Sunday, January 02, 2005
AUSTRALIANS LOST
The number of Australians feared killed in the Asian tsunami has risen to 107. This is a larger number than were murdered in Bali. Some 950 are still missing.
(Point of comparison: the worst single-day loss of life on Australian soil happened during the February, 1942, Japanese attack on Darwin, in which 233 died.)
The government has committed much effort to assist, but you’ll understand how wretched and broken is the mood here (as it is in so many countries; Indonesia, for example, where 100,000 may have died). Please visit the Sydney Morning Herald, News Ltd, and the Melbourne Age for more stories.
Meanwhile, there is some good news. A friend writes to tell of someone who was able to return home from Thailand via Australian assistance:
He is a Norwegian citizen and it was the Aussies who got him out! He said they were the only country that was properly set up to handle tourists in trouble and were helping people from all countries.
It’s what Australians do.
ARKIE DUMBASS BELIEVES ANYTHING
Thanks to Arkansas Times columnist Ernest Dumas - a more wonderful name I could not invent - the magical fake turkey of legend continues its eternal flight:
David Hackett Fischer’s new history, Washington’s Crossing, affords a sorrowful comparison between the first George W, who crossed the Delaware, and the second, whose closest exploit was to cross the Tigris to be filmed serving a fake turkey to the troops.
Dumas is serving lies to his readers. The editors at the Arkansas Times and the Memphis Flyer - where Ernie’s column was reprinted - either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. An email to the Times may be useful, but when people are still getting simple matters such as this wrong more than 12 months after the event, they’re probably beyond help.
UPDATE. More from Earnest:
William Jefferson Clinton (1946-) was the 40th elected governor of Arkansas, 42nd president of the United States and the most buoyant political figure in American history ... a number of controversial pardons that he issued in the hours before leaving office caused his standing to plummet. But in four years his popularity had returned and voters ranked him among the outstanding presidents.
Sure thing, Ernie. The turkey is fake and Clinton is outstanding and buoyant. Right.
PLEASE, KARL ROVE! STOP YOUR MONSTER NOW!
Covert right-wing operative Michael Moore has commenced the final phase of his terrible plan. Having secured George W. Bush’s re-election via the successful alienation of middle-ground voters (and by reminding people on election eve that John Kerry “IS THE NUMBER ONE LIBERAL IN THE SENATE!”), the corporate-financed reverse propagandist now aims for nothing less than the complete annihilation of bewildered Leftists:
Moore, the filmmaker whose targets have included General Motors, the gun lobby, and the US President, George Bush, has now set his sights on the US health-care industry, including insurance companies, the Food and Drug Administration, health-care maintenance organisations - and drug companies.
You’d almost have to admire the genius of this, were it not so wicked. Convinced by Moore that health care, insurance, and medicine are bad, his duped followers - many of them baby boomers who increasingly require medical attention - will abandon hospitals and conventional medicine. Expect them to perish in the streets, uninsured and begging for OxyContin.
Only then will evil Michael Moore know that his work is done.
UPDATE. Noting the inverse success of Moore’s campaigns, Dave S. in comments begs: “Please, Michael, do scathing documentaries on the evils of porn, motorcycles, beer and a 150-mph speed limit.”
NEWS BRIEFLETS
* Sam Ward presents his year in review. Many highlights.
* Don’t feel alone, James Wolcott! Lots of people root for Hurricanes.
* Andrew Sullivan is handing out his annual awards. Congratulations to MoDo and a sensational array of poseurs.
* Team America opened at number one in Australia and is still riding high three weeks later. Hit the link for Miranda Devine’s column.
* Follow the petals! The latest sinister connection to the UN’s oil for food scam is a floral one: “The three suspicious transactions concerned a company called Al-Riyadh International Flowers, a firm based in Saudi Arabia.”
* Jacques Chirac promises a vote on the EU constitution: “You, the sovereign people, will be called on to choose your own destiny.” Just like in Iraq, eh, Jacques?
* Virginal and delicate Australian blogger Caz is pregnant, somehow. Congratulations, Miss! Due date for the miracle birth: July 1.
* Andrea Harris has moved. Explanation to follow, possibly involving the UN oil for food scam.
IDIOTS/COUNTERPOINT
Hugh Mackay in the Sydney Morning Herald, July ‘03: “We have taken our eye off the big picture. We don’t want to know. We’ve shifted our gaze to the things we can understand and control - the minutiae of our personal lives ... we prefer TV programs about backyards to news and current affairs ...”
Counterpoint: “Australians have so far donated $50 million for Asia’s tsunami-ravaged countries.”
