11 replies to this topic

[Heliotrope]

I have some extended family/distant relatives in China. Despite living in the the Northeastern/manchuria region, and over 1,000 to 1,500 miles away, they still felt the tremors and slight quakes were detectable with highrises swaying, similar to the cases in beijing , shanghai and hong kong,
where skyscrapers shook and office buildings like the Shanghai finance building were evacuated.


nobody i knew died, tho I feel sad about the hundreds and thousands of school children CRUSHED OR starved to Death due to sub-standard buildings and corrupt politicians taking bribes and the budgeted money. buy cheap materials to build school, get lowest construction bidders, pocket the rest of the money. what a bad way to cut life short. some innocent ppl died because they did not build better buildings. maybe i'm cynical, but when US and other countries offer aid and millions of dollars, some politicans and bureaucrat ppl are likely to take the money. No foreign personnel allowed to go there, just send the money, don't really prefer goods either. give the gov cash, and they'll take care of "distributing " them to the sufferers , sounds like corruption to me

I thought about offering money to save the near-dead there, death toll could be anywhere btw 50,000 to 100, 000 , tons more injured and starving. Then I thought again. 2 words : no oversight . no regulation, no one to see to it that my money doesn't fatten the bellies of corrupt ppl.


By the way. Where are some of the safest places to live on earth, likey to be war-free, disaster free, etc?

Edited by HYP86, 15 May 2008 - 11:43 PM.

[lunarsolarpower]

Where are some of the safest places to live on earth, likey to be war-free, disaster free, etc?

Antarctica might be quite nice once the ice melts off.



Seriously though I have a hard time coming up with what could possibly be wrong with New Zealand except for its remoteness.

[Heliotrope]

Where are some of the safest places to live on earth, likey to be war-free, disaster free, etc?

Antarctica might be quite nice once the ice melts off.



Seriously though I have a hard time coming up with what could possibly be wrong with New Zealand except for its remoteness.

even if the ice doesn't melt, coldness tends to slow down metabolisms. everything else equal, the colder the climate, the longer the person is likely to live, with comfortable standards of living etc. If put one identical twin in hot tropics and the other in the arctic w/ equal wealth, healthcare, opportunity etc, the arctic twin outlives tropic twin by 10-20 years, ave close to 15 years.

[Heliotrope]

i think slower metabolism helps with living longer,

live fast, die young...

antarctica, NZ?

Alcor should consider a branch there, too remote delays the cryo process tho the ice and everything helps

Edited by HYP86, 16 May 2008 - 01:06 AM.

[forever freedom]

Yea it sucks. And in Myanmar i heard some news that said that the deaths could get to 100,000 although i'm not sure if it's for real.


Those numbers are huge! Seriously, that's a lot. Unfortunately we still don't enough power over nature, and we are going to be penalized by that for some time to come still.

[Heliotrope]

back to topic, if i have wings i'd fly there and save some children ,

a 5 -year-old child was buried under the earthquake rubbles and the crushed building for 69 hours before being pulled out, amazingly a void created enough room,

if i was in that kid's shoes, i don't know if id survived.

[Heliotrope]

Yea it sucks. And in Myanmar i heard some news that said that the deaths could get to 100,000 although i'm not sure if it's for real.


Those numbers are huge! Seriously, that's a lot. Unfortunately we still don't enough power over nature, and we are going to be penalized by that for some time to come still.

more than 100,000 in myanmar, more like 150, 000 to 200,000 ppl dead, and myanmar's military gov is worse than china's, they take the food, aid, and money, and give to their officials and army. like in north korea, we gotta feed the army!!

Edited by HYP86, 16 May 2008 - 01:12 AM.

[lunarsolarpower]

Unfortunately we still don't enough power over nature.

Or perhaps more importantly human nature. A huge proportion of human suffering is man-made. Some of it directly by tyrants and bullies, the rest by people living heedlessly.

