I looked in the dictionary this morning and found this definition:
Feckless (adj.) 1. Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.
2. Careless and irresponsible
I would like to add a third definition and a photograph to the online dictionary.
The third definition would simply be “United Nations” and the picture would be of Kofi Annan.
Not to bore you to tears, but I’m posting the entire UN Spokesman’s daily briefing issued on the UN Website Wednesday because the site changes each day and is poorly archived. My main reason in posting the entire text is to show you how ridiculous the UN's daily briefing is.
Here it is…
"ANNAN RETURNING TO U.N. HEADQUARTERS TO OVERSEE RELIEF EFFORTS FOR ASIAN EARTHQUAKE
* The Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, will be cutting short his vacation and returning to New York on Wednesday to oversee the UN’s relief efforts following the devastating disaster that struck south-east Asia.
* He is expected to meet with the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, as well as the heads of a number of UN humanitarian agencies on Thursday at headquarters.
* Over the last two days the Secretary-General has spoken to the leaders of all the countries hit by this disaster to, not only express his condolences, but also to see what they need most urgently.
* He has also been in contact with leaders of major donor countries to review the international relief effort and to underscore the UN’s coordinating role.
SENIOR UN OFFICIAL TO TRAVEL TO ASIA TO OVERSEE UN'S RELIEF EFFORTS
* The UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, said in a press briefing that he would be sending his deputy Margareta Walhstrom to the region to oversee the UN’s work on the ground.
* Egeland said that the death toll keeps rising as access to devastated areas increases. He noted the particularly hard hit province of Aceh on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. He said that UN teams currently on the ground report that the provincial capital of Banda Aceh one in four resident is believed to be dead.
* In Banda Aceh, UN teams say that the lack of infrastructure is making any relief work very difficult. In that area, the UN has set camps for relief workers. Egeland stressed the need for relief workers to be self-contained in their food and shelter needs so as not to be a burden on the already over-stretched local authorities.
* He noted that for each dead person there were four wounded. Health facilities that were not destroyed are now completely overwhelmed. The continuing challenges will focus on food, water and shelter for hundreds of thousands of people from Somalia to Sri Lanka to Indonesia.
* Regarding donations, Egeland said $220 million had already been pledged or given in cash towards the relief efforts. He added that there was an almost equal amount given in in-kind donations and military assets.
* He said that the response from traditional donor countries has been phenomenal. He also noted that there had been a tremendous response from new donors, notably in Asia.
* Egeland announced that a large coordinated appeal would be launched on January 6th in New York. However, UN country teams have identified the following immediate emergency needs: $70 million (Sri Lanka); $20 million (Maldives) and $40 million (Indonesia).
U.N. REFUGEE AGENCY TO AIRLIFT EMERGENCY SHELTER SUPPLIES FOR UP TO 100,000 PEOPLE IN ACEH, INDONESIA
* The UN Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is mounting a major response to the catastrophic tsunami and earthquake disaster in the Indonesian province of Aceh, where it is set to airlift emergency shelter supplies for up to 100,000 people.
* UNHCR is working closely with the United Nations country team in Indonesia in a coordinated response to the catastrophe, and a senior UNHCR staff member will be part of a UN assessment mission to Aceh set for Thursday.
* UNHCR is planning to airlift some 3,500 lightweight tents from its regional warehouse in Dubai. In addition, 20,000 kitchen sets, plastic sheeting for 20,000 families and 100,000 blankets will be airlifted from the agency's central warehouse in Copenhagen. The total value for this first phase of assistance is $1.8 million. The dates of the airlifts have yet to be confirmed.
* An additional 14 UNHCR logistical and field staff will be deployed to help with the Aceh airlifts and distribution of relief supplies to the affected population.
* In Sri Lanka, UNHCR is using its seven offices and 95 staff across the country to continue delivery of emergency relief supplies of plastic sheeting, plastic mats, cooking sets and clothing from its warehouses to the needy population in the war-affected areas and in the south.
* In Thailand, UNHCR is making an immediate contribution of $50,000 to the UN Emergency Relief Fund for the emergency shelter needs of the local population whose homes were washed away by the tidal waves.
* UNHCR will be part of a UN Country Team from Kenya that will conduct an assessment of the situation in Somalia, where hundreds of villages are said to have been destroyed.
UNICEF: MILLIONS AT RISK OF WATER-BORNE DISEASE
* UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, warned today that without immediate, wide-scale action to provide safe water in the communities hit by Sunday’s massive ocean flooding, millions of people will be at grave risk of water-borne disease.
* “Standing water can be just as deadly as moving water,” said UNICEF’s Executive Director, Carol Bellamy. “The floods have contaminated the water systems, leaving people with little choice but to use unclean surface water. Under these conditions people will be hard put to protect themselves from cholera, diarrhoea and other deadly diseases.”
