THIS is how you handle a National Emergency that kills your citizens

[Taverner]

"China holding 3 days of mourning for quake victims

By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago

BEICHUAN, China - China declared three days of national mourning for earthquake victims and ordered a suspension of the Olympic torch relay, as the search for survivors of the disaster grew bleak Sunday.
ADVERTISEMENT

The State Council said the mourning period would start Monday and include three minutes of silence observed nationwide at 2:28 p.m., the time the quake struck.

Beijing Olympic organizers said in a statement that the torch relay would be suspended "to express our deep mourning to the victims of the earthquake.""



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080518/ap_on_re_as/china_earthquake


NOT like this:


Katrina Victims Suffer, Bush Plays Guitar
By Jeralyn,

While millions of Americans have lost their homes or lives in the devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina, Bush not only goes about business as usual, he plays the guitar.



http://www.talkleft.com/story/2005/08/30/324/97688

[jwirr]

1. I have been watching the rescue and they are doing a better job

than our *ss and his brownie.

[squawk7700]

2. 3 days of mourning.

Marvelous.

[stellanoir]

3. * also went to McCain's birthday party and a fundraiser in So California

right after Katrina.

The "let (us) eat cake" pict should sink McCain on its own.

[ColbertWatcher]

32. Let's hope so.

[ljm2002]

4. I listened to BBC World Report last night...

...they covered the quake and rescue efforts in depth.

One of the things they said was that the rescue efforts have already made a huge difference in many areas. Also, every person made homeless by this -- which is estimated to be about 5 million people -- will be given money to help them rebuild or relocate, and a daily allotment of food.

As I listened I became both embarrassed and enraged, all over again, about what happened when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.

They also covered the disaster in Myanmar (which they still called "Burma" btw), and how the junta's refusal to allow aid workers in will cause the starvation death of hundreds if not thousands of children over the next two weeks. This also reminded me of how our regime refused foreign aid, and refused to let our own aid workers into New Orleans.

Another issue they mentioned was that sometimes governments are loathe to accept aid because it comes with strings attached. They mentioned that US aid almost always comes with strings attached.

Sigh.

[truedelphi]

8. Funny thing abt our government and Myanmar

When the floods took over the southern LA and Mississippi coasts, our government sent trucks.

And the media endlessly played the footage of the trucks laboriously attempting to get through.

Two days after the calamity in Myanmar, our government announces that the USa is considering "air lifting" in the needed supplies.

Why did we figure out we could use planes for those stricken in foreign lands, but not for our own citizens??

[magellan]

24. Not that planes wouldn't have helped, but we wouldn't really have needed them

...IF THEY HAD JUST LET THE DAMN TRUCKS AND OTHER AID IN!!

[SoCalDem]

5. And, the people responsible for the unsound buildings will be "dealt-with"

a BBC report last week said that some of them will pay with their own lives..

[malaise]

13. And they will although

I don't support the death penalty. Given the vast numbers here, the Chinese effort has been both impressive and dignified. Little things matter in times like these and just watching citizens with dust masks shows that thinking people are involved here.

Three days of mourning is necessary.

[kineneb]

42. If such had happened here, in CA,

wanna' bet someone just might "pay" anyway, before they ever got to a court room? Otherwise, they would just get "naughty, naughty, you should have done a better construction job..."

grrrr.

[smoogatz]

6. They sent 100,000 troops.

The response was massive and immediate. Damn commies!

[Beregond2]

7. If anyone tried

to declare national days of mourning here, the atheists would sue, and we'd never hear the end of it. I can hear it all now:

"Mourning has religious connotations! How dare the government try to cram religion down our throats?"

And any attention being paid to the loss would get swamped in all that brouhaha.

[blonndee]

9. How utterly ridiculous.

[Fleshdancer]

10. who exactly would sue?

as an atheist, I have absolutely NO idea what the hell you're talking about. Have any names of who would do this?

[Taverner]

19. Of course he or she doesn't - Bigots only create strawmen

And then knock them down and say "see! see!"

[salin]

11. Strawman, much?

[Taverner]

18. Strawman indeed n/t

[Time for change]

12. Have you ever seen anything like that happen?

[Taverner]

17. He's a Bigot - he wouldn't understand your logic

Pay no attention to the prejudice in that troll's thread.

[Time for change]

30. That does sound like something a

troll would say.

