Not surprising.
In times of strife, the desperation leads the poor and poorly educated to unscrupulous activities...

Now there being no level of order or policing (not that there was much to begin with in the struggling nation) anything goes, as long as it's at someone else's expense...

Death toll could be more like >200,000 - worse than any natural disaster ever seen before, but again due to shoddy building structures and difficulties in rescue team coordination, this figure needn't have been that high.

True. It's not like we didn't give them enough money to build some type of infrastructure.

Yeah 95,000 from the quake the rest beheadings and hangings

[Ratmagiclady]

Death toll could be more like >200,000 - worse than any natural disaster ever seen before, but again due to shoddy building structures and difficulties in rescue team coordination, this figure needn't have been that high.

Well, some people here don't like the 'handouts' of foreign aid until something really goes boom.

A huge part of the problem here is that most of the people who were handling the already-extant humanitarian problems in Haiti *were in Port-Au-Prince when buildings fell on them and all the useful stuff.*

What infrastructure there was for this kind of thing just came down, is the problem. Even a lot of the clergy were killed when things fell. Last I heard, a lot of the doctors haven't even turned up in the hospitals, either cause something happened to them or cause they obviously have had their hands full before they got very far. The first relief flights *in* jammed up the airport cause there wasn't enough fuel there so they could get out and out of the *way.*

The house of cards that came down wasn't cause anyone screwed up the response, Ash, it's cause people all but *ignored* it for a long time, while saying, 'The Haitian people are bad....'

Unlike New Orleans, the response has been as good as can be.

Frankly, though, all the king's horses don't change the fact that those who can't be saved were killed by economics as simple as the cheapest concrete construction in the New World decades ago.

That's no longer a city, and it was pretty much all they had.

It's a little hard to grasp the scale of this on personal terms: Scruples, or the character of the victims, won't change certain brutal mathematics which are all too likely to come into play.

There's millions of personal dramas playing out there, now, and those we've sent to save as many as can be saved as the dominoes keep falling... Are performing triage on a nation.

The infrastructure in Port-Au-Prince, including the port, is pretty smashed. Getting anything in that way, with all the mechanized stuff fallen... Well, isn't a job for a day or three, though I wouldn't count out the Corps of Engineers.

With luck, they're setting up relief camps outside the city, before refugees end up eating the countryside bare. I think they're all set up to export cash crops: people will be fleeing, but there can only be so much there for them.

The scale of this would make any logistics officer cry.

Let's pray for the best, but be prepared for more bad news. People are more resilient than they think, (you should hear the singing) but I'm afraid even the best possible outcomes at this point are going to be pretty heartbreaking.

Favorable weather and no disease outbreak would be a good prayer.

[Rupert]

True. It's not like we didn't give them enough money to build some type of infrastructure.

Yeah 95,000 from the quake the rest beheadings and hangings

Yep, you got it George! We have just wasted a little of our taxpayer money there......we could have done better but they didn't have any oil...and their Voodoo religion doesn't require them to kill infidels. So...we put our cash where it will do some real good...over in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they all hate us and are sworn to wipe us off the face of the earth. That is some of your right wing "Big Brain" thinking. I hear all the time about those peaceful streets of Baghdad,....flower children everywhere and never a mention of nasty beheadings or hangings. When Haiti learns to march in the streets with large signs of "Death to America"..."Death to Israel"....and find themselves some oil, we will be Johnny on the spot if we can get a right wing fruitloop to lead the way. Oh yeah, they need to stay out of the sun....that dark skin is not acceptable in the inner circles of the right......well, unless you are trying to sell a bogus story at the UN.
Regards!

Yep, you got it George! We have just wasted a little of our taxpayer money there......we could have done better but they didn't have any oil...and their Voodoo religion doesn't require them to kill infidels. So...we put our cash where it will do some real good...over in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they all hate us and are sworn to wipe us off the face of the earth. That is some of your right wing "Big Brain" thinking. I hear all the time about those peaceful streets of Baghdad,....flower children everywhere and never a mention of nasty beheadings or hangings. When Haiti learns to march in the streets with large signs of "Death to America"..."Death to Israel"....and find themselves some oil, we will be Johnny on the spot if we can get a right wing fruitloop to lead the way. Oh yeah, they need to stay out of the sun....that dark skin is not acceptable in the inner circles of the right......well, unless you are trying to sell a bogus story at the UN.
Regards!

Actually Rupert we gave billions during Clinton to help. But there was no strings attached as usual. Giving was good. Not requiring accountability, priceless. There was enough given that these deaths didn't have to happen.

Gotta love that totally useless post just before yours though.

[Ratmagiclady]

Well, at least the social order situation looks, actually, pretty darn promising, at least where they could get some reporters in from, I think, the BBC or CBC. (Been watching PBS news here.) Considering there's like a 90 percent homeless rate in a city that big, all the casualties, etc, and, well, the fact the prison apparently cracked open right downtown.... there's a lot more signs of stability, community organization, (even if on a block or neighborhood level,) and such around there, and people are being darn peaceable.

It's actually pretty darn orderly down there, even if some might rather paint a different picture. Getting food and clean water in there could keep it that way.... so much of that city is just smashed, though, and so many injured....

[Rupert]

Actually Rupert we gave billions during Clinton to help. But there was no strings attached as usual. Giving was good. Not requiring accountability, priceless. There was enough given that these deaths didn't have to happen.

Gotta love that totally useless post just before yours though.

Not much accountability in Iraq or Afghanistan either...if you look at the GAO reports, it makes you ill to think of the waste......not denying the waste in Haiti either. As for looking at some other ideas....I have decided to attempt to stay away from rat droppings, just too unsanitary.
Regards!

Not much accountability in Iraq or Afghanistan either...if you look at the GAO reports, it makes you ill to think of the waste......not denying the waste in Haiti either. As for looking at some other ideas....I have decided to attempt to stay away from rat droppings, just too unsanitary.
Regards!

Almost as bad as squirrel.

[coelhom]

Hollywood is putting on a telethon so you can donate. Do you ever hear anything about the liberal actors ever giving any of their OWN money?

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt donated $1 million out of their own pockets. Same with Sandra Bullock.

I guess not every "liberal actor" is such a terrible person.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt donated $1 million out of their own pockets. Same with Sandra Bullock.

I guess not every "liberal actor" is such a terrible person.

3 out of how many?

[Parallax]

Actually Rupert we gave billions during Clinton to help. But there was no strings attached as usual. Giving was good. Not requiring accountability, priceless. There was enough given that these deaths didn't have to happen.

Gotta love that totally useless post just before yours though.

I can't call that post useless, because to do so I would have to be able to decipher at least part of it. Have you managed to crack the code?

I can't call that post useless, because to do so I would have to be able to decipher at least part of it. Have you managed to crack the code?

If no one can understand something or use something or if it benefits no one it is useless. I stand by my post.

[Parallax]

If no one can understand something or use something or if it benefits no one it is useless. I stand by my post.

I wasn't challenging the veracity of it, George, I was just momentarily thinking in terms of foreign languages. I didn't take into account that for my reasoning to be valid there would have to be somebody, somewhere in the world capable of understanding the language.

I wasn't challenging the veracity of it, George, I was just momentarily thinking in terms of foreign languages. I didn't take into account that for my reasoning to be valid there would have to be somebody, somewhere in the world capable of understanding the language.

There isn't. At least not any one that can do it consistently.

[Ratmagiclady]

Actually, the ambassador to Haiti said that the past ten years brought many positive changes.... But that doesn't mean the buildings that fell were safed for the Carribean Plate.

And another quake just over 6.0 this mornning just after 6 am