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3/15/2011 7:17 pm
alz wrote:
I'm in AP's side with this. Haiti obviously gets a poverty pass, but how much help did Japan give us for Katrina? I say we donate $1.00 to them for their quake for every $1.00 they gave us for Katrina. That should be a very easy check to write.
I'm not very charitable when our own backyard is a disaster. Let me get it cleaned up, and then I'll think about helping you build a pool for yours....
Jesus couldn't have said it better himself.
3/15/2011 5:32 pm
Absolutely amazing pics .
3/15/2011 3:07 pm
"Indonesian geologist Hery Harjono, who dealt with the 2004 Asian tsunami, said it would be ‘a miracle really if it turns out to be less than 10,000’ dead.
The 2004 tsunami killed 230,000 people - but only 184,000 bodies were found."
A disaster so horrific that they round off the number of dead to three decimal places. Under such an accounting method the death toll from the Oklahoma City bomb would be zero.
Read more:
3/15/2011 11:36 am
"I'm in AP's side"
Better than being in his rear.
(Sorry. Couldn't help it. 10 minutes in the penalty box for a misconduct ...)
3/15/2011 9:50 am
I'm in AP's side with this. Haiti obviously gets a poverty pass, but how much help did Japan give us for Katrina? I say we donate $1.00 to them for their quake for every $1.00 they gave us for Katrina. That should be a very easy check to write.
I'm not very charitable when our own backyard is a disaster. Let me get it cleaned up, and then I'll think about helping you build a pool for yours....
3/14/2011 9:41 pm
"Yeah, the selfish side of me thinks about how another world event is going to pull the focus off of what is wrong in our own country."
That is too true, and it's not selfish. It's the way the world works. The cynical side of me thinks that the rich and powerful know this and that is why they always delay. Who gies a shit about Enron and World Bank now, after the fiascoes that were the Iraq and Afghan Wars??? And yet those two issues were clear harbingers of a corporate kleptocracy that needed a nuclear solution. Instead they resulted in a couple guys doing some jail time and everyone else getting off scott free, and the rest of the corporate world learned from that and handed us the banking mess of 2007.
One of my private fantasies is that they use racketeering laws to go after these guys they way they go after the mob. And one morning we will wake up to hear that in an action by hundreds of FBI agents, US Marshalls, and local law enforcement, the top several hundred executives at America's banking, finance, and oil firms were all arrested in a pre-dawn raid and led out of their homes and into waiting Paddy wagons wearing handcuffs. And by afternoon there are mugshots and images of them in orange jumpsuits and ankle chains flooding the internet.
Can you imagine the crap they'd find if they impounded and searched those guys' laptops and Blackberries?
3/14/2011 8:24 pm
Is it worng that I have a hard time getting to worked up over this earthquake? It isnt that I dont feel bad for the people and families that are effected. It is just hard to feel sorry for everyone else when nobody cares what happens over here.
Well, I think that depends upon whom you think we should be sorry for here? But I assume you are talking politics, AP.
America seems to be divided into three groups: about 30% are die hard progressives like myself, who feel an American-style social democracy of the 1970s and 1990s is ideal, with the added touches of universal health care and ever increasing emancipation of repressed fringe demographic groups, like gays, Muslims, or whomever. Another 30% are die hard conservatives who viscerally hate the vision of America that I cherish (and I, of course, viscerally hate their vision of America). In between are about 40% who are the swing voters. When things heat up around election time, the swing voters jump one way or the other, and the group shrinks down to maybe 10-20% in the run-up to election day. In the battle for those swing voters, both sides start to make ugly deals with the devil that step all over their core ideology. In this environment, it is very, very hard to accomplish much of anything, and people get so frustrated they begin to give up on the whole process.
Yeah, the selfish side of me thinks about how another world event is going to pull the focus off of what is wrong in our own country. How these troubles is going to suck US aid and our tax dollars to another country out there. Then you have the media side of things that is going to beat this thing into our heads for the next 2 years. I feel bad for the people of course. You would have to be unhuman not to. I cant put words together that would reflect what Japan is going through.
You could look at the second highlighted satement like that or you could like at it like I do. The middle group pulls the far left and far right to a workable centerish level. If it wasnt for the swing voters we would either be ultra conservative or ultra liberal. I dont think either is healthy. What is frustrating is Washington not doing what the people that elected them want because they have there own agenda. they call it looking a the big picture. I call it CYA.
3/14/2011 5:40 pm
Is it worng that I have a hard time getting to worked up over this earthquake? It isnt that I dont feel bad for the people and families that are effected. It is just hard to feel sorry for everyone else when nobody cares what happens over here.
Well, I think that depends upon whom you think we should be sorry for here? But I assume you are talking politics, AP.
America seems to be divided into three groups: about 30% are die hard progressives like myself, who feel an American-style social democracy of the 1970s and 1990s is ideal, with the added touches of universal health care and ever increasing emancipation of repressed fringe demographic groups, like gays, Muslims, or whomever. Another 30% are die hard conservatives who viscerally hate the vision of America that I cherish (and I, of course, viscerally hate their vision of America). In between are about 40% who are the swing voters. When things heat up around election time, the swing voters jump one way or the other, and the group shrinks down to maybe 10-20% in the run-up to election day. In the battle for those swing voters, both sides start to make ugly deals with the devil that step all over their core ideology. In this environment, it is very, very hard to accomplish much of anything, and people get so frustrated they begin to give up on the whole process.
3/14/2011 5:30 pm
Watching some of the footage from Japan, yacht's and other fishing vessels (the COMMERCIAL kind that are about 200 feet long) getting tossed around like some toys.
I'm going to be shocked if the final death toll on this isn't over 15K. Way too much coastal population for it to be less.
I think the medium-sized ship on top of the 2-story building is a powerful testimonial as to the destruction
3/14/2011 5:26 pm
Is it worng that I have a hard time getting to worked up over this earthquake? It isnt that I dont feel bad for the people and families that are effected. It is just hard to feel sorry for everyone else when nobody cares what happens over here.
3/14/2011 5:24 pm
I apologize for annoying you .
That wasnt my point but apology accepted (happy)
3/14/2011 1:37 pm
Can you imagine if the epicenter of this thing had been in Tokyo?
It's hard to know just how resistant, modern 'earthquake resistant' skyscrapers are, but they seem to do pretty well. The real damage comes to brick structures, and most Jakartans live in single family brick structures surfaced with cement. When even a moderately large earthquake, like 6.5 and bigger, strikes under a city like that, the loss of life is huge. I think something kind of similar, but on a small scale, happened in Turkey not long ago.
3/14/2011 12:19 pm
I was probably very casual to the cards boards then, mostly I was a dolphin fan postin in the only active AFC forum yahoo had (Patriots board).
I guess back in 1960 they had one in Chile that hit 9.5 as the most devastating recorded earthquake ever. That's nearly impossible to imagine.
3/14/2011 11:42 am
Can you imagine if the epicenter of this thing had been in Tokyo?
3/14/2011 11:24 am
were you around on this board when the earthquake and tsunami hit Indonesia back in december 2004, alz? old timers among us will recall that i was living in jakarta back then and i recall the body count going up dramatically as they reached more remote areas and found more devastated, and empty, villages. i don't think this will get anywhere near 240,000, but i would be surprised if it doesn't go up quite a bit still.