done about it that's not already being done. There's no perpetrator with demands to answer. Maybe it's because I don't watch Fox News, but I've seen plenty of news items on continuing relief efforts and speculation on how to minimize the damage of future tsunamis; what angle would you suggest ongoing coverage take? "Thousands Remain Dead"? "Orphans Are Sad"? That's not news.
I haven't seen anything else on CNN in 2 days...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
I still hope that it will soon be gone. Not through some horrible disaster, because that's not a very nice thing to wish on anybody, but through continued political pressure. The military base on Diego Garcia was made possible by the forced removal of the local population. And for what? To make it easier to bomb people. The continued existence of the military base at Diego Garcia really makes me wonder at what humanity can inflict upon itself.
Santa's suicide mission go!
I find that statement a little left of center. The worst hit will be the tourists? Hell no. The worst hit will be the hundreds of thousands of poor people whose livelihoods have been destroyed/changed forever. Not mention the fact that 1/3 of the dead are children.
Yes many tourists have lost their lives, but many of those who have not will be able to get back on the plane and go home to their easy lives back in suburbia. The citizens in the likes of Sri Lanka, Thailand etc have no way of escaping this nightmare.
*shrug* Maybe Im just being overly sensitive.
Medraut
thank you for illustrating how prejudice works
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That's bullshit.
I'm in Denmark, we have 3 dead and about 200 missing, with the latter number quickly falling as people get to phones. The news here has extra airings, at least half the time of the normal airings are about this disaster, and the national newspapers have a 16-page special on it.
We care.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
A lot of the countries affected are Commonwealth nations. In addition, about 10,000 British tourists were estimated to be in the area.
We used to enjoy walking and relaxing on those beaches regularly. I don't think we will ever be able to do that again in a free state of mind. :-(
I disagree. Coverage here in Canada has been massive. The disaster has been the top story, and has been dominating newscasts. The CBC last night even presented twice during its newscast a big list of organizations accepting donations, and how to reach them via phone and the web to do so.
But then again, about twenty years ago it was Canadians that spearheaded sending aid to Ethiopia on a massive scale. I guess our brains are just wired differently.
Yaz.
I disagree. Here in the UK there has been rather a lot of coverage.
As far as I know, there are a lot of Indian immigrants living in the UK, and of course India used to be a British colony. It is closer to home.
And I meant it more generally anyway. A train crash close to London gets more coverage than a train crash in Chile. And that's the same all over the world.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
if i call cnn right now and say "i work at nasa! there's an asteroid headed towards alberta! you have 2 hours to warn people!" exactly what in your mind is going to happen at that point?
the onus is on the governments of the indian ocean for not setting up a system for these warnings to be effective
if every scientist at the noaa and the usgs called everyone they could think of and screamed bloody murder, and in fact, it is my understanding a lot of them did, their armageddon-level predictions would fall on deaf ears
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Fair enough. I agree with you that the American media is not too concerned because the tsunami didn't directly affect Americans. It would be true for any country as well.
What IS hypocritical is that the same American media or government wages devasatating wars, overthrows governments, and generally meddles around with the affairs of other nations on the justification that they have a *MORAL* obligation to do so.
If the American government or media has such a well endowed conscience (which is a good thing, btw, if applied correctly), then WHERE the F**K is the conscience when entire nations have a very real crisis at hand?
I will put this in perspective by adding that my criticism is targetted at the American media and the government, and not on America as a nation. *People*, regardless of any country, are generally sympathetic, understanding, and helpful. Governments, OTOH, want to gain political mileage out of any international incident, even if it is a calamity. As long as the votebank is not even made aware of the horrors of this multi-national tragedy, why should the government take any action, eh?
bleh
Video here high bandwidth server, no worries. 4 different videos. Amazing footage.
I doubt England, Iraq, or Brazil are pre-empting their programing either.
Actually in the UK the 3 main news channels (BBC News 24, Sky news, ITV News) haven't left the earthquake / tsunami / asia story at all in the last 48 hours apart from the occasional 2 minute headlines roundup. CNN europe and CNBC are barely touching on it, but that's all I would expect from US owned channels. Our main channels also show news occasionally, and when they do it's 90% about the disaster.
I would say that's enough coverage of the disaster for everyone to know about it, and for anyone who wants it to get round-the-clock coverage. What more is needed?
Steve.
A latent existence
american lives are being lost right now so that nonamericans can live in a land of political freedom someday
it is interesting that you speak of human lives and rights, and you can protest american actions that are actually promoting such a thing, while you fall so very silent on what is happening in the sudan for example
your conscience seems to have an unhealthy obsession with america, no?
is the usa the center of the world?
i don't think so, but you apparently do
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Being in Australia, my proximity to the US made me care about the WTC Attack a whole lot less than people over there did, but our media was still all over it. Overnight every news programme here practically became The "9/11 Show", and years later they still continue to contribute a healthy chunk of airtime for 'terror' related stories. In contrast, how many times did Americans see reports related to the Bali Bombings, if at all?
% mkdir
% ls -dF
Fact is, _most_ have survived, not "some". The death toll is high but the affected area is also huge.
You have a point about the limited resources, but what kind of ass-backwards value system do you live in where putting a check in the mail is the very height of self-sacrificing altruism but helping people rebuild their houses is merely a token feel-good gesture?
Story here. Since that didn't work, they called the State Department, who ALSO tried to find out who to contact, but again, due to lack of adequate warning systems/organizations, they failed as well.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
No, the worst hit so far have been the children, who don't have the knowledge, speed, strength, or endurance to cope with such a disaster.
The current numbers have fully 1 in 3 casualties being children, far dwarfing the tourist casualties. There are now nearly 14000 fewer children in the world, and that number is only going to climb as disease starts to affect populations in the area unless a global effort is taken immediately to provide clean water and supplies, and provide badly needed medical care to those affected thus far.
Yaz.
so, you are suggesting that the usa put warning buoys in the indian ocean i assume? ..."usa spying on indian ocean! usa ignoring maritime rights of sovereign nations!"
..."usa ignoring sovereignty and is doing actions tantamount to declaring war!"
and then, in the spirit of your words, the usa has to set up warning systems in the mainland... why? because the local authorities aren't doing so... and you are expecting the usa to shoulder this burden, right?
how about this stunning idea for you: accountability and responsibilty are concepts that the usa doesn't have a monopoly on
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Actually, you get the same effect if you use "Plain Old Text" or "Extrans" formatting (between which I can't tell the difference), but without the monospace font. See, look?
I didn't need any HTML to separate this paragraph. The only style where you have to manually insert P or BR tags is "HTML Formatted".
Any of you planning to donate some money? Dollar may be losing ground but it still has 44 times more value than Indian Rupees. So if you donate 100 dollars that means 4400 Indian Rupees (INR). And to give you an idea what this could mean.. a normal meal in India is around 40 INR while cheap clothing is around 100-200 INR. And medicines per day per person won't be more than 100-200 INR. Taking some conservative estimates, your 100 dollars can save an Indian for 10 days till things get under control and one can start living on one's own. Kindly consider donating... Visit my blog http://ritesh.blogspot.com/ and this blog http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/ for some info on how/where to donate. Redcross and UNICEF are also accepting donations now.
Regards, Ritesh
A press release earlier today (from Hawaii - go figure) claims "no problem"; but their web site has been off the air since the tsunami. I would have thought it well within the danger radius and very low above sea level ... implying very expensive damage and (unless warned) serious loss of life. I suppose the picket warships should have been able to give a short warning.
So this tragedy is no 'closer' to us personally in the UK than it is in the US...
Many of the countries hit by this earthquake/tsunami are former British colonies (India, Sri Lanka/Ceylon, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar/Burma) and others were formerly under the colonial power of European nations (Indonesia was once Dutch ruled, Madagascar was French ruled, etc).
It seems that the UK (and Europe) has much closer personal ties to these countries than the US, so that could explain the increased coverage in the UK.
I agree though, the short attention span of American media definitely has something to do with it. It's interesting that some people are saying "that could never happen to the US, so that's why people don't care."
There's a volcano on the Canary Islands that could erupt and trigger a tsunami that would deluge the Eastern coast of the United States. The west coast of the US is vulnerable to tsunamis created by the "Ring of Fire". Maybe this disaster will not only get counties around the Indian Ocean to take tsunamis more seriously, but also people on the coasts of the US as well.
----- rL
You know what they say: a friend in need is a friend with Kroff Dinner!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
> I still hope that it will soon be gone. Not through some horrible disaster, because that's not a very nice thing to wish on anybody, but through continued political pressure.
The US's lease runs out in 2016, though I can't imagine that the UK would fail to renew it.
BTW, an interesting/informative article about the history and current military/pollitical arrangements at Diego Garcia can be found at globalsecurity.org.
Given its location and elevation (4' average, 22' maximum, according to the article), it's somewhat surprising that they didn't get washed away.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
i ask of you why you ask of the united states to have so much responsibility and accountability for things far beyond its shores, but you do not ask of the governments right there to have the same level of responsibility and accountability
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, now the news channels are speculating on affected countries coming up with an early warning system. Now we get to hear all of southeast Asia squabble over that for the next couple of decades. Whether or not an actual solution gets produced is another story.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I think it is unique to the US.
Here in New Zealand, (One NZer confirmed dead so far, not that I feel concerned about that in the scheme of things) I was watching the live BBC coverage on the main TV1 channel here two hours after it happened.
Day two coverage here, the terrible disaster is the top story, and fills the first 20 mins of the 30 mins news, followed by elections in the Ukraine.
NG.
suffering which the usa is hard at work relieving by putting in place democratic institutions which will promote peace and prosperity where there currently is none
You really didn't understand a single thing I wrote now did you? Again - you're NOT doing anything good in those countries. You're NOT on your way to "help" them become democratic. You're NOT the saviour of the world - and you would know all this if you actually studied the facts instead of listening to the official doctrine along with the rest of the american sheeple.
Start here.
it's in my head
No, it's not a foreign 9/11, it's WORSE.
More lives were lost, yes, and more physical damage done. But this was a natural disaster ("act of god", if you prefer). 9/11 was entirely the work of humans acting intentionally. Quite shameful.
Part of the Second American Revolution!
Short of a major loss or gain of mass, or impulse from a massive impact, the Earth just keeps trucking along in it's rut. While the energy is tremendous in an Earthquake, the energy just moves mass around within the same system.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I ask you why we should not have an informed, intelligent program of scientific discovery aimed at understanding global processes -- some of which may affect us directly and others of which affect us indirectly, but all of which contribute to a more scientific understanding of how the world works. Other governments and other nations may do other things. But why are we not investing in the science of this matter?
> If this happened to America, I wonder who they would bomb?
Until a couple of years ago, Iraq. Even now, they might go for Fallujah.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
where do you live? we need to sed some planes to your country too...
My reasoning is that understanding global processes is something that a leader in science and technology ought to be interested in. That's pretty simple. We have floating bouys all over the world reporting to our satellites with information relayed to NASA and NOAA supercomputer centers. Another post talks about the USGS Hawaii office detecting the earthquake in this region. Of course we should have monitors and of course there should be funding for scientific investigations of these matters because of course it's a really important global environmental issue. And if we have the information that can protect and save lives, then we actually do have a moral responsibility to share that information. Others may or may not act and that is in their court. But our failure to act is on us.
but when madmen from the middle east kill thousands of my fellow countrymen in office towers, then the responsibility has been thrust upon my country to remedy the socioeconomic, geopolitical, and theohistoric forces that conspire to turn men who would otherwise be doctors and lawyers into cold blooded murderers
tell me, you who has all the answers, what an american is supposed to do after 9/11?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why isn't primetime TV pre-empted for round the clock coverage of this?
What else is there to say about it? Aid is on the way from all over the world, and a repeat event from aftershocks is considered unlikely by seismologists. I expect that the people in the affected countries have rather more to worry about than whether you think the news coverage you see is adequate.
But hey, we Americans don't care.
Speak for yourself. Some of us contribute to aid organizations, and don't use a natural disaster as just one more opportunity to take a cheap shot at our countryment.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
ACC referenced the disaster on a personal basis, where he lives, where people who work for him live.
He probably cannot reference the rest of the area because as he says communications are still very difficult.
In the end, It's all bovine dung you know
and other governments are making those investments as well
so i don't entirely understand your problem
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This really dwarfs 9/11, very sad indeed.
It's very sad, yes. I don't quite see what it has to do with 9/11, since this is a natural disaster, not a crime.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
what fraction of the uninjured tourists there do you think are skilled builders, plumbers, electricians...?
what makes you think anything *you* can make could be considered a "home"? or should these people feel grateful for some shack you can put together with a bit of wood and nails?
you might make yourself feel better by doing something yourself, but true altruism is about giving and not getting anything back. in which case unless you're skilled at disaster relief the best thing you can do is donate money.
And then we are back with the "Mine is bigger than yours" speech.
Thousands of people died. You should be ashamed to just write down things like this.
What about sending some money to this people to help them recover from this tragedy?
Iraq: war to save the U
I agree that the US is actually quite vulnerable. They catch other diasters such as hurricanes on a regular basis on the east coast, but "The big splash", either from an earthquake in the Pacific or that landslide in the Canaries would dwarf what has already been seen.
