dorbie

The receeding tidal wave is actually after the wave hit according to other captions elsewhere on the site. On second viewing it does seem like there's a lot of water in the street in the receeding photo and it is after the main wave. Modify the URL to go up a level and you'll see other links, in the Banda Aceh before and after pair, the destruction is shocking. http://www.globexplorer.com/disasterimages/

Or perhaps the human polulations there migrated rapidly from other environments not subject to Tsunamis too recently for natural selection to make them instinctively worried about the ground trembling. We have advanced brains with a lot of non instinctive learned behaviors in society, it's one thing that tends to distinguish us from animals. Most animals would be pretty flawed in downtown NY or the antarctic, but man manages and adapts. Look at a newborn zebra, it's pretty much ready to go, just add milk & grass, a human child has a lot to learn. We're supposed to teach our kids survival skills suited to the environments they will encounter as a substitute for instincs we can't posess for all occasions, it's part of being flexible, that failed in a lot of cases here. Although it didn't work for everyone, there are anecdotes of local customs and lore saving some families. They learned, they passed along the lore through generations and they survived this event. Next time around there will be more of their descendants around to repeat the process. Man isn't flawed because of this, feeling stressed and heading for the hills whenever the ground trembled would make for a bad office worker in downtown SanFrancisco, and could be fatal for someone living near an active volcano.

That's understood, even by people who use it. It is perfectly correct English though.

What if I owe $10,000 on my credit cards and can't meet my monthly rent without borrowing even more and I give you $10. Would I be giving more by all reasonable standards even if I earn more and there are more people in my household? Typically stuff like this is measured as a percentage of GDP but that isn't measured consistently between countries (U.S. actually counts some expenses as GDP like environmental decontamination), or per capita, i.e. divide by population.

The poll is flawed, there's no "Damn left they do!".

I agree with you 100%. This had better work for their future and ours.

I specifically remember Prime Minister Tony Blair explicitly stating those good additional outcomes before the invasion during Prime Minister's question time at the height of debate on the issue in the UK "Even if Iraq did not have WMD.... would still be justification for war.", he wasn't saying they didn't have WMDs, rather he was listing additional justifications. Since he's Bush's poodle according to the left wing nuts in Britain that must have been in Bush's thoughts too. I think they talk you know. Of course those good outcomes like freedom and democracy have everything to do with this invasion. Despite your attempt to highlight the negative and ignore the good, freedom and democracy flourishing in Iraq will go down in history as a monumental achivement. No thanks to you et.al. I've always anticipated it from the outset and it was an integral part of my support for this campaign from the beginning. Pretending post-facto that the war and it's positive outcomes are separable is exactly why you've never understood people who support this conflict. (edit: the above sounds pompous like I'm taking credit for something, I'm not trying to, but I'm trying to justify my support when the foundations of it are being hijacked) I'm actually stunned, we sit here discussing one of the major positive outcomes Bush has been planning from the outset of this conflict and getting criticized for the execution of and you try to separate that from the war as if it's some abstract thing. You're actually claiming we just went in to kill a bunch of people for the hell of it and freedom and democracy if it happens was just a happy accident and we should be ashamed. You're incorrigible.

I overlooked the typo, actually. Perhaps I should rephrase my question. If you were going to replace "tha[t]" with a noun, what would that noun be? I am not clear wht you are referring to with that particular pronoun. I was referring to the quote immediately above (seemed obvious). A suitable substitute would be "election fraud is".

What is what we have now? (serious question, I need more than a pronoun for definition, no offense) "that's" it's a typo, the "t" is dropped. Again you conveniently confuse two elections 4 years apart, you don't even try the bait and switch this time. Just because an election doesn't elect your candidate it doesn't automatically delegitimize it. Your attitude confounds democracy. You refuse to accept a fair and legitimate result and when you bitch about it you intentionally confuse elections 4 years apart. A few more extremists of your ilk and the USA could do a good impression of a the Ukraine on a bad election night. That's not some accusation of "un-Americanism", it's reasonable criticism based on your stubborn adherence to irrational accusations of election fraud and deliberate muddling of facts from two elections when making your case indicating a degree of cynicism in doing so. You can label it what you like, I didn't use the phrase to describe you. As I said, I don't really care what your laughable position is on American democracy (at least in the on topic context). It only lets me know that you have no capacity for objectivity when it comes to election results. The facts of any Iraqi election hardly matter with you. You think the USA's 2004 election results are illegitimate, Iraq should be so lucky.

