Our Hearts Go Out to Them All.

I am sure, by now, you have heard of the horrific tragedy in the Indian Ocean. I never really thought of tsunami as a real disaster, to me it was always something that was illustrated in ancient Japanese scrolls, but that was the extent of it. You know, art and nature, ancient style, like Kratatoa or something.

Boy was I wrong.

Of all the European countries, the tragedy has affected Scandinavia the most. Thailand is a very popular winter holiday destination for Norwegians and Swedes. Germans, too. They say that almost every Swede or Norwegian knows someone affected by this disaster.

Here is a link to a photo series of the wave coming in. It's in Norwegian, but you really get a sense of the event and the vulnerability of the people in it. Unbelievable. The people in the photos were Swedish, and I have just found out that everyone survived.

Colleen, my dear step-mother in law and world travelling buddy, was in the region too. Luckily, she was en route to a houseboat trip in the Kerala region of India on Boxing Day and was in the mountains at the time it happened. They had plans and hotel reservations on the beaches at Thailand for after their time in India. Their timing was very lucky. (The hotel has since been destroyed, as have all the others, and they are now casting about for somewhere to stay until they figure out what to do next. She is staying with friends in Bangkok.) She has been in Thailand for most of this month. So we, while in London over Christmas, were rather worried about Colleen and where she was. She managed to get a call to my brother in law and told him she was ok.

Now for the George Bush rant. If you are pro-GW, just stop right here. Go read the Fox news or something.

And then I read this, part of it quoted below, about that fucking useless George Bush and the US "generosity" of 35 million USD towards the victims of the disaster, on the MSNBC website:

"Another way to measure

Another yardstick of U.S. largesse stems from a comparison of how American money is used elsewhere in the world.

In hearings last month, the U.S. military reported to Congress that it is now spending more than $5.8 billion each month — an average of $8,055,555 an hour — in Iraq. So the $35 million in aid destined for the tsunami victims is equal to what the Pentagon spends on the average morning in Iraq — about four hours.

Put another way, the $35 million is less than the amount the U.S. military spent during the six hours it took for the tsunami to cross the Indian Ocean on Sunday.

President Bush mentioned the $2.4 billion that the U.S. provided this year in worldwide aid. That amount pales in comparison with the $13.6 billion that Bush requested and received in supplemental appropriations for the hurricanes that hit the southeastern United States and the Caribbean earlier this year.

Of that amount, $100 million, less than 1 percent, went to other countries for their hurricane relief efforts."

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Yeah, because, you know, it's not OUR catastrophe or anything. I mean, really. Let's just keep killing people in Iraq and not worry about a natural disaster of Biblical proportions. Sending aid won't get him re-elected, will it, so why bother? Why bother coming out of your "ranch" in Crawford and saying or doing anything?

We can't afford Social Security, we can't afford better health care for the nation, we can't even afford to help victims of a natural disaster on a scale that is mind boggling, yet we can still spend billions in Iraq on a war no one wants.

Is the US supposed to be a friend to the world or not?

I am embarrassed that this man calls himself a Texan.