wuzzup with 2008

mother earth jus did a double kill on us earthlings in the month of may. quite saddening to see all the things that are happening around the world.

its been more than 3 years since the 04 tsunami hit asia on boxing day. leaving more than 180k deaths. cyclone nargis in Myanmar caused more than 130k deaths and the earthquake in sichuan caused more than 40k deaths. with the death toll still rising, largely due to disease spreading among the injured and homeless, the death toll for the cyclone and earthquake will definitely exceed the tsunami. however, somehow i do not see the world reacting to these 2 natural disasters as enthusiatically as the tsunami. maybe cos i'm not watching the news enough now to notice.

actually i'm not that concerned with the world not taking as much action as the tsunami. but what worries me is the lack of response from the world towards myanmar compared to china. more than twice the amount of people die in myanmar than in china. but look at the amount of media coverage and aid china is getting compared to myanmar.

the destruction of both cities no doubt will have devastating effects on the world. the worst hit areas of the myanmar cyclone are villages that grow rice. as a results world rice supply will suffer a hit and further push up the price of rice. sichuan's earthquake will cause a drop in the supply for quality hot and spicy steamboat soup packs, pushing up prices of hot and spicy steamboat buffets island wide.

come on. i know i'm china man. and saying this makes me sound very un-patriotic. dun get me wrong. i'm not complaining that the sichuan earthquake is getting too much media coverage. i'm jus saying that myanmar is getting too little. we need to do more. people are dying and not enough people are doing their part to help. look at spore. during the tsunami, the spore govt was boasting to the world to the world how fast they were to react in sending aid to indonesia, sending her new LST to indonesia to give supplies and medicine. thousands of sporean soldiers and volunteers also went there to help out in the humanitarian efforts.

but what about now? not a single ship is sent out to help. 3 LSTs can be seen berthed at changi naval base without doing anything. not much help is given to both countries. the government only offered donations to both countries, and what an awfully small amount. you ought to be ashamed of yourself man. i feel that money is not exactly the best form of donation/help to give. this is because the two countries we are dealing with are not exactly the most uncorrupted ones around and we have no control of where the money goes once it is given. should have learnt from indonesia during the tsunami. aid is more beneficial in the form of solid/actual things which will help the ones affect pull through the tough times.

now moving on the the 2 countries' governments. china's government did surprising well this time handling this disaster, both in terms of handling the media and the international aid coming in. however, myanmar pretty much fked it up so badly that not much people knows what the hell is going inside the country and international aid is not going through cos the government is not accepting it. kinda reminds me of the indonesian government during the tsunami when it rejected the US navy from air lifting supplies into the hard to reach areas. the government also did not allow USS abrahim lincoln from berthing near the country. wth.... screwed up governments....

i was just watching the china tv channel, seeing all the corpses and people crying everywhere at the earthquake epicentre. reli quite saddening. and feeling lucky that i am staying in a country that has almost no chance of kenaing any natural disaster other than a rise in the sea level.

speaking of china tv channel. for the past months, everything on cctv (some china tv channel) was about olympics. like seriously everything. the news is 1 hour. around 45 min is spent on olympics. very wtf... country so big nothing else happening meh. then now after the earthquake, everything is earthquake. shit man. china tv is seriously damn screwed up. no wonder they can never make it to the international stage like taiwan, korean, jap, and hongkie tv. china's tv programmes are, to put it bluntly, fked up. no hot chicks, no funny shows, no hunks, no sex, all u see is fking propaganda (i'm serious), and newscasters boring u to death.

ok back to a serious note, 2008 has been a bad year. lets hope the US elections will help make it a good one by letting a less aggressive president be elected. not like the bush family who has a grudge against middle eastern dudes.

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