The DNC: We resolve to not be so reactionary, except when a Republican's ratings climb.
Dan Rather: I resolve to maintain total honesty henceforth and forevermore. I also resolve not to annoy the Ward-Brodt people when I go to replace broken harp strings.
Yassin, Rantissi, and Arafat: We resolve to eschew any activities whose names reference fire, cooking, or heat.
John Kerry: I resolved to be more consistent before I didn't.
Howard Dean: I'm going to calm down, and then I'm going to take a deep breath, YEARGH!
Can you think of any more?
Posted by: Korora ||
12/31/2004 10:03:55 AM ||
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#1
I, George Walker Bush will admit that I am a religious crackpot, and apologise for believing that Judaism and Christianity have anything to do with Islam. I will then proceed by nuking Mecca and Medina.
I advise any of my first incarnation followers to bite firmly on their tongues, anytime they feel the need to use the term "values." I value only American life.
Posted by: George Walker Bush ||
12/31/2004 14:32 Comments ||
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#2
The preceding announcement, without the express written permission of the National Football League and the RNC, is strictly...prohibited!
#3
I,Kim Jong Il,resolve to know when to hold 'em,and to know when to fold 'em. I've got enough tucked away to bribe Jacques and I think Tahiti will be nice place to live.
I,Jimmy Carter,resolve to oversee the elections in...ah...uh...well...hmmm...Zimbabwe. Yeah,Zimbabwe's got a dictator's butt I haven't kissed yet.
I,Dan Rather,resolve to use my new free time to find out if the Bush Guard documents are fakes or not.
I,John F Kerry,resolve to recommend Bob Shrum to all my enemies. That so-called political consultant loses more than the Washington Generals.
I,Jacques Chirac,resolve to restore France to her rightful place as the First Nation Of the World and to oversee the extinction of English....Wife why are you laughing hysterically? Stop that!
I,George Bush,resolve to be more compassionate,more generous,more consultative,nicer,friendlier to our Countries friends. The rest of y'all can go suck on a Tomahawk. Reminds me,I got to get Dad to sign my card to Dan on steppin down as anchor. Gonna party that night!
I,Osama Bin Laden,resolve to find a new cave. This one's getting pretty rank.
I,Kofi Annan,resolve to slap the s*** out of my son. The miserable ingrate hasn't given me my fair cut.
I,Saddam Hussein,resolve to hire Johnnie Cochrane. If the WMD's aren't found,I cannot be bound.
We,the members of the EU,resolve to be an IMPORTANT WORLD POWER. And if you don't respect us,we're going to hold our breath until we turn blue-we will,don't make us!
We,the members of the NHL,management and players alike,resolve to continue not playing hockey until you notice.
We,the members of the Democratic Party,resolve that the best way to win elections is to call all those who don't vote for us idiots,religious fanatics,stupid,selfish,dumb,bigoted,ignorant,trigger-happy racist sheep.
We,the Republican Party,resolve to remind the American people what the Dems think of them.
We,the MSM,resolve to get Who,What,When,Where and Why...wrong.
I,Bill Clinton,resolve to do all I can to keep that cold shrew from being elected President,while telling that gullible b**** I'm behind her all the way. Hey big girl,wanna cigar?
I,Hillary Clinton,resolve to grind that two-timing,back-stabbing B******s afce in my inevitable victory. Or I'll get him neutered...hmmm,first thing I'll do is pardon Lorena Bobbitt.
I,Kobe Bryant,resolve to walk up to Shaq and hold out my hand in our next meeting in Miami. That will get everybody off my back.
We,the assorted Rantburgers wherever we may be,resolve to be polite,calm and reasoned on this forum...until the next idiot says something completely stupid.
Posted by: Stephen ||
12/31/2004 21:50 Comments ||
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Wow, Stephen! I just saw this - nice work, bro!
John Toland, 91. Won 1971 Pulitzer for nonfiction for "The Rising Sun," on the Japanese empire during World War II. Jan. 4.
Tug McGraw, 59. Relief pitcher with Mets, Phillies; known for slogan "You Gotta Believe." Father of country music star Tim McGraw. Jan. 5. Brain cancer.
Alfred Pugh, 108. Last known combat-wounded U.S. veteran of World War I. Jan. 7.
Bob Keeshan, 76. Gently entertained generations of youngsters as TV's walrus-mustachioed Captain Kangaroo and became an outspoken opponent of violence in children's television. Jan. 23.
Daniel J. Boorstin, 89. Former Librarian of Congress; million-selling historian, social critic. Feb. 28.
Abul Abbas, 56. Palestinian who planned hijacking of the Achille Lauro passenger ship. March 8. Natural causes in U.S. custody. He could have left us much, much earlier, as far as I'm concerned.
Pat Tillman, 27. NFL player who traded in multimillion-dollar contract to serve as Army Ranger in Afghanistan. April 22. Killed in action.
Retired Gen. Robert F. Seedlock, 91. Led arduous construction of the Burma Road during World War II. May 5.
Col. Robert Morgan, 85. Commander of famed Memphis Belle B-17 bomber during World War II. May 15.
Tony Randall, 84. Comic actor; the fastidious Felix Unger in "The Odd Couple" and fussbudget pal in several Rock Hudson-Doris Day movies. May 17.
Ronald Reagan, 93. The cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was "morning again in America." June 5. God bless ya, Ronnie!
Ray Charles, 73. Transcendent talent who erased musical boundaries with hits such as "What'd I Say," "Georgia on My Mind" and "I Can't Stop Loving You." June 10.
Marlon Brando, 80. Revolutionized American acting with "A Streetcar Named Desire"; created the iconic character of Vito Corleone in "The Godfather." July 1.
Charles W. Sweeney, 84. Piloted the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. July 15.
Fay Wray, 96. The damsel held atop the Empire State Building by the ape in "King Kong." Aug. 8.
Julia Child, 91. Brought the intricacies of French cuisine to Americans through her television series and books. Aug. 13.
Johnny Ramone, 55. Co-founded supremely influential punk band "The Ramones." Sept. 15. Prostate cancer.
Russ Meyer, 82. Producer-director who helped spawn the "skin flick" — and later gained a measure of critical respect — for such films as "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" Sept. 18.
Rodney Dangerfield, 82. The bug-eyed comic whose self-deprecating "I don't get no respect" brought him stardom in clubs, television and movies. Oct. 5.
Christopher Reeve, 52. "Superman" actor who became the nation's most recognizable spokesman for spinal cord research after a paralyzing accident. Oct. 10.
Theo van Gogh, 47. Outspoken Dutch filmmaker; great-grandnephew of Vincent. Nov. 2. Murdered, apparently by Islamic radicals.
Yasser Arafat, 75. Palestinian guerrilla leader turned Nobel Peace Prize winner, but also reviled as a sponsor of terrorism. Nov. 11. Hot enough for ya?
Reggie White, 43. NFL defensive great for the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers. Dec. 26. Respiratory ailment suspected in death.
Susan Sontag, 71. National Book Award-winning author, essayist and activist. Dec. 28.
Jerry Orbach, 69. Star of stage, screen and television, most notably for role as world-weary cop on "Law & Order." Dec. 28. Died of prostate cancer. Rest in peace, Lennie!
Posted by: Dar ||
12/31/2004 10:58:57 AM ||
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A federal appeals court Thursday threw out a judge's ruling that awarded $88.5 million US to former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith from the estate of her late husband, an oil tycoon who died at age 90 just over a year after they wed.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a Texas probate court's decision that the oilman's son was his sole heir should stand. The appeals court said the federal judge in California who ruled in Smith's favour in 2002 should never have even heard the case. The decision comes after years of wrangling in three courts over the fortune of Howard Marshall.
Smith met him in 1991 when she was working as a stripper. The couple married three years later when she was 26 and he was 89.
"After nine years of litigation, I'm very pleased by the judgment issued by the 9th Circuit upholding my father's wishes regarding disposition of his assets," Pierce Marshall said in a statement.
Smith has not received any of her late husband's estate. The $88.5 million was put on hold during the appeals process.