See my journal, I write things there
you fail to concede that responsibility and accountability is not the sole province of the usa, and that if something happens in the indian ocean, the usa should help, and it is helping...
but the failure to act in a timely manner and not having a system in place to save lives is something the governments local to the indian ocean have proved shameful about, not the usa
because your pov seems to demand of the usa to respect other people (warn them appropriately to save lives)... by disrespecting other people (set up a system that disregards their own abilities to take care of themselves)
the usa is a member of the global community, not an owner of the global community
you cannot condemn the usa for not doing something that your own pov insists they cannot do
follow the logic of your position to its conclusion, and you will see the logical inconsistencies in what you are saying
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This Sunday times article starts with the latter part of the story. Complete, but brief, story can be found here and here.
This article gives a list of kings, but nothing about the disaster.
The tsunami is detected by buoys that measure the tide. If the tide goes way up at the wrong time, it must be a tsunami. If the buoy is close to the epicenter, we can then warn people that are farther away. The buoys only work when they are in shallow water. It has been reported on the news that the buoys are very expensive and this is why the nations that were hit by this disaster did not invest in tsunami prediction. It seems to me that a shore based tide detector would be very cheap if it was connected by land line.
A massive displacement of the seafloor or an undersea landslide is required to create a tsunami. There doesn't seem to be any theory for predicting this other than going with the intensity measurement of the earthquake. There doesn't seem to be any large effort to place instruments on the ocean floor to detect this movement. (It would probably cost too much)
What about the high energy wave that travels vast distances through the ocean? Shouldn't there be some way to detect this wave?
If this had happened near the USA, it would have been both news and the end of the world, right?
;-)
The ten most active stories http://apple.slashdot.org/hof.shtml at the moment are:
Kerry Concedes Election To Bush
Strike on Iraq
Saddam Hussein Arrested
Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion
What's Keeping You On Windows?
White House Lied About Iraq Nuclear Programs
An Unbiased Analysis of Gun Crime vs. Gun Control?
Windows 2000 & Windows NT 4 Source Code Leaks
Pledge of Allegiance Ruled Unconstitutional
Major Strike on Iraq Underway
All of which are concerned with disasters in one way or the other. It shows, that the slashdot readers are interested in this subject
But hey, we Americans don't care. Since only 8 Americans died (thus far) in the trajedy, the news isn't covering it the way you might think they would for a single event that has caused (so far) over 20,000 dead.
USA Today, December 28, 2004. Front page, above the fold and half of the page below the fold (ignoring the USA Today sidebar): "Disaster takes historic toll." Continues to half of page 2 (other half of page is an ad), with all of pages 10 and 11 devoted to the event. While the subheadline on the front page is US-centric ("Over 22,000 die; hundred of Americans are not located") and parts of the body are also US-centric ("The United States is sending $15 million in cash and resources to the region...") its obvious that the US media is reporting the disaster and its effects on non-Americans.
Now, some, including myself, may criticize the quality of the USA Today's reporting, but it does have a circulation of over 2 million, making it one of the major papers in the US.
Checking the newspaper vending machine, I see that the local paper (Fargo Forum) is also reporting the event as a front page headline. Again, except for the sidebar most newspapers seem to have, its the only story above the fold.
Turning on CNN, I watch through the last minute of "Headlines", wade through a few commercials, and then see their report on the tsunami.
We may not be preempting every other story out there, but the US news organizations seem to be giving this story a lot of weight, by US news standards.
I'm not sure what country you are living in, but yes, Americans do care.
Sure if warning systems were in placed it could have helped lower the death toll, but there is no way to prevent deaths altogether in this situation...
As for preventable, USA Today reports that NOAA did attempt notification of at least two countries: "The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, operated by the National Oceaic and Atmospheric Administration, sent e-mails warning of possible tsunamis within 20 minutes of the quake, said NOAA spokesman Jeff LaDouce. The warnings reached some Australian and Indonesian officials, but the center does not know what became of the information after that." (Cover story, USA Today, December 28th, 2004.) The impression that I'm getting is that South and Southeast Asia had no formal regional notification system, which had disasterous results.
You are right in saying that not all deaths are preventable, but it appears that a good fraction of those deaths were, if the nations involved had an effective regional warning system in place.
PS: USA Today also quotes Arthur C. Clarke. Seems that his story has been picked up by the national newsfeed.
I heared in the news that in the US, people living near the coast are informed/learn at school that when the sea retreats suddenly, it's time to find out how fast you can run.. Not a bad idea, imho.
Anyway, to the US slashdotters: is this true or not?
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
here's the original post:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bayarea-tamil-manram /message/170
and reproducing it here:
Dear Friends,
The Bay Area Tamil Manram recognizes the need for members and friends to
exchange reliable news about their relatives, friends and loved ones
impacted by the Sumatra Tsunami.
We welcome the members to join the bayarea-tamil-forum@yahoogroups.com
mailing list to exchange news. There are several Tamil newspapers and
magazines in addition to Tamil blogs that are tracking the news of the
disaster. However, the Tamil Nadu coast is long and there are several
little hamlets that are not covered by the major news media. If you have
access to information, you may want to share that with the fellow members.
To subscribe to the forum send a message to:
bayarea-tamil-forum-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To Post a message:
send the message to bayarea-tamil-forum@yahoogroups.com
Ok, maybe this is just showing how my brain works, but...
There is a very great difference between a human's knowing intent to cause pain and suffering, and nature once again reminding us who is really the boss.
With willful human intent, you have the questions of who did it, why, how, where did the money come from, are we going to go after their bosses, what scale is the conflict going to be on...?
With a natural disaster, the conversation is more along the lines of "told ya we shoulda had a better warning system" and "told ya we shoulda had a stricter building code" or whatever.
Don't get me wrong, in both cases there is the question of "is my relative OK?" I'm not quite that machine-minded. Also the "who's going to clean this up?" If they weren't already spread thin as hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the answer to the last one was US Soldiers. Believe me, the government keeps tabs on stuff the public could care less about/doesn't know about.
All the recriminations now begin, even before the bodies are buried (or even counted). Bottom Line: This is an unprecedented natural disaster, and the same warning/response systems that existed in the pacific didn't really exist in that area of the world.
This is something so far out of the realm of most peoples experience, that it's quite natural to assume some incredulity on their part. Do you pay attention to the wide-eyed guy on the street corner with the sign that says "The end is near?" I thought not... most people ignore him, just as you probably do.
Just to add to the political fray, some reports have UN officials already complaining that the US and other western nations are being "stingy" with their aid packages... and even suggesting that those countries raise taxes on their citizens to pay for more aid (if you believe the Wash. Times).
Maybe some of these folks should focus more on helping, rather than wasting their breath trying to find a scapegoat.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
WRONG!!!
The worst hit will be the ones we never hear about because their whole island has been sweapt clean and noone even knows how many villages was on said islands
Besides Tourists have F*** airplanes comming to evac them out...
Yazeran
Plan: to go to Mars one day with a hammer
The things is that although the affected countries may not have government organisations for this (although Indonesia definitely should as it sits on an active plate boundary), they have universities and some must have geology or geophysics departments with working seismologists.
See my journal, I write things there
i kill 2 children on a schoolbus on purpose, planning to do it for months, and i am proud of the fact after i do it
versus
i kill 10 children on a schoolbus by accident, rushing medical supplies somewhere, and i am saddened of the fact after i do it and try to make amends
learn what the word "intent" means, and how it should inform judgment (but obviously doesn't inform yours) and then get back to me
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sorry, but I call bullshit. I am an American living in Austria and was in Madrid, Spain during the weekend. This story is getting covered big time in Europe.
The mainstream American press does not cover such a story in the scope it should because most Americans do not care about Thais, Sri Lankans, Indians, and Africans dying.
If you find that sentiment offensive, at least it is a start.
Run, you will be swept away. Grab something and you will be hit by debris, then swept away. It's like catching the flash of a nuclear blast, sure there is stuff you can do, but you are simply doubling your chances of survival from 0.1 to 0.2 %.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Sure if warning systems were in placed it could have helped lower the death toll, but there is no way to prevent deaths altogether in this situation. At least 9/11 could have been prevented, but right now we have no way to stop earthquakes/tsunamis from happening.
Really now, you think 9/11 could have been prevented huh? So why didn't you do it then? Why didn't anyone? You really can't compare these two things. And to insist that 9/11 was preventable is some great Monday morning Quarterbacking there dude.
Look, they could have had a warning system, but people will die regardless. This type of natural disaster does that. If it happens on the West Coast of the USA, people will die, and we have a warning system. The logistics of moving hundreds of thousands of people just makes it impossible. We even have people who die because of Hurricanes, and they have days warning.
"But hey, we Americans don't care. Since only 8 Americans died (thus far) in the trajedy, the news isn't covering it the way you might think they would for a single event that has caused (so far) over 20,000 dead. Why isn't primetime TV pre-empted for round the clock coverage of this? 8 Americans dead isn't enough to pre-empt programming."
What stations are you watching? I am seeing a ton of coverage. I would assume that we will be seeing even more as reporters get into those areas. I imagine since it's so soon after the disaster that getting into the area is extremely difficult.
"What's really sad is that the bias reflects most Americans: They don't care about it, since Americans weren't affected that much (except the 8 that died). Typical Americans, at most, only care enough to ask "Could this happen to us in America?""
I think YOU are the one showing bias. I am very much concerned about this. I live on the West Coast, in an area that could be subjected to this very type of disaster. I've already donated money to the American Red Cross to help victims. What have you done other than bitch and complain? Oh wait, you said 9/11 was preventable. Gotcha. You're Monday Morning Quarterbacking......
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Although I don't think anything could be worth such a devastating loss of life, this does bear looking at:
s /2004/12/28/799199-sun.html
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/New
Perhaps this will foster even better relations between two traditionally warring countries.
On an American related note, does it seem to anyone else that the President should make a press announcement and commit to help? All I've seen so far is Duffy making some promises, but no details.
"A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes." -Mahatma Gandhi
I seriously doubt CNN would carry a story of a potential catastrophy, at best they would prepare to cover it when it happens.
The procedure would be to call the secretary of state and let them inform the proper authorities and local media in the area. What is interesting is that they _did_ call the embassies, but somehow the message didn't go much further than that.
The son of a friend of the family we know through business recently got married; he and his new wife chose, for their honeymoon, to visit ... well, one of the countries that were hit on Sunday. I'd have to ask.
From what I understand, the morning of the quake, he decided to go hiking up in the mountains or some such. She, on the other hand, went to the beach. Nobody's heard from her since.
Grew up on the Oregon coast. Sounds like cow pucky to me. Why would the sea retreat?
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Here in Brasil all local stations gave massive reports on the catastrophe: morning, afternoon and evening news. BandNews, our local CNN, gives it full alternate blocks of news every hour - that means, of 4 blocks of news shown during 60 minutes, 15 are dedicated exclusively to the incidents.
This happens because there are more brasilians going to Thailand that you could imagine - Jeez, I haven't no idea that there were that many brasilians down there! And before someone calls this a selfish reasoning, there are brasilian people that voluntarized already to help people on these countries. No, it won't be a good time for them.
[]'s
Paulão
--------
Fighting the herd since 1985.
is that as toxic as airplane fuel burning in an office tower?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hehe - I'm a spaniard living in America and I too was in Madrid over the weekend (still am, actually). I agree with you that Europe is covering this quite a bit, but not outside the normal shows. TV is still going on, regular shows are being programmed. During the news this gets absolutely top billing and the same footage is repeated over and over again. Still, it's nowhere near 9/11 news reporting. During that tragedy EVERY SHOW on EVERY CHANNEL was preempted, in many cases there wasn't even any advertising. Channels that had no good news reporting simply switched over to the CNN feed.
Nonetheless, I have to point out a flaw in your reasoning and the grandparent post's - the reason this is different than 9/11 is not because of the distance, or evil americans not caring about foreign citizens. That influences only how much time you spend on the specific story in the news shows.
The difference is, 9/11 was a man-made disaster. Back in 2001, someone decided to take down those two towers, and do it in a particularly gruesome way that set back american civil liberties pretty seriously. Some asshole in a hat figured that he didn't like us for a some reasons that I'm sure feel perfectly logical to him and attacked us. Had it been a nation doing the attacking and not a group of terrorists hiding all over the world they would have gotten nuked off the surface of the earth.
This disaster however was natural. The mole people didn't get up last week and figure out they had to kill Arthur C. Clarke before his satellites discover the extent of their underground lair - no, it simply happened. It is tragic, it is terrible, but Mother Nature did not declare war on the Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India - it was just a very unfortunate event. One that could have been ameliorated with the proper warning systems, but that's besides the point now - hopefully they'll be better prepared for the next one.
-Jack Ash
I think your friend was probably getting confused with the Dundee Courier's reporting of the sinking of the Titanic, the front page headline for which was famously
"Dundee Man drowns in Shipping Disaster"
in a world where 9/11 is possible, we are already at rock bottom
you correctly point out the risk of us actions in iraq of creating madmen
i say to you in reply that the risks are still palatable, because you have to consider the alternative: inaction
and inaction carries probably even more risk of madmen being created instead of doctors and lawyers
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
what is bush fighting for?
what do the answers to those two questions mean to you?
you need to learn what the word "intent" means
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"it is most important to remember that thousands died needlessly in this event" in my original post did you miss?
hint: look at the words "most important"
similar usage of thosee words: "the US response to the tragedy is the most important thing" that you quote above
work out the inconsistency, i have faith in you
i await an apology
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I have to disagree... anyone who stays in a disaster area like that will be at risk, tourist or native.