Wonder how he got over 1000 posts without getting tombstoned?

[Art_from_Ark]

48. It's pretty easy, actually

Proclaim your never-ending love for your gun in the gungeon, post a lot of nonsense in the lounge, do a few "K and R's", and voila, you're at 1000 posts, no problem.

[SoCalDem]

14. Mourning does not equal prayer.. our leaders always color them as "national days of prayer"

all people mourn the loss of a loved one..even non-believers..

[kestrel91316]

15. No, your fundie friends would sue to force the mourning to be a

Giant Jesus Celebration.

After all, America is a "christian nation". Haven't you heard?

[Taverner]

16. WTF are you talking about????

I have never known an Atheist to ever say such a thing.

As an Atheist myself, I am bothered by your comments.

Stop showing your prejudice and bigotry.

[TheFarseer]

22. are you Glenn Beck?

I didn't know mourning was limited to Christians. So atheists who lose a spouse, for example, just shrug their shoulders and go on with the goat sacrificing???

[MirrorAshes]

23. also as an athiest, you're nuts

mourning has no religious connotation in my mind. perhaps that is where it originated but I doubt any athiest would see it as anything less than entirely appropriate.

:wtf:

[uppityperson]

25. Oh bullshit. eom

[LeftyMom]

28. That's right. Atheists don't mourn the dead, we strip them of valuables and boil them for soup.

:eyes:

[jmowreader]

39. Well, SOME atheists do...

although I find it hard to imagine the vegans in the Atheist camp would be boiling the dead for soup.

Me? I turn 'em in to the local waste disposal plant. Getting only one pound of Soylent Green a week really sucks, you know that?

[SammyWinstonJack]

35. Feel better?

:eyes:

[DS1]

36. ahh, eat a bowl of dicks

You're being ridiculous

[devilgrrl]

37. Your right, that's exactly how it would go down.

:eyes:

[Iris]

40. thanks!

i needed a good laugh today!

[devilgrrl]

43. I'm all about the funny....

really, I am. :-)

[Canuckistanian]

47. "mourning" doesn't imply "religion"

I can mourn the loss of my loved ones without invoking some invisible deity.

[Dreamer Tatum]

20. Sorry to be a wet blanket on this bonfire of righteousness

But the same earthquake here would have about 5-10% of the casualties because we have building codes.

Sending 100,000 troops to dig bodies out is great; building more robust structures would have been better.

[Taverner]

21. Well true that, but keep in mind a lot of these buildings were build during the Cult. Revolution

They whipped up buildings like gangbusters, code or no code - out of fear of death.

If Mao said "build by July" they built it, whether or not it was safe.

Such is the danger of unchecked Marxism.

[LeftyMom]

26. Our old buildings aren't real safe either, without significant retrofits.

Unreinforced brick buildings fall right over in a serious earthquake- that could be a big problem in the next serious bay area quake. The Kobe quake mostly killed people in residential areas because the roofs were heavy and tile (built to withstand typhoons) and the wood supports couldn't hold them when they sway.

Capitalist societies don't always do much better in avoiding forseeable disasters. The flood plain north of town here is now full of houses (thousands and thousands of families over many miles, and only one fire station, I should add) even though the Army Corps of Engineers says it's unsafe to build there, it's an area that's suffered repeated floods, and the levees are taller than many of the two story houses they protect. In the absence of conscience and self-restraint, two traits rarer in developers than teeth in hens, reasonable and informed regulation is the key, and any economic system can court disaster without it.

[Taverner]

29. Note I said "unchecked" Communism

It's as bad as Unchecked Capitalism (Bush and Co will give you an idea)

I guess the keyword is Unchecked.

[kineneb]

45. however, many buildings have been retrofitted

There just are not that many un-reinforced masonry buildings left in CA. Many have already fallen down in previous earthquakes, or have already been retrofitted to meet code. There were not that many that collapsed or were damaged in the Loma Prieta quake (I was there). Most of the serious damage was in Santa Cruz, rather than the Bay Area.

[Art_from_Ark]

53. All types of structures sustained damage during the Kobe earthquake

Not just wooden houses with tile roofs, but also modern apartment buildings, department stores, rail lines, and even a section of a major reinforced concrete expressway. There were also huge fires throughout the city that added to the casualty toll. What made the Kobe quake so bad was that the hypocenter was shallow, and almost directly under the most densely populated part of the city.

