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| Mark Steyn: On tsunami's shore |
| 2005-01-04 |
In the heyday of musical comedy, they had "catalog songs" — great long laundry lists of examples that all go to prove the same point — that "You're The Top" or "These Foolish Things Remind Me Of You." That's the way it is with the world's opinion formers these days. Whatever happens anywhere on the planet all goes to prove the same central point — the iniquity of America. Even so, you would think an unprecedented tsunami in a region that has never been a U.S. sphere of influence would be hard to pin on the Great Satan. And, to be fair to the global rent-a-quote crowd, for an hour or two they were stunned into silence. But it wasn't long before they were back singing the same old song: Disaffected young Muslim men in Saudi Arabia, devastated coastal villages in Sri Lanka ... "These Foolish Things Remind Me Of U.S.A." You really need Cole Porter:You're The PitsJan Egeland, that Norwegian bloke who is the U.N. humanitarian honcho, got the ball rolling with a few general remarks about big countries' "stinginess." He particularly thinks U.S. tax rates too low. Got that? Those tightwad Yanks aren't doing enough. But whoa, hang on. It turns out those pushy Yanks are doing way too much, at least according to Clare Short, formerly Britain's international development secretary (until she stormed out of Tony Blair's Cabinet to protest the Iraq war). President Bush roused her ire by announcing Washington would coordinate its disaster relief with Australia, India and Japan. To Miss Short that had a whiff of another "coalition of the willing." "I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the U.N.," she told the BBC. "Only really the U.N. can do that job. It is the only body that has the moral authority." |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #3 Will Sri Lanka reject this aid from Israel, too? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-01-04 5:08:55 PM |
| #2 Israeli Company Offers Free Tsunami Alert System JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli company said on Monday it planned to distribute free to Asian countries hit by last week's tsunami a device it says could save lives by warning holiday-makers directly that a tidal wave is coming. The system developed by Israeli inventor Meir Gitelis uses land and water sensors, smaller than a shoe box and each costing $170, to measure seismic activity and wave motion. Like other systems already in operation, the sensors can send alerts in seconds by satellite to governments anywhere in the world |
| Posted by: Flath Ulagum1688 2005-01-04 4:05:04 PM |
| #1 At that point, the tsunami was still an hour away from Thailand, and several hours away from Somalia. But whoever issued that bulletin either never thought to call anyone in the Indian Ocean, or had no one in his Rolodex to call. He's wrong. The warning was issued. That's been documented already. It went wrong at the receiving end. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-01-04 10:03:51 AM |