Never underestimate what simple public health measures like garbage collection and sanitation do for you. Without working water treatment and sewage systems, the remaining residents will use whatever is handy. Ditches get turned into open sewers, and people drink whatever water they can find.
You want to see a recipe for the rapid spread of disease? Try a nice warm environment, no potable water, and open sewers. Now add no power for refrigeration, and accumulated garbage with all the rodents/vermin that attracts. With the rodents come other animals to prey on them (like snakes... many of which were probably displaced by the rising water)...
Bottom line: Most of that area should be evacuated of non-essential personnel. Let the DMAT and disaster-response types do what they do best.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
i kill 2 children on a schoolbus on purpose, planning to do it for months, and i am proud of the fact after i do it
versus
i kill 10 children on a schoolbus by accident, rushing medical supplies somewhere, and i am saddened of the fact after i do it and try to make amends
learn what the word "intent" means, and how it should inform judgment (but obviously doesn't inform yours) and then get back to me
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Does your witty one-liner do any better?
> "What have you lost, little men? Two suitcases of clothes and a digital camera???"
- Four childs lost their parents.
- One man lost his wife and his four year old doughter
- One newly married man lost his pregnant wife.
Here in Sweden theese kind of reports goes on and on. Still 1600 swedes are missing, and if you live here there is a good chance that you know someone on vacation in Thailand. They say about 20.000 swedes were on vacation there, thats about 0.2% of our population. On every office and workplace now we are counting in: Are those we know there safe or are they still missing.
In Sweden everybody has been chocked by this, it could well be one of the largets disasters that has hit us.
This will not dimish the sufferings of those who live in the disater areas, they have har times now and hard times to come, but even turists will mourn the loss of loved ones.
For a nice date: Call strftime(3C)!
that the CIA made AIDS on purpose
it's alternately hilarious, and stupefying, what people will believe
so do not be surprised if someone tells you with a straight face that the americans were trying out a new earthquake weapon
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...and I hear our gov't has pledged all of 15 MILLION dollars! With and estimated 40,000 dead that works out to a whopping $375 per body.
The attitude must be something like the old Jay Leno commercials for Doritos. 40K dead? They'll make more!
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
I think you're just assuming the US isn't covering this much, as another poster said, i have seen almost nothing else on the news, and it is the top story of every newscast. Yes, people who are not directly effected will not "care" as much as those who are, for instance do you think the Ukraine is preempting all their election news with Tsunami coverage? It's doubtful, so while the US is covering the Tsunami coverage EXTENSIVELY, the news channels are also covering Iraq as many people are worried about what is happening to their children.
Oh yeah? And why did you bomb the ones that DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO YOU?
I don't have a sig.
But hey, we Americans don't care. Since only 8 Americans died (thus far) in the trajedy, the news isn't covering it the way you might think they would for a single event that has caused (so far) over 20,000 dead.
And since when did you get to speak for all of Americans? If you haven't noticed, tsunami story have been on the front pages of all major U.S. media websites, such as CNN, Fox News, NBC News, and ABC News. Are you so freaking lazy that you're only capable of watching/reading news if it's shown on prime time TV on Fox?
What's really sad is that the bias reflects most Americans: They don't care about it, since Americans weren't affected that much (except the 8 that died). Typical Americans, at most, only care enough to ask "Could this happen to us in America?"
While your actions will most likely be limited to bitching on Slashdot and maybe various other forums, there's already some relief campaigns starting in the U.S.
Having volunteered in soup kitchens in the past, I've noticed that most of the fellow volunteers were from church groups, preppies from various high school and college clubs/organizations, and select few who need to get their court ordered community service done. There are plenty of Americans who do care. Granted, there are also plenty who don't give a damn (and some who act like they care but won't anything about it exact bitching), but because because you fall into this catagory doesn't means every other Americans do as well.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
You're missing what he is saying. He has what is sometimes called a 'delicate English manner', and if you are unfamiliar with it then you might well infer things as incorrectly as you have. He is no way setting human life below property. Be assured that it is quite the opposite, actually. The English do not beat their breasts about things in a Mediterranian fashion, but they do grieve deeply. To a foreign ear, it can be as subtle as haiku.
The sea retreats just before the tsunami hits because the wave is symmetrical. When the wave is out at sea, it is very deep. When the bottom of the wave hits the shallows, there is nowhere for the water to go but up. This pulls the water away from the shore as the wave builds up.
A lot of people got swept away (or dragged over the coral) because they were naturally curious when they saw the sea suddenly retreat and walked out to see what was going on, only to get hammered when the wave arrived.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
You seem to be implying that I somehow don't care about all the people who died in 9/11 and you think the reason I don't care is because of my over powering hatred of the US ? Obviously that is complete rubbish and makes about as much sense as the rest of your post does.
When a terrorist organisation carries out an attack on the scale of 9/11 and you realise that these terrorists are largely the same people your country was funding, arming and training in the recent past you should be considering the truth that actions have consequences and sometimes knee jerk reactions influenced by badly thought out morally guided policies are not necessarily a good thing in the long term.
The kind of terrorism espoused by Osama Bin Laden is terrorism which has no sympathy from any country anywhere - virtually nowhere is hard line enough for their fundamentalist policies, before the US became the main target they were targetting other Middle Eastern countries. It is largely because they were so ineffective at gaining any kind of popular support with their actions there that they decided they may get more support by attacking the US.
Had the US simply channelled their resources and power into getting rid of the actual terrorists themselves then everyone would be be applauding loudly and thinking the US is next best thing since sliced bread.
Instead the US administration have used "Global Terrorism" as the next big Evil against which the US can fight and are less interested in actually doing anything about terrorism as using it as an excuse to flex it's muscles and continue it's Cold War policies to build a more powerful, stronger government machine.
The main thing the Iraqui invasion has achieved with respect to global terrorism is the creation of many more terrorists and a massive increase in the popular support in the Islamic world.
From your post I can't really see what it is you are trying to say except that it is probably a good idea to force the entire Middle East to Americas will and some crap about "original sin". Possibly you are also saying that the US is justified in doing what it likes so long as it suits the US. You really need to wake up and mayeb try to think for yourself a little, learning how to do up your shoelaces would probably be a good start for you.
Drowning? Physical impact of wave? Earthquake? If you're supposed to get in a doorway when there's an earthquake, what are you supposed to do when a tsunami hits anyway?
"To The People Of Islam:
Just think: If we'd invaded your countries, killed your leaders and converted you to Christianity YOU'D ALL BE OPENING CHRISTMAS PRESENTS RIGHT ABOUT NOW!
Merry Christmas"
That's Ann Coulter for ya, folks. Thankfully she only speaks for half of America... at most
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
Not really.
One of the threads in the original story was inquireing about Arthur C. Clarke's status.
This story awnsers that question, while it may have been more of a slashback story, none the less, it is somewhat relivant to people other than yourself.
Maybe some people should have remembered Krakatoa cataclism or just simply should have seen Clarke book. Damn, some people should just read to help prevent disasters.
If you look on the ACF website, you'll find this tidbit: (in the projects section)
PROJECT WARN in Partnership with the Japan US Science Technology and Space Applications Program (JUSTSAP)
The purpose of Project Warn is combine enhanced communications and IT systems to provide warning of impending natural or man-made disasters and to provide on-going communications and remote sensing and GIS support during disaster relief operations. The Clarke Foundation is working with the Pacific Disaster Center, the Asian Disaster Mitigation Organization, the United Nations, and the US and Japanese Governments as coordinated through the JUSTSAP organization to carry out a suitable test and demonstration in this area. In particular a simulation and test is being planned in the Pacific Region in 2005 to determine to how to use the latest information and sensing technology more effectively in the advent of that a major Tsunami might impact an Asian country or island. Clarke Foundation personnel are providing technical advice and support on a volunteer basis to this project.
If we use our survelance and determine Iraq has WMD's, but then they don't its our fault. Suppose we had sent all kinds of crazy warnings to the people of India and Sri Lanka, and then there was no Tsunami...we would endless hear about how much tourism money the USA had lost for those governments, and how we cry wolf, and it was probably just to distract people away from Iraq.
It's a lose-lose situation for us, because no matter what we do, someone will find fault in it, which is why many people like myself are beginning to think we should withdraw from being so active all over the world and let people sort their own shit out.
But hey, we Americans don't care.
Actually, I think you'll find America cares a lot more than some of its critics, and given its low death-count (8 or so) has a whole lot less motivation to. That did not stop America from doing the right thing however.
As for TV programming, last I checked, CNN was American. They have hardly ignored it for the last 48 straight hours. America F**K yeah indeed!
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
I forget the exact details, but there is a MASSIVE mountainside in the canaries, which are just the sticky out above the surface bits of FAR larger undersea mounts, that is very unstable and waiting to slip.
This slip is in a sense like the NASA tracked 2004 MN4 in that nobody knows WHEN it will happen, but unlike it in that it WILL happen as there is no way for it to miss.
From my recollection the waves, when they hit the eastern US seaboard, will be much higher than the indian ocean event, due to the mass of water displaced by the falling mountainside, I believe wave heights of 100 feet were mentioned, and flatlands like florida being scoured as far inland as orlando etc... deaths would probably total millions, not tens of thousands.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Oddly enough, the Arthur C Clarke Foundation is actually working on just that. Setting up an alert system for Tsunamis:
http://www.clarkefoundation.org/projects
PROJECT WARN in Partnership with the Japan US Science Technology and Space Applications Program (JUSTSAP)
The purpose of Project Warn is combine enhanced communications and IT systems to provide warning of impending natural or man-made disasters and to provide on-going communications and remote sensing and GIS support during disaster relief operations. The Clarke Foundation is working with the Pacific Disaster Center, the Asian Disaster Mitigation Organization, the United Nations, and the US and Japanese Governments as coordinated through the JUSTSAP organization to carry out a suitable test and demonstration in this area. In particular a simulation and test is being planned in the Pacific Region in 2005 to determine to how to use the latest information and sensing technology more effectively in the advent of that a major Tsunami might impact an Asian country or island. Clarke Foundation personnel are providing technical advice and support on a volunteer basis to this project.
Many of the countries hit by this earthquake/tsunami are former British colonies ...
:P
I bet if it happened in the U.S., the British media would give it the same kind of coverage!!
Oh wait...
Nevermind
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2001/08/29/nwave29.xml
s la nds+mountain+landslide+tsunami&spell=1
BRITAIN faces a natural disaster that will flatten the Atlantic coastline for several miles inland, a scientist predicted yesterday.
A massive landslide caused by a volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands would create a giant wave that would hit the coast at up to 500mph.
The largest mega-tsunami ever seen would be generated when an eruption of Cumbre Vieja on the island of La Palma caused a part of a mountain twice the size of the Isle of Man to plunge into the Atlantic.
"The first impact will be when 330ft waves crash into the west Saharan coast of Morocco," said Simon Day, of the Benfield Greig hazard research centre at University College London.
"It is not a question of if it will happen, only when it will happen. It could be in the next few decades; it could be hundreds of years hence."
Devastation from the tsunami was also highly likely in Florida, Brazil and the Caribbean. There the wave would reach heights of 130ft to 164ft - higher than Nelson's column - and could sweep four and a half miles inland.
Dr Day said: "It is a geologically definite process, a bit like a pressure cooker, with the volcano heating up the ground water and pressure building up inside the mountain."
In 1949 the mountain moved 12ft in two days, but the disaster waiting to happen would be much greater, according to Dr Day's report, published in Geophysical Research Letters.
The collapse of the mountain on the west of Cumbre Vieja would release enough energy, equivalent to the electricity consumption of America in six months, to generate a wave more than half a mile high and tens of miles long.
This would collapse and rebound on the Canaries. As the landslide continued to move underwater, a series of waves would develop, creating enormous surges all over the Atlantic.
"After only 10 minutes, the tsunami will have moved more than 150 miles," Dr Day said. It would reach America in little more than six hours.
There have been at least 11 tsunamis in the past 200,000 years, one of which wiped out Minoan civilisation on Crete.
The largest recorded wave to hit Britain was the Lisbo tsunami of 1755, when 12ft seas pounded Cornwall.
About 7,000 years ago, the Storegga tsunami, caused by a landslide off Norway, deposited silt several miles inland in northern Scotland.
"When the wave from the Canaries reaches Britain, it could be as high as the Storegga, which may have been up to 60ft," Dr Day said.
"It is difficult to know how far the ramifications will go. We should be looking at the doomed civilisation of Crete when assessing the effects."
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=canary+i
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
...everything bad that happens anywhere in the entire world can be blamed on americans, even tsunamis.
There is a good chance that after an event like that that disease can breakout in the chaos due to dodgy water supplies and lack of services. I gave a bunch of the money I got for Christmas to help these people who have had their lives destroyed so suddenly and you can do the same and not waste it on things you don't need at after Christmas sales!= 40238 .
Go to www.redcross.org.au or http://www.redcross.org.uk/news_subsection.asp?id
It seems the American Red Cross hasn't yet started an appeal.