Her lawyer, Howard Stern, said the TV reality show star would ask the full appeals court to rehear the case, and would appeal to the Supreme Court if necessary.
"The 9th Circuit Court has, on a legal technicality, reversed the judgments of two federal courts that found massive fraud and other wrongdoing by Pierce Marshall by which he deprived (Smith) of the property that her husband intended her to have," Stern said.
A federal court ruled in 2002 that Smith - whose real name is Vickie Lynn Marshall - was entitled to compensatory and punitive damages because the younger Marshall altered, destroyed and falsified documents to try to keep her from receiving money from his father's estate.
Thursday's ruling reverted to the findings of a Houston probate judge, who had ruled the son is the sole heir - and does not owe Smith anything.
Smith filed for bankruptcy in 1996. As part of its ruling, the 9th Circuit said the bankruptcy court should now hear testimony on other charges she made that the court had disregarded.
Included among those was that the younger Marshall exercised undue influence on his father in making his will.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/31/2004 2:28:03 AM ||
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#1
My indifference meter reads "off scale--high."
Posted by: Mike ||
12/31/2004 8:24 Comments ||
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>Her lawyer, Howard Stern,<
A radio show, books, movie and now a legal career. Is there no end to the amazing talents of Howard Stern?
The death toll in the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster has soared above 125,000 as millions scrambled for food and fresh water and thousands more fled in panic to high ground on rumours of new waves. Aid agencies warned many more, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, could die in epidemics if shattered communications and transport hampered what may prove history's biggest relief operation. Rescue workers pressed on into isolated villages shattered by a disaster that could yet eclipse a cyclone that struck Bangladesh in 1991, killing 138,000 people. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called for an emergency meeting of the Group of Eight so that the rich nations club could discuss aid and possible debt reduction following "the worst cataclysm of the modern era".
The total toll had shot up more than 50 per cent in a day with still no clear picture of conditions in some isolated islands and villages around India and Indonesia. While villagers and fishermen suffered devastation, losses among foreign tourists, essential to local economies, mounted. Prime Minister Goran Persson said more than 1,000 Swedes may have been killed in the disaster. Indonesian Health Ministry sources told Reuters just under 80,000 had died in the northern Aceh province that was close to the undersea quake, some 28,000 more than previously announced. Two sources said the toll would be officially announced soon.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/31/2004 2:18:15 PM ||
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#1
Enough with the running count. Just publish the final tally.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/31/2004 0:56 Comments ||
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Captasin, I think the final tally is a lot higher than anyone imagines. Not counting disease and factoring in the people who have just vanished, we might be looking at 500,000 - 750,000 dead and missing.
Disease might double that figure. It boggles the mind.
#3
I watched a history channel show last night on the tsunami in 1946 in Hawaii. An amateur camerman caught the wave front as it came in. It took about two seconds to travel from the horizen (sp?) to the shore. This wasn't a 20 foot wave, it was a 20 foot wall of water traveling at 500 mph. They're never going to find all the bodies, or know the death count. Too many of them are miles out to sea. Somebody with some good physics skills can figure out the force of impact. To me the old film looked like the leading edge of an atomic bomb shock wave.
Posted by: Weird Al ||
12/31/2004 8:56 Comments ||
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#4
At last tally, we're looking at $4b* in aid money up for grabs. Any time that money is involved, we are going to get inflated body counts. My feeling is that the final number reported will be some multiple of the actual number of victims. The same kind of thing happened in China during flooding that allegedly killed thousands.
* If the body count is 100,000, that's $40K for every single person killed, or about 40 years worth of salary for much of the population in the region.
#5
If the body count is 100,000, that's $40K for every single person killed
Itâs not the dead who need the money, itâs the living. âUp to five million people were displaced by tsunamis that killed nearly 119,000 people in Asia, officials said, as aftershocks rocked traumatized survivors.â Friday, December 31, 2:14 AM AFP story. With 5 mil homeless, the 4 billion would only give each of them $800. For Indonesians, thatâs the equivalent of 4 months wages, on average. (CIA Factbook.) The real problem, though, is not wage loss, but the decimation of the infrastructure of the effected areas. It takes years to build up infrastructure, and infrastructure is expensive. The best loss adjustment specialists estimate a huge hit from this catastrophe.
Although insurers were likely to suffer limited losses, the head of Munich Re's Geo Risk unit said the total value of damage to buildings and foundations in the regions affected likely would be at least 10 billion euros ($13.6 billion).
#6
cingold: For Indonesians, thatâs the equivalent of 4 months wages, on average.
I guess it depends on what you mean by average. The average full-time Indonesian domestic working for an expatriate gets an above-market wage of $100 a month. People in the rural areas of Sumatra (and the outlying islands) that were devastated get paid far less, which is why many head for the urban centers.
The CIA Factbook number is a GDP number that averages the salaries of the billionaire tycoons with the pay of typical Indonesians. It is not representative of actual pay in Indonesia, which tends to be highly rewarding for college-educated professionals and a pittance for blue collar workers, with 20 to 1 ratios being common (i.e. college grads make a grand a month, while blue collar workers make $50 a month).
#7
from Yahoo AP link
"...all around the Indian Ocean there have been reports of local people feeling ignored or insulted by the meager aid that has trickled to them since Sunday."
"In India, survivors complained of feeling insulted by piles of secondhand clothes dumped at roadsides for them."
""We have been insulted so much that we don't want any aid from anybody," said 35-year-old Lakshimi, who goes by only one name. "We are prepared to die.
"They bring food for a few hundred people to a place where thousands of people are sheltered. They bring too few clothes, too little milk, which results in a melee. We have never looked for alms from anybody, now we have been reduced to beggars.""
#8
After medicine and potable water, the most important gift to the people of the region would be long-lasting, fundamental government reform. The circus that is the relief effort (outside of the war zones where NGOs have long operated) stems from the very same cause of the tragedy: the unpardonable absence of any kind of early warning system for natural disasters in maritime nations where the vast majority live next to the ocean.
The corrupt and incompetent governments of the region are to blame here. It's long past time that the west stopeed turning a blind eye to third world kleptocracy and massive government incompetence.
Then, there also are always the REMF. I wonder who will the MSM, and jihadi detractors, focus on to divert us from our mission of mercy? Every ounce of compassion delivered now, every life saved, will pay back multiple dividends of gratitude in the future. For that reason alone the jihadis will attempt to derail those efforts and intentions. The MSM? They just want to sell papers. They'll go after whater riles, inflames, or is otherwise sensationalistic.
#10
The corrupt and incompetent governments of the region are to blame here. It's long past time that the west stopeed turning a blind eye to third world kleptocracy and massive government incompetence.
To save on bandwidth, prior thread about whether aid should be held hostage is here.
Prior thread showing that it was âa callâ regarding the tsunami, and not corruption, that led to failures to warn is here.
#11
This just in.....corpse count falls to 110,919 and then jumps up again to over one zillion. Reporting is soooo easy.
Now let's count the returning US military coffins. Whoopeee
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/31/2004 19:14 Comments ||
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Cingold, no one's "holding aid hostage." I'm concerned with solving the problem. You argue that the governments involved made the wrong "call" based on good faith. But your link-- which discusses only the Thai and not the Indonesian or Sri Lankan government's decision processes, btw-- contains this crucial quote:
We finally decided not to do anything because the tourist season was in full swing.
Mere human frailty? Or corruption? Put it another way: can you imagine any reasonably open, democratic, transparent government concerned with its citizens' welfare behaving this way?
Then, there also are always the REMF. I wonder who will the MSM, and jihadi detractors, focus on to divert us from our mission of mercy? Every ounce of compassion delivered now, every life saved, will pay back multiple dividends of gratitude in the future. For that reason alone the jihadis will attempt to derail those efforts and intentions. The MSM? They just want to sell papers. They'll go after whater riles, inflames, or is otherwise sensationalistic.
Then, there also are always the REMF. I wonder who will the MSM, and jihadi detractors, focus on to divert us from our mission of mercy? Every ounce of compassion delivered now, every life saved, will pay back multiple dividends of gratitude in the future. For that reason alone the jihadis will attempt to derail those efforts and intentions. The MSM? They just want to sell papers. They'll go after whater riles, inflames, or is otherwise sensationalistic.
