Breaking News: 7.0 Earthquake in Haiti

[Admiral Yi]

60 Minutes also had a story on Haiti and had some delightful footage of a bulldozer scooping up bodies from the street and a doctor amputating a baby's leg with a hacksaw.

[Razgovory]

60 Minutes also had a story on Haiti and had some delightful footage of a bulldozer scooping up bodies from the street and a doctor amputating a baby's leg with a hacksaw.

Your definition of delightful is different then mine.

[jimmy olsen]

WHAT THE FUCK!!!?

If cruise ships can dock there why can't cargo ships carrying aid and supplies dock there? If there's only room for one ship at a time make the Cruise ships skip that destination for a few weeks.

MONSTROUS!!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/cruise-ships-haiti-earthquake

Cruise ships still find a Haitian berth

Luxury liners are still docking at private beaches near Haiti's devastated earthquake zone for holidaymakers to enjoy the water

Sixty miles from Haiti's devastated earthquake zone, luxury liners dock at private beaches where passengers enjoy jet ski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks.

The 4,370-berth Independence of the Seas, owned by Royal Caribbean International, disembarked at the heavily guarded resort of Labadee on the north coast on Friday; a second cruise ship, the 3,100-passenger Navigator of the Seas is due to dock.

The Florida cruise company leases a picturesque wooded peninsula and its five pristine beaches from the government for passengers to "cut loose" with watersports, barbecues, and shopping for trinkets at a craft market before returning on board before dusk. Safety is guaranteed by armed guards at the gate.

The decision to go ahead with the visit has divided passengers. The ships carry some food aid, and the cruise line has pledged to donate all proceeds from the visit to help stricken Haitians. But many passengers will stay aboard when they dock; one said he was "sickened".

"I just can't see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water," one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum.

"It was hard enough to sit and eat a picnic lunch at Labadee before the quake, knowing how many Haitians were starving," said another. "I can't imagine having to choke down a burger there now.''

Some booked on ships scheduled to stop at Labadee are afraid that desperate people might breach the resort's 12ft high fences to get food and drink, but others seemed determined to enjoy their holiday."I'll be there on Tuesday and I plan on enjoying my zip line excursion as well as the time on the beach," said one.

The company said the question of whether to "deliver a vacation experience so close to the epicentre of an earthquake" had been subject to considerable internal debate before it decided to include Haiti in its itineraries for the coming weeks.

"In the end, Labadee is critical to Haiti's recovery; hundreds of people rely on Labadee for their livelihood," said John Weis, vice-president. "In our conversations with the UN special envoy of the government of Haiti, Leslie Voltaire, he notes that Haiti will benefit from the revenues that are generated from each call ...

"We also have tremendous opportunities to use our ships as transport vessels for relief supplies and personnel to Haiti. Simply put, we cannot abandon Haiti now that they need us most."

"Friday's call in Labadee went well," said Royal Caribbean. "Everything was open, as usual. The guests were very happy to hear that 100% of the proceeds from the call at Labadee would be donated to the relief effort."

Forty pallets of rice, beans, powdered milk, water, and canned foods were delivered on Friday, and a further 80 are due and 16 on two subsequent ships. When supplies arrive in Labadee, they are distributed by Food for the Poor, a longtime partner of Royal Caribbean in Haiti.

Royal Caribbean has also pledged $1m to the relief effort and will spend part of that helping 200 Haitian crew members.

The company recently spent $55m updating Labadee. It employs 230 Haitians and the firm estimates 300 more benefit from the market. The development has been regarded as a beacon of private investment in Haiti; Bill Clinton visited in October. Some Haitians have decried the leasing of the peninsula as effective privatisation of part of the republic's coastline.

[Caliga]

  Relax.  The cruise ship brought supplies in.

[Slargos]

Last night I devoured a packet of "Maryland" cookies, probably around the same time some poor Haitian died from injuries sustained in the american test firing of their earthquake machine.

I did not consider the plight of the haitians, and this article certainly makes me feel very guilty about that.

I'm sure you have a shrine to the Haitians, Timmay, and that you're observing a fast in recognition to their struggling? I don't see how you could eat, after all, knowing that they don't.

Someone real hard core would also cut themselves, but I know you're too weak for that.