This isn't bias in American Media, this is bias in human brains. The further away something is from us personally, the less we care. It's not at all unique to the US.
True, but the media (at least the german ones) add to this. They report half the time of the tragedy in a whole and half the time about german victims. "X germans are dead but the number may increase". This really pisses me of. Is it more tragic if a german dies than someone of any other nationality? No, when I hear "he/she is dead" I don't ask "Was he/she german?", nevertheless the media repeatedly answer that question. The fact that germans died too means there's a slight possibility it might be someone I know, but this chance is like tiny. There are other nationalities in germany. People I also know and care about who are not german.
I don't need no bloody sig.
You will notice that in my previous post I did mention the people that lost their loved ones. That was a part of the list of people I mentioned:
What irked me was this ONE man (you can probably see him in the report on Euronews if you have it available in Sweden) that was complaining about his lost belongings. This is the "little man" I was talking about.And in proportion, even 20,000 Swedes or 10,000 British or 10,000 Germans that were in the region (and by reports about 10% of those are not yet reached), even though tragic stories, are puny to millions of natives present, tens of thousands killed, million displaced, whole nation of Maldives sweapt, risk of desease for numerous natives that will remain there, and the whole livelyhood of people, the whole economies destroyed in matter of minutes.
The tourists will be found, evacuated to their home countries, and by next Christmas forget about the whole thing. But people will stay there to cope with the devastation and try to rebuild their lives in the years to come.
And I commend Sweden for the prompt and heavy donation to the relief funds. Unfortunately, some countries with similar numbers of their nationals involved, but with much greater interest in the region than Sweden (and I am not talking about US) have yet to measure.
I first thought he said the worst hit would be tourism as I can certainly see a lot of loss of revenue over the next few years possibly. But that's talking in a strictly economic sense and it doesn't compare to ~40,000 people dying. That number is staggering beyond comprehension.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
I'll probably lose a lot of karma for this, but just like the past summer's hurricane disasters in Florida, people have to realise that there is a price to pay when you choose to live in a natural disaster zone.
If you live near a fault line, you just might be a victim of an earthquake. Period. No surprises here.
Likewise, if you live in a coastal region near a known fault line, you just might be a victim of a tsunami. Period. No surprises here.
I blame the governments of the countries affected for not making it a higher priority to institute a monitoring/early-warning system for the Indian Ocean. The Japanese, Australians and other countries of the Pacific Ocean have had one in place for years.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
I've always thought that there was something a little odd about this chap ... certainly not what I'd call a reliable reporter.
I think some fairly searching questions were asked a few years ago about quite why he lived in Sri Lanka - not so much a sex tourist as a sex exile I think was the substance of the allegations which to me fitted in with his fiction which I've always thought rather creepy.
Good stuff...
However, I remember the Bali Bombings. There were two bombings, to be exact. One in a bar, one in a vehicle. After 9/11 in America, our pain was our top priority. The Bali Bombings may not have had the coverage the Australians would have liked, but we were a nation getting ready to hand out some whoop-ass.
Call it "Tunnel Vision" on our part.
Amazing how some posters always manage to find some angle to blame the US. This thime "Americans don't give a shit!"
Yet, I saw on the BBC that the USA is the country that's giving the most money to help out with that disaster (way more than all EU). Go figure...
Sorry to disagree with YOU, but dead tourists are worse off than the natives that have lost everything (except their lives)
The real answer here is ... he's got insurance. This is almost a blessing because you can be assured that all "this dive equipment and submarine stuff" is insured for full replacement value. He just managed to reoutfit with the latest and greatest technology.
... since he lives in the area .... how much is he helping his neighbor and how much money and workforce will he dontae to those that are homeless and now beyond being in debt because their means of living have been destroyed?
The real question is
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
What else is there to do? Take a long chair and take a tan while others are still scrambling?
Some airlines have advanced the flights home so some tourists have no choice to leave soon. I suspect a few would have stayed and helped out if they could postponed their return flight. I know I would.
My only concern staying there is for myself to catch one of those nasty diseases caused by contaminated water. And the fact that I would be one more person consuming precious resources like water...
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
It's called the proper chain of command. If there's no contact point for this kind of information, then there's no quick way to get people to realize the severity. CNN probably saw it on the AP wire and said *yawn
8,"Another earthquake. Jim see if you can run down a 20 second bit for the 10 o'clock news."
Three hours isn't long enough for a warning when there's no efficient mechanism in place for dealing with the event in rapid fashion. Hell, it takes an hour here in my corner of the US for the local TV/radio stations to get school delays/closings up and running when we have an unexpected snow. If Sri Lanka monitored an earthquake off the Atlantic coast of the US, and suspected a possible tidal wave headed for a group of barrier islands in the mid atlantic region, which TV or radio station would you call? I live 400 miles away, and I have no idea. If you did call, and spoke with a heavy accent (you do know all the languages in the world, right?), do you think they'd believe you and put it on the nes immediately? Of course not, they'd try to verify it before they broadcast such a warning. For an area with so few tidal waves, this sounds like a prank call to me.
Unfortunately, it takes a tragedy before those with the means decide it is worth their while to prepare for such disasters. I'm sure that this will spur more countries to create the pathways of communication necessary to mitigate damage in the future.
This is a tragedy, and a terrible one. I agree that it is worse than the 9/11/01 attack - far worse in human loss.
[aside] I believe it is less shocking because natural disasters occur on a fairly regular basis, whereas terrorists flying passenger jets into buildings is crazy. More improtantly, the cameras were rolling when the real tragedy occured - the buildings collaped on/with many occupants. Drama, horror, immediacy. [/aside]
My thoughts and prayers go out to all who have lost loved ones, and I hope that the country can pull together and get the physical damage repaired as soon as possible.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There's a volcano on the Canary Islands that could erupt and trigger a tsunami that would deluge the Eastern coast of the United States.
I don't think it even needs to erupt, a documentary on tsunami said that the volcano is made up of very badly weathered rock and could collapse under its own weight. If it did that the millions of tonnes of rock sliding into the water would send a tidal wave across the atlantic that would knock out most of the east coast of the US.
On Nov 13 1970 a typhoon driven storm surge killed 500,000 people in Bangladesh and in April 1991 another killed 140,000. While this is a bad event and a highly unsusal one it pales compared to that.
And I will add that reports in Sri Lanka are coming back that thousands of people flocked TO THE BEACH to watch the storm surge because it was so unusual. It's HIGHLY UNLIKELY that an early warning system would have saved very many people.
His whole blog posting smacks of narcissism, he first priority seems to his own safety, then his equipment, and finally the people. He also seem unable to restrain himself from using this disaster to plug one of his books and his own 'foresight'.
Here we go again... "blame America, it's their fault... they're losers and don't care about anyone else... and the media OMG the media".
To say this isn't a tragedy would just be stupid, but you can not compare the tragedy of 9/11 to this tragedy. On 9/11, we saw the worst of human existance, Osama Bin Laden and his minons, attack and kill nearly 3000 people. This tragedy is more related to the evil of human nature.
The tragedy in the Indian ocean is of a different flavor. A more apt comparison is to that of the Earthquake in Iran. Tens of thousands of people killed by the forces of nature. Nothing we can do when this happens but to "ride it out."
However, to say Americans do not care is simply ignorant. The U.S. has already begun sending money to the region along with aide workers (more to come, stay tuned...). The US is not just simply "laying back". However, you're right, there is also media coverage of *other* things and if there wasn't, you'd be complaining about how the media is "hiding the quagmire in Iraq" by only reporting on the tsunami. Besides, the US has about 200,000 of the greatest citizens over in Iraq fighting for freedom accompanied by nearly $150 billion, so of course this should be part of our daily news cycle... not just ignored.
>>If the American government or media has such a >>well endowed conscience (which is a good thing, >>btw, if applied correctly), then WHERE the F**K is >>the conscience when entire nations have a very >>real crisis at hand?
The US government has already offered its assistance. You see, that's what sucks about people.. they assume that because CNN isn't running 24h coverage of an event that it means that the US is completely uninvolved.
If you hate America then just say so, you don't have to spout lies and rhetoric.
Heck, the mere fact that this event brings up a debate involving 9/11 shows how messed up people are in the head.
According to the Drudge Report, the quake may have altered earth's eotation // May have shortened the day by 3 microseconds...
Opera Watch - An Opera browser blog.
Technology could also come into play much later, should forensics experts come back to identify bodies in those mass graves for individual burials.
Just guesses--I have absolutely no experience or expert knowledge.
I live in Seattle. We aren't likely to get hit with anything (I don't think) because we have a nice big peninsula protecting us. However, I've known since I was little that a retreating sea meant a tsunami was coming. I can't remember how I learned that. Actually, now that I think of it, I seem to have a vague memory of a book or story about a tsunami... very possibly Japanese in origin. If I remember correctly, the water went out and lots of people went to pick up fish before the wave struck. Hmm. It would be interesting to know what that book was, now that I have thought about it.
So, while I don't remember explicitly being taught about tsunami danger in school (we are fairly far from the coast, even though we are on the water), it seems to be fairly common knowledge about the sea retreating.
The difference is that writing a cheque can actually be done - the average citizen if dropped into that situation would only add to the problem because they have no experience. However, donating will help the aid organisation get what's needed, get it into the country, and use it.
On the other hand, humans have strange minds. Helping someone rebuild their house to make takes precedence over giving them money. Give me a shovel and fly me the hell in there.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Linux is not Windows
if the media coverage really is as bad in the US as grandparent poster seems to imply
It's not. Every newspaper I've seen in the last few days has had this as the headline and every news broadcast I've heard has been about it. The grandparent poster is either a troll, or lives in a cave with his fingers in his ears going "la la la la!". Most likely, it's both.
Today's news HAS been decidedly pro-American, discussing the BILLIONS of dollars worth of aid, relief and support that's on the way. But we're used to it, that's the part of the media coverage that's typically ignored. (And, yes, I read Egeland's remarks. He's a fucker without a clue.)
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
I call 65-70k by the end of the week.
From http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3934945
... have been swept away or destroyed."
Land Mines Add to Sri Lanka's Misery
Tidal waves that hammered Sri Lanka have uprooted land mines that threaten to kill or maim survivors trying to return home while endangering relief workers, a Unicef official said today.
The tsunami have scattered mines and destroyed warning signs, said Ted Chaiban, the aid agency's Sri Lanka chief.
"Land mines are posing a new risk to Sri Lankans, and to relief efforts," he said. "Mines were floated by the floods and washed out of known mine fields, so now we don't know where they are and the warning signs
The greatest danger will come when survivors begin to return to their homes, not knowing where the mines are, Chaiban said.
More than 1.5 million mines have been planted across Sri Lanka by the army and Tamil Tiger rebels have been fighting for a separate homeland since 1983.
Actually, that sounds extremely similar to a discovery-channel special I saw about "the big one" that hit Hawaii earlier last century... pretty horrific was the impression that I got, as nobody knew that was what was happening, and they all trundeled off to get their free fish-- "Oh what a lucky day!"
As far as "Common knowledge" goes, living in Iowa, I can honestly (and red-facedly) admit that until my early 20's, I didn't know the difference between a Hurricaine and a Tsunami. ------- Sorry, but it just never came up.
Knowing what I know now, though, if I'm ever visiting some sandy beach, and I see the tide go far away fairly quickly, you can bet I'll be beatin feet/stealing a car/swiping a moped in a big hurry...
Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
Look, i don't hate America any more that i hate India, China, France, or whatever. Again, if you read my comment carefully, you'll see that i have nothing against America itself.
Firstly, adequate media coverage isn't even the issue here. The issue is how much assistance a global superpower is offering for a calamity that has affected thousands, possibly millions of people. My point is that if a developed country can spend billions in waging wars, spending a few million on rescue efforts does not cut it. Calamities of this scale need as much help as they can get. Again, this is not a under-developed country taking this as an excuse to get some aid from a superpower or whatever.
What is needed on an immediate basis is NOT money or even media coverage but planes, helicopters, first-aid, medicine, bulldozers, and skilled personell to co-ordinate and implement the rescue efforts.
Incidentally, i didn't even mention 9/11 as it's completely irrelevant to this tragedy. Nobody's trying to trivialize a tragedy here, be it 9/11 or the current one. The other commenters probably brought up the subject of 9/11 only to contrast the media coverage received by it vis a vis the media coverage that the tsunami is getting.(and hence, the importance accorded to the tragedy by a country).
Again, i'm not saying that America is unaware or not helping out in this tragedy. I only feel that they can do much more. Perhaps, i made some blanket statements about the american media and the governance, which in retrospect, i feel were a bit immaturish. For this, i apologize.
However, countries can do much more than just throw some money and look away. Heck, USA has a huge naval base in Diego Garcia, which is, nautically speaking, a stone's throw away from the tsunami affected countries. They can at least offer to help out in the rescue efforts.
You're NOT the saviour of the world - and you would know all this if you actually studied the facts instead of listening to the official doctrine along with the rest of the american sheeple.
Way to generalize. I love how Americans would get figuratively flayed alive if they tried spewing such things about other countries, but somehow it's okay for everyone else to assume that all US citizens are mindless drones and support the "official doctrine" unconditionally.