Then, there also are always the REMF. I wonder who will the MSM, and jihadi detractors, focus on to divert us from our mission of mercy? Every ounce of compassion delivered now, every life saved, will pay back multiple dividends of gratitude in the future. For that reason alone the jihadis will attempt to derail those efforts and intentions. The MSM? They just want to sell papers. They'll go after whater riles, inflames, or is otherwise sensationalistic.
Then, there also are always the REMF. I wonder who will the MSM, and jihadi detractors, focus on to divert us from our mission of mercy? Every ounce of compassion delivered now, every life saved, will pay back multiple dividends of gratitude in the future. For that reason alone the jihadis will attempt to derail those efforts and intentions. The MSM? They just want to sell papers. They'll go after whater riles, inflames, or is otherwise sensationalistic.
Saudi Arabian authorities Friday beheaded and crucified a Saudi national convicted of killing and robbing his mother. The Saudi Press Agency quoted an Interior Ministry statement that said the convict was executed and crucified in public in the southern province of Baha. Friday's beheading brought to 34 the number of people executed this year in Saudi Arabia, mostly smugglers.
I'm trying to figure whether they lopped his head off before or after they crucified him...
Show me a Saudi executioner who'll climb a ladder that high to lop off a head ...
Earlier this month an Iraqi and three Pakistani drug smugglers were beheaded in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. Executions of people convicted of murder, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking are conducted in public, in line with Shariah, the legal code of Islam, which is applied in the conservative Muslim kingdom. Some 52 people, including expatriates, were executed in Saudi Arabia in 2003.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2004 5:08:16 PM ||
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One day in November, a nuclear-powered Chinese Navy submarine quietly slipped past this western Pacific island, home port for five supply and ammunition ships positioned here by the U.S. military for rapid deployment around the world.
"We are watching them," a crew member of a U.S. Navy nuclear attack submarine said at an American fast food restaurant while on shore leave here. "The Chinese are a real concern."
Ever since the U.S. Marine Corps defeated Japanese forces here 60 years ago, the Marianas have been widely considered an American lake. Now, the United States may have to get used to sharing the western Pacific with China, the world's rising naval power.
According to military analysts, China is rapidly expanding its submarine force to about 85 by 2010, about one-third more than today.
"They want to become the dominant power in the western Pacific, to displace the United States, to kick us back to Hawaii or beyond," said Richard Fisher Jr., who studies Chinese naval strengths and strategies for the International Assessment and Strategy Center, a Washington research institute.
China is embarking on a $10 billion submarine acquisition and upgrade program and is buying destroyers and frigates and equipping them with modern antiship cruise missiles, according to Eric McVadon, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who served as defense attache in Beijing in the early 1990s.
"The Chinese are converting their surface navy into a truly modern antiship cruise-missile surface navy," McVadon, now an East Asia security consultant, said after attending a naval review conference in Hawaii. "The modernization of their navy has taken a great leap forward. Their nuclear sub program has taken off like wildfire."
In contrast, Russia, which once had 90 submarines in the Pacific, has mothballed all but 20. Japan has 16 submarines and no plans to buy more. The U.S. Pacific Fleet has 35 submarines, with many considered to be the most modern in the world. "We don't have to worry about losing control of the seas anytime soon," Richard Halloran, a military affairs analyst based in Honolulu, said by telephone. "But the Chinese are moving a whole lot faster on military modernization than anyone expected a short time ago."
For its open-water navy, China is concentrating on submarines. The immediate goal, analysts say, is to blockade Taiwan, an island nation seen by Beijing as a breakaway province.
In response, the U.S. Navy is reversing an old Soviet-era formula, where the United States had 60 percent of its submarines in the Atlantic and 40 percent in the Pacific. In addition to shifting toward keeping 60 percent in the Pacific, the United States recently set up an antisubmarine warfare center in San Diego.
In January, Guam is to receive a third U.S. nuclear attack submarine, the Houston. In three years, the United States will have brought from zero to three its forward deployed submarines in Guam, the U.S. territory 240 kilometers, or 150 miles, south of here. Since March, the United States, using satellites and maritime surveillance planes, has detected Chinese submarines in waters west of Guam.
The Chinese Han Class submarine that passed near here cruised first near Guam. From the Marianas, the Chinese submarine went north to Okinawa, where Japanese forces detected it Nov. 9 as it shadowed a joint naval exercise between the United States and Japan.
Violating international law, the submarine passed between two Japanese islands without surfacing and identifying itself. Japan protested strongly, and Japanese officials said they had won a private apology from Chinese officials.
The rise of China's navy is watched with apprehension in the Pacific, where, down through the centuries, the islands have long been playthings for the world's maritime powers: Spanish, American, British, French, German and Japanese.
"I have talked to several Chinese residents here who are quite proud that China will have a big navy again," Samuel McPhetres, regional history professor at Northern Marianas College, said in an interview. "But are two big maritime powers willing to share the Pacific?"
In October 2003, a destroyer and a supply ship from the Chinese Navy made a goodwill visit to Guam, reciprocating a visit made one month earlier by two U.S. Navy ships to Zhanjiang, in southern Guangdong Province. It was the first call by U.S. warships to the headquarters of China's South Sea Fleet there.
But a few years ago, alarm bells rang in Washington when Chinese companies were the only bidders for a U.S. Navy ship repair facility that was to be ceded by the Pentagon to Guam's territorial government. Washington stopped the sale. Later, Guam signed a 20- year lease with a Japanese company.
Today, Washington is cautious about extending to Chinese tourists the same Guam-only visa privileges extended to South Korean tourists.
Robert Underwood, who served until 2003 as the territory's nonvoting delegate to the U.S. Congress, warned that huge Chinese tourism might scare away military strategists who are investing hundreds of millions of dollars.
Today's era of carefully negotiated port calls and surreptitious surveying reminds some historians of an earlier era.
"In the 1920s American military and Japanese military had to size up each other to see what the challenges were," Daniel Martinez, National Park Service historian at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, said in an interview in Saipan. "You could see today the potential of what was happening in 1930s, when the U.S. and Japan sought to spread influence throughout the Pacific." Japan's influence is eroding with new air links from here to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
"The Chinese influence in the Pacific islands will be very, very big, bigger than Japan's today," Hiroshi Nakajima, executive director of the Pacific Society, an academic group, predicted in a recent interview here. Eventually, Nakajima said, "Chinese interests and the American interest will clash."
HUNDREDS of stories of survival continue to filter back to Australia, with one Sydney man telling how he survived the Thailand tsunami waves by bodysurfing.
Paul Redfern, 39, of Sydney, now lives in Phuket and was on Bang Tao beach when the waves came.
Instead of running in terror, Mr Redfern bodysurfed the waves to safety.
"I saw the huge waves and I thought, 'just go with it, it's a wave, don't grab anything, just ride it'," Mr Redfern said.
"I think that's what saved me in the end, because I saw people who had tried to grab on to things all torn up."
Mr Redfern said he bodysurfed next to a floating roof, which had been torn off a gazebo in a nearby park, and stayed with the wave until he could get to his feet on the road. "I am incredibly lucky," he said.
#1
Got to admit, surfing around corpses is a rush in and of itself.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/31/2004 19:12 Comments ||
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#2
I really really want to say something snarky here, having attended some surfing competitions waay back when, but wrong time, wrong place. The guy's very smart and, indeed, spectacularly lucky. Good on ya, mate!
A helping hand
The world is beginning its biggest-ever aid effort to help millions of victims of the Asian tsunami. Australians who wish to assist can donate to appeals launched by Australian aid agencies. Agencies are seeking cash donations to enable them to locally source food, medicine and shelter.
Prime Minister John Howard has announced Australia is sending a Navy ship and helicopters to Indonesia and the Government has also offered to set up a field hospital in Aceh. Mr Howard says the Asian tsunami is a human tragedy of mammoth proportions and everything must be done to help the people of neighbouring nations. Mr Howard says Australia will be involved in a coalition of countries, including Japan, India and the United States, to co-ordinate the international humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts. "The purpose of that is to ensure there is co-ordination of the relief effort," he said. "It is simply a group of countries who will just co-ordinate, exchange information, pool their assessments of what is needed."