* Children, who make up at least one-third of the overall population in the worst-affected countries, are particularly vulnerable to water-borne diseases.
* “Hundreds of thousands of children who survived the massive waves that destroyed their communities now risk getting seriously ill from something as simple as taking a drink of water,” Bellamy said.
* She added that securing safe water supplies and educating people about water and sanitation hygiene is a major component of all of UNICEF’s tsunami relief efforts, now underway in the hardest-hit countries.
U.N. DISASTER OFFICIAL CALLS FOR TSUNAMI EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS TO BE SET UP BY END OF NEXT YEAR
* According to the UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), tsunami early warning systems could have saved thousands of lives following the recent quake in South Asia.
* Sálvano Briceño, Director of the ISDR Secretariat, said he wants to see that every coastal country around South Asia and Southeast Asia has at least a basic but effective tsunami warning system in place by this time next year.
* The World Conference on Disaster Reduction to be held in Kobe, Japan, on 18-22 January will provide a timely opportunity to learn from Pacific countries’ experiences and to transfer knowledge of tsunami early warning systems to those surrounding the Indian Ocean.
* A special session will be held to work out how such a system could be developed for the region.
OK, I have the following comments on the above “announcements.”
Where the heck is the outrage from the media that Kofi Annan is still on vacation when the world needs the UN? Kofi can stay on vacation, but Bush (who happens to bethe US leader, not the world’s leader) can’t continue his “working” vacation without being labeled as “insensitive?”
“Kofi also has called all of the donor countries to review the relief effort and underscore the UN’s coordinating role.” In other words, Kofi is saying that the UN basically can’t do anything tangable but that he still wants to make sure that all the money goes through his office so he and Kojo can take their cut.
Thank God that the US, Japan, Australia, and India have formed a partnership to sidestep the UN and coordinate the relief work ourselves.
Next, why isn’t Comrade Egeland personally traveling to the disaster region rather than sending his deputy? And why is he surprised that relief workers have to be self contained and self-sufficient in a disaster area? Further, why does he think that the UN's primary role in this matter is to "appeal" to donor countries for relief funding? Why should we give it to the UN rather than spend it directly.
It also seems that the UN is full of last minute revelations of amazement regarding what it takes to respond to a disaster of this magnitude and that “the lack of infrastructure is making any relief work very difficult.” Well Duuhhhh! Where have they been working for the past 60 years, downtown Atlanta, Georgia?
No, downtown NY City?
The UN has PLANS to airlift supplies for up to 100,000 people SOMETIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE. It has already been nearly four days and people are dying of thirst and starving to death. How long are the survivors supposed to wait?
And finally, the UN thinks that it would be a good idea to have a Tsunami warning system set up in the Indian Ocean within a year. Geee Whiz, we’ve only had one in place in the Pacific protecting Alaska and Hawaii since 1947—and it only took the loss of a few hundred lives to get it implemented. The UN sits by and watches the loss of a hundred thousand lives before it "SPRINGS INTO ACTION."
Remember the earlier definition of Feckless? I rest my case...your honor.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Bush Offers Unlimited Aid
I just can't believe this has happened. Look at this excerpt from today’s edition of the Washington Post:
Crawford, TX - President George Bush, in a uncharacteristic display of emotion, ripped most of his clothes off in front of reporters today while running around hysterically in circles foaming at the mouth, finally dropping to his knees, tilting his head back, looking to the heavens, and screaming “Good Gawd Almighty, what have all us mean old Republicans done to cause such suffering and death.”
When the president had regained his composure, he continued the news conference wearing only boxer shorts. Mr. Bush was quoted as saying that he was "taking full responsibility for the recent earthquake and Tsunamis in Asia."
In anticipation of the impending Congressional investigation of the events leading up to the failure of the Bush administration to anticipate and stop the earthquake, the president announced the establishment of a new cabnet level position, appointing Mr. Idont Knowhatodo, Nancy Reagan's former psychic, as Tzar of Avoiding Natural Disasters.
Mr. Bush further indicated that he had recently issued an executive order instructing the Treasury to load every single US dollar on a massive fleet of Air Force C-130 and C-17 aircraft which would be issued flight plans commanding them to fly to the areas affected by the disaster to conduct an airdrop of their cash cargo along the beaches over the heads of the surviving victims. "We can't wait any longer to start relieving their suffering. Didn't that French lady years ago say something about letting the people eat cash? That was cake? Oh well, they can buy a whole bunch of cake with the cash we're sending."
The president announced that he would be cutting his vacation short in order to personally pilot an aircraft in an additional special fleet of aircraft scheduled New Year's day to dump all of the gold currently contained at Ft. Knox over the UN headquarters buildings in New York City and in Geneva Switzerland.
Democratic leaders indicated that this response was “a bit insensitive” and that they saw the president's actions as "unnecessarily using the massive international suffering for political gain."