And since it seems pertinent to this point, from your website:
To my american readers. You're not under attack. There are no wars you need to fight. You should look after your own country instead of pretending to be the world police. You need to elect a leader with at least half a brain - and get rid of your two party system as quickly as you can
Almost half the country (including myself) tried, my friend. I get the feeling people like you wouldn't be happy with anything short of a violent revolution, though.
Again, you seem to think that the entire country is akin to a hive-mind - we're all fat, warmongering, right-wing nutjobs.
A very good friend of mine was holidaying on Phuket Island in Thailand for christmas when the Tsunami hit.
An Experience Of Living Through A Tsunami
I find that statement a little left of center.
And just what the fuck does that mean?
well said.
I seriously doubt CNN would carry a story of a potential catastrophy
You must not watch CNN then...
That's funny. The news tells me that 44,000 people have died so far as a top story.
Because it's a U.S.-based news site, I find as a subheadline that a few Americans are among the dead. However, the vast majority of the coverage is international in nature.
If you wish to reply, please note at least one incident of conservative bias in the second link I posted. Replies lacking this information will be considered "double-opt-in replies to be added to my value-added email list."
For more information, click here.
Does anyone on slashdot notice the irony in that whenever India does something wrt science, immediately the flurry of "Why don't they care about their bleeding poor first?" messages come around, and the first thing after a major Tsunami occurs, there are whines of "Why don't they invest in Tsunami warning systems?"- Do Tsunami warning systems come from charity lunches?
what gives me the right to invade these countries? 9/11 does
Damn, you've become quite a good troll now, haven't you?
The continued existence of the military base at Diego Garcia really makes me wonder at what humanity can inflict upon itself.
WTF? You need some real perspective. Here's a clue as to what humanity can inflict upon itself, google genocide in Africa, that is something to get your knickers in a twist about, not a base in the Indian Ocean.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Still. Nothing like 9/11 coverage even here in Australia.
I guess the towers falling made pretty impressive pictures and there isn't the Whodunnit with this horrible disaster...
It has nothing to do with being American and everything to do with how far away it is and the fact that we know what happened. There was an earthquake, tsunamis, and people died. Terrible natural disaster but there's not a whole lot more we can know about what happened other than watch the death count go up.
I live in Mexico and even though Mexican TV broadcasts covered 9/11 non-stop for the rest of that week, this tragedy isn't pre-empting Mexican broadcasting either.
Feel free to criticize all of us as human beings but for once in your life try to avoid the temptation of blaming it on nasty, unsympathetic Americans. Your liberal bias is showing.
CNN europe and CNBC are barely touching on it
Right? I don't receive CNBC here, but CNN europe is 95% about the tsunamis now, and has been nearly 100% over the last days. I don't know what the fuck you are talking about. The US CNN's are quite bad from a world perspective but the international one is in general faster and more accurate than BBC.
Mother nature did this, not other humans. You'll have to excuse her, she's a little neutral to our little conflicts over who owned what grain of sand first. But I suppose someone will find a way to say the US and Bush did this.
Most of the affected countries couldn't give a crap if 280 million Americans disappeared off the face of the earth and many of them even pray for it. But, yes, 50,000 dead is a great tragedy. Comparing it to 9-11 is childish.
I hope you don't mind if we sit this one out. Maybe the rest of the world could lend a hand this time, seeing as they're not busy fighting terror?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Good point. I wondered how long it would take for the U.S. to be blamed. Looks like no one has found a way to blame the U.S. for causing this, so they're blaming the U.S. for not giving a shit. When all is said and done, however, it will be the U.S. who spends the most money on it. A huge chunk of the world, and "the blue states" may be "ashamed of the U.S." but they know where to get the handout, don't they? Everyone of these negative posters can piss-off. I hope I live long enough to see the U.N. booted out of NYC. The ONLY good they server there is as a convenient place for us to spy on the governments of the world.
The length-of-day (LOD) fluctuates about 2.5 milliseconds during the course of the year. Almost all of the change is attributed to momentum of oceanic storms which change location on a seasonal basis. A quake may cause a minor step change in the baseline. Decade-long trends are attributed to rock flow in the mantle caused by glacial melting rebound and convention cells. The LOD number is an immortant geophysical monitor number.
He may or may not be a kook, but this kind of incorrect ad-hominem doesn't exactly help rational discourse. Unfortunately, while he may have a "persecution complex", he does represent a significant minority in the US. Blame it on two things - the fact that most ordinary Americans do have pure motives when it comes to supporting their countries "foreign interventions" and are prone to confuse their wish for good with the real causes and effects of their administration's actions; and the fact that much of (not all, but a signficant amount) the criticism of the US from outside the US is obnoxious, unfair, and absurd.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Let me answer your question: More than any other country.
when the sea retreats suddenly, it's time to find out how fast you can run.
:)
I figure that if you surveyed the people who lived on the coastal regions that at least 90% of them - and that's a way conservative estimate - would probably be blithely ignorant of this.
I learned it from Sir Arthur in his book "Childhood's End," myself.
It's kind of like when you're at a rock concert and you see a pyro tech start running -- try and keep up with him.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
Samples can be taken and even photos are made. The problem is to make the information available widely. The issue is to be able to do this across fairly poor links.
See my journal, I write things there
As another Canadian, I can say this true.
I was switching between CTV Newsnet and CNN this morning - CTV was covering this very important event, while CNN was discussing gay marriage and the upcoming election in Iraq.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
The reason why Diego Garcia survived is the fact that the undersea topography east of the island does not favor the generation of a deadly tsunami. This is because the sea floor drops off percipitously east of the island, which likely prevented the creation of a deadly tsunami that could have swamped the island.
After reading about the American media ignoring this event, I did some web surfing. I checked cnn.com, foxnews.com, news.bbc.co.uk, cbc.ca and dw-world.de (Deutsche Welle). They all had something about the tsunami as the main headline on the page. One interesting thing I saw on DW's site was the difference in headlines between the German and English versions. The German headline was "Ausmaß der "Jarhundertkatastrophie" wird sichtbar" (roughly "Extent of the "Hundred Year Catastrophy" becomes visible") but the English headline was "Germany Doubles Aid to Tsunami Area". Why is there a difference?
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
Good to hear that!
Hopefully, with a concerted effort, we should all be able to pull through and at the very least, minimize the loss resulting from this tragedy.
Again, i didn't mean to offend anybody here. Just ignore it as the frustrations of someone who's been affected (albeit, indirectly) from this tragedy, will ya?
"...the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation represents an endless opportunity to enhance Sir Arthur Clarke's legacy.."
What the heck is that? I know he's a great author and all, but do we need a foundation to enhance his "legacy"?
For all that are interested, I'm going to start The Standmic Foundation. You too can be a member and help enhance my legacy!
And all you slashdotters will be looking in the mirror. Most human beings are hypocrites in the sense that they blame other human beings for the same mistake they perpetuate
/. ers complain most users are technical-illiterates. But most don't know how to operate the most popular operating system /. ers complain older people being techno-paranoid but most have a ludicrously one-sided opinions about RFID's, voting-machines etc /. ers complain the US can't do anything right but yet most don't even acknowledge the good things Microsoft does
i)
ii)
iii)
The list goes on and on...
I don't know what these folks are talking about. There is plenty of coverage on this in the States. At least along the major East Coast cities like Philadelphia and New York. I get the feeling that those complaining are some farm boys that read the local paper about a cow dying or something and realize that this tragedy wasn't written about. (No offense to farmers, I'm friends with a few)
Regards,
Steve
I disagree. Its not in our brains - it IS the media. I tuned in as soon as I heard. Network news comes on (Baltimore-Washington, DC area). they mention the possible loss of 10-20,000 lives, "more coverage later". Then they go to local news, sports, weather, THEN Tsunami Tragedy coverage. I was livid. Thousands dead, thousands missing, thousands homeless, thousands will be starving, thousands left with nothing while we sit near our Christmas trees with thousands of dollars in retail-frenzied purchases, watching the media advertise to us on commercial break before showing us what may be the largest single loss of human life in a single day.
Busy aligning my non-linear thoughts.
With all the hand-wringing going on we have to ask this question: why hasn't the governments of Indonesia and New Guinea instituted a tsunami warning system that covers the entire Indonesia Archipelago and the Indian Ocean?
People forget that the Indonesian Archipelago sits on one of the world's most geologically-active areas, the Indonesian Subduction Zone just south of the archipelago. As such, Indonesia is very prone to earthquakes and is home to some of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history (Tambora in 1815 and Krakatoa in 1883) and prehistory (the Toba supervolcano eruption about 75,000 years ago).
The Indonesian and New Guinea governments should have put a tsunami warning system in place after the 1998 tsunami that killed 2,500 people in New Guinea after an undersea earthquake.
If slashdot reported on the status of every prominate figure during natural disasters we would have a lot more to wade through (no pun or whatever intended).
Courtesy of Drudge: Jet-setting supermodel Petra Nemcova survived the terrifying Asian tsunami by clinging to the top of a palm tree for eight hours - wincing through the pain of a broken pelvis and haunted by the sight of her boyfriend being swept out to sea.
Photos courtesy of Google.
Since your Democratic party is considered right-wing anywhere but in the US, I don't really see what kind of change will happen just because half the population aren't republicans.
it's in my head
Actually, I'm very surprised that there is no tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean.
People are forgetting that Indonesia is on the Indonesian Subduction Zone, one of the world's MOST active geological areas, no contest (Indonesia is well-known for earthquakes and volcanism just like the Pacific Northwest, which is also on a subduction zone). Because of that danger, the Indonesian and New Guines governments should have put in place a tsunami warning system almost as far back as the system put in place for the Pacific Ocean back in the late 1940's!
the main thrust of my argument is that people essentially mean well in the world, and that all human beings are, or should be, equal
that is a statement of faith, not of logic: i am illogical, indeed
and if that is the faith which will fail me in this world, so be it: i would rather go down with that ship than sit in some ivory tower of negativity and inaction and lack of faith in mankind as some do, casting criticism and blame down on the heads of those of us slogging in the mud, actively trying to make things better
i am, indeed, as you suggest a "true believer": i honestly believe in the essentially sound, liberal and progressive nature of fighting fascism and fundamentalism in the middle east, with force, if necessary, as something which will uplift a region mired in socioeconomic, geopolitical, and theohistoric difficulties which make boys who would otherwise be doctors and lawyers, become madmen instead
i honestly believe that american blood and lives are being spilt right now so that someday iraqis can be free, and i am DAMN proud of that
and i have heard all the negativity, all of the cold war recriminations, all of the conspiracy theories, all of the tenuous chains of cause and effect and blame, whereby 9/11 is the fault of americans and we should just shut up, and take it
and i have plowed through mountains of that crap here, and on kuro5hin, for years now, and my faith has not budged, one inch... no in fact, after digging to the bottom of every rationale i have encountered counter to what i think, my faith has only been bolstered and reinvigorated by the essential hopelessness of those i argue with
and that no matter what bullshit wmd reasons bush the moron (bush really is a moron) gives the world for his actions, the effect of his actions is that an entire country moves from fascism to political freedom under his tutelage
so yes, bush is a "useful fool", as bin laden might say
i am a useful fool myself
so all of you who despise me, all of you think i am a deluded fool, a pawn, then understand this about the part of america you just can't understand: one well-meaning fool means a million times more in this world than a hundred million geniuses who use their intelligence to do nothing but trap their morality and their compassion and thier human conscience in a wall of inaction
human history is not a series of predetermined trends as laid out in a dry textbook
human history is populated with human beings, who have free will, and CHOOSE their destiny and the shape of their world
and that is EXACTLY what america is doing when confronted with the carnage of 9/11
i am, indeed, a well-meaning fool
and i am damn proud of it
and i know i mean so much more to history than all of you smart, negative, doubting useless criticizers who cannot offer one tiny shred of any superior workable plan of aciton in this world
i am a fool who believes in the essential goodwill of mankind and the equality of all mankind
and who are my rhetorical enemies here and elsewhere?
those who believe in negativity: no action can actually improve the state of the world, and those who believe in the immoveability of inequality: iraqis, for example "just aren't ready for democracy"
BULLSHIT
what kind of condescending, patronizing, soft racism is that?
iraqis are my equal, and i am honored that my fellow americans are dying for their future: out of the horror that is 9/11, let a tie be born between two people to reassert the basic goodwill of all mankind... that some of your demented brethren from the middle east should kill my brothers and sisters, add i respond by freeing you from political tyranny
and that makes me more cosmopolitan, and more liberal, and more progressive in thought and action than a million of these so-called punitive useless so-called liberals in this world, liberal in default classification, but not in spirit, like me
history is watching,
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes, we all take the official doctrine hook line and sinker. That's why about 49% of us worked so hard to get Bush out of office, and why in almost every one of the states with a well-educated populace he was defeated soundly.
I know, I know, you're really just pumping your blog and trolling as you always do Troed. You could at least acknowledge an "ends justifies the means" debate when one exist.
Clearly Afghanistan is far more democratic now then it was under the Taliban, this isn't even worth discussing - you can't compare Afghanistan with the democracy of a modern first world country, which will take decades to achieve there. And Iraq, of course, I will reserve judgement for, but it's hard to get less democratic than Saddam Hussein's regime (doesn't mean I think the invasion of Iraq was justified however).