As opposed to the UN, he means.
To further help with the rescue and retrieval effort, Mr Howard says Australia will send an Antonov aircraft with three Iriquoi helicopters to Aceh and there is also further medical assistance on the way. "We will offer a light field hospital which has about 90 beds to the Indonesian Government for use in the affected area," he said. "I'm also able to announce that HMAS Kanimbla will sail from Sydney tomorrow and it will take helicopters and engineers to assist in the reconstruction effort." Mr Howard has also urged Australians in the region who are not looking for family members or friends to return home as soon as possible due to the risk of disease. "There're three problems: impurity of water, contamination of food and there's poor sanitation," he said. "I'm a non-medical man but my understanding is that they are the three principle causes of the carriage of diseases such as typhoid and cholera and other related diseases."
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/31/2004 2:12:11 PM ||
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Election officials on Thursday rejected Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's voluminous challenge to results showing he lost this week's presidential revote, saying he did not prove any widespread violations. Yanukovych's campaign team vowed to take their legal fight for the presidency to Ukraine's Supreme Court even as reformer Viktor Yushchenko mapped out plans for his inauguration and first 100 days in office. "The vote has changed the country and it changed us," Yushchenko told Ukrainians in a New Year's greeting issued four days after the former Soviet republic's third presidential balloting in two months.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2004 00:00:00 ||
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I can think of few pursuits more trivial than arguing over who's the most generous. If I was Bush, I'd remind myself that I have too much dignity to respond to such drivel.
One-upping the United States, France said Thursday it is the No. 1 donor for the Asian disaster — pledging 42 million euro ($57 million) — following barbs from Washington about the extent of French generosity. These folks are not our friends! Wonder how much the people of France are donating? Check out Amazon...
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's boast that France was vaulting to "the head of all the contributors" appeared to respond to comments from Andrew Natsios, chief of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which distributes American aid. In a FOX News interview this week, Natsios said France tends not to be a world leader in foreign aid and often packages its help as loans, which he suggested were inappropriate in emergencies. "The aid program in France is not that big," he said. "They do not tend to be dominant figures in the aid. The British are, the European Union is, the Japanese are, we are, the Canadians are."
In Paris, France's Foreign Ministry shot down those aspersions. Spokesman Herve Ladsous said French aid for tsunami victims "is clearly donations and not loans." He also said France gives more development aid than all other members of the Group of Eight industrial nations — which includes the United States — when measured as a proportion of its economic output. "The figures speak for themselves," said Ladsous. France allotted .41 percent of its gross national income to development aid in 2003, nearly triple the .15 percent from the United States, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But the United States led in dollar terms, donating US$16.2 billion (euro 11.9 billion) to France's US$7.2 billion (euro5.3 billion) — which ranked third among G-8 nations, OECD figures show. Japan ranked second.
We also put in billions in direct food aid (not counted), and more in military-provided aid (not counted). Funny, a lot of what we do never gets counted.
#1
phrancistan, (formerly known as france), simply makes me sick. I'd love to see G. W. punch that coward SOB, chirac, in the mouth. Wouldn't that be something to see?
#4
Has China donated anything at all? Money, supplies, people? For example, they could give some of the money I "donated" via Wal-Mart this Christmas...
#5
Sea - The Femalians here must get a pretty good giggle on when the males start measuring their members in public.
Regards Chirac's statement, he's just admitting that France has expropriated more citizen tax money to bolster his ego, thus far, than others.
The US contribution is well over $70M - $35M from the Gov't and over that amount from charities, already. Our people choose to donate - out of the goodness of their hearts. The French may also have good hearts, but they had no choice in the matter - they, quite literally, gave at the office.
So who's member is bigger? Who cares as long as the job is being done as well and as quickly as possible. That means, of course, keeping the cash stream and the decision processes out of the hands of the professional bureaucrats - morons like Claire Short and Jan Egeland, who are probably not qualified to run a lemonade stand.
Hell, the person probably most qualified to run this operation on the planet is some hardball 30-year Sargeant from the Quartermaster Corps who has a system and takes no shit from anyone.
#7
Excellent - I had heard this $35M number on Fox in the early afternoon PST. Apparently the Amer Red Cross, Salvation Army, United Way, even Amazon are being swamped with donations.
Awesome! It makes me feel incredibly humble to see the quiet inherent goodness of the people... when you donate as we do in the US, no one knows except you and your IRS Tax Examiner, lol!
#8
France's giving.41% of it's declining morbund economy is a drop in the bucket to the US total aid. France can't stand to be seen a losing face. Japan beats them hands down in foreign aid and every other instance. If I was in a foxhole with a Nipon and a Frenchman and there were only room for 2 the frenchman would get tossed. Sorry Jacques you and you buddy Jean-Pierre are assclowns by trying to "make face" in this situation.
#9
Hey, we know they are a bunch up tight, pricks, but they were goaded into giving a good chunk of cash. Hopefully, the check won't bounce.
It is amazing that in the face of a horrendous death toll, the French like the CLintons can't resist the urge to bash the Bush Administration. EVen the tamil Tigers managed to figure out that this might be time for a truce.
#11
The french love to declare they will give X amount but rarely give that amount. Ask Afghanistan how much of the money the French have pledged they actually have got.
#14
This seems to be an argument over how much money each government contributes.
What happens to the comparison when non-monetary contributions (like the US carrier group being diverted to the disaster area, to provide helicopter transport services and drinking water generation capacity) are factored in? And what about monetary contributions by private citizens in the two countries? The disaster-relief collections taken by www.amazon.com in the last couple of days, to pick just one private US effort, are already over $7,000,000-- nearly one-eighth the entire contribution of the French government. What are French citizens contributing privately?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/31/2004 8:37 Comments ||
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#15
More information on contributions world-wide, here.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/31/2004 8:57 Comments ||
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#16
The only things the French are good at giving are (in alphabetical order): attitude, grief, and lip.
Posted by: Darth VAda ||
12/31/2004 9:28 Comments ||
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#17
If I want any lip from the French I will scrap it off my zipper.
#19
Nah....France is just pissed that they weren't even asked to join the coalition helping the victims. They much prefer to turn it down.
Let's see how much is actually delivered.....
"PACOM officials also have summoned eight maritime propositioning ships â large cargo vessels packed with food, fresh water and other relief supplies â to the impacted areas. They should arrive in a week to 10 days from Guam and Diego Garcia.
âThese are commercial ships that have been leased to the Military Sealift Command,â Strong said, âand they serve as floating warehouses for our expeditionary forces.â
They can carry up to 450,000 gallons of fresh water and generate up to 90,000 gallons of potable water each day, she added. They also haul heavy transport and relief equipment such as bulldozers, generators, five-ton trucks, amphibious vehicles and Humvees."
And all the personnel needed to make each piece of equipment work! That's 8 of these big guys!
#21
Lets see now: Who is getting aid: The UN, Indosia, and a bunch of other countries, which together with the UN make the honor list of the most corrupt on earth. Let the corrupt frogs help their corrupt friends.
#22
CNN is reporting that the US commitment will be upped from $35 million to $350 million. I'm glad to see it being done, but I think the President should have let the UN/media/leftist-carping continue a bit longer.
Posted by: Tibor ||
12/31/2004 12:53 Comments ||
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#23
Hey jock; Your take from the oil for food deal was how much? Hmmmm?
other peoples money.... is always the best spendin.
#24
In a surprise press conference today, Satan announced the relocation of major parts of Hell to France. He said the move was in response to the fact he simply wasn't able to make Hell bad enough for anyone but the Americans, and all the rest felt right at home.
"We just weren't getting enough complaints from people other than the Americans, so it was decided that we'd move to France and give all the Damned American accents. We believe this will generate the level of punishment we should be achieving. On the plus side, even the Americans will continue to complain as they all hate France. Except for the Democrats. To deal with them, we've had to open a branch office in Kennesaw Georgia. This lets us force them to own firearms, which has produced stellar results."