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said the offer was “too little too late…”
It’s a joke, get it?
Crawford, TX - President George Bush, in a uncharacteristic display of emotion, ripped most of his clothes off in front of reporters today while running around hysterically in circles foaming at the mouth, finally dropping to his knees, tilting his head back, looking to the heavens, and screaming “Good Gawd Almighty, what have all us mean old Republicans done to cause such suffering and death.”
When the president had regained his composure, he continued the news conference wearing only boxer shorts. Mr. Bush was quoted as saying that he was "taking full responsibility for the recent earthquake and Tsunamis in Asia."
In anticipation of the impending Congressional investigation of the events leading up to the failure of the Bush administration to anticipate and stop the earthquake, the president announced the establishment of a new cabnet level position, appointing Mr. Idont Knowhatodo, Nancy Reagan's former psychic, as Tzar of Avoiding Natural Disasters.
Mr. Bush further indicated that he had recently issued an executive order instructing the Treasury to load every single US dollar on a massive fleet of Air Force C-130 and C-17 aircraft which would be issued flight plans commanding them to fly to the areas affected by the disaster to conduct an airdrop of their cash cargo along the beaches over the heads of the surviving victims. "We can't wait any longer to start relieving their suffering. Didn't that French lady years ago say something about letting the people eat cash? That was cake? Oh well, they can buy a whole bunch of cake with the cash we're sending."
The president announced that he would be cutting his vacation short in order to personally pilot an aircraft in an additional special fleet of aircraft scheduled New Year's day to dump all of the gold currently contained at Ft. Knox over the UN headquarters buildings in New York City and in Geneva Switzerland.
Democratic leaders indicated that this response was “a bit insensitive” and that they saw the president's actions as "unnecessarily using the massive international suffering for political gain."
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said the offer was “too little too late…”
It’s a joke, get it?
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Nearly $1.5 Billion Down A Rat Hole
The title of this post tells you everything you need to know about the United Nations. Their 2004 operating budget is actually $1.483 billion, of which the US’s “assessment” was $363 million and Japan’s “assessment” was $280 million. Together, the US and Japan pay 43.4% of the total operating budget (24.5% and 18.9% respectively.) The other 189 member nations pay the remaining 56.4% of the budget, with Germany (8.4%), the UK (5.9%), and France (5.9%) making up the balance of the top five “assessment” payers.
Well isn’t that special? But what about Russia and China, two of our number one detractors in all issues Iraqi as permanent members of the UNSecurity Council (excuse the pun?) China, home of 1.3 billion people, pays just $29 million (2%) annually. I couldn’t find Russia’s numbers, but they are less than the number fifteen “assessment” payer Switzerland’s 17 million (1.1%.)
As a footnote, I should mention that the US is currently withholding $268 million from prior year “assessments” and Japan is holding back $19 million in protest of various disagreements dating back to the Clinton Administration.
So before you lapse into a coma with all of these figures, I’ll let you ask me “what is my point?”
Just this. We’ve already handed the UN $131 million this year of the $363 million we owe them. In our defense, our Congress continues to withhold “assessment” payments while Kofi Annon is Secretary General and the Iraq Oil For Food Scandal continues to develop. You do remember that the UN sat on their collective hands while Kojo Annon and various member nations accepted bribes from Saddam and facilitated his skimming of as much as $21,000,000,000 (that’s Billion with a “B”) that could have served the UN to feed Iraqi’s and pad the coffers of various UN programs to help out this weeks Tsunami victims?
The US upped our assistance offer to $35 million today after Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, stuck his thumb in our eye rhetorically on Monday. Comrade Egeland had a little pow wow with members of the press today and back-tracked a bit. “He added that his earlier comments about Western countries being ‘stingy’ in their aid had been misinterpreted. The international assistance from the US and Europe, Egeland said, had been overwhelmingly positive. He called the response ‘immediate and generous.’”
In the words of JFK, I’d like to “ask not what (the world) can do for the UN, but rather what the UN can do for (the world that supports it.)” Look at this somewhat lame list of cow manure...er...um..of responses to date by the UN:
"Today the the World Food Programme (WFP) sent its first truckloads of relief food to twelve devastated districts in Sri Lanka. The commodities are part of a WFP stockpile in the country that can provide an emergency ration to 500,000 people for two weeks."
Feeding 500,000 for two weeks…not bad if they actually pull it off… But what about the next six months after that?
"In Sri Lanka and southern India, UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, is providing blankets, sleeping mats, clothing, oral rehydration salts, medical supplies, shelter equipment, water purification tablets, and 500-litre water tanks."
Again, a good start, although I doubt blankets are much help with 85 degree days and 80 degree nights.
"The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has committed up to $1 million and additional staff for rapid health assessments, hygiene needs and health supplies, including water purification tablets. UNFPA is focusing on the special vulnerability of women and girls in disaster-affected areas. Its priority areas include emergency obstetric care, the establishment of temporary health facilities, and the provision of equipment and supplies."
