-=> Mike Ross said to Greg Mayman
 -=> about "HAPPY NEW YEAR" on 01-03-05  23:20.....


 MR> It is odd because about as far away as Australia was Africa, it was
 MR> hit pretty hard by the tsunami 10 hours after the quake, and causing
 MR> hundreds of deaths. I heard it explained that the fault movement
 MR> caused energy to spread in an east and west direction rather than
 MR> north and south.

That could be, I suppose. I can't think of any other reason.

 MR> I find that the help is going to be much too little much too late. Let
 MR> alone the logistics of getting the help there, what with broken roads
 MR> and communications.

Unfortunately with major catastrophes like this, that is the way
it is always going to be.

 MR> I think the money people are donating is just
 MR> going to make some no scruples bloodsucking vermin even richer. Even
 MR> the "official" aid organisations have monsterous bureaucracies that
 MR> suck up the lion's share of the public's contributions. I've heard of
 MR> cases of victims only receiving at most 30% of the monies that had
 MR> been raised. That is pathetic. Some aid groups have claimed 85% will
 MR> reach the needy but I think it is just PR spin.

Yes, I hear those arguments all the time, whenever there is an
appeal for people to give.

You might be right... OTOH it's amazing how many people use it as
an excuse NOT to give anything....

The way I look at it, if only 30% gets to the people who need the
aid, we should be giving MORE, not less.

And why is only 30% getting out there where it's needed? Because
of the costs involved in getting the aid there, and in raising
the money in first place.

To get the aid to the people, there are shipping costs, purchase
of trucks and fuel, finding food, clothing, and housing of the
aid workers, and so on. And the appeal organisers need to rent
office space and equipment, telephones, etc. and need to pay for
a pile of other things like printing the receipts to be mailed
out to those who donated.

Unfortunately, with the best will in the world, these things have
to be paid for.

And all the people working on the appeal need to be paid... or
would you have all of them give their time for nothing?

How much time could you give for nothing to help with such an
appeal?

Six to nine months? because that's the least time it's going to
take before there is no more aid needed.

MR> What I find even odder is that mass media didn't communicate the
MR> unfolding disaster to the local populations when eye witness reports
MR> started being phoned into their offices. There seems to be no
MR> explanation why the major geological monitoring centers failed to
MR> report the possibility of tsunami events after such a major quake.

It is always so easy to be wise after the event.

My guess is they didn't want to cause panic over something that
might not happen.

Remember, there is not yet a proper tsunami warning system in
that area. And the first reports wrongly showed that the
earthquake was on land, not at sea.

 MR> It's as if everyone with such responsibility was off on holidays all
 MR> at the same time or something. The scientific community has really
 MR> failed us on this one.

Sheesh! Why blame the scientific community?

The blame should go on the people who failed to set up a tsunami
warning system in the area, that would be the governments of
countries in the area.

But since several of them have failed to achieve effective
government in their own countries, could they be expected to work
with each other on a project like that?

   ,-./\
  /     \ From Greg Mayman, in beautiful Adelaide, South Australia
  \_,-*_/    "Queen City of The South"    34:55 S  138:36 E
       v

... If you can't confuse em with facts, baffle em with bullshit.
___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30

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