Ian wrote:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4146153.stm
>
> Is one person's death more poignant than anothers? No.
>
> We had a minute's silence on armistice day for 75 years, for the

There are few things for which I would condone any symbolic gesture,
but Armistice Day is one of them.  A minutes' silence can't possibly
commemorate millions of men dying in trenches, but neither can anything
else.  It's worth doing.

The problem is that someone like Blair gives _three_ minutes to
something else, and then we're into a contest over what tragedy was
worse, and deserving of more minutes of silence.  World War I, or the
Tsunami?  I think the answer is obvious, but the question is one to be
avoided.

> millions who died. It's a symptom of Tony Bliar's government (this
> increasing number of minutes idiocy has happened on his patch,) that
> one set of deaths can be more "shocking" and in need of reverence
than
> the previous catastrophe.

Rush Limbaugh calls it "symbolism over substance."  Three minutes of
silence won't do anything for the poor man standing in the mud where
his home had been.  Where his wife had been.

> I'd have been more inclined to have a minutes silence on November
11th,
> for all victims of senseless catastrophe.
>
> So I won't be silent, because the vast majority of these deaths could
> have been avoided. Religious antiscientific claptrap society in
> Indonesia, if it hadn't been so ignorant, would have had Tsunami
> detectors on the floor of the ocean. The United States has them all

Well, we can afford them, and their efficacy is questionable.  Tsunamis
are hard to detect in deep ocean because they really don't disturb
anything until they run out of ocean.  So Indonesia would have had to
spend money they didn't have on something they weren't sure would work.

You may be thinking of the SOUSAS system, which our navy used to detect
Soviet submarines.

> over the pacific. Why is it the West's responsibility to...
>
> 1. Repair large catastrophes.
> 2. Forgive debt, do we forgive the debt of alcoholics at home?
> 3. Stop thousands of natives killing each other in civil wars.
>
> When all this is done, caused, and let happen by ignorance. We should
> allow Darwin's law to select these people out.

It's not our responsibility, and I don't think governments should
necessarily get involved, but it's still a good thing if individual
people are generous to the desperate.  It should be our right to ignore
the needy, but it's good for one to help if he can.

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