Holy Bejesus, a whole million dollars? Give me a break here, would you please…And your complaining because the US started out offering ONLY $15,000,000?
"Meanwhile, theWorld Health Organization is preparing to supply at least 15 new emergency health kits (each designed to cover the basic health needs of 10,000 persons for three months) and 13 trauma kits (each covering 100 interventions) to the affected countries."
Now let me see, health kits for 150,000 persons for three months, 1300 trauma interventions…this is basically like putting a Bandaid on your leg when you just cut your foot off with a chainsaw. They can’t be serious…
"Because flooding and stagnant water create favorable conditions for mosquitoes, WHO is strictly monitoring the epidemiological situation through the “roll back malaria” regional program. It is also mobilizing at least 15 diarrheal kits (each designed to treat 100 severe cases of diarrhea and/or cholera) for use in the region."
So 1,500 people won’t be crapping their asses off on the side of the road under one of the few remaining palm trees…
This little disaster has already killed nearly a hundred thousand people and has displaced hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. All the UN can muster is a few truck loads of food and some first aid kits?
Where are the heads and brains of the reporters at these press conferences that they can't think on their feet and ask questions of Comrad Enegland like I just did. You don't need a calculator to see that the UN's proposed response is a fraction of what they should able to finance and implement on short notice. (Maybe the reporters could use a nice dose of UN supplied laxitive to help them find their heads and brains.)
I say that the US taxpayers should demand that our government refuse to pass another single extra dollar through the UN in support of this recovery effort. The US should step in and manage the process and expenditure of our funds directly.
I've got to go to bed now...I have yet another news induced headache...anyone got an Aleve?
Well isn’t that special? But what about Russia and China, two of our number one detractors in all issues Iraqi as permanent members of the UNSecurity Council (excuse the pun?) China, home of 1.3 billion people, pays just $29 million (2%) annually. I couldn’t find Russia’s numbers, but they are less than the number fifteen “assessment” payer Switzerland’s 17 million (1.1%.)
As a footnote, I should mention that the US is currently withholding $268 million from prior year “assessments” and Japan is holding back $19 million in protest of various disagreements dating back to the Clinton Administration.
So before you lapse into a coma with all of these figures, I’ll let you ask me “what is my point?”
Just this. We’ve already handed the UN $131 million this year of the $363 million we owe them. In our defense, our Congress continues to withhold “assessment” payments while Kofi Annon is Secretary General and the Iraq Oil For Food Scandal continues to develop. You do remember that the UN sat on their collective hands while Kojo Annon and various member nations accepted bribes from Saddam and facilitated his skimming of as much as $21,000,000,000 (that’s Billion with a “B”) that could have served the UN to feed Iraqi’s and pad the coffers of various UN programs to help out this weeks Tsunami victims?
The US upped our assistance offer to $35 million today after Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, stuck his thumb in our eye rhetorically on Monday. Comrade Egeland had a little pow wow with members of the press today and back-tracked a bit. “He added that his earlier comments about Western countries being ‘stingy’ in their aid had been misinterpreted. The international assistance from the US and Europe, Egeland said, had been overwhelmingly positive. He called the response ‘immediate and generous.’”
In the words of JFK, I’d like to “ask not what (the world) can do for the UN, but rather what the UN can do for (the world that supports it.)” Look at this somewhat lame list of cow manure...er...um..of responses to date by the UN:
"Today the the World Food Programme (WFP) sent its first truckloads of relief food to twelve devastated districts in Sri Lanka. The commodities are part of a WFP stockpile in the country that can provide an emergency ration to 500,000 people for two weeks."
Feeding 500,000 for two weeks…not bad if they actually pull it off… But what about the next six months after that?
"In Sri Lanka and southern India, UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, is providing blankets, sleeping mats, clothing, oral rehydration salts, medical supplies, shelter equipment, water purification tablets, and 500-litre water tanks."
Again, a good start, although I doubt blankets are much help with 85 degree days and 80 degree nights.
"The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has committed up to $1 million and additional staff for rapid health assessments, hygiene needs and health supplies, including water purification tablets. UNFPA is focusing on the special vulnerability of women and girls in disaster-affected areas. Its priority areas include emergency obstetric care, the establishment of temporary health facilities, and the provision of equipment and supplies."
Holy Bejesus, a whole million dollars? Give me a break here, would you please…And your complaining because the US started out offering ONLY $15,000,000?
"Meanwhile, theWorld Health Organization is preparing to supply at least 15 new emergency health kits (each designed to cover the basic health needs of 10,000 persons for three months) and 13 trauma kits (each covering 100 interventions) to the affected countries."
