Thursday, January 21, 2010

For Every French Politician and Every Journalist

As you might be able to tell, I'm still pissed off by that French politician's anti-American stupidity, and now there's stupid journalists doing the same thing. Tune in to this video of a media briefing event. Part of it is from Ottawa, with Canadian politicians giving an account of Canadian efforts to help Haiti. Toward the end, it switches to the United Nations. At the 1:18:40 mark a French journalist opens her stupid mouth and bashes the US, followed a few moments later by another one who, based on her accent, sounds like she might be an Arab, does the same thing. Both questioners were thoroughly debunked, by the man at the podium, Ban-K Moon, in the first instance, and a Brit, John Holmes, in the second.

To all of these idiots, I only wish you would read this excellent appraisal of both the earthquake and the relief effort:
"...a magnitude 7.0 earthquake releases the energy of a 30-megaton bomb. Most of the substantial buildings in Haiti were built with cheap, inadequate concrete, structured as very heavy roofs stacked on top of separate walls. Wonderfully suited to withstanding hurricane winds, but as stable in an earthquake as a child’s building blocks."
[---]
"Very likely, Haiti’s January 12 earthquake is one of the ten deadliest earthquakes in recorded history. Among the dead were many of the elite, such as it was, of the Haitian government, and diplomats and staff from the UN and many NGOs."
[---]
"The nearly total destruction of Port-au-Prince included the control tower and the refueling facilities at the airport, as well as all the island’s electrical supplies.
[---]
The port, with its cargo facilities, cranes, docks, and warehouses, was apparently even worse: docks and cranes are now tangled wreckage — some of it underwater waiting to rip out the bottom of an unwary ship."
[---]
"...at sunrise, the [US] Navy had a reconnaissance P-3 over the port, and the Coast Guard was near the harbor. But while rescuers and supplies were on their way, it was hard to land them. The airport went into operation fairly soon, but by midday flights had to be redirected to the Dominican Republic or simply not allowed to leave for Haiti at all. U.S. ships were on their way, but even the fastest naval ships only do about 45 miles an hour. Ships in port at Guantanamo Bay are 15 hours from Port-au-Prince. Since they have to go around both Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, ships from San Juan are more like 30 hours away. Ships in the U.S. are many days away."
And then there was the politics:
"The U.S. deferred to the UN rather than become an occupying force, the UN deferred to the Haitian government, and the Haitian government was largely nowhere to be found."
But still, we have journalists who would rather jump to conclusions than actually practice their profession.

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