"Miles Maxted" bravely wrote to "Mike Ross" (05 Jan 05  11:18:00)
 --- on the heady topic of "Re: Indian Ocean Disaste"

 MM> G'morning Mike,

 MR> There seems to be no explanation why the major monitoring centers
 MR> failed to report the possibility of tsunami events after such a major
 MR> quake. It's as if everyone with such responsibility was off on
 MR> holidays all at the same time or something. The scientific community
 MR> has really failed us on this one.

 MM> While the NZ government made early responses with both money and
 MM> resources,  our PM was incommunicado and on holiday on the other
 MM> side of the Earth;  the PM's party didnt get even a whiff of the
 MM> event to her for 70 hours,  and the holiday was cut short finally
 MM> in the face of public criticis to allow a return to this country
 MM> and its concerns ... yesterday !

This was typical of most governments and the paltry first $ amounts
offered were absolutely rediculous. I recall the first amount our PM
announced was about 1million$ and our local leadership 100K$. Now the
PM has raised the help to 80million$. Our country had an 8billion$
surplus last year so that 80million$ is peanuts to us. Even the 1st
USA amount was about 40million$ and now at about 500million$. However
the problem really isn't the money right now, it is getting the help
there in the 1st place and it has been over 12 days now that people
have been suffering. Where is the help? It certainly isn't there
because all the media have been doing is telling us how great the help
teams are and the vast resources at hand. IOW just another PR spin.
Bunch of SOB's!!!

I'm just happy about one thing: today the President of Thailand fired
the chief meteorologist for failing to issue a warning. Damn right!

 M*i*k*e

... "Never confuse motion with action." - Benjamin Franklin
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30