Now let me see, health kits for 150,000 persons for three months, 1300 trauma interventions…this is basically like putting a Bandaid on your leg when you just cut your foot off with a chainsaw. They can’t be serious…
"Because flooding and stagnant water create favorable conditions for mosquitoes, WHO is strictly monitoring the epidemiological situation through the “roll back malaria” regional program. It is also mobilizing at least 15 diarrheal kits (each designed to treat 100 severe cases of diarrhea and/or cholera) for use in the region."
So 1,500 people won’t be crapping their asses off on the side of the road under one of the few remaining palm trees…
This little disaster has already killed nearly a hundred thousand people and has displaced hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. All the UN can muster is a few truck loads of food and some first aid kits?
Where are the heads and brains of the reporters at these press conferences that they can't think on their feet and ask questions of Comrad Enegland like I just did. You don't need a calculator to see that the UN's proposed response is a fraction of what they should able to finance and implement on short notice. (Maybe the reporters could use a nice dose of UN supplied laxitive to help them find their heads and brains.)
I say that the US taxpayers should demand that our government refuse to pass another single extra dollar through the UN in support of this recovery effort. The US should step in and manage the process and expenditure of our funds directly.
I've got to go to bed now...I have yet another news induced headache...anyone got an Aleve?
I Told You So
Am I good, or what? This morning’s edition of the Washington Times has an article entitled “UN Official Slams US As ‘Stingy’ Over Aid.” Read the entire article for yourself.
The US government is giving $15 million.
“But U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland suggested that the United States and other Western nations were being "stingy" with relief funds, saying there would be more available if taxes were raised.”
So Norwegian Jan Egeland thinks that we should raise our already high taxes and give more money to the UN. I would like to remind Comrade Egeland that the US taxpayers already provide over 24% of the funding for the UN’s 190 other do-gooder nations to spend outside our borders. We also donate most of the cost of the expensive waterfront property their headquarters building sits on in New York City.
And then of course there is all of the private giving by US citizens to charitable organizations like the Red Cross and the tens of thousands of hours our Doctors and Engineers and other experts will donate in time and services both here in the US and in the affected region.
It is so boring for the UN to be so predictable. I wish they could come up with something more original—like actually establishing an international system in these developing countries to warn of earthquake generated waves and of just plain old typhoons so thousands don’t die in Bangladesh the next time the wind blows over 74 MPH.
Would that be too much to ask???
UPDATE 12/28/04 PM
I made an error, working from memory, on the amount of funding that the US provides to the UN...its 24.48%, not 40%. So I'm not perfect...I corrected the text while working on a new rant.
The US government is giving $15 million.
“But U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland suggested that the United States and other Western nations were being "stingy" with relief funds, saying there would be more available if taxes were raised.”
So Norwegian Jan Egeland thinks that we should raise our already high taxes and give more money to the UN. I would like to remind Comrade Egeland that the US taxpayers already provide over 24% of the funding for the UN’s 190 other do-gooder nations to spend outside our borders. We also donate most of the cost of the expensive waterfront property their headquarters building sits on in New York City.
And then of course there is all of the private giving by US citizens to charitable organizations like the Red Cross and the tens of thousands of hours our Doctors and Engineers and other experts will donate in time and services both here in the US and in the affected region.
It is so boring for the UN to be so predictable. I wish they could come up with something more original—like actually establishing an international system in these developing countries to warn of earthquake generated waves and of just plain old typhoons so thousands don’t die in Bangladesh the next time the wind blows over 74 MPH.
Would that be too much to ask???
UPDATE 12/28/04 PM
I made an error, working from memory, on the amount of funding that the US provides to the UN...its 24.48%, not 40%. So I'm not perfect...I corrected the text while working on a new rant.
It's A Crying Shame--Part II
I’m such a nerd. Really, I am. My favorite web sites are places that most Internet users never have even heard of much less ever visited or thought to do a Goggle search for information about.
Places like Spaceweather.com where you can go to find out about asteroids approaching the Earth’s orbit and Solar Flares leaping off of the sun to scorch our collective butts. What about the Microsoft Terraserver site that allows you to look at your neighbor’s driveway from satellite orbit to see if they were home on a given day? Or maybe Volcano live, Australian Volcanologist John Seach’s site giving you up to the minute accounts of the misbehavior of most of the world’s active volcanoes.
I hit these sites sometimes once every day or so just to see what is going on “in and around the world.” Moments after I learned that the earthquake occurred in Indonesia yesterday (immediately after it happened,) I said out loud that everyone should look out in the countries with facing ocean shores for the possibility of catastrophic Tsunamis. And I’m just a dumb old mechanical engineer, but boy was I ever right.
It’s a crying shame that there wasn’t someone out there that could have used what I consider to be amateur “geo-hobbyist” knowledge to save a few tens of thousands of these poor people killed as a result of this latest earthquake. I say that this task should have fallen on the shoulders of the United Nations.