While we could only reach a press relations angel for God, they hailed the move as long overdue and felt that perhaps now they could bring back HellTV, Heaven's reality TV show where viewers can view the people in Hell being tormented.
#30
WorldVision is in all the affected countries. I'd have preferred to see donations through there exceed the millions pledged by any single government. $350 million will be a pretty tall order to exceed.
#33
Right on JQC (31),
You hit it right on the head. 'The Arab Street' sits back, have themselves fanned by palm leaves, eating grapes, and enjoying belly dances to give a s***! NOT A DIME from me!
#34
"Of course there needs to be a humanitarian action coalition â as President Bush just proposed," (French Foreign Minister)Barnier said. "But there also needs to be another international coalition against poverty, for development."
Oh brother, I know where this is heading...this is not just one time thing-y with aid to tsunami victims - the bleeding heart rich politicians around the world want an int'l coalition against poverty. Yes siree, and why are we not surprised?
Get your wallets out folks - more success "guilt" money from the USA will be flying out of your wallet soon and don't for an instasecond tell me that it's only the socialist Phrog politicians that are bleating about shoveling $ to the Third World. The GOP & Dem politicians will soon be tripping over themselves to make sure they look "compassionate" in front of the media microphones - compassionate with US citizens' $, that is.
#35
Bulletin: In response to the US government upping its contribution to $350M, Chirac is now donating the only thing left that he considers France has to offer: himself.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/31/2004 19:18 Comments ||
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#36
It's a slow news day when anyone outside of France bothers to listen to Chirac, a truly world class putz.
#37
Guilt only works if the victim is willing to feel guilty. Bush doesn't play that game.
Separately, I did remember rightly about P&G water purification. P&G's water-purifying packets shipped as fast as they're made Right now I'm proud to be American (not to mention grateful that we didn't travel farther than CO for our little vacation -- there but for the grace of God, and so forth)
Oh please. Stop with the sanctimonious support of George Bush. GWB responds to the Western white man's guilt complex with $ to assuage those icky feelings like the best of the lot. For example, which Western politician pledged $15 Billion in taxpayers'money that will be undoubtedly pissed away to "fight" AIDS in a continent that has brought this epidemic on itself due to its population's own sexual promiscuity? And be advised that in 2005 budget inspite of the lack of suport from the UN re: Iraq and inspite of the oil for food scandal, Congress had to cut GWB's overly generous $ slotted for the UN. Congress cut $12 Million from voluntary dues payments to the UN et al and $160 Million from the peacekeeping assessments for the UN.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/finance/docs/2004/1210fy2005.htm
Don't forget that no amount of money given to the Red Cross or the UN can sortie the Lincoln Battle Group and put it offshore of Indonesia.
About that "stingy" $35 million, it was PETTY CASH for the Marines and the USAID assessment teams. It was always intended to give more.
We have committed $35 million into what is basically a drawdown savings account and the teams in the field, as they do their assessments, can pull down that money and spend it right on the spot.
(2004-12-31) -- In response to the public outcry over the $2,500 ticket price for a package of exclusive presidential inauguration events, Wal-Mart today announced it will offer its own inauguration package for only $24.83.
Top Republican fund-raisers have complained to The New York Times that the financial burden of the $2,500 package of events, exclusive parties and receptions may force them to cut corners elsewhere -- choosing "less adequate" accomodations and "coarser" restaurants during their stay in Washington D.C., according to one unnamed source.
The Wal-Mart "Faded Glory Inauguration Bonanza" includes unlimited viewing of the parade, swearing in and other events from a comfortable lawn chair in the Wal-Mart electronics department.
"It's really better than going to D.C.," said an unnamed spokesman for the giant discount retailer. "And you don't have to be a Republican fundraiser to qualify. In fact, you don't have to be a Republican. Anybody with $24.83 can borrow a lawn chair from the Wal-Mart Garden Center and watch the inaugural events on about 30 TVs all at once. You can enjoy the pageantry without ever having to meet a politician. And once you've paid your $24.83, you won't owe anybody anything."
Posted by: Korora ||
12/31/2004 10:10:55 AM ||
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#1
Damn, that sounds like a great deal. I'd jump on it if they threw in some Slim Jims and/or Cheetos.
#2
...The funny thing is that if some suit at Wal-Mart corporate is smart enough to run with this and donate the proceeds to charity, they'll raise millions.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/31/2004 20:06 Comments ||
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#3
S-Mart ("S-Mart! Shop Smart, shop S-Mart!") will offer the same thing, but for $24.67 and with 5 cent Cokes and Oscar Meyer hot dogs.
This is insane... On Phuket, disaster's just an inconvenience to rich who gripe about views, bubbly
PHUKET, Thailand - While volunteers struggled to collect bodies washing up on the once-pristine beaches of this upscale resort isle, ghoulish tourists rolled out their towels yesterday, doffed their bikini tops and vacationed like nothing had happened. On Patong Beach and Kata Beach - where hundreds died or disappeared four days ago - the smell of suntan lotion wafted from the shore as a new influx of tourists determinedly ignored the carnage around them, frolicking in the surf or reading under umbrellas. Why are these people even being allowed in?
An indignant Russian who arrived at the Novotel Phuket Resort on the day after the tsunami loudly complained that there was no champagne reception. Other guests have pestered the hotel's grieving staff with complaints that their rooms lack good views. Sounds like a few more "drowned" tourists may be found in Phuket. Soon.
Belgian tourist Desmet Romain, 42, questioned whether he should have stayed on despite all the death and misery. But the prospect of missing the New Year's beach holiday he had been looking forward to all year was too much to bear."I didn't want to go back to Belgium where it is so cold," Romain said. "And in this hotel, it's like everything is totally normal." Yeah, a coupla hundred thousand dead people's a bummer, but it's cold in Belgium...
Some Thais are amazed that the foreigners can be so insensitive to be sipping cocktails poolside while surrounded by death and grief. "I think the people are good, but I don't know why they stay here now when we are so sad," a waiter at the Novotel said, asking that his name not be reported out of fear of losing his job. The beaches of Patong and Kata were filling up with tourists and Thais when the tsunami hit Sunday. Nearly 300 are confirmed dead, including more than 100 tourists. Another 1,600 people are still missing from Phuket beaches, and there is an army of grieving family members searching for them. As bodies continue to wash up on Phuket's shores and are stacked in makeshift morgues, the Sheraton Grande Laguna Phuket is erecting big tents, installing cotton candy machines and bringing in caged animals in preparation for the gala New Year's Eve circus party it promised."We do want to keep it a happy theme," Sheraton marketing communications manager Zahid Ali said. "Our guests came here during the holidays and they do want to enjoy it." Pay no attention to those huge funeral pyres! Nothing to see here! Continue partying! Happy, happy, happy!
But in a nod to the tragedy surrounding them, the Sheraton canceled its $2,500 fireworks display and will observe a moment of silence, Ali said. Who says dignity is dead?
The hotel is also donating all the proceeds from its circus party to the disaster relief fund it set up for staff members who lost family and homes to the tidal wave. The Thai survivors on Phuket are preparing to mark the new year in a much more somber manner."I will go to the temple to make merit for all the dead people," said Supone Sengsahus, 43, who drives a converted pickup truck as a taxi. His friend, Moone Penmit, 35, who owns a restaurant, also was not in the mood for a party after a friend of his was killed in the disaster. "Many people are not enjoying New Year's this time," he said. How can the people who went through that even stomach the sight of these ignorant slobs?
Posted by: tu3031 ||
12/31/2004 10:31:05 AM ||
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#2
I can think of a very good location for the local's to store the bodies.... all around the hotel. We wouldn't want the tourist to miss out on the scenery would we?
#3
I can understand coming in for a planned vacation to a hotel that wasn't damaged - it's too late to change plans and the local economy certainly needs the infusion of cash - but to bitch about the lack of total perfection?
These clowns are stacking up some serious bad karma. (And if they're supposed Christians and don't believe in karma, do they think their god will forgive - or forget - this behavior?)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/31/2004 11:43 Comments ||
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#4
One suspects that Belgian Boy is one of those people who regularly condemns others for their "insensitivity."