Life Without a Net

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Imagine for a moment desperation like this: you are a 22-year-old woman, pregnant with your fourth child. You are living between four walls framed with tree branches and enclosed by corrugated tin.

There is no running water and the only electricity illuminates a single bare bulb in the corner of your one room.

Your bed sheet is thick with flies. You and your children have not eaten today, and you're not sure when you will.

Welcome to the life of Marijo Joseph, her 3-year-old son Peterson, 4-year-old son Egare and 5-year-old daughter Estella.

In one of the poorest countries in the world, Haiti, Marijo lives in perhaps the worst of its slums. Cite Soleil is a teeming shantytown of a quarter-million people living in poverty so abject it is difficult for anyone outside of here to imagine.

Marijo's shack, which the family pays the equivalent of $35 a year to rent, is situated, like so many others, in a field of refuse. The landscape is so covered with garbage in every direction that there are few spots where the ground is even visible.

Near a drainage duct a large black pig roots among the trash.

"My husband is a fisherman," says Marijo, "but he's not working today, because he is trying to borrow a net. His was torn and now he doesn't have one."

There are days like today, she says, where the family may be lucky to eat one meal — usually when her husband can catch some of the small fish swimming in the severely polluted shoreline of this coastal settlement.

Normally the family can get clean water from taps connected to a source installed by international aid organizations, but Marijo says there are days when the taps are dry.

"Then we have to buy water from a local cistern," she says. "It usually tastes salty and my kids get sick a lot."

The poor sanitary conditions around the community mean children regularly get skin conditions like scabies and impetigo. Marijo's daughter Estella has a sunken and drawn appearance caused by illness and malnutrition.

But if the poverty wasn't enough, the family also has to endure the violence that often plagues Cite Soleil.

After Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in a coup in 2004 — widely believed to have been engineered by the United States, France and Canada — Cite Soleil erupted repeatedly in violent clashes.

United Nations peacekeeping troops are now charged with patrolling the slums and trying to control the gangs that largely rule the streets. But UN troops have also been accused of indiscriminate force, including an incident this past July, when the UN admits to killing five Cite Soleil residents during a raid. Locals put the death toll much higher.

Marijo's son Peterson is one of those affected by the violence. He was in the house, she says, when a stray bullet struck the shack and set it ablaze.

"I ran into the flames to get him," she says, "but by that time the entire right side of his body was burned."

Today he bears a mask of burn scars around his eyes as well as others across his body.

Despite the misery in which she's spent her entire life, Marijo refuses despair.

"I think God will make things better," she says. "I think things will change. There will come a day when there is enough for everyone."

Marijo says she delivered her first three children in the tin shack where we sit to escape the midday sun.

She says she's not sure where her next child will be born. There is a hospital nearby staffed by physicians from the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders.

She's heard they will give you free birth control if you ask. She says after her fourth child is born, it will be enough. It will take more than a good net to feed them all.

-I consider people in those circumstances having children as heedless living.

[Heliotrope]

Unfortunately we still don't enough power over nature.

Or perhaps more importantly human nature. A huge proportion of human suffering is man-made. Some of it directly by tyrants and bullies, the rest by people living heedlessly.

Life Without a Net

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Imagine for a moment desperation like this: you are a 22-year-old woman, pregnant with your fourth child. You are living between four walls framed with tree branches and enclosed by corrugated tin.

There is no running water and the only electricity illuminates a single bare bulb in the corner of your one room.

Your bed sheet is thick with flies. You and your children have not eaten today, and you're not sure when you will.

Welcome to the life of Marijo Joseph, her 3-year-old son Peterson, 4-year-old son Egare and 5-year-old daughter Estella.

In one of the poorest countries in the world, Haiti, Marijo lives in perhaps the worst of its slums. Cite Soleil is a teeming shantytown of a quarter-million people living in poverty so abject it is difficult for anyone outside of here to imagine.

Marijo's shack, which the family pays the equivalent of $35 a year to rent, is situated, like so many others, in a field of refuse. The landscape is so covered with garbage in every direction that there are few spots where the ground is even visible.