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
As though thousands of voices cried out in terror, and then suddenly silenced.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Looks like no one has found a way to blame the U.S. for causing this, so they're blaming the U.S. for not giving a shit.
ROFL, I was listening to talk radio yesterday and some enviro whacko called in to blame the US (and other civilized nations) for the earthquake. His premise was that by building roads and basements we have weakned the tensil strength of the earths crust and the crust is now falling apart. At least it gave me a good laugh.
Everyone should check out http://www.usgs.gov and see alot of the data collected on this. I know this seems kind of cold to look at the data, but the thing that impressed me the most was the animation they have that shows just how large of an area that this has affected. It's staggering. BILLIONS of dollars will have to be spent over many years to get things back to the way they were on Christmas day. Lives of MILLIONS will be affected in one way or another. The most disturbing thing that I have heard has been the greens blaming this on global warming....um..ok....whatever dudes.
Gorkman
I disagree. Here in the UK there has been rather a lot of coverage. Most of the newspapers here have several pages worth of articles covering how bad things are, and how the humanitarian efforts are proceeding in the various affected countries... but if the media coverage really is as bad in the US as grandparent poster seems to imply, then I think that really is a clear indication of the different attitudes taken by the media in our two countries.
No, you mistook the grandparent's criticism. What we have here in the US is this tragedy on the front page of every newspaper, with many pages of coverage inside, much like what you described over there. Also every TV newscast is spending more time on this story than anything else--I would say that about half last night's news was this story alone.
What the grandparent post asked was why aren't the networks pre-empting normal programming for continuous 24-hour coverage of this story? And the answer really is quite simple: it happened somewhere else far away.
The closer to home a story happens, the more coverage it gets relative to its absolute importance. This of course applies every day to news of things within our borders. No matter where you are in this huge country, the news will spend time on local stories that don't even get mentioned at all in other states. Gee, imagine that, news organizations spending time on things that only their own readers/viewers would care about!
Actually, CNN has been headlining this the last couple of days and the focus hasn't been on the few Americans that died. And guess what, it's the top news item today http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/28/asia.q uake/index.html
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
"Americans don't give a shit!"
No, we're just saying that the american media doesnt give a shit. All they care about is $$ and ratings.
America shouldnt be associated to the dumb media.
Anyways I hope the survivers are able to get help or even more lives will be lost.
It is true that tsunamis travel really fast, but only when in deep water. When the tsunami enters more shallow water, the speed goes down to about 40-50mph, while the wave itself starts to grow in height because of the higher-speed water pushing from behind. This is also the reason that the tsunami is more or less invisible when traveling across deep water.
vs
In a series of extraordinary reports, the latest published in July, Human Rights Watch has documented atrocities "committed by gunmen and warlords who were propelled into power by the United States and its coalition partners after the Taliban fell in 2001" and who have "essentially hijacked the country". The report describes army and police troops controlled by the warlords kidnapping villagers with impunity and holding them for ransom in unofficial prisons; the widespread rape of women, girls and boys; routine extortion, robbery and arbitrary murder. Girls' schools are burned down. "Because the soldiers are targeting women and girls," the report says, "many are staying indoors, making it impossible for them to attend school [or] go to work."
In the western city of Herat, for example, women are arrested if they drive; they are prohibited from travelling with an unrelated man, even an unrelated taxi driver. If they are caught, they are subjected to a "chastity test", squandering precious medical services to which, says Human Rights Watch, "women and girls have almost no access, particularly in Herat, where fewer than one per cent of women give birth with a trained attendant". The death rate of mothers giving birth is the highest in the world, according to Unicef. Herat is ruled by the warlord Ismail Khan, whom US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld endorsed as "an appealing man... thoughtful, measured and self-confident".
link
it's in my head
It means that medraut disagreed with the grandparent's statement, i.e. it was not "on the mark."
Giving you a shovel and sending you in there to rebuild is a misuse of resources. Lets say that it takes one week to rebuild an Indian seashore house. You could go over for a week and do itself, or continue going to your normal job and donate a week's worth of money, which will pay ten cheap laborers in India to rebuild a house. You are an American ... our society has put lots of energy into your education to get you the skills you have today. You can do a lot better for the affected people by using your talents to earn money which can be spent on laborers who can't do anything more productive since they don't have the education. It's like telling a quantum physicist he has to mop up his lab ... that simply doesn't happen, because his time is much more valuable than that of the janitor the lab inevitably employs.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
My point was not a discussion on the leftness or rightness of our political parties. My point was that you're insisting on lumping all Americans together inside one monolithic worldview. That is wrong, whether it's regarding the US, Sweden, or any other country.
Personally, all the Swedes i've ever met (except for one, and she immigrated from someone else) have come off as being arrogant, anti-American, slightly bigoted, and generally exuding the attitude that they and their views are completely superior to mine.
Despite that, I realize that the small number of people i've met from your country are (hopefully) not representative of the whole population, and that I cannot generalize about the personalities of so many people from such a small sample.
In my opinion, 9/11 was worse because it WAS preventable. Things that aren't preventable are inevitable ... there's no use in crying over spilt milk that was destined to be spilled. Nature is a mean mother and every so often she does something bad that punishes people who foolishly live in areas that are susceptible (this goes to any hicks who live in Tornado Alley or anyone who lives on the side of an active volcano, too).
... 9/11 just took out a few office buildings. This tsunami has destroyed millions of homes. In the long run the effect of the tsunami will probably be worse than that of 9/11.
On the other hand, 9/11 was perpetrated by humans and was entirely preventable. That, in my opinion, makes it much worse.
Of course, if you look at it from an economic perspective
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Right, in other words, things are still very bad in parts of the country, which I fully agree with. However, many of those parts of the country were effectively under warlord control before 2001 as well, and the rest was under Taliban control, which wasn't much better.
So moving away from the specific problems with a despotic warlord ruling over Herat and moving back to the leadership of the rest of this large nation, we come back to my original statement - that Afghanistan is _more_ democratic now than it was under the Taliban. Not that it's a shining beacon of national unity, strong central government, human rights or anything else.
Also - the claim that these warlords somehow magically appeared after 2001 is ludicrous - they have been operating in parts of the country with impunity for years. I have a friend who is on Human Rights Watch staff and I've confronted her about her organization's tendency to hyperbole in their releases before, and even she agrees that they sometimes push the boundaries of reasonableness with the things they say.
"I disagree. Here in the UK there has been rather a lot of coverage"
If you listen to the BBC in the US then the coverage is obviously the same as in the UK. I believe many of the major US radio markets carry BBC, so, the unfortunate reality might be that those who care about the rest of the world will listen to the BBC, plus CNN and CNN Headline News have had pretty continuous coverage of this disaster also. The rest can watch or listening to local interest stories, sports and weather and occassionaly the latest skirmish in Iraq and only getting the latest tally of dead from the local stations. But really these "news" organizations have very little resources to report on worldwide news, so I think it is understandable that they can only report the aggregate of what other more capable news gathering organizations can.
My God ... it's full of starfish...
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
And in other news, Lacy Peterson...
Zoeith
"but the failure to act in a timely manner and not having a system in place to save lives is something the governments local to the indian ocean have proved shameful about, not the usa"
Not sure who I am agreeing or disagreeing with here, but I'd like to point out that the US doesn't even have an Atlantic tsunami warning system in place. The Pacific is the only system in place. Though, we have probably many more sensor capabilities in place than in the Indian Ocean, there is no plan or system in place on the American Eastern coast for this sort of thing either. That might change after this disaster, but up until now only the Pacific Ocean has been considered the major threat area.
They're POOR, you moron. That's why they need help. That's why they're able to "steal" our jobs. It's all about a little thing called "economics."
What sort of aid would you have wanted them to provide in the event of a disaster in the US? Maybe they could have sent over some of their tens of millions of impoverished to help dig out dead stock brokers after 9/11 but it wouldn't make a lot of sense, would it?
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Not much tectonic activity in the Atlantic; at least not enough to justify such a system.
S
You're not supporting your statement.
it's in my head
> and the reason for canada having a lot of coverage is what?
I can't speak for the rest of Canada, but here in coastal British Columbia, we've had one historical tsunami and evidence of other big events. We are just as vulnerable as folks in coastal Asia.
Imagine 30 foot waves hitting Vancouver.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
> I was switching between CTV Newsnet and CNN this morning - CTV was covering this very important
> event, while CNN was discussing gay marriage and the upcoming election in Iraq.
I dunno. Every time I turned on CNN yesterday, it was about the tsunami. There are other things going on, and while the tragedy in Asia is the big story, the news agencies want to cover other things as well.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
> Then why don't US then pay for its UN membership. ....oh sorry you need to dictate some laws in the
> Europe first.?!
I'd rather have the US contributing to aid in the event of such a tragedy than in the UN. My hunch, of course, is that the UN and the Red Cross will be the major channels through which American foreign aid travels anyways.
I'm no fan of American foreign policy, but why can't you give credit where credit is due?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
but what about the stable of underaged boys Artie is so fond of? are they ok?
I'm not sure where these weird claims are coming from that the U.S. media is not giving this story enough coverage.
The first day there was not much but I think that's because the initial damage reports sounded outlandish.
By the second day it was the top story of every newscast I've seen, both national and local and that persists to today.
I don't watch Fox news so I can't tell you if their coverage is weak. I'm watching CNN/headline news, NBC and ABC national and local news.
Now THAT is funny! That is a serious depth of ignorance but then again, so are so many who buy into this crap. Then they band together in groups and think that by saying it enough it become accepted truth. This quake is a terrible tragedy but almost equally terrible is that the U.N. and many other corrupt bodies are going to profit from it at the expense of tax payers in the U.S. and other countries giving help.
I don't recall learning anything like that in school, although granted, I mostly grew up in a town 1500 miles from either coast [and maybe 500 miles from the Gulf of Mexico]. I only went to school on the east coast [NJ] through 2nd grade, and otherwise only spent summers at the beach in NJ.
In the course of reading books on my own, however; I did learn that if the sea suddently recedes, to get the hell outta dodge asap.
ender-
Nothing to see here
Sure he did; he's just not touting a hyperbolic press release as fact in order to do so.
S
Wow I guess some people are just so ignorant and stubborn that they can't see the light of day. Wake up guy, a lot of progress is being made, I mean a ton of progress and this is from first hand reports from soldiers over there. Did you ever think that maybe the media that your listening to has a bias against America and is trying to make it seem as bad as humanly possible? After all, tragedy and disaster make good news, nobody wants to hear about good things or progress so maybe your views are distorted by your distorted media. Or the alternative is that either consciously or subconsciously you neglect the prgress being made. You really seem to have it out for America, one day during the next World War or whatever, when Americans are saving your ass I hope you'll change your attitude.
Regards,
Steve
British student actually, so my time is technically worthless since I'm not employed. Yet I've had experience in running rural/ad-hoc living conditions, so it could be worth flying me in there with my education on sanitation, first aid etc.
I'll leave choosing the best people for the job to the pros though, and just donate what I earn through freelance stuff.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Ah yeah,
Do you even watch american media?
The first page of the NYTimes for the last few days has been about the disaster.
And guess what's the top headline on cnn.com, abcnews.com, msnbc.com...
who is that? what has he done? and why does he command so much respect here?
Regards, Senthil
There seems to be a connection between suicide in whales and earthquakes. Around two weeks ago, an Indian Doctor had predicted this earthquake on Princeton's mailing list based on whale behaviour in Australia. Interesting...
... with the link from Global Security. There were no truly "native inhabitants". The islands were unoccupied when the British took possession of them - the so-called "native inhabitants" were shipped in from other islands in the Indian Ocean to serve as plantation labor. When they were no longer useful as plantation laborers, the Brits shipped them to Mauritius.
Also, the island didn't become a "bomber base" for almost 30 years after the plantation workers were removed - it was nothing more than a communications station until about 1979, and serious bombing didn't start to happen from there until 1990, during the first Persian Gulf war. The "natives" had been shipped out in 1961.
Here's the link again:
about dodgeSean
Ha ha. I hope you're just fucking with us, and you're not really this dumb.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
"Not much tectonic activity in the Atlantic; at least not enough to justify such a system."
m is.html/ GntWavesH itAtlantic.html
yea, just like the Indian Ocean... before now.
Another source in the atlantic is land slides not just tectonic activity.
quick google search:
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/ASK/tsuna
http://www.huttoncommentaries.com/ECNews
Almost half the country (including myself) tried, my friend.
Oddly enough, even a lot of us who voted for Bush agree with a lot of these ideas, but the Dems must have *wanted* to lose. If they wanted to win they could have put someone worth a damn up to bat, I certainly would have voted for him. Given how pathetic Bush is for a choice, Kerry was insulting. Neither choice was acceptable. As the parent said, we really need to get rid of our two party system, or get some new blood in there at the very least!
Another important and horrifying difference between this and 9/11 was that there was LIVE VIDEO of the whole thing as it occured. Everyone in the world could helplessly watch the whole thing unfolding as it was actually happening.
Wow. Thanks for all the responses. The last thing I expected was to check this and see 30 replies to my post.