Posted by: Mike ||
12/31/2004 13:32 Comments ||
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#5
This is schizophrenic...
The tourists are being, well, tourists. Dolts, Gluttons, Philistines, and Boors - with money. Nothing new there except the magnification in these circumstances of just how uncouth and callous people can be. So I hope the Thais (and others in this situation) skin 'em alive (economically speaking) and take every last Euro & Dollar these louts possess.
The locals need these jobs. They need the tourist industry to recover and resume ASAP. It's not like they can all revert to being fishermen again, overnight. They need the hotels and restaurants and bars and, yes, even the Go-Go's open, up, running, stocked, and full of stupid ripe Rubes.
The hypocrisy factor will provide many fat juicy targets for people to lampoon and vent upon. We all know that the self-proclaimed uber-sentitive types actually are only sensitive to themselves - their range of detection ends at the tip of their noses. So have fun with 'em.
In Thailand, at least, the dickhead tourists are fortunate - the Buddhist Thais will smile, make them happy, and only take their money - instead of slitting their throats.
#7
I'm taking this as a HINT that the 'devastation' is not as severe as the "stingy" commenters would have us believe. Keep a sharp eye on your wallets. I also revise my estimates of the total restoration of the tourist areas to 18 months. (I had originally said 3 years.) That being said, the "little people", who are truly suffering, will continue to be used as pawns...
#10
Although basking in the sunshine in the midst of death is morose, there remains not a thing anyone can do now to turn back the clock or return the dead to life. Life will and must go on, folks. Pass the lotion.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/31/2004 15:29 Comments ||
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#11
Ugly EUropeans?
Thailand is was the worst hit.
Really life does go on and the money is needed.
But try and keep assholery⢠down to a minium tourists folk.
#12
I'm taking this as a HINT that the 'devastation' is not as severe as the "stingy" commenters would have us believe.
The âstingyâ commenters need to STFU and FOAD. Still, relatively speaking, Thailand was not hit that hard. I think the news focused on Thailand because it was easy to report (surprise, surprise, the MSM looking for quick and easy profit), and a lot of tourists were there. Courtesy of nationmaster.com, the current breakdown of tsunami related deaths looks like this:
1. Indonesia 79,940
2. Sri Lanka 24,743
3. India 12,500
4. Thailand 2,394
5. Somalia 120
6. Burma 90
7. Maldives 67
8. Malaysia 65
9. Tanzania 10
10. Seychelles 3
11. Bangladesh 2
12. Kenya 1
Total Officially Dead: 119,935
The figure for the dead will undoubtedly increase as the governments get further back into currently inaccessible areas. I donât doubt that the Indonesian total will land between 100-500K dead from the earthquake and the tsunami, and 2-3x that number will die from disease -- unless we get right in there and set up some temporary infrastructure really quickly. Itâs the water borne disease stuff that needs to be prevented right now.
#17
I live in Bangkok. .com had it right. Incongruous as it may seem, what Phuket most needs right now, to exist as a viable community - is continued and immediate tourism. Phuket is nothing but a tourist community - golf shops, dive shops, internet cafes, travel agencies, bars and restaurants. Only the west coaat of the island got clobbered - and then only back about a km or so. Probably 65% of the island's businesses were not physically touched by the surging seas. But - every last one of them will be destroyed if tourists stay away. And - this was a highly seasonable place - I would guess that Phuket businesses took in 40% of their annual profit between December 10th and January 20th each year. So - every single day of lost tourist revenue now - in high season - costs 1% of annual profit. Maybe even more.
Thailand is by no means one of the worst hit locations - in the end, perhaps Thailand will be 15th on the list of "own citizen" casualties. Even within Thailand, it will probabaly only be about number 3 on the national fatalities list - more Swedes will have died in Thailand than Thais. The reason that Thailand is getting so much atention is that it is where many foreign nationals died. It is also where more western tourists had video camcorders running, to capture their vacation activities.
Surviving businesses in Phuket desperately need tourists to keep coming - that is the only thing that will feed the Thai survivors in Phuket in the long run. It is somewhat macabre, but it is the best that can be done to help Thailand.
Looking at the scenes of devastation in Bandar Aceh - now THAT is a place that has been almost sterilzied of human life. I hvae no concept of how to bring that place back to life.
#18
Lone Ranger. I thank you for your insight. I agree. Getting back to work and on with it is a great curative in all respects. Life really must go on.
A US aircraft carrier group is heading for Indonesia's tsunami-hit Aceh province, and several other US military ships are on course to the Bay of Bengal to help with relief operations. The carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and four other vessels will be stationed off Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island, where the death toll from Sunday's earthquake and tsunami has risen past 47,000. Another group of seven US military ships, including a helicopter carrier, are steaming for the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean. Lieutenant General James T Conway, joint chiefs of staff director of operations, told a briefing in Washington late today the Lincoln group had 12 helicopters on board, "which we find extremely valuable in these types of scenarios".
Lt-Gen Conway, according to a transcript given by the US embassy in Jakarta, said a US assessment team was expected in Aceh on Thursday. Teams had already been dispatched to Thailand and Sri Lanka, also hard hit by the tsunami that has killed more than 87,000 people across the region, he said. The Lincoln carrier strike group had been in Hong Kong when the tsunami struck. It was diverted to the Gulf of Thailand and was now making its way to the Malacca Strait. The ships associated with the carrier group were expected to take position off the island of Sumatra. Lt-Gen Conway did not say when the ships would arrive.
A US defence department official in Jakarta confirmed the carrier fleet was on its way. Lt-Gen Conway also said the USS Bonhomme Richard expeditionary strike group of seven vessels, which had been in Guam - in the Pacific Ocean - had been diverted to the Bay of Bengal, where it would arrive before January 7. "It has seven ships associated with the strike group (and) carries 25 helicopters, which will be valuable to us again in disaster relief," he said. He said five other ships of the squadron located in Guam were moving toward the disaster-hit areas of southern Asia. "These five ships have fresh-water-producing capability. Each ship can produce 90,000 gallons of fresh water a day, and of course that'll be extremely valuable as we have a number of requests already for fresh-water supply." He said a sixth ship with a field hospital was also headed to the region.
The US suspended normal military ties with Indonesia in 1999 following allegations of widespread human rights abuses by its military in East Timor after the tiny province voted for independence. However, ties have begun to recover as Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has become a key ally in the US-led war on terror. Aceh, 1700 km northwest of Jakarta, is under civilian emergency rule as part of efforts to quell a separatist insurgency that began in 1976. Until Tuesday, it had been closed to foreign aid workers and journalists.
Irony alert: The USS Bonhomme Richard is the amphibious assault ship that Pablo Paredes refused to deploy with when she left for a six month mission in the Gulf of Rumsfeld.
Guess he's too good for rescue work.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/31/2004 2:06:58 PM ||
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#1
The helicopters, and maybe any hovercraft they have if smaller than the monster LCACs, will be crucial. Good call and best of luck, folks.
#4
Right on Lex!
I can't understand for the life of me, why the US doesn't just contribute up to the UN 'all nations pledge' of 1% of GDP, and leave it at that. The other 200+ nations will have to pony up or shut up! Like I said before...NOT A DIME from me, until China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia contributes 1% of their GDP!
#5
lex - I just ran across this ballpark info in a discussion comparing Russian and USN Carriers:
"The yearly operating costs of a carrier can be like $150 mil a year. But each carrier has a carrier group, which comes out to about $1.5 bil a year to maintain."
So $125M / month for a group. Sounds like a ballpark figure.
#6
The key is the variable cost of moving them from the Indian Ocean to Indonesia and the cost of any consumables delivered. Much of the operating costs are fixed.
