November 02, 2007

• will snarkily mentioning the ongoing denial of climate change in threads like this become the new godwin? those poor people, it looks horrible, all crops have been destroyed in that state, I hope the relief effort will be able to make some impact. /fights guilty desire to run off and join an aid organization to help people :(
• There's no way their infrastructure is able to handle this. It's not going to turn out well. I also wish I was in a place both financially and health-wise to go help.
• Lara, I'm afraid HW's mention of climate change is right on. We could throw all the money in the world at this thing overall, and it's probably going to be too late for many, many more. I feel for all the poor people. New Godwin? I don't think so. As long as our government can keep lying to the Na'Leaners and 'Fornuns, nobody really cares one way or another about some brown people somewhere else. who's up next in the game of Weather Roulette!? Unless we can claim them folks south of the border stole our water. And they're impeding our oil supply. Damn Terrriorists!
• It's horrific. I can't even imagine so many people suffering.
• It's like watching New Orleans, then imagining it multiplied.
• More than 800,000 people homeless, according to reports today.
• It's the Mexico City 'quake all over again.
• It's the Mexico City 'quake all over again. It might be, in more than one sense... the human tragedy is already being spinned and ready to be used by the political factions. Blaming corruption and incompetence on past administration, unpreparedness of current authorities, lack of planning by hidroelectric agencies plus global weather changes; someone will pay for this, not necessarily the real culprits. Meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands displaced begin to lose patience; the specter of looting of what they left behind and the slowness of arriving aid isn't helping with the morale. Neither the forecasts of more bad weather. The presidente himself went there to pose for the cameras paddling some mud, in an effort to boost his low popularity, specially right now when his party is mired in several corruption scandals involving past functionaries, but if the help isn't swift, the social tension there, after what is already a huge disaster, might become explosive if not handled properly. As always, it's the poorest who suffer the most. Showing the rest how the future might well be for all.
• Exactly, Flags. Well, maybe not for all. As usual, the rich will be barricaded behind the walls and doing just fine, but the rest of us will be down in the mud fighting for our lives.
• Yay capitalism.
• If you want to help out. (As I understand it, this is the Mexican arm of Oxfam.) Also, there's the Red Cross effort.