That said, here a few things to note:
1.) I never said the American Gov't doesn't care. They certainly do, and our nation is sending aid. This does remind me of a 9/11 difference though. When 9/11 happened, there was ample footage of people all over the world crying in the streets (Esp. Paris) and it was a world story. HOW MANY OF US AMERICANS, WITH NO CONNECTION TO ANYONE IN SE ASIA, CRIED OVER THIS DEVASTATION??? The news has said that perhaps a whole GENERATION of children will be lost in some parts of Indonesia and Sri Lanka. This statement doesn't even get a typical "America...f*ck yeah" ethno-centric redneck to blink, let alone cry. However we keep tabs on who cried over 9/11.
This reminds of when thousands of Australians were killed in Bali. Here in the USA you never heard about it, and I've heard Australians furious because they consoled us over 9/11, but when Australians were victims of terrorism, we could care less. For f*ck sakes, the largest terrorist attack since 9/11 happened in Spain earlier this year. How many of us "America...f*ck yeah" ethno-centric Americans could tell you they ever heard about that event?
2.) Now the death toll is more than 40,000. 40,000 people!!!!! Are you kidding me???? ANYTIME 40,000 die in one occasion TV should be pre-empted (At least sunday and parts of Monday). If anything, if you want to be bias, you can say that people here could have family there and need round-the-clock coverage, since many will be unable to contact their families over there to see if they are ok (sounds like 9/11 aftermath, huh?)
3.) I am not liberal by any means. My point is the media only shows what the audience wants to see. Media outlets know Americans could care less about this huge number of people dying somewhere "remote" in their ethno-centric areas. The only reason they would care (Since by in large, we American's don't give a rats a$$. If we did, we'd get a lot more coverage than we have now) is to make sure this kind of thing can't happen on the west coast/Alaska.
4.) I am an American attacking fellow Americans for not caring. Now 40,000+ people dead, and I bet if you surveyed the American public as a whole, this news hasn't affected their lives in any way. That is just sad.
Oh the humanity, or lack thereof.
"In fact, many many more people have been killed in bombings in Iraq, so I guess they should at least get equal attention."
Okay, but take a look back at coverage of the war since it started. How often do you hear about Iraqis, especially innocent Iraqis killed? You only hear about how many Americans died.
That's all we care about, and it is just plain sick.
Oddly enough, even a lot of us who voted for Bush agree with a lot of these ideas, but the Dems must have *wanted* to lose. If they wanted to win they could have put someone worth a damn up to bat, I certainly would have voted for him
True, pretty much. I liked a lot of things about Kerry, but he also made some mind-numbingly idiotic moves that really sunk his chances.
Given how pathetic Bush is for a choice, Kerry was insulting. Neither choice was acceptable.
I wouldn't go that far. I have to wonder how Kerry would have handled the morass of problems Bush built up, though - it's probably best (for him, anyway) that he didn't win, as much as that admission pains me.
My other point is this:
There should be no difference between the coverage here and coverage if this event happened in the USA and caused the deaths of 40,000+ Americans.
BUT YOU ALL KNOW THE COVERAGE WOULD BE MASSIVELY DIFFERENT, and all that crap about this being a done and over event you would all take back and say, yeah, we should have round the clock coverage.
Just because it happens on the other side of the world and not in the USA doesn't mean it shouldn't be covered the way it would be if this trajedy happened in the USA.
That's what is said. If this happened in the USA, Americans would demand (if they didn't already have it) 24/7 coverage from every major network.
Just because hardly any Americans died shouldn't mean we Americans shouldn't care. But on average, most don't.
" Still. Nothing like 9/11 coverage even here in Australia."
Exactly, and I am here to tell you that coverage of terrorists killing Australians in Bali was non-existent in the USA.
I remember every website/tv show/whatever media acknowledged it somehow for the next few weeks, and people did too. Red white and blue ribbons were on google and slashdot (I think), yahoo went black and white, people wore pins on their lapels. The world as a whole just sufferred a massive loss, again, why not acknowledge it in the same way? What could do more for the image of america abroad than the knowledge that every other person is wearing a pin to acknowledge a tragedy that hapenned on the other side of the planet?
Sri Lanka is one of the "lucky countries" where a comfortable (by Asian standards) life can be had for little effort. Memories fade in such circumstances. 120 years ago Krakatoa sent a tsunami to Sri Lanka, reported as 12 feet high when it reached shore, but I find only -one- fatality recorded. (37,000 in Sumatra)
/.ers were able to idly speculate, and bring down Indian webservers - http://www.asc-india.org/ collapsed within hours of the disaster...
Compare 1908 when the city of Messina, Sicily was destroyed by earthquake, and tsunami engulfed neighboring Calabria, estimates of death toll range up to 200,000
The present disaster happened on a holiday weekend, when thousands of
I heared in the news that in the US, people living near the coast are informed/learn at school that when the sea retreats suddenly, it's time to find out how fast you can run.. Not a bad idea, imho.
True. I lived in California for three years. When I got there the first thing I was told was watch the ocean after a quake. If the water starts to recede, run for the hills.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
If you look at the wave animations for the tsunami, you'll see that most of it got directed almost due west toward Sri Lanka and eastern India. Diego Garcia is well out of the way of the main wave.
But then again, I could be wrong.
I disagree. 9/11 was a far worse tragedy in that it killed over 3000 Americans.
yes he did.
Also grew up on the Oregon Coast. (North Bend/Coos Bay area) How the hell can you not know this? For the original poster's information, it is taught in schools. Some of them, at least.
;)
There are also tsunami warning signs at nearly every single beach, that even tell you about that particular warning sign if you bother to read them. I'm talking all over the Oregon coast, not just where I'm originally from.
There are even signs pointing out tsunami escape routes in some places.
Jeez... I thought everyone around here knew that stuff. Just like everyone knows about our rip-tides. Right??
It should be obvious at an elemental level... watch the waves at the beach any time. The water goes out, then comes back in with each wave. Well, if the water REALLY goes out... it's REALLY gonna come in! RUN!
Here is a not quite scientifically accurate (but not too far off) example that illustrates the effect pretty well for those that have trouble getting the concept:
Take a rectangular pan of water and give it a single good rock from one side to the other, then back. Note that the water on the first side gets really shallow while the water has gone to the other side. But then it comes crashing back along with the water from the other side, probably splashing out of the pan and getting all over the floor.
Not quite what happens with a tsunami, but the effect is similar. The big wave of energy rolls along till it hits shallow water, then starts to rise up. That rising water comes from somewhere... much of it from the beach ahead. Don't stick around to see where all that water went off to. It didn't go far, and it's gonna come right back atcha with a vengeance very quickly. Just like the pan of water in your kitchen, but amplified just a bit... let's say, a few million times or more.
How can this be modded Flamebait, when people are posting so much crap around here.
The only reason this disaster is getting so much media cover is because we have people there who filmed the waves and corpses. If not, no one would have even heard about it.
9/11 was a disaster that may have been triggered 56 years ago, and since that morning in 2001, it's been continuing to extract a toll ever since. Who knows how long the deaths from 9/11 will continue? Who knows how long these events will erode human civilization? Who knows how much progress we've made since The Enlightenment will be undone? Who knows what the ultimate cost will be?
The real tragedy is that the application of some basic human decency at several points along the course of this historical train-wreck could have stemmed the losses, or even prevented it from occuring in the first place.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
James Burke so 0wNz Clarke.
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
I read in another report that there are sea floor sensors in other oceans - you are correct that you can't just tell how much of a tsunami is going to be generated by the strength of an earthquake alone. This quake had huge tsunamis because it had a really large vertical displacement of the ocean floor, where other quakes are more horizontal.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Then of course you have the people rather hoping that entire US military bases and the people in them were wiped out because of something that happened 40 years ago. It's not just Americans that are so disgusting at times like these, when we should just care about the people... instead of feeling ashamed to be an American because of one AC, perhaps you should feel proud to be part of a country that can bring so many resources to bear on a problem like this. That includes the people living in America who have a lot to spare to help.
And for something practical people can do, you might start with a donation to the Red Cross (a good sign is that the donation link is Very Slow).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Try this for size: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4129 579.stm.
"The United States has promised $15m in immediate aid and has said more will follow. The European Union has pledged $40.5m."
In addition, EU member states make their own contributions.
They called the State Department, who called someone else, and before they could contact the right people, it was too late. Without pre-existing channels, there's no way to evacuate people on only 2-3 hours notice.
As one news site that took the trouble to research it reported, "imagine you're the manager of a TV station and you get a strange phone call from an accented voice telling you that you have an hour before a giant wave of water wipes out your city - especially when it hasn't happened for over a century. What do you do?"
The sheer lack of precedence worked against them here. It didn't help that no one in the affected countries had any real idea of the magnitude of the threat. Anyone who has worked with a large organization knows how hard it is to communicate such an idea in only an hour or two - and have that communication translated into effective action.
Fuck you, asshole. Shut me up if you can, but $15 Million is NOTHING.
My point, which you seem too dim to comprehend and too cowardly to confront except anonymously, is that $15M (which was the amount being reported at the time of my post) is about enough to rebuild a gas station and a post office or perhaps an M1A1 Abrams tank. Our society pays more to jackasses who kick little balls down a field. The scope of this tragedy is incredibly huge. I already donate more than a third of my very hard earned income to the government as taxes and I have to watch it being pissed away on irrelevant nonsense. I'm ashamed and embarrassed that significantly more aid isn't forthcoming.
$15 Billion would barely put a dent in the damage caused and the only reason it's not higher is that many of these people were dirt poor to begin with.
To call you a cock-smoker would be an insult to all the hard working, tax paying cock-smokers of the world.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
every time I hear that mentioned, I think of a vacation near Sri Lanka when a buddy of mine said to me while we were leaving
I love that little island.. what was it called?..
Awww Phuket!
that's not what i read (spiegel, a german news magazine): apparently the usgs tried to issue a warning, but found that there was no procedure in place and nobody to contact
Did it ever occur to you that the media show people might have wanted to take five minutes to put a factual story together, and took the opportunity to cut to commercials whilst they did, because they _knew_ they wouldn't be breaking again for at least the next hour?
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
It is only natural that American Media won't tell about the people the US Military killed in Iraq.
That's simply wrong. Just the other night I was watching US Marines get shot at from some stone house someplace in Iraq. There was much confusion, yelling, and scrambling around. Finally a grenade got thrown into a window. After it went off all of the shooting suddenly stopped, the only noise left was someone screaming. A Marine went up to the window, stuck his rifle muzzle in, took a look in after it, and fired a single shot. The screaming stopped. "He's gone", the Marine said as he turned around and walked away.
So yeah, they're telling us about the people the military killed, and is still killing, in Iraq. We also get photos of every car bomb that goes off, complete with body counts, of both American and Iraqui soldiers killed. They do not bother to count the insurgents killed...
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Looks like the US is on it's way to donate more than the combined european union (who have significant more tsunami victims in the area)
n s.htm
This ain't unusual:
http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Our_Culture/america
Take note of:
1)The date
2)This was written by a Canadian
And where was the rest of the world last summer, when Florida was pounded, four times, by hurricanes?
Oh, right. Bitching about our overthrow of Saddam's government, that's where. As if the world isn't a better place with him sitting in a jail cell.
And, for the record, we hardly devastated Iraq. We were careful to avoid damaging things like water works and electric power distribution, probably because it was pretty obvious that we'd be rebuilding those things as soon as the shooting quieted down. The worst damage has been done by ba'athist loyalists, trying to keep the fighting going. According to the interim prime minister, the majority of Iraq is peaceful and happy to see America there, it's only a tiny minority that are dressing up in explosive vests and bombing the (combined American-Iraqui military) mess hall, and kidnapping and beheading the contracters we're hiring to keep the power plants and cellphone stations up.
Unless you're Kim Il-Jung, you _really_ do not have a helluva lot to worry about from America. We as a people find invading other countries distasteful. We learned that lesson well in Vietnam. It's only when we're pretty directly threatened that we will defend ourselves, and the rest of the world, too, if necessary.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
"Apparently those deadasses couldn't be bothered to pick up a phone and call every person in southeast Asia to warn them."
Its not just the USGS that didn't warn people. Every seismic station in the world must have registered the earthquake and Internet sites update this stuff continuously. People all over the world must have known this earthquake occured and I'm sure there were thousands who knew that a tsunami may strike.
I think the problem is that is was really no ones job to send a warning. Tens of thousands of people have died because everyone assumed it was someone elses responsibility to get the word out.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
Before, I get into what I say - what ever I say here is no personal , no offence to no one
..
,, just the American Soldiers ( some times they don't even /logistical) and they could be in fore front of relief operations .. They don't see any oil over there they don't act. Is that is !!
..
We are now into 3rd day of this disaster and we just starting to realize how big it is and how long does it take to get back to normal(if at all). Right now being in US we can support the victims morally and monetary..