But, Nooooo. These feckless, useless, mindless, bureaucratic, bunch of morons are too concerned with worrying about a one degree F increase in world wide temperature that they call “Global Warming” and shoving the Kyoto Treaty down our throats (or up our rear ends) to actually do something that might save lives in the foreseeable future.
Let me lay this out for you. We here in the United States started a Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in 1947 after a giant wave killed 147 people in Hawaii. We own it, operate it, and pay for it with your and my tax dollars. We also offer the results of our efforts to anyone that will listen. Operated under the auspices of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), they saw the earthquake on their seismographs as it happened, but they didn’t have anyone to notify in the Indian Ocean basin, resorting instead to random, frantic phone calls. Even our ally, the Government of India, lost most of an Air Force base and a number of military personnel.
They had, in many cases, two or more hours of time to get a warning out. Unlike a hurricane, the danger was generally limited to the immediate coastal area, not dozens of miles inland. Can you say INTERNATIONAL QUALITY SCREW-UP?
The death toll is in the low to mid-twenty thousand person range right now, but with the thousands of little islands and the remoteness of this area, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the final numbers in the fifty to one hundred thousand range. The long term economic and political toll will take years to ascertain.
As I said earlier, just watch the media begin to place blame, complain about the American response, and listen for the UN to start bitching about how it is somehow our fault or that our financial contributions are not enough. Anything to avoid acknowledging the fact that such a simple thing as a network of emergency management personnel like we have here in the US, an evacuation plan, and dissemination of available information in a timely fashion could have possibly saved tens of thousands of lives.
NOAA knew…Just like NOAH knew...
Places like Spaceweather.com where you can go to find out about asteroids approaching the Earth’s orbit and Solar Flares leaping off of the sun to scorch our collective butts. What about the Microsoft Terraserver site that allows you to look at your neighbor’s driveway from satellite orbit to see if they were home on a given day? Or maybe Volcano live, Australian Volcanologist John Seach’s site giving you up to the minute accounts of the misbehavior of most of the world’s active volcanoes.
I hit these sites sometimes once every day or so just to see what is going on “in and around the world.” Moments after I learned that the earthquake occurred in Indonesia yesterday (immediately after it happened,) I said out loud that everyone should look out in the countries with facing ocean shores for the possibility of catastrophic Tsunamis. And I’m just a dumb old mechanical engineer, but boy was I ever right.
It’s a crying shame that there wasn’t someone out there that could have used what I consider to be amateur “geo-hobbyist” knowledge to save a few tens of thousands of these poor people killed as a result of this latest earthquake. I say that this task should have fallen on the shoulders of the United Nations.
But, Nooooo. These feckless, useless, mindless, bureaucratic, bunch of morons are too concerned with worrying about a one degree F increase in world wide temperature that they call “Global Warming” and shoving the Kyoto Treaty down our throats (or up our rear ends) to actually do something that might save lives in the foreseeable future.
Let me lay this out for you. We here in the United States started a Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in 1947 after a giant wave killed 147 people in Hawaii. We own it, operate it, and pay for it with your and my tax dollars. We also offer the results of our efforts to anyone that will listen. Operated under the auspices of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), they saw the earthquake on their seismographs as it happened, but they didn’t have anyone to notify in the Indian Ocean basin, resorting instead to random, frantic phone calls. Even our ally, the Government of India, lost most of an Air Force base and a number of military personnel.
They had, in many cases, two or more hours of time to get a warning out. Unlike a hurricane, the danger was generally limited to the immediate coastal area, not dozens of miles inland. Can you say INTERNATIONAL QUALITY SCREW-UP?
The death toll is in the low to mid-twenty thousand person range right now, but with the thousands of little islands and the remoteness of this area, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the final numbers in the fifty to one hundred thousand range. The long term economic and political toll will take years to ascertain.
As I said earlier, just watch the media begin to place blame, complain about the American response, and listen for the UN to start bitching about how it is somehow our fault or that our financial contributions are not enough. Anything to avoid acknowledging the fact that such a simple thing as a network of emergency management personnel like we have here in the US, an evacuation plan, and dissemination of available information in a timely fashion could have possibly saved tens of thousands of lives.
NOAA knew…Just like NOAH knew...
Monday, December 27, 2004
It's A Crying Shame
I’ve been all over the world. Well, not exactly “all” over the world, but I’ve traveled over enough of the world’s surface to realize that we here in the United States enjoy an entirely different standard from “almost everywhere else” when it comes to weather forecasting and other forms of information gathering and dissemination relating to “un-natural” natural disasters like Volcanos, solar flares, and asteroids.
I remember where I was at in 1997 when Princess Diana was killed—not because I gave a rat’s ass about the so-called British royal family mind you—because I was using a computer weather terminal in the pilot’s lounge at the hotel on Walkers Cay in the Bahamas that September evening, desperately looking for weather forecast information. While demonstrating the use of the terminal to my party, the headline describing Lady Di’s death scrolled across the menu screen. The girls were in shock while all of us guys were more interested in studying the local satellite weather picture.
