Some Serious Questions for a Calamitous "Olympic Host" -- An honest
accounting of China's disaster / IHT

International Herald Tribune
An honest accounting of China's disaster

Monday, May 19, 2008

Chinese leaders are being far more open about the earthquake in Sichuan
Province than their predecessors were after a similar disaster in 1976,
and more open than the Burmese junta after a cyclone devastated much of
the country earlier this month.

But the presence in Sichuan of Chinese and foreign reporters reveals
only part of the story. A better test of China's new transparency will
be whether the government lets reporters investigate whether human
failings, official or otherwise, contributed to thousands of deaths.

The extent of the tragedy would have been hard to conceal. Video of the
quake was up on YouTube shortly after the first tremors Monday. And
Chinese society is far more open to outsiders and to its own people than
it was under the Maoist Gang of Four in 1976, when an earthquake
devastated the north. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao arrived at the affected
part of Sichuan within hours of the disaster, and news crews followed.

On May 19, 11:23 am, Micky Wong wrote:

I think its because the CCP knows that it is only by listening
to those directly effected by this disaster they can effectively
determine challenges that needs to be addressed.

The earthquake has left many people homeless - from what I
hear there is a need for need tents and blankets - atleast
temporarily until more permanent housing can be setup .

drydem wrote:

That was easy. Since the city, county and state governments fucked up,
all they had to do was yell at the top of their lungs, "Where are the
Feds? WHERE ARE THE FEDS," until everyone believed it was the Feds'
fault. Other disasters both natural and civil engineering fuck ups
occur in the U.S. yearly. Only in Lousyana did the local officials
succeed in shifting blame from themselves to the Feds/FEMA/Bush, because
no other sane locality ever did that kind of shit.

Before all the yelling and screaming and blaming took place, the
Lousyana governor in a recorded interview were all praises and gratitude
for the first Feds to arrive to do their work for them. Then the
Democratic national leadership took over the publicity stunts and the
rest is how-to-do-it history.

On May 20, 10:44 am, EMBALMER Taxidermy.edu> wrote:

Corp of Army Engineers got some of the heat
because the contractors that they used to make
the New Orleans levees had failed to
secure the foundations properly - causing the
the levees to fail prematurely. However, the
given the strength and speed of the hurricane
- this would have only bought some extra time.

drydem wrote:

On May 21, 12:29 am, EMBALMER Taxidermy.edu> wrote:

This is for you since your knowledge of Katrina events, by your own
admission, are not from actually being there. You don't have to swallow
this whole, or at all, but it's worth reading word-for-word just for the
reputable references and to compare with other media materials and
first-person accounts. I am not the author. ~~Embalmer~~
---------------------------------------------

Why New Orleans Flooded

Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2005

A steel barge that came crashing into one of the levee walls, and not
the failure of that levee to hold back an immense tidal wave, was to
blame for much of the flooding that drowned parts of New Orleans.

Lying an average of seven feet below sea level, surrounded by the waters
of Lake Ponchartrain, the Mississippi River and Lake Borgne, which
separates Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf of Mexico, and protected by a
series of sinking levees, the city of New Orleans was a disaster waiting
to happen.

On Jun 5, 1:33 pm, EMBALMER Taxidermy.edu> wrote:

On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:32:03 +0800, beernuts wrote
(in article
<4511f9df-0486-4771-80bf-ec3a53580734@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>):

Well said.

--
Love, Jim
(I often delete parts of the previous post and I often remove excessive
crossposts.)

On Jun 12, 8:32 am, beernuts yahoo.com> wrote:

Beernuts (Chris), analysis of why decision or solutions failed
not only tell us what not to do be can sometimes lead us to
solutions or decisions that can succesed. What makes Katrina
Hurrican and the Sichuan Earthquake similar is the magnitude
of the disaster. Size matters when it comes to logistics.
What you need to ask yourself -Beernuts (chris) - is
whether you have become so-sensitive that you can't step
back and look at this objectively?