Lord knows, the best way to deal with natural disaster is completely cutting off all financial transactions with the country afflicted, since all transactions are done with the purpose of making money or enjoying oneself, and it would be morally wrong to make money or enjoy oneself while people are suffering.

I suggest an embargo on Haiti.

[jimmy olsen]

Relax.  The cruise ship brought supplies in.

A pittance.

[Tamas]

I got such a huge amount of french fries for my lunch today that i simply threw out almost half of it.

[Grey Fox]

Relax, Timmy. Haiti's road are so bad that it takes 8 to 10h for a 200km ride. Docking supplies ship in that Harbor is a waste of everybody's time.

[The Larch]

You MAYBE have a point about the sending money home, but then you will have to show that it actually happens on a large enough scale to make a real difference in the originating country's economy.

Many countries with significative populations abroad have that as one of their main sources of foreign currency, sometimes even their first source. Off the top of my head, Senegal and Ecuador are two culprits of that.

[The Larch]

If cruise ships can dock there why can't cargo ships carrying aid and supplies dock there? If there's only room for one ship at a time make the Cruise ships skip that destination for a few weeks.

Most probably the cruise ships don't dock in the harbours, but stay away from the coastline and take people to land in smaller auxiliary vessels. Obviously you can't do that with a container ship and transfer cargo that way, but you can do that with people and small loads.

[The Larch]

I stand corrected. It only makes my point the more strong, however.

The regrowth potential of these populations is obviously tremendous, especially considering all the talk of starvation and poverty.

Any population that can be more than doubled in a generation is obviously not starving, and moving large portions of it elsewhere without also somehow curtailing the room for regrowth (perhaps with a programme of enforced sterilization? Queequeg? Perhaps that could work? Humane enough for you?) will simply create a situation where some other nation has to feed that group, and the original problem will be back in short order.

Nope, it's not like that. It's actually a valid reproductive strategy from an ecological pov, and one you can find in many under-developed countries, although in the case of humans there are more issues to be considered. By breeding large offsprings when there's big mortality amongst the population, you maximize the chance of at least some of them reaching adult life. If they only had smaller offsprings, and they died anyway from some other reason (disease, violent death, etc.), all their efforts would be wasted. It's not just about resources, although they also count.

[Josephus]

Can't believe cruise liners are still taking vacationers to Haiti. I know, what difference does it make if they're sunbathing in Haiti or in the DR. But it's a principle. I love the "toss the bone" thing..."We're bringing in supplies." Right. Very nice

[The Larch]

can also bring with them ideas and some of the culture from the new country; look at the American impact on southern Italy and Sicily, or almost all of Mexico.

American cultural influence in Sicily and Southern Italy is mostly explained through the presence of troops there in WWII, and the occupation afterwards, not because of emigration.

[Queequeg]

can also bring with them ideas and some of the culture from the new country; look at the American impact on southern Italy and Sicily, or almost all of Mexico.

American cultural influence in Sicily and Southern Italy is mostly explained through the presence of troops there in WWII, and the occupation afterwards, not because of emigration.

This seems fair, although I think that the Italian-American population has, at least since then, existed in a dialog with the mother country far more than most immigrant groups from Europe.

[Slargos]

I stand corrected. It only makes my point the more strong, however.

The regrowth potential of these populations is obviously tremendous, especially considering all the talk of starvation and poverty.

Any population that can be more than doubled in a generation is obviously not starving, and moving large portions of it elsewhere without also somehow curtailing the room for regrowth (perhaps with a programme of enforced sterilization? Queequeg? Perhaps that could work? Humane enough for you?) will simply create a situation where some other nation has to feed that group, and the original problem will be back in short order.

Nope, it's not like that. It's actually a valid reproductive strategy from an ecological pov, and one you can find in many under-developed countries, although in the case of humans there are more issues to be considered. By breeding large offsprings when there's big mortality amongst the population, you maximize the chance of at least some of them reaching adult life. If they only had smaller offsprings, and they died anyway from some other reason (disease, violent death, etc.), all their efforts would be wasted. It's not just about resources, although they also count.

Since I haven't formally studied the subject, I am naturally not going to have all the facts.

I'm still at a loss as to how a starving population can double in a generation.