Geoff Kitney in the Sydney Morning Herald, January ‘04: “While individualism has flourished we, in our debt-laden castles and our fear of the unknown which the new world order of global terrorism has created, have become more selfish ... the power of individualism is breaking down a sense of community and community responsibility.”
Counterpoint: “Even while they were celebrating the coming of the new year, Australians contributed more than $1.12 million to the victims of the devastating Boxing Day tsunami.”
UPDATE. Australians are donating $750,000 per hour, many of them via sites listed here.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
MEAN-MINDED DICTUM
Blinded by hate, The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee hasn’t noticed the overwhelming amount of aid from the US:
“Charity begins at home” is the mean-minded dictum of the right, unwilling to spend on foreigners, unwilling to spend on those outside the family fortress at home, either. But there may be a lot of truth in the old maxim. Countries that tolerate vast wealth gaps are unlikely to concern themselves greatly about the poor even further from their door. Countries that give most - the Nordics - are the ones that have created the most socially equal societies at home first. Can America be anything but unjust in dealing with foreigners when it cares so little about the third world poverty within its own borders?
The US government has ponied up $350 million for tsunami aid, with more promised. Coca-Cola has pledged $10 million; Exxon Mobil, $5 million; Wal-Mart, $2 million; Walt Disney Co., $1 million; Pfizer Inc, thirty-five million dollars.
Amazon’s Red Cross appeal is growing by $3 million per day. The total from non-government contributions has reached $158,285,000, according to Chuck Simmons.
Here’s more from poison Polly:
Charity begins at home because people’s basic good instinct for generosity and decency has to be nurtured by leaders brave enough to take the risk to appeal to altruism, at home and abroad.
Given the numbers cited above - many of which were available to Toynbee before she wrote her column - George W. Bush has obviously “nurtured instincts for generosity and decency”. Polly owes him an apology, wouldn’t you say? Send the lovely woman a note.
(Via contributor J.F. Beck, who points out that so much aid has arrived in the stricken areas that it’s delaying relief operations. Those evil westerners, always sticking it to the poor ...)
UPDATE. Max Edwards in the Sydney Morning Herald:
There is one surefire way to get the US government to increase its contribution to tsunami disaster relief to a generous level: simply announce that Halliburton will be given first crack at all the major reconstruction contracts.
UPDATE II. The US response has been incredible, reports the Red Cross:
The donations are coming from everywhere and everyone - including the tourist on the street, said Leslie Gottlieb, of the Red Cross’s New York chapter. She said a tourist passing her office near Lincoln Center stopped in and gave $100.
At CARE USA’s office in Atlanta, “a stranger just walked into the office with a check for $10,000. And our offices around the country are reporting similar experiences,” said Ahuma Adodoadji, director for emergency humanitarian assistance.
UPDATE III. The Dell Foundation has kicked in $3 million, with another million donated by GM. Yahoo collected $1.2 million within 18 hours. Also:
Americans using their credit cards were donating a total of about one million dollars a day to relief organizations through Network for Good, a nonprofit portal for charities created by America Online.
UPDATE IV. Among US military resources involved in aid efforts are six C-130s (carrying bulldozers, HUMVEEs, and the like), three KC-135 Stratotankers (bringing MREs and water), and the USS Fort McHenry (containing more than 10,000 pounds of clothing and food). Six Navy P-3 Orions will shortly join three other Orions already in Thailand on search-and-rescue missions. Eight cargo vessels bearing food and water are en route from Guam and Diego Garcia. Two military forensic teams are due to arrive this weekend.
UPDATE V. The unwillingness to spend on those outside the family continues:
So many gifts for injured troops and their families have poured into Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md., that they have run out of space and are asking well-wishers to give elsewhere.
Overwhelmed by thousands of items like CD and DVD players, quilts, toiletries, clothes and food not to mention huge stacks of prepaid phone cards Walter Reed this week urged people to wait until February or March to send items. An official at the naval hospital requested that contributions be postponed until March.
UPDATE VI. Another decadent capitalist nation gets in on the action:
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has pledged $US500 million in grant aid for the countries badly affected by the tsunami disaster.
UPDATE VII. Josh Chavetz points out that one voice really can make a difference:
Im my radio interview Wednesday night, I said that I thought the Administration was being far too stingy in its pledge of aid to South Asian countries affected by the tsunamis. I’m very glad to see that the Administration has just increased its pledge by an order of magnitude.
UPDATE VIII. Perhaps those caring Nordic governments Polly adores aren’t so caring after all:
Scandinavians are fuming at their governments’ initial lax response to the tsunami disaster as hopes dimmed for thousands of foreign tourists, mostly Europeans, still missing days after the wall of water hit.
