Earthquake in Haiti

Done and done.

I haven't seen much of the news footage yet, but from what I understand, this is '04 Tsunami-level destruction. Unreal.

I donated to Oxfam: https://secure.oxfamamerica.org/site...5emmxx1.app20b

This is truly horrible. I have friends who have family they haven't heard from. There is massive structural damage which will take a long time to rebuild, but hopefully the death toll will be low.

ETA: Thousands feared dead in Haiti quake; many trapped.

The New York Times has a nice list of charities accepting donations, some of which are already listed above. You can find it here.

Ditto here.

Thanks for posting the charities. I sent $10 to the Red Cross.

And, I hate to bring this up, but can somebody take Pat Robertson out? I'm completely serious. We all know he's a piece of shit but his comments on this really made me wanna punch a wall. Or his face.

The estimated number of deaths is horrific, beyond imagination, with somebody even claiming it could be up to 500,000 (of course no way to know). For millions of people, it must have literally felt like the end of the world.

I can't even begin to imagine how the international community could try to help the country "recover".

Oh no, what's that old douche saying now? Lemme guess, this is God's punishment for their sinful ways?

Pat's losing his game. You'd figure he would have made some sort AIDS reference in there (unless he did later).

"we will serve you if you free us from the French"

"Hmmmm"

"It's a true story"

*nodding in agreement*

Whoever takes care of Pat should take a hard look at Limbaugh, too. From Roger Ebert's Twitter:

Wow, that guy needs to rot in hell.

Pat Robertson can go get sodomised by the devil's flaming dick in hell.
Anyone know if that relief donations texting number works outside the US?

AP is reporting that up to 500,000 may be dead. Christ.

The Oxfam link takes credit/debut cards.

Well they quote somebody that comes up with that number, but that's not exactly what they are reporting (at least not in this article).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_...91c2FuZHNmZWE-

I hope he is wrong, but I'm scared that the number doesn't sound impossible at this point.

Thanks, Diva!

The Lisbon earthquake in 1755 leaps to mind a good idea of both the scope and repercussions.

As for efforts to help recover, you raise a good point that folks in the last few decades have become increasingly unable to grasp. It will take a long time and sustained efforts long after it stops being a "top story" on the news. Adding to the nightmare of it all will be the usual churchies heading their with food and bibles. And Madonna with food and Kabbalah Water.

I've been on the phone with two friends in DR, one outside Santo Domingo and one to the north in Puerto Plata and they both mentioned the concern of an unmanageable refugee situation. Not surpringly they both also questioned the ability and willingness of the nations rushing to proclaim support to help in that.

Thanks again Diva for that link to OxFam.

Oh and I hope the place reserved for Pat Robertson in hell is filled with a thousand dicks he has to suck for eternity!!!

I'd be incredibly shocked if it was that high. I'm pinning all my hopes on the toll being under 100,000. My reasons for hoping are that light material construction, such as corrugated iron, wood, tin, shanty style stuff might make up a good chunk of residences in the capital. This stuff proved costly during the hurricanes, but such structures are far less deadly in earthquakes.

But this is something of an ill-informed wish, and I have no real idea. It's just a hunch I hope proves true, as it's a population that exploded dramatically from 250,000 to two and a half million in 50 years in the capital.

I don't doubt the toll will be in the tens of thousands however, I only hope it stays in the low tens. Frankly I can't imagine a figure as high as half a million. Is there a source for this?

Rush is a monumental dick. The only good thing that will come out of this nightmare is that some idiots out there who listen to his show might even now be turned against his astonishing cuntitude. Bravo Ebert.

Cash winging its way to the Red Cross soon as the bank gets its act together and sends me my replacement debit card.

What, no "VooDoo gone wrong" jokes? Pat's slipping

Plus, isn't it internally inconsistent to put forth that Satan is an enemy of the French? I thought they were all godless, Socialist, faggots.

Just think of glorious gravedancing that will occur when Robertson finally dies. Seriously, they'll have to sell tickets.

dfd

I was curious to find out just what the heck he was talking about, I imagine he's referring to this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution

I would stand in line for them. And I am a lot more sympathetic to religon then most of the people here. The guy is a freaking disgrace.

Jesus, it has been a while since a city has been leveled the way that Port Au Prince has.This is like a Earthquake hits DC and the White House, The Capitol, The Pentagon, and most of the monuments are leveled. The chaos there much be something else.

Pete, see post #2 from Richard - you can text money to the Red Cross and they'll charge it to your phone bill, so you don't have to wait for your debit card, if that helps.

And yeah, fuck Rush and Pat. I hope they spend their eternity in hell being forced to fuck each other.

It's a sad situation. An earthquake is the last thing they needed. At least living conditions at the Presidential Palace are now no better than those for average peasants.


Nature, the great leveler.

If that dude lived in the UK he would be arrested. Man how do you guys let these idiots get away with this stuff.

We value the free exchange of ideas, even the reprehensible ones?

We can't arrest people for being horribly stupid.

What I hate about these bozos saying this is that then the news wastes time to talk about their idiotic statements. On the other hand, if that helps keep the news on the air then so be it. But aside from offensive and irresponsible, it's a dangerous distraction.

we can,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8453560.stm

That terror law is just so damn flexable....


Actually it's kinda scarey what they can use it for.

Interesting ... we actually talked about related laws in the UK a while back;
http://chud.com/forum/showthread.php...pt+free+speech

That thought did cross my mind when I posted the link.

Looks like you will be serving me a plate of Humble pie Cap.

When I lived in the UK, the regressive nature of the laws regulating expression sort of disgusted me. The anti-blasphemy laws, the terror legislation, the massive amount of CCTV, it's all very scary. I can really see why Moore wrote V for Vendetta.

I loved the education and health care systems, though.

Only one hospital left standing ...
http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/world/article260071.ece

I'm curious if anyone saw this earthquake coming. There had to be some meteorologist somewhere that saw warning signs; though Mother Nature can be a helluva bitch when she wants.

Diva, I hope you are joking about Meterologist predicting earthquakes. ....

I saw a bit on the local news, Diva, about Port au Prince's geography. Unfortunately, there's a massive, very active fault line that runs right under the city. As such, I don't think they could have determined which tremors were "normal" and which meant something was coming.

Incidentally, if anyone is interested in learning more, the United States Geological Survey has a simple, clear explanation of what happened. The "summary" and "maps" tabs are particularly helpful. People felt the fucking thing in Tampa, over 700 miles away.

Well, it is impossible to predict quakes. But there are people whose jobs are to track fault lines and how often they shift. I was curious if there were signs of increased activity, not specifically in Haiti but all over the world.

ETA: Thanks, Zooey!

Donated as well.

Not to sound completely tacky, but my company just donated an assload of money to the relief effort. I know this place drives me nuts many days, but I do work for decent people.

Hell... there's a huge Haitian community over here, and it's on everyone's mouth right now. And one of our local paper, La Presse, had journalists over there to cover another story. So they were right in the middle of it. The front page of the paper made the cover of Time's magazine special edition. Hard images. And the casualties will pill on as time passes. But the 50000-100000 estimate is sadly on.

1st time I send money over for such a thing...