re: #123 Summer

Pat Robertson blames the earthquake in Haiti on a “pact” that the Haitians made with the devil to get rid of the french.
Pharyngula with Video

Unreal! Earthquakes are natural phenomena, not sent by God as punishment. But if, hypothetically, they were indeed meted out as divine wrath, why did the Khmer Rouge get off the hook? Why did the Nazis get off the hook?

Robertson’s remarks encourage one to conclude that he’s looking for an excuse to instruct his followers not to help out.

Unless there’s a shooting war on and the other side won’t accept an offer of truce, humanity requires that natural disasters be mitigated by whatever outside help can be arranged.

The first responders here will be military. The U.S. navy, in cooperation with other branches of the service and with foreign forces, has a capability to move fast and move big. Both will be needed. The Red Cross, for instance, is hamstrung by the loss of its own HQ in Haiti.