I’ve traveled to Jamaica many times and suffered the anxiety and withdrawal symptoms of a “true weather junkie” afflicted with worrying about the tropical weather that potentially might affect our location in the middle of the Greater Antilles Islands. “No problem Mon, everything’s Irie” was not, in my opinion, an accurate weather forecast. The local Jamaican resorts intentionally omit “The Weather Channel” from their satellite feed to their guestrooms’ TV’s in order to control the stampeding heard mentality of their guests. I bit my fingernails off to the quick as a result.
Back in early September I posted Hurricane Ivan Is A Communist Threat, where I described the perils faced by the residents of the Caribbean Islands like Haiti and Cuba who’s population had limited informational resources and who’s own government imposed restrictions cost unnecessary lives during hurricanes and tropical storms—lives that would never be lost here in the US since the 1960’s with the advent of satellite weather observations.
And now we have this latest earthquake and tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. There is basically no excuse for the magnitude of the loss of life in this disaster. A warning could have been issued and many people could have escaped the immediate coastal areas. Just like the hurricane warnings here in the US, saying “never mind” in the event that the warning was unwarranted is a lot better than issuing a world wide “so sorry” as is the case in this instance.
What I want to know is, “where the hell is the United damn Nations when you really need them and they can really make a difference???” This disaster is right up their alley and they were asleep at the wheel.
While it is virtually impossible to pinpoint the time and location of the the next earthquake, it is possible to predict the possibility of the occurrence of Tsunamis with great accuracy once an earthquake has occurred. There could have been as much as three hours notice given in this instance had the UN spent some of the mountain of tax dollars we’ve given them over the past fifty years on something other than fancy New York real estate, limousines, and efforts to cover up the Iraq Oil for Food scandal and the ongoing sexual abuse and molestation of African teenagers by UN officials. Everyone knows that countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are short on funding, so this is an obvious area where the UN could in fact make a substantial contribution.
Will they even acknowledge any responsibility for allowing this disaster to occur?
Hell NO!
Just sit by and watch as we here in the US proceed to dump millions of dollars into the rescue and recovery effort while the socialists, commies, mainstream media, and the UN criticize our efforts as being too little too late.
I think that my head is going to explode...AGAIN!
I remember where I was at in 1997 when Princess Diana was killed—not because I gave a rat’s ass about the so-called British royal family mind you—because I was using a computer weather terminal in the pilot’s lounge at the hotel on Walkers Cay in the Bahamas that September evening, desperately looking for weather forecast information. While demonstrating the use of the terminal to my party, the headline describing Lady Di’s death scrolled across the menu screen. The girls were in shock while all of us guys were more interested in studying the local satellite weather picture.
I’ve traveled to Jamaica many times and suffered the anxiety and withdrawal symptoms of a “true weather junkie” afflicted with worrying about the tropical weather that potentially might affect our location in the middle of the Greater Antilles Islands. “No problem Mon, everything’s Irie” was not, in my opinion, an accurate weather forecast. The local Jamaican resorts intentionally omit “The Weather Channel” from their satellite feed to their guestrooms’ TV’s in order to control the stampeding heard mentality of their guests. I bit my fingernails off to the quick as a result.
Back in early September I posted Hurricane Ivan Is A Communist Threat, where I described the perils faced by the residents of the Caribbean Islands like Haiti and Cuba who’s population had limited informational resources and who’s own government imposed restrictions cost unnecessary lives during hurricanes and tropical storms—lives that would never be lost here in the US since the 1960’s with the advent of satellite weather observations.
And now we have this latest earthquake and tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. There is basically no excuse for the magnitude of the loss of life in this disaster. A warning could have been issued and many people could have escaped the immediate coastal areas. Just like the hurricane warnings here in the US, saying “never mind” in the event that the warning was unwarranted is a lot better than issuing a world wide “so sorry” as is the case in this instance.
What I want to know is, “where the hell is the United damn Nations when you really need them and they can really make a difference???” This disaster is right up their alley and they were asleep at the wheel.
While it is virtually impossible to pinpoint the time and location of the the next earthquake, it is possible to predict the possibility of the occurrence of Tsunamis with great accuracy once an earthquake has occurred. There could have been as much as three hours notice given in this instance had the UN spent some of the mountain of tax dollars we’ve given them over the past fifty years on something other than fancy New York real estate, limousines, and efforts to cover up the Iraq Oil for Food scandal and the ongoing sexual abuse and molestation of African teenagers by UN officials. Everyone knows that countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are short on funding, so this is an obvious area where the UN could in fact make a substantial contribution.
Will they even acknowledge any responsibility for allowing this disaster to occur?
Hell NO!