Swedish tabloids were the harshest critics of the Government. “She went to the theatre,” said Aftonbladet, referring to the Foreign Minister, Laila Freivalds, saying she waited 30 hours after the initial report of the disaster to go to her office.
PRESS CLAIMS INFLUENCE
Colin Powell mentioned a few days ago that the US will probably end up spending billions on tsunami aid. Since then, completely in line with Powell’s remark, we’ve learned that funding has increased to $350 million; yet CNN persists with the view that this was prompted by baiting from the press and UN:
The increase followed criticism that the initial amount was far from enough.
As contributor Alan R.M. Jones writes: “Yeah, that’s it. The US only gives substantial aid when middle ranking UN bureaucrats make ill-considered remarks. If that were true, the US Treasury would have gone bust a long time ago.”
In other charity news, Howard Owens notes the under-reporting of private donations and has this to say about Jeff McNeely, who blamed the toll on “human activities”:
Maybe those who are eager to blame modern man should stop and consider how much worse it would be without modern technology.
The U.S. is sending two naval groups. One of the functions of these ships will be to generate fresh drinking water in large quantities. The ships can also generate power to aid relief work and provide manpower to distribute aid, and security to protect it. Also, FedEx and the U.S. Air Force are providing numerous cargo planes to carry aid to the afflicted countries. And of course, many of the millions being donated are available only because of technolgy and capitalism. Clearly, many lives will be saved because of quick action, rapid transportation and medical advancements—the fruits of capitalism that didn’t exist 100 years ago.
One of the two naval groups sent by the stingy US Navy includes the USS Bonhomme Richard, currently headed for Sri Lanka. Reader Jeremy Garrett forwards some details on the vessel, gleaned from Tom Clancy’s non-fiction Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit:
According to Clancy, the USS Bonhomme Richard’s sister ship the USS Wasp is listed in Virginia’s disaster preparedness plans as the fourth-largest hospital in the state when it is docked at the Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia.
The USS Wasp and her sister ships have 600+ beds, six operating theaters, eighteen post-operative/intensive care beds, six isolation ward beds, 36 primary care beds, and extensive radiology dental facilities onboard. In addition, they can use some of the bunks for the Marines as hospital beds when they are on shore. The only larger hospital facilities on board ships are those of the US Navy’s Mercy and Comfort, which are hospital ships based on the hulls of oil tankers.
The Marines will also be carrying a significant number of helicopters and various kinds of landing craft. That will be a big help in reaching areas that have been cut off by the tsunami damage. The Marines also have a large capability to make potable water and often end up helping to supply water to other military units during missions. The book was published in the 1990s, but it should still be accurate. Clancy even toured the Bonhomme Richard while it was under construction.
Sounds to me like Bush was busy getting support that could provide immediate help to the area while the critics were bashing the US contributions. I live in Alabama and I can tell you from personal experiences with hurricanes that money is helpful in the medium and long term, but it’s people and resources at the site of the disaster in the first few days and weeks that do the most to lessen suffering for the victims. This is especially true in this case where the large scale of the disaster is overwhelming local resources.
Bush should know what he’s doing when it comes to disaster relief since he was the Governor of Texas through hurricanes, floods, and tornados. His advisors are no novices at disaster relief efforts either. Bush’s Chief of Staff, Andrew H. Card, coordinated relief efforts for Hurricane Andrew while serving in the elder Bush’s administration.
Personally, I think I’ll trust the judgment of the President who actually has experience in dealing with natural disasters over UN officials and reporters who have never lifted anything heavier than a pen to help out.
“IT’S AMAZING HOW MANY PEOPLE REFUSE TO SEE THIS”
Christopher Hitchens on Osama’s followers and those who rationalise their madness:
Suicide is not so much their tactic as their rationale: they represent a cult of death and they are wedded to destruction. It’s amazing how many people refuse to see this. They persist in saying that it’s a protest against something, or a reaction to some injustice. They are right to an extent: as long as there is a non-Salafist Muslim anywhere, or a Jew or Christian or rationalist, or an unveiled woman or a profane work of art, the grievance can never be appeased. Of course this does have something in common with fascism - “Death to the intellect! Long live Death!” was a favorite slogan of some Francoists: I think it was coined by General Quiepo de Llano - but even fascism could build an autobahn or design a rocket, while these primitives only want to steal enough technology to wreak devastation.