Near a drainage duct a large black pig roots among the trash.

"My husband is a fisherman," says Marijo, "but he's not working today, because he is trying to borrow a net. His was torn and now he doesn't have one."

There are days like today, she says, where the family may be lucky to eat one meal — usually when her husband can catch some of the small fish swimming in the severely polluted shoreline of this coastal settlement.

Normally the family can get clean water from taps connected to a source installed by international aid organizations, but Marijo says there are days when the taps are dry.

"Then we have to buy water from a local cistern," she says. "It usually tastes salty and my kids get sick a lot."

The poor sanitary conditions around the community mean children regularly get skin conditions like scabies and impetigo. Marijo's daughter Estella has a sunken and drawn appearance caused by illness and malnutrition.

But if the poverty wasn't enough, the family also has to endure the violence that often plagues Cite Soleil.

After Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in a coup in 2004 — widely believed to have been engineered by the United States, France and Canada — Cite Soleil erupted repeatedly in violent clashes.

United Nations peacekeeping troops are now charged with patrolling the slums and trying to control the gangs that largely rule the streets. But UN troops have also been accused of indiscriminate force, including an incident this past July, when the UN admits to killing five Cite Soleil residents during a raid. Locals put the death toll much higher.

Marijo's son Peterson is one of those affected by the violence. He was in the house, she says, when a stray bullet struck the shack and set it ablaze.

"I ran into the flames to get him," she says, "but by that time the entire right side of his body was burned."

Today he bears a mask of burn scars around his eyes as well as others across his body.

Despite the misery in which she's spent her entire life, Marijo refuses despair.

"I think God will make things better," she says. "I think things will change. There will come a day when there is enough for everyone."

Marijo says she delivered her first three children in the tin shack where we sit to escape the midday sun.

She says she's not sure where her next child will be born. There is a hospital nearby staffed by physicians from the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders.

She's heard they will give you free birth control if you ask. She says after her fourth child is born, it will be enough. It will take more than a good net to feed them all.

-I consider people in those circumstances having children as heedless living.

Yeah , and Four Children?

Edited by HYP86, 16 May 2008 - 01:30 AM.

[Heliotrope]

The bed sheets covered with flies part got me. Geez, can you consider having sex with the flies, uh , i meant, human reproduction under the situation with insects flying around, and successfully birth to 4 children.

Edited by HYP86, 16 May 2008 - 01:34 AM.

[Heliotrope]

sorry i was joking a bit in above post. i may have been unnecessarily harsh , after all, many 3rd world countries don't have the resources we do or at least the wealth of U.S.

I can't stand people sending their children to such suffering in the world, why the woman in Haiti giving birth to many children and then let them suffer w/ her.

I've decided to take the risk and donate some of my money, up to $100 - $150 to China , hoping it'd get used RIGHT AWAY instead of of lost in the red tape. maybe i should ask my fam in china to donate for me, then maybe the money would get to Sichuan Province faster.

the children starving and getting crushed part really got me thinking, now i know how horrible that really is. made me think more about my own mortality. I know i dont want to be in that situation or hopefully will survive like the million dollar survivor.

to be immortal we need as much help as we can get, as much as billions of people with trillions of dollars , the real tragedy is that people don't take this as seriously as an earthquake that killed 35,000 ppl or so. HOW MANY PEOPLE DIE OF OLD AGE every single day??

Edited by HYP86, 19 May 2008 - 09:53 PM.

[forever freedom]

to be immortal we need as much help as we can get, as much as billions of people with trillions of dollars , the real tragedy is that people don't take this as seriously as an earthquake that killed 35,000 ppl or so. HOW MANY PEOPLE DIE OF OLD AGE every single day??

Have you read The Fable of the Drago-Tyrant?

Yea if we could get enough people and money in the world i believe we could beat aging in as soon as in 15 to 20 years. But i'm talking about trillions of dollars.