Just sit by and watch as we here in the US proceed to dump millions of dollars into the rescue and recovery effort while the socialists, commies, mainstream media, and the UN criticize our efforts as being too little too late.
I think that my head is going to explode...AGAIN!
Sunday, December 26, 2004
What A Great Day
(Hope Yours was too)
I made my girlfriend, Pat, wait until almost eleven o’clock Saturday morning to open her Christmas presents. She is such a trooper. This came about because I didn’t wake up until I had to answer a phone call from my mother sometime after ten AM. I’m such a bum. In my defense, I had previously arisen about four AM and spent three hours reading and working on future writing materials.
We decided not to travel this year for Christmas. Pat is facing five weekly round trips to her office in Chicago beginning next week and I couldn’t even get her interested in flying to Key West, not to mention Pittsburgh or Alabama. I’m in Key West in mind and spirit right now in spite of the rainy 38 degree weather we have outside here on the island.
We invited everybody to come see us here on St. Simons, but you know how that goes…inertia and gravity and all that. Last year we did southern Alabama and Kansas City Missouri in five days including flying Delta on Christmas day. I’m still tired from that trip as I did all of the cooking in Alabama and wired a surround sound stereo system in KC. I also fell in love with Pat’s daughter’s little miniature Daschund puppy named “Olive” that liked to sleep on my chest while I snoozed on the sofa—but that’s another story.
This year we didn’t leave the condo all day and we didn’t have to get out of our PJ’s either. I cooked a brunch featuring Welsh Rarebit cheese sauce over English muffins, Canadian bacon, asparagus spears, and a poached egg. For dinner I heated up a spiral sliced ham, cooked giant lima beans with pork neck bones, baked sweet potatoes, and made a deep dish apple pie. See my The Redneck Gormet Blog for some of the recipes.
I was back in bed by 8 PM and as a result of the early departure I’m back on the internet now.
I hope that your Christmas day was everything that you wanted it to be also. Unfortunately, there are people out there stuck in airports, facing illness and death, or living homeless on the streets that saw Christmas as something other than the lazy blessing we enjoyed here. There are people living in Haiti and Cuba and Iraq that will never see a meal like I cooked for the two of us this evening. And there are several hundred thousand of our fellow Americans sitting in tents and manning armed fortifications around the world attempting to guarantee our right to run around in our stocking feet between piles of discarded wrapping paper all day.
One more week, then we all can have a new year and a fresh slate, we can inaugurate President Bush for his second term, and we can look forward to kicking some more “Insurgent” butt and hopefully see the Middle East a little closer to peace. I wish us all good luck.
I made my girlfriend, Pat, wait until almost eleven o’clock Saturday morning to open her Christmas presents. She is such a trooper. This came about because I didn’t wake up until I had to answer a phone call from my mother sometime after ten AM. I’m such a bum. In my defense, I had previously arisen about four AM and spent three hours reading and working on future writing materials.
We decided not to travel this year for Christmas. Pat is facing five weekly round trips to her office in Chicago beginning next week and I couldn’t even get her interested in flying to Key West, not to mention Pittsburgh or Alabama. I’m in Key West in mind and spirit right now in spite of the rainy 38 degree weather we have outside here on the island.
We invited everybody to come see us here on St. Simons, but you know how that goes…inertia and gravity and all that. Last year we did southern Alabama and Kansas City Missouri in five days including flying Delta on Christmas day. I’m still tired from that trip as I did all of the cooking in Alabama and wired a surround sound stereo system in KC. I also fell in love with Pat’s daughter’s little miniature Daschund puppy named “Olive” that liked to sleep on my chest while I snoozed on the sofa—but that’s another story.
This year we didn’t leave the condo all day and we didn’t have to get out of our PJ’s either. I cooked a brunch featuring Welsh Rarebit cheese sauce over English muffins, Canadian bacon, asparagus spears, and a poached egg. For dinner I heated up a spiral sliced ham, cooked giant lima beans with pork neck bones, baked sweet potatoes, and made a deep dish apple pie. See my The Redneck Gormet Blog for some of the recipes.
I was back in bed by 8 PM and as a result of the early departure I’m back on the internet now.
I hope that your Christmas day was everything that you wanted it to be also. Unfortunately, there are people out there stuck in airports, facing illness and death, or living homeless on the streets that saw Christmas as something other than the lazy blessing we enjoyed here. There are people living in Haiti and Cuba and Iraq that will never see a meal like I cooked for the two of us this evening. And there are several hundred thousand of our fellow Americans sitting in tents and manning armed fortifications around the world attempting to guarantee our right to run around in our stocking feet between piles of discarded wrapping paper all day.
One more week, then we all can have a new year and a fresh slate, we can inaugurate President Bush for his second term, and we can look forward to kicking some more “Insurgent” butt and hopefully see the Middle East a little closer to peace. I wish us all good luck.