I first heard this news on Sunday CNN headline news and I thought it was small earth quake ( this is how CNN projected it, initially) As was googling around today I saw one comment which was hard to believe, that western media was not ready to give all the info - just not spoil the holiday mood. No wonder, Mr.President (Geroge Bush) didn't find time or muharth till now (we are into Wednesday) to talk about it. There is no official communiqué from white house, yet. They offered $15 mn (now they revised to $35 mn ) - is this 50c per displaced person that's how they are calculating ?? And one more thing, as I watching those images on Anderson Cooper 360, someone reported Anderson not to show those images as they are quite disturbing.. what kind of an insensitive person would he/she be ? Initially, I thought its media which is bad here in US, than I thought it govt. too,,and its hard to believe people are being insensitive too
I'm starting to ask myself - why is America being so in different when it comes to others peoples. I know now in IRAQ they created a mess and they or media don't talk about civilian casualties any more
Mention about other country soldiers). Now they only want to get out of there because there are more American Casualties. Now we have a natural disaster and US has all the equipment, resources (strategic
Sept'11 changed world for sure, not because it's America which got affected because it's the evil thing which happened and world came together . Any way its getting loooong, what I wish to say is - YOU don't make friends waging wars, you make them when you lend your hands when they need them
Oh yes, I can see. For some reason the poor people living in indian coasts had bad karma because american corporations decided to outsource their jobs to not-so-poor trained people that lived in other parts of India.
Is it more tragic if a german dies than someone of any other nationality?
Not yet.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
"Nature is a mean mother and every so often she does something bad that punishes people who foolishly live in areas that are susceptible (this goes to any hicks who live in Tornado Alley or anyone who lives on the side of an active volcano, too)."
Name me one place in the world where you can't die from natural happenings?
Cali? Earthquakes.
Florida? Hurriances
North Dakota? Buried in Snow
Hawaii? Volcanoes
Come on buddy. Name ONE place where nature can't kill someone.
Yeah, I thought so.
Single day?
American Civil War.
World War I.
Read _Isaac's Storm_
Life is dear to me.
Life is cheap.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Damn morbid curiosity...
there aaare no warning systems in this area because it's a very rare event. tsunamis are relatvelt frequent in the pacific and hardly ever occur anywhere else. does the US have a tsunami warning system at the atlantic coast? a tsunami killed 60000 people in lisbon in 1755
Bothersome natives.
Drowned in a tsunami, the nerve.
Sack them and replace them at the first opportunity.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Every time I hear / read / become aware of a European say / write / think "native" I substitute nigger.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
seems to be common human behavior. i have heard enough (not all) americans insist that "all french are surrender monkeys" and that from now on they would eat freedom fries
What have you lost, little men?
Until and unless you go through what they have, you don't know what they've lost, do you? I can't believe you got modded "insightful" for such a snotty diatribe.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
But there is a large difference in degree and likelihood of danger depending on where you live. Just because a natural disaster could conceivably hit anywhere doesn't mean that's equally likely everywhere; on the contrary, the opposite is true.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Apparently they don't teach that on the Atlantic Coast (at least in my area). Grew up on the coast and never heard that. Not sure if I would know if a tsunami was coming just because the sea "retreated," but I sure as heck would know something big was going down and would NOT head out to sea to see what happened. If you are used to the ocean, you get used to the sea going back and forth. Notice the rhythm, back and forth. If it goes back REAL far, it's going to come forward REAL far. Guess we coast dwellers take all that knowledge for granted. I would think it was common sense. Just follows the common saying, "What goes up, must come down." I'm thinking though, that even with that knowledge, you probably wouldn't have enough time to escape a tsunami, especially if everyone else was doing the same. Try getting out of OC after the 4th of July fireworks; there's no way you would get out if everyone knew something big was coming their way (be it Godzilla or a tsunami). I'm sure coastal areas can be quite different, but the only coast I'm familiar with, there are bridges to get the beach, creates a massive bottleneck -- both ways.
There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling! -- CBG, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"
What irked me was this ONE man ..who has been through a trauma that you can't imagine, and you're ridiculing him. You should be ashamed of yourself.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
In reading your post I was reminded of the story of the Five Chinese Brothers, could that be the story of which you are thinking?
There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling! -- CBG, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"
When you said the name it struck a bell. I remember that book from when I was little. I didn't see mention of a tsunami on the Amazon page, but if that is in the book, then it is definitely the one I was thinking of. Thanks! You have been befriended.
Andrew
Most of the beaches around here aren't very wide... maybe 50-100 yards on average. (Bigger here, smaller there.) They also aren't very crowded at all... don't really need to fear crowds getting bottlenecked at escape points.
;)
:)
_ coast_87n_WP.jpg t %20029.jpg o rthwest/nw-oregon%20coast.jpg t /beach1.jpg
s 2/12.jpg s 2/29.jpg o re_acres_high.jpg s .jpg
Speaking of which, no bridges or anything like that. Beaches aren't really developed at all. You might have to run up a sand berm (full of dune grass), dirt trail, or clamber over some rocks to save time (instead of heading for a regular path)... but most places it's easy to get on/off of the beach itself.
At any of the beaches I frequent, You also gain elevation pretty quickly. Once you hit the edge of the beach, you are going up... could gain 30-50 feet in less than a minute. In some places 100 or more, if you can hack it.
In other words... you'd have to run for it, but you MIGHT just stand a chance, depending on where you are and how big it is. A 30-50 footer might get you wet, but given a minute or two you have a chance at getting to someplace where it might not kill you. Anyone know how long you get once that water starts heading out?
Everywhere else I go you don't need to run... you're already looking down at the ocean from a few hundred feet above it.
Here are some examples of our beaches:
http://www.picturesof.net/_wallpaper/brookings_gb
http://www.geomembrane.com/040227%20Oregon%20Coas
http://www.rawdonsbar.com/charliegallery/images/n
http://www.htmlhelp.com/~liam/Oregon/Coast/Newpor
Here are some pics of my favorite beaches... Sunset & Simpson Coves. (Collectively referred to as Shore Acres.) Most of the shots don't show the beaches themselves... you mostly see just the cliffs around them. (You've gotta hike some unmarked trails to get to where some of these shots were taken). But one is looking back at Sunset Cove from a tidepool area off to one side. (Note, I took none of these. Just found 'em at google. Apparently a few photographers know my spots!)
http://www.naosmm.org/confer/port-or/gifs/jackpic
http://www.naosmm.org/confer/port-or/gifs/jackpic
http://www.jobo-usa.com/gallery/images/surf_at_sh
http://www.hackstadt.com/adv/1998/195b-shore-acre
Some more good ones here:
http://www.coos-bay.net/coastalphotographs.html
Ahhh, yes, I tend to forget that it's possible to have beaches and elevation. Here where I live (mid-atlantic), the highest point is probably not more than 20 feet above sea level. In fact, I think the highest point in Delaware is 142 feet above sea level (give or take 10 feet, and that's up north near the PA border).
There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling! -- CBG, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"
No tsunami, but the first brother holds the sea in his mouth so the townspeople can gather shells, fish, etc. He can only hold it a certain amount of time, the people got greedy and wouldn't leave the ocean floor, they got drowned. Sounded similar to the situation you were speaking of.
There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling! -- CBG, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"
Welcome to the club. Although the news report I heard merely said that the epicenter was from a Richter Scale 9 quake off the coast of Sumatra, having played around with the Asteroid impact calculator from last week's stories gave me some instant idea of the affected area... and that Clarke might have been in-range.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
A station with thoughtful, accurate reporting? thats rare, which station is it? do you have a link to their story?
Oh, right. Well, maybe that story taught me to not go out when the sea is low. I've been watching some videos of the tsunami hitting and it is sad that people where so oblivious. In a number of them people were out wading in the water or standing just a few meters above sea level. In some of the videos, I swear, I don't see how the people could have survived. The tsunamis are different than I thought. I was under the impression it was one huge wave, but they are much more dangerous. People can see a huge wave coming, but when the sea just keeps rising, people don't know how bad it is going to get and don't react appropriately. I'm amazed by the amount of power and force the water hit with. This truly was a terrible disaster and the videos make me appreciate it that much more.
So get off your high horse unless you really think that the plight of this ONE man somehow trumps the tragedy of the millions.
why do you think I don't know what a natural catastrophy feels like?
Perhaps I'm inferring it from your callous attitude toward a survivor.
So get off your high horse unless you really think that the plight of this ONE man somehow trumps the tragedy of the millions.
Excuse me? You're the one on the high horse, presuming to judge this man.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I E-mailed him a few days ago and just recieved a response. ::Sir Arthur C Clarke to John L. Sokol
e ded.htm
Dear John,
Thank you for your concern about my safety in the wake of last Sunday's devastating tidal wave.
I am enormously relieved that my family and household have escaped the ravages of the sea that suddenly invaded most parts of coastal Sri Lanka, leaving a trail of destruction.
But many others were not so fortunate. For over two million Sri Lankans and a large number of foreign tourists holidaying here, the day after Christmas turned out to be a living nightmare reminiscent of The Day After Tomorrow. My heart-felt sympathy goes out to all those who lost family members or friends.
Among those who directly experienced the waves were my staff based at our diving station in Hikkaduwa, and my holiday bungalows in Kahawa and Thiranagama all beachfront properties located in southern areas that were badly hit. Our staff members are all safe, even though some are badly shaken and relate harrowing first hand accounts of what happened. Most of our diving equipment and boats at Hikkaduwa were washed away. We still don't know the full extent of damage -- it will take a while for us to take stock as accessing these areas is still difficult.
This is indeed a disaster of unprecedented magnitude for Sri Lanka, which lacks the resources and capacity to cope with the aftermath. We are encouraging concerned friends to contribute to the relief efforts launched by various national and international organisations. If you wish to join these efforts, I can recommend two options.
- Contribute to a Sri Lanka disaster relief fund launched by an internationally operating humanitarian charity, such as Care or Oxfam.
- Alternatively, considering supporting Sarvodaya, the largest development charity in Sri Lanka, which has a 45-year track record in reaching out and helping the poorest of the poor. Sarvodaya has mounted a well organised, countrywide relief effort using their countrywide network of offices and volunteers who work in all parts of the country, well above ethnic and other divisions. Their website, www.sarvodaya.lk, provides bank account details for financial donations. They also welcome contributions in kind -- a list of urgently needed items is found at: http://www.sarvodaya.lk/Inside_Page/urgently%20ne
There is much to be done in both short and long terms for Sri Lanka to raise its head from this blow from the seas. Among other things, the country needs to improve its technical and communications facilities so that effective early warnings can help minimise losses in future disasters.
Curiously enough, in my first book on Sri Lanka, I had written about another tidal wave reaching the Galle harbour (see Chapter 8 in The Reefs of Taprobane, 1957). That happened in August 1883, following the eruption of Krakatoa in roughly the same part of the Indian Ocean.
Arthur Clarke
29 December 2004
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
My point is, that yes, US schools are very good about teaching safety. It wouldn't suprise me at all that kids in coastal areas learn what to do for tsunamis, huricaines, et. al.
My Elementary school years were filled with safety and health seminars with guest speakers/mascots teaching everthing from school bus saftey, to fire saftey, to dental care, and even a rather odd saftey day about safe roller skating and skate boarding. Oh yeah, electricity saftey day was a blast! One guy in a furry lightning bolt costume with a huge smiley face, one Van DeGraph generator, two terrified first graders, and one very brightly lit florescent tube in thier hands. Great fun.
High School health/saftey demos were much more depressing. . . AIDS, gasoline explosions, major wounds, physical trauma. . . bleh.
Anyway, to the US slashdotters: is this true or not?
It is for me. I live in Alaska, which has been hit hard by tsunamis in the past (Kodiak island, for example, was pretty much completely destroyed by the 1964 tsunami). We have a pretty good earthquake and tsunami education system in place, with Tsunami evacuation routs (similar to hurricane evacuation routs found in the Southeast), and even a Tsunami alarm downtown.
If you can read this then I forgot to check "Post Anonymously"
Yeah, and all our pervy grandparents go to florida to watch all the college kids get naked over spring break.
If you can read this then I forgot to check "Post Anonymously"
Let me answer your question: More than any other country.
Irrelevant. Nobody's impressed when a billionare donates ten bucks to charity. The GOP is planning on spending twice as much money for Bush's second inaguration as the amount currently earmarked for disaster aid for the survivors. Tells you where the priorities are...
We're not donating 10 bucks. We're donating $350 million so far. And it has nothing to do with impressing anyone. It has to do with helping people. So far our contribution to the effort will help the victims more than any other contributor.
The GOP is planning on spending twice as much money for Bush's second inaguration as the amount currently earmarked for disaster aid for the survivors. Tells you where the priorities are...
The GOP is planning on spending $700 million on Bush's second inauguration? That's news to me. It seems to me your propaganda is a little out of data.
And it has nothing to do with impressing anyone
If it has nothing to do with impressing anyone, then why do twits like you keep reminding everyone that the U.S. gives more than anyone else in dollar terms?
The GOP is planning on spending $700 million on Bush's second inauguration? That's news to me. It seems to me your propaganda is a little out of data.
You mean out of date? Yes, they've added another zero to the number, but at the time the U.N. was complaining, it was only $35 million. If people are going to bitch about the U.N. for comments they made at the time, then its only fair to talk about those comments in the context of the size of the American donation at the time.
No, it's not a foreign 9/11, it's WORSE. This tragedy, which cost thousands upon thousands more lives than 9/11, was not preventable.
It certainly was (is) a tragedy, but it is not an injustice. Tsunami victims weren't wronged (well, I guess they were by mother nature, but you can hardly consider her an enemy on whom you'd like to get revenge).
9/11 was a result of someone's (or some group of people's) deliberate plan to harm others. The tsunami was the result of an earthquake. It's different. I'm not saying that one loss of life is worse than the other. Both are tragic. But only one is the fault of fellow humans.