I wonder if Michael Leunig prayed for Osama this Christmas. Meanwhile, Hitchins’ latest receives a mixed review from Karol Sheinin:
On one hand, it’s a beautiful book, written in a style unique to Hitchens. On the other hand, his pre-9/11 writing was so focused on knocking prominent, admired people, like Mother Theresa and Winston Churchill, off their perches that it gets a little old. Even when I share his criticism of certain people, like Bill Clinton, I feel like Hitchens’ complaints come off as a tad obvious. My favorite parts of the book concern the Kurds, who have never had a better friend than Hitchens (despite their motto ‘the Kurds have no friends’), and his various travels through war torn countries. His take on NYC’s Bloomberg nanny laws is spot on.
EDITORIAL DIRECTION CHANGED
Instapundit marks the death of Reason:
WHEN REASON DIED AS A LIBERTARIAN MAGAZINE: It was at 1:17 p.m. Pacific Time today, with this post by Tim Cavanaugh, savaging a man who patronized the tourist industry in Thailand instead of donating money.
An Instapundit reader points out that declining tourism cost San Francisco after the ‘89 earthquake. Tourism will help rebuild Thailand and other countries ruined by this disaster; it’s indirect charity, and should be encouraged rather than sneered at. Like New York after September 11, Thailand is open for business.
In another Reason dispute, Hugh Hewitt challenges the magazine’s Matt Welch over views expressed here. It’s a regular Reason-o-rama wrestlemania!
UPDATE. Sydney Morning Herald letter writers encourage anti-tourism:
I think the story Tragedy? We’re here for the bar girls and the beer made me sicker than I have felt in a long time. It makes me wonder what kind of people there are in this world of ours.
What are the hotel chains in these areas thinking when they continue to welcome people there on holiday when there are desperate people all around the area, people who need food, housing, medicine? Sure they should open their doors, but perhaps to those people who are in most need of shelter, food and help. - Elizabeth Finnemore, Mt Tamborine
Men will be men. Even a huge disaster won’t stop them from doing what they enjoy most about Thailand: having cheap girls and alcohol. The sleaze factor is still alive and thriving there. - Jenny Zahos, Belfield
BREAK NEEDED
Even the Toriest of Tories will sympathise with Gough Whitlam after reading this:
Gough Whitlam spent a staggering 56 days overseas in 1974 because he needed a break from dealing with the “f…wits” in the Labor Party.
Dubbed “the tourist prime minister”, Mr Whitlam’s travel details are revealed in 1974 cabinet records released today, which his former departmental secretary said showed the PM’s annoyance with his party colleagues.
Thirty years on, former secretary of the department of prime minister and cabinet, John Menadue, said the travel “did seem excessive”.
“I tried to persuade him . . . after the Darwin cyclone not to resume his interrupted overseas visit,” Mr Menadue said at the cabinet document launch last month.
“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘Comrade, if I’m going to put up with the f…wits in the Labor Party, I’ve got to have my trips’”.
The Australian public has been on a break from those f…wits since 1996.
UPDATE. “It seems scarcely conceivable today but the government of Gough Whitlam almost fell for what seems to have been a 1970s version of the Nigerian scam.”
PREDICTIONS FOR 2005
List ‘em in comments.
2005
Welcome to 2005. From my futuristic Australian vantage point, I can exclusively reveal that 2005 is very similar to 2004; except, of course, for all the hover bikes.
And the Sha’ria law. Where the hell did that come from?
Anyways, as James Taranto predicted, the Angry Left is all but invisible in this bold new year:
Michael Moore is now making a documentary about insurance (it’ll be a blockbuster for sure). Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman has gone off to read an economics textbook. George Soros is nowhere to be found; for all we know he actually did join a monastery. And of course Susan Sontag has gone to the Great Cocktail Party Up in the Sky.
It’s hard to believe now how fearsome the Angry Left once seemed. This column never thought it was the stuff of a winning political campaign, but sometimes we felt as though our skepticism put us in the minority. We’re sure we’ll continue to hear from the Dowds and the Krugmans and maybe even the Moores and the Soroses; not even the fascist Bush regime can silence them. But the Angry Left will loom much smaller in 2005 than it has in many years.
Hey, it’s even better than that. Remember No Thappy John, the revolutionary web project cult leader Margo Kingston hoped would become an Australian Moveon.org? It still hasn’t posted a thing since November 11, 2004. The insane are in fierce retreat; watch things hasten mid-year once the conservatives gain control of the Senate.
Let’s greet 2005 with two hopeful quotes from last year, the first from academic intelligentsiac Robert Manne:
For the left-leaning political intelligentsia, 2004 was a peculiarly dispiriting year.
Get used to it, Bobby. And the second, from Margo herself:
Here’s hoping next year is better than 2004, which was worse than 2003.
Here’s hoping! Best wishes to all for the New Year.
UPDATE. Thanks to everybody for all the kind notes. Much of the traffic here is driven by the wit and fun supplied in comments; thanks again for all contributions.