Here are some photos of the aftermath of the quake, from different parts of the city.

http://www.ops.dti.ne.jp/~miyazawa/photo_gallery/photo_index/photo_index.html

[The Inquisitive]

27. that's a valid point

though I imagine implementing and enforcing building codes on par to ours would be pretty damn difficult, and resource intensive for a developing country. The State took a gamble and lost, I guess.

[Time for change]

31. The main point of the OP related to our current administration's handling of catastrophes

Our building codes are not due to the work of the Bush administration. If it was up to them, I'm sure that they would be a lot worse than they are.

[Xithras]

49. Sorry to be the wet blanket on your wet blanket.

But you're only correct if you narrow your views to a relatively small section of our own nation. The same earthquake on the California coast would have 5-10% of the casualties, but what if it happened on the New Madrid in St Louis? Chicago? What if that 7.9 quake struck on the same fault that rocked New York City in 1884?

Something tells me that our casualty count wouldn't be so different after all.

[Dreamer Tatum]

51. No, rebar is part of every building code I ever heard of

Disagree.

[Hubert Flottz]

33. "he plays the guitar."

The Buffoon in Chief is "playing" his G chord on the wrong fret. I guess Bush's make believe chord works and sounds about as good as the rest of his made up as he goes "REALITY".

Little George and John McSOS were eating birthday cake at the country club in California with the "Have Mores" while normal tax paying people were dying in their sweltering stinking attics in New Orleans. Those sad pictures in my mind will live with me forever.

[opihimoimoi]

34. Dats when McLolo Hugged the Chimp who saluted Nazi style

Them 2 dudes have little sense of Reality....Out of 300 million citizens, this is the best 2 them Pubs can offer?

OMG

[Hubert Flottz]

38. McSOS = Same Old Shiza

Different asshole!

[opihimoimoi]

46. LOL...McSoS ......Same Old Shit diff asshole....still stinks....Could be a Bumper stickkker

SPRING...Fishing....Hot dogs, BBQ's.....picnics, Wine, bread, corn, tuna, ribs, smoked bass...

cleaning, yard work, more cleaning....run a way....take Willie. boat....look for perch and Bass

[treestar]

44. Never noticed that chord

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Whenever * appears to be doing a thing, he is not really in fact doing it!

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

41. If only the earthquake had hit where the falun gong

lived in in ethnic Tibetan areas we would have seen a similar reaction to the US after Katrina...

[Earth_First]

50. While the response is to absolutely commended...

as the response to the devastation by Hurricane Katrina by our own government was nothing short of substandard.

The Chinese government has befallen a host of negative attention against it's government in the last 1-3 years. With substandard manufacturing standards, the recent violence against Tibet, the response to the snowstorms this past winter; methinks that this is part public relations by an otherwise ironclad government whose response might not have been tantamount to the comfort of its citizenry as "Beijing 2008" begins to rear it's ugly marketing head.

I know that I am going to catch some flak for these comments, however I am prepared to stand by this assertion.

[malaise]

52. I've been following the earthquake rescue effort on

CCTV. I've noticed several interesting things.
You're right about the three days of mourning and people stood still everywhere in China when it started.
People were allowed to stay close to their homes - no yellow tape with armed soldiers keeping them away.
People were given their dead and buried them close to their destroyed homes.
Soldiers even helped them take out furniture that wasn't destroyed
People cheered as soldiers rescued people and handed out supplies
Citizens and soldiers worked together with ease. They hugged, they smiled and cried together.
People were cooking in what was left of their kitchens

What struck me more than anything was a video of a soldier walking with an infant he had rescued and the little child was gazing into his face as they both smiled. That beautiful image will stay with me.

Interestingly CCTV has coverage all day and all night coverage and the music accompanying the video is hauntingly beautiful. They have lots of interviews with both injured citizens, medical people, army personnel and people in other parts of China donating food, clothing and money. They also show foreign volunteers from all over the world.

There's an English CCTV on the web, but since we have a significant Jamaican Chinese population, we have the channel on cable. I am really impressed.

http://www.cctv.com/english/special/earthquake/01/index.shtml

http://www.cctv.com/english/special/earthquake/10/index.shtml
photos

http://www.cctv.com/english/special/earthquake/05/index.shtml
list of donors/donations
Hmmmm Chevron????

add link