Meanwhile, gun crime has doubled in England in the seven years since handguns and semi-auto long guns were confiscated. The police may have been lucky with shooting deaths, but the citizens haven't. News: London Telegraph Furthermore, the crime of "assault on a constable" has risen dramatically, about 60%, during that same time period. (See attached chart). Source: Home Office Finally, you may have had just one officer shot to death in the six years since that law, but you also only had three officers shot to death in the six years preceding that law. A reduction from 3 to 1 over a six year period is not an indication of correlation. The number was so small to start with, that no valid conclusions can be inferred from this. Source: Police Memorial Well it's sad but in the UK the big controversy is whether or not to go with American style batons instead of the traditional truncheon. That's right folks, in the U.K we argue over how big a stick we give our policemen. You can't really argue the guns as deterrent case in the U.K. there never has been a deterrent, an assailant has always had more chance of being struck by lightning in mid crime unless he's raiding a farmhouse in which case there's a chance he'll get a good oldfashioned 12 guage in his face. As for assault on constable violence in the UK guns don't deter that either they never have, the beat police aren't armed with guns. In fact they have better nightsticks now and some have CS spray.

I wouldn't have said gleeful, but if you send your reporters into any election looking for issues you'll find them. A bomb or machine gun attack on a polling booth makes headlines, the millions of Iraqis voting at thousands of other polls may not. The terrorists may have an easy job if this is decided by the headlines in the Old Gray Lady and the Devil's work will be done for him.

To be fair...I haven't seen that many people criticizing the idea of holding elections in Iraq. I wouldn't characterize that as a "left" position. More of an extremist position. I'm hoping against hope that they have a decisive, undisputed (at least not legitimately disputed) election. Then I can sincerely join you and anyone else in that hope and respect you for it. I'm detecting a lot of anticipation and low level preamble in the runup over legitimacy issues and it leaves me wondering if it's the prelude to a politically motivated mainstream media assault. I would like the honest and realistic facts on the ground taken in context across an entire nation to mean something. We know the terrorists will try to derail this, but it will be as much about making headlines as it will be about genuinely disrupting turnout.

So you are in favor of election fraud as long as there is an appearance of fair elections? I don't understand. Isn't that what Iraq already had? "Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted". - Ernesto Che Guevara According to you tha's what America has now. You'll never be satisfied. I don't agree with your observations, and I'm a realist, I think there's a low level of election fraud on both sides in every election in America. You can spout all you like about "conditions for elections" in Iraq, but this is a political ploy to delegitimize the process there and ultimately it's a wicked and monsterous conceit by those on the left who have the gaul to claim to be compassionate about the plight of Iraqis. You'd send those souls in Iraq into the maw of theocratic terror and civil war for generations over domestic political chagrin. Undefined conditions that can never be met is all you offer. What happens when your conditions aren't met for elections? Withdraw? Advocate a position or a plan instead of sitting on the sidelines carping and undermining a road towards freedom with your contrived pessimism. Elections with international observers and as much credibility as they can muster is the solution. This is one of the pillars of long term success in Iraq. Being obsessed with the failure of democracy in America you will doubtless find fault with whatever happens in Iraq. The reality hardly matters.

If this county hadn't had MAJOR voting discrepancies for two consecutive presidential elections, you would have a point. We know in hindsight that Shrub did not win FL in 2000, so any re-election as an incumbent is inherently fraudulent. Election fraud is wrong, whether it changes the outcome of the election or not. It would be hypocritical to disagree with that premise, while simultaneously supporting democracy as a superior form of government. Even when you're off topic you can't stay off topic. Carter's issues with the election in 2004 had nothing to do with Bush being the incumbent. Please stay on topic, I don't care about your radical views on the 2004 election result. It only serves to illustrate that no democracy is good enough for you and you'll find any pretext to tear even a highly legitimate one down, quoting a mass murdering sociopath dictator like Stalin in the process, who ironically was Saddam's principal role model.