#7
I don't have current figures, but here are some of the variable costs to consider:
- fuel for deployment
- the costs of getting that fuel to them along with any additional costs to supply food etc. to the crews at that location
- hospital / medical supplies they will provide
- cost of running the desalinization plants to provide the maximum amount of fresh water possible (much more than the ships would provide for themselves)
- additional wear and tear on equipment and crew (note: this can be substantial over time, enforcing the no-fly zones in Iraq took a huge toll on our airframes and pilots over the long time they were maintained)
- opportunity costs, i.e. what it takes to make up for the mission they aren't doing instead
#8
Remember, this CSG and ESG aren't being sent to a disaster, they were en route CENTCOM AOR and are being sent to another mission along the way. Additional operating costs will be minimal in the big picture. The sacrifice is being paid by the sailors and marines who aren't getting the scheduled port visits, but who are going straight to work bettering the world. Somehow, I doubt any of them see it as a sacrifice.
#9
smn: I can't understand for the life of me, why the US doesn't just contribute up to the UN 'all nations pledge' of 1% of GDP, and leave it at that. The other 200+ nations will have to pony up or shut up! Like I said before...NOT A DIME from me, until China, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia contributes 1% of their GDP!
The US contributed $360m to the UN for 2004. A 1% of GDP contribution number would come to $110b, or about a quarter of the defense budget. I don't think so.
#10
I'd suggest that the other nations raise their GDP. Then there'd be more money for everyone.
But that would require them to give up their socialist ways - not gonna happen. They'd rather bitch and pretend their governments are "giving" them everything.
And who the hell do these UN clowns think they are, telling us how much we have to fork over (it's not giving if it's forced)? They don't produce a goddam thing - they only leech off the backs of others.
They can go to hell, along with the dictators and mass murderers they love so much.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/31/2004 11:52 Comments ||
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#11
The argument that"we'd be spending the money anyway" is only partially valid. We would be spending, but not on this mission, so it is a contribution to the relief efforts.
Direct personnel costs for the 12,000 or so people in the two groups is probably on the order of $2,500,000 to $3,000,000 per DAY. The 2-3,000 marines will be doing a LOT of valuable work, and even the LACs will be really sueful since they can move heavy equipment (whether ours or that of any of other relief organizations) into lcoations that can't be reached by road. Being able to tackle the blockage on the roads from more than one point with GREATLY improve the speed of clearing the debris as opposed to haviing to just dig through it from one end.
Light choppers (like UH-1s) have operating costs in commmercial service in the States of $200 to $300 per hour. The big Marine Amphibious choppers, like CH-46s and Ch-53s are more expensive. They'll all be worth their weight in gold in this operation.
The presence of the two groups is a VERY real contribution to the rescue and recovery efforts regardless of the fact that we could have spent those assets somewhere else. The reocvery effort is going to be far better off for their presence.
Even things like the communications capabilities that the MEU will bring will be a major plus and will act as a "force multiplier" for all of the other efforts underway.
Posted by: Ralph Tacoma ||
12/31/2004 11:56 Comments ||
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#12
I heard on the news lastnight that the crew (or at least cooks) on the Abraham Lincoln have started baking bread 24/7 in order to be able to provide food....
The Carrier group will indeed be a force multiplier -- cool.
So.... where's the french carrier group? (not to play the one's up with those assholes...).
#15
I agree with lex. We should send the absolute minimum assistence in line but certainly not above the other "great powers." Let the Muslim "deep pockets" display their generosity. And what is China doing to help? Yes, China who occupies a UN Security Council seat as a representative of Asia? Zilch, zero, as usual I bet.
When we put out the call for help in Iraq to join the coalition of the willing, how many troops did Indonesia and Sri Lanka send to stand by our side?
I resent GWB and Congress acting like Daddy Warbucks with our cash to buy themselves momentary fleeting glory. Whereas our citizens are unable to travel anywhere in those Third World Muslim countries without looking at our backs because of the contempt and hatred they feel to America when there is no tsunami wreckage to be cleared and dead buried.
CF - If it's in Toulon (the De Gaulle's home port) then I make it to be about 14000 nm away. I'm pretty sure it can't use the Suez Canal. At the 27 knots they're supposedly capable of, that would take about a month, assuming they don't get lost, spring a leak, run aground, avoid pirates....
If they end up needing a tow (like they did on their shakedown cruise), they could be there by spring, if they leave today.
Posted by: Darth VAda ||
12/31/2004 14:43 Comments ||
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Ralph Tacoma, Shipman--I'm not saying that sending the groups isn't a valuable donation, merely that ships cost money in-port or underway, troops get paid in-port or underway. You're right about additional JP-8 costs, but to the helo aviators it's a great deal, who otherwise would be stuck flying starboard delta until they reached the NAG. Fixed wing guys, well, let them load pallets. If there's TARPS in the wing, let them start runs up and down the coast.
Charts will all be off, undersea obstacles a prominent risk, given the shift in the tectonic plate. I've heard Sumatra moved 100 feet, who know what effect that had elsewhere in SE Asia, so all the magnetic variances and GPS data is off now. Could be a lot of fun for the navigators.
#19
Thanks Zhang Fei (#9),
I needed to be slapped for that one. I guess I was just trying to say that the nations should be equitable across the board (according to a fair share % of GDP they all could agree to). $110 billion is too much during a time of war! Appreciate the smelling salts!
#21
So it seems my estimate is in the ballpark. Which means that if the current trajectory of private aid continues, we will have contributed ~900M in military+govt aid PLUS ~600M in private individual and charitable group aid PLUS ~300m in US corporate aid would bring the total to ~$1.8B.
Yes, we're generous great-spirited etc. And we're also doing nearly all the heavy lifting not only here but also with regards to bringing down the terrormasters and containing China. So we damn well better get some diplomatic and political mileage out of that carrier group-- in SE Asia at a minimum. We're incurring a huge opportunity cost here, given our massive global responsibilities.
#22
No military expert here but assuming that our military force readiness is relatively efficient, then there must be a very significant opportunity cost to diverting an entire carrier group from military operations, a cost that goes beyond consumables and transport expenses.
If this is not so, then our tax dollars are being wasted on superfluous military spending. So either the sole superpower is incurring an ENORMOUS cost here, or else the US taxpayers have been hoaxed. Which is it?
A jirga, or local council, has declared a man guilty of murder and acquitted three others after making them walk on burning embers. The jirga in Muhammadpur Dewan, some 130 kilometres west of Multan, was called to decide if the four men were guilty of strangling an elderly woman, Sydan Mai, and stealing her gold earrings on September 25. Sydan Mai's son alleged that his relatives Saifullah, Murid Hussain, Shahnawaz Fareed and Shahnawaz Haider had committed the murder, but they denied the charge. The jirga asked them to prove their innocence by walking on embers. Some 160 kilograms of wood were burnt for their trial by fire. When the wood turned to embers, they were asked to walk on it. Before they began, prayer leader Maulvi Miandad recited a verse from the Holy Quran.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/31/2004 3:41:16 AM ||
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#4
The trick to walking on hot embers is to wet the bottom of the feet with water. The super hot embers will quickly boil the water under the feet to create a bubble shaped insulator.
Try this experiment kids:
1. Heat a dry pan over a gas stove on high for about seven to ten minutes.
2. Then take a very very small hand full of water and sprinkle a liberal (the only time I like to use the word, liberal) amount onto the hot pan.
3. You will notice that the water immediately forms a bubble insulator.
This is what happens when someone walks on hot coals with wet feet. Next time you watch someone walk on hot coals, watch for that person to wipe their feet on the wet grass.
#5
Actually, you can just plain walk on the ashes. Ashes have very low specific heat and poor thermal conductivity. Just make sure there isn't a stone or something in there.
It's similar to being able to put your hand in a 350 degree oven without being burned if you don't touch metal, while 212 degree water will burn badly.
#1
"The belief that rotund women are more desirable as wives helps explain why much of the Arab world -- which stretches from the Persian Gulf in the east to Mauritania in North Africa -- is experiencing an explosion of obesity."
Guess that explains why Miss Piggy Mrs. Arafat is so . . . uh . . . fat.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/31/2004 8:30 Comments ||
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#2
"...If she threw up, she says, her mother forced her to eat the vomit. Stretch marks appeared on her body and the skin on her upper arms and thighs tore under the pressure. If she balked at the feedings, her mother would squeeze her toes between two wooden sticks until the pain was unbearable..."
