f13.net

More than 4,500 people have been reported dead in Sri Lanka. Most of them, authorities said, were in the eastern district of Batticaloa. Thousands were missing and more than a half million displaced.

In southern Sri Lanka, 200 prisoners escaped when the waves swept away a high-security prison in Matara.

There was a much better video yesterday linked off of the Drudge Report, but it's not linked anymore and I can't find it.  Seems like it was hosted on some local news station site.

I concur that it wasn't the greatest video (and yes, it was one of the lesser hit islands). But it adds something when you recognize the voice saying "Holy crap" as belonging to the friend who brought you and your wife together...

(last time I saw him, was when he married the silhouette in the foreground at the beginning)

On November 28th, one month ago, Reuters reported that during a 3 day span 169 whales and dolphins beached themselves in Tasmania, an island of the southern coast of mainland Australia and in New Zealand. The cause for these beachings is not known, but Bob Brown, a senator in the Australian parliament, said "sound bombing" or seismic tests of ocean floors to test for oil and gas had been carried out near the sites of the Tasmanian beachings recently.

According to Jim Cummings of the Acoustic Ecology Institute, Seismic surveys utilizing airguns have been taking place in mineral-rich areas of the world’s oceans since 1968. Among the areas that have experienced the most intense survey activity are the North Sea, the Beaufort Sea (off Alaska’s North Slope), and the Gulf of Mexico; areas around Australia and South America are also current hot-spots of activity.

The impulses created by the release of air from arrays of up to 24 airguns create low frequency sound waves powerful enough to penetrate up to 40km below the seafloor. The “source level" of these sound waves is generally over 200dB (and often 230dB or more), roughly comparable to a sound of at least 140-170dB in air.

According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, these 200dB – 230dB shots from the airguns are fired every few seconds, from 10 meters below the surface, 24 hours a day, weather permitting.

These types of tests are known to affect whales and dolphins, whose acute hearing and use of sonar is very sensitive.

On December 24th there was a magnitude 8.1 earthquake more than 500 miles southeast of Tasmania near New Zealand, with a subsequent aftershock 6.1 a little later in the morning that same day.

On December 26th, the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck at the intersection of the Australian tectonic plate and the India tectonic plate. This is the devastating tragedy that we have all heard about. The death toll of this horrific event has reached 52,000 souls and continues to rise.

On December 27th, 20 whales beached themselves 110 miles west of Hobart on the southern island state of Tasmania.

What is interesting about this is that the same place where the whale beachings have been taking place over the last 30 days is the same general area where the 8.1 Australian earthquake took place, and this is the same area where they are doing these seismic tests. Then 2 days after the Australian tectonic plate shifted, the 9.0 earthquake shook the coast of Indonesia.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India has turned down foreign aid as it has "adequate resources" to provide relief to victims of a deadly tsunami that killed tens of thousands of Asians, a government official said.

India has been flooded with "generous offers of aid" from countries like Russia, the United States, Israel and Japan, said the official who did not want to be named.

"In fact, all friendly nations have offered help but we feel we do have the resources to handle the situation. If at a later stage we feel we need assistance we will not hesitate to ask," said the source on Wednesday.

"Right now we not only have adequate resources but have gone out and mounted a huge relief effort for Sri Lanka and Maldives. We could not have done this if we were facing a problem in Indian relief operations."

My only reaction to this is 'Gee, that sucks.'  Natural disasters just don't really inflame any passion in me.  Man really has very little control over nature.  If Mother Nature decides you lose at the game of Life, then you lose.

From a pragmatic point of view, hey, Earth has enough people as it is, we can stand to lose a few hundred thousand.  Especially in Indochina.

Lots of people dying in war or due to terrorism or whatnot is tragic; lots of people dying due to bad weather is just a combination of bad luck, and poor choice of settlement location, either on your part or your ancestor's.

I'm guessing you'd have a different opinion if one of the deaths were a loved one.  I happen to have dear friends in Thailand and would consider the death of any one of them a tragedy regardless of the means.  

I realize it's "cool" to be all hard about things on this or any board... but the death of any decent human being is a tragedy regardless of the circumstance.  

This... was a tragedy.

I'm guessing you'd have a different opinion if one of the deaths were a loved one.  I happen to have dear friends in Thailand and would consider the death of any one of them a tragedy regardless of the means.  

This... was a tragedy.

I realize it's "cool" to be all hard about things on this or any board... but the death of any decent human being is a tragedy regardless of the circumstance.  

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.

People like Ted Kaczynski, Osama Bin Laden, the sons of Sadam Hussein, and the people who killed that woman and stole the baby from her womb, really changed my opinion about mankind in general.

I don't see how that can be held against anybody. I know we all want everybody else to feel the same about things we are emotionally invested in, but you have to accept that some people just aren't.