You're setting up a catch-22 condition that leads to victory for the terrorists, and I reject that. If you view it as a process and the election as part of that process then the outlook is different. By disparraging the credibility of elections you're playing into the hands of the enemy. Their only chance of success now is to attack the credibility of Iraqi democracy, that is why they view the elections themselves as a target. If the Iraqis have it as good as Floridians they'll be in fine shape. Fortunately the election in Florida wasn't close enough to make Carter's proclamations meaningfull to those who would use it as political ammunition. The result isn't in question the point is moot. The Florida non sequitur shows the extent of your issues here. You'd actually advocate some intangible, ill defined unattainable criteria for elections to be held and while Iraqis wait on it (their freedom jeopardized by the wait) they'd have no representative government at all, just some interim system set in place with no credibility. Which is the better option? Hold the darned elections, make them as fair as possible in as many areas as possible and get the ball rolling. Support the outcome and fight the inevitable claims of illegitimacy from the terrorists and their cheering section here.

It was too much of an easy one

That's rich, Ron, considering you were the one (falsely) claiming that I refuse to work, and that if I am not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to obtain healthcare (quit school or change course of study to allow a work friendly schedule). You don't seem to think we need to help our own. BTW, I readily admit that I am nowhwere near the most needy in this country, but I have not seen you show compassion for anyone, foreign or domestic, with the exception of Shrub and his cronies. Call it tough love. He sees your road paved with good intentions that would lead us all to ruins. That's as compassionate as it gets I think.

International triage

Interesting, explanation of the etymology of the word, but it's still use long after the true causes are understood. Maybe it's a British thing, the phrase tidal wave is still the predominant label for these waves, or was when I left, in fact when I reflect on it I think the first encounter with the word Tsunami was after I moved to the U.S.

You say bay again, it doesn't necessarily take a bay of enclosed area for this. Just the slope of the seabed can cause this effect. We're not talking about surfing sweetspots and typical ocean swell.

Historically, has democracy ever been successfully forced upon anyone? Worked in Japan after WWII. Fortunately America wasn't short sighted enough to ask your question back then. We may just have had to sacrifice Japan's prosperous future on the altar of pessimism for a hodgepodge of Bushido dictatorship. Or maybe we'd still be occupying the place. P.S. there's something particularly oxymoronic about forcing democracy on anyone in a dictatorship. Never mind the fact that Iraq claimed to be a democracy before we invaded. We're just letting a few more candidates run.

Interesting that they used to call these things tidal waves when I was a kid, I never heard the word Tsunami back then. We've seen video of the attenuated peak amplitude wave in other places (that was preceeded by a smaller waves and immediately before by a receeding tide) and we've seen the devastation, missing bridges, destroyed buildings scoured land and missing solid congrete harbor walls, missing landmass and the thorougly scoured remains in places. A big frikin wave like you imagine from your nightmares seems to be about right for some places, maybe with some persistence. As waves hit shallower water they tend to form steeper fronts, it's just how fluid dynamics works, so if the seabed was sloping that's what you'd tend to get. Mind you even if it wound up looking deceptively like a rapid tide, as the water broached the land you would get incredibly rapid currents as water rushed onto land with the wave. What starts out as a nice large shallow wave out in the ocean can turn into a wall of water preceeded by a receeding tide depending on the shape of the seabed. Just watch the surf at Mavericks on a big day for a picture. What someone sees even for the same event at roughly the same distance and approximate location from the quake could depend a lot on the seabed at their location.

Ok, let's take it from the side of Humanity. Seems to me we're losing. Yea I've always been dead set against humanity personally, smells like victory. If I could stick a flower in a barrel and have a lasting effect on global terrorism I'd change sides.

That probably depends on which side you're on.

Where is your sense of adventure? LOL, there's no adventure in it for me. The adventure would be entirely someone elses.