- of course this is not even close to the horror of denying women the right to join the Augusta country club
#3
Way back when he was working in Cairo, Mr. Wife's driver boasted that his beautiful wife weighed 100 kilos. He was aghast at the photo of me (then I was still slender as well as short, and my 100 was measured in pounds, not kilos), and the fact that after five years of marriage I had produced neither sons nor children.
In a world of excess, beauty is measured in restraint, and we get anorexics and bulimics. In a world of poverty, the rare ability to afford excess defines beauty (remember all the rubinesque lovelies Rubin painted? (Is that the painter I mean? Art History is not one of my strengths), not to mention Tevye's dream of his wife with a "proper double chin" in Fiddler on the Roof.)
American scientists are planning the ultimate drive-by shooting, 268m miles from home.
They will launch a spacecraft next month on a six-month crash course in cometary science. On July 4 the spacecraft, Deep Impact, will blast a copper bullet about a metre in diameter into the path of 4-mile-wide block of ice and dust called Comet 9P/Tempel 1.
With luck, and if the calculations are right, the comet will hit the 370kg (820lb) projectile at 23,000mph. The projectile will be vapourised, but it should also blow a hole in the comet big enough to house the RomanColosseum. The mothership will witness the whole thing, and send pictures back to scientists in Pasadena.
It will be the closest ever study of a phenomenon that medieval observers thought to herald disaster. In one sense, they were right: a direct collision between a comet the size of Tempel 1 and the Earth could effectively wipe out human civilisation.
Such impacts have happened many times in geological history, and could do so again. Researchers have begun to think of ways to prevent them, but nobody has any idea of the mass, or density, of a comet - whether they are like frozen concrete, or have the texture of frosted candyfloss.
Deep Impact is a carefully planned act of celestial vandalism designed to deliver an answer.
"We will be capturing the whole thing on the most powerful camera to fly in deep space," said Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, the scientific leader of the project. "We know so little about the structure of cometary nuclei that we need exceptional equipment to ensure that we capture the event."
Deep Impact will take off from Cape Canaveral on January 12, make half an orbit around the sun, and cross the comet's path on July 4. The collision with the projectile will happen when the mothership is several thousand miles away, and the impact will release the energy equivalent to 4.4 tonnes of TNT, throwing out a cloud of dust and ice. If all goes well, enough of this will settle to allow Deep Impact a clear view of the damage as it gets to within about 300 miles of the comet.
By that time, the Earth will also have moved through half of its annual orbit, keeping pace with the spacecraft, so that the collision can be seen by earthbound astronomers and space telescopes such as the Hubble.
A spacecraft sailed through the coma of Comet Wild-2 in January, and will bring samples back to Earth in 2006. Another craft, Rosetta, was launched this year to land on a comet in 2014. But Deep Impact will be the first to send back data from such a meeting.
Comets delivered water for the Earth's oceans, and they carry complex organic molecules that may have played a role in triggering life on Earth.
Tempel 1, first spotted in 1867 by Ernst Wilhelm Tempel of Marseilles orbits the sun every five and a half years. It is not likely to suffer any permanent damage in the collision, or to be knocked into a more dangerous orbit.
"This is the astronomical equivalent of a 767 airliner running into a mosquito," said Don Yeomans, a mission scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/31/2004 2:15:46 AM ||
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#1
Deep Impact is a carefully planned act of celestial vandalism designed to deliver an answer.
I have this feeling that some group is going to eventually complain about this.
#8
Article: Deep Impact is a carefully planned act of celestial vandalism designed to deliver an answer.
Shooting something at a hunk of rock hurtling through space is vandalism? Sounds like these people have graduated from worshipping living things (fauna and flora) to worshipping rocks.
#12
Kewl! Its worth living through the WoT to get to see something like this. Asimov and Heinlein must be rolling in their graves because they died a few years too soon.
#14
Article: In one sense, they were right: a direct collision between a comet the size of Tempel 1 and the Earth could effectively wipe out human civilisation.
I wonder if this theory is the offspring of Carl Sagan's unsupported theories about nuclear winter. You gotta love how pseudo-science results in crap conclusions piled up upon crap premises, so that the whole thing resembles a freshly-laid glob of elephant poop.
#15
dang - with that hole in it what if we have to put up with an orbit-long 200db whistle effect?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2004 15:15 Comments ||
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#16
nobody has any idea of the mass, or density, of a comet - whether they are like frozen concrete, or have the texture of frosted candyfloss.
+ "This is the astronomical equivalent of a 767 airliner running into a mosquito,"
#18
LOL - I know, just the possible unintended consequences, as usual, get me going
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2004 18:10 Comments ||
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#19
About Sagan's Nuclear Winter Theories. I suspect he was off slightly on his golbal temperature effects but remember one volcano was enough to couse the "Year Without Summer", 1819 IIRC. The Amount of crap that would be pumped into the atmosphere from the fires associated with a nuclear war should have some effect. IIRC the Kuwaiti oil fires did have regional effects. The effects of an asteriod or comet are hard to quantify but for a given mass at a given speed hthe amount of energy released in the impact can be precisely calculated. Add in the effects from fires and any possible volcanic events that such an impact might trigger is completely incalcuable. Curiously two events that happened around the time of the demise of the Dinosaurs, the impact in the Yucatan and the volcanic event that fromed the Deccan Traps in India. These two areas of the world just happened to be on opposite sides of the globe when the impact happened. Some Geologists think that the two may be related
#20
UN Security Council has passed a resolution to negotiate with the comet before it will authorize the use of force.
Posted by: Capt America ||
12/31/2004 19:20 Comments ||
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#21
think of all the minerals lost to this "cowboy" experiment (guns and all)! A resource belonging to teh developing nations of Gaia. We'll be asked to put an equivalent chunk of change in a UN-escrow account
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2004 19:24 Comments ||
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#22
Deep Impact is a carefully planned act of celestial vandalism designed to deliver an answer.
The message here is to never insert a joke into a scientific article.
#25
Mike K - that sounds dangerously like a missile defense system, which as we know from Reagan's "Star Wars" dreams, won't work....oh (oops! /MSM).
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/31/2004 21:24 Comments ||
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#26
I'm not sure there's a whole lot of commonality between these rendezvous with planetary objects and trying to intercept an incoming missile.
A comet is very big, it's not radar-stealthy, it's travelling on a well-known trajectory, it's not performing any evasive maneuvers, and it can be approached in a leisurely fashion from an optimal direction. Hitting an incoming missile would be a whole different ballgame, I would think.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/31/2004 21:37 Comments ||
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#27
If it starts to evade run like hell for the nearest cave.
To the cheers of thousands, Senegal's government signed a peace deal Thursday with separatist rebels aimed at ending two decades of low-level skirmishing in the southern Casamance region. Interior Minister Ousmane Ngom and Diamacoune Senghor, leader of the rebel Movement of Casamance Democratic Forces, signed the document in the presence of several Cabinet ministers, opposition leaders and diplomats in Ziguinchor, the region's capital. A crowd of thousands gathered outside cheered when the document was signed in the governor's office. Some women fainted, while other people stared, their eyes filled with tears, state radio said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2004 00:00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A federal appeals court Thursday threw out a judge's ruling that awarded $88.5 million US to former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith from the estate of her late husband, an oil tycoon who died at age 90 just over a year after they wed.
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Prime Minister John Howard has announced Australia is sending a Navy ship and helicopters to Indonesia and the Government has also offered to set up a field hospital in Aceh. Mr Howard says the Asian tsunami is a human tragedy of mammoth proportions and everything must be done to help the people of neighbouring nations. Mr Howard says Australia will be involved in a coalition of countries, including Japan, India and the United States, to co-ordinate the international humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts. "The purpose of that is to ensure there is co-ordination of the relief effort," he said. "It is simply a group of countries who will just co-ordinate, exchange information, pool their assessments of what is needed."
One-upping the United States, France said Thursday it is the No. 1 donor for the Asian disaster — pledging 42 million euro ($57 million) — following barbs from Washington about the extent of French generosity.
