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December 30, 2004
Times: Yes We Are Stingy

The New York Times hits the nail on the head with a scathing editorial about the United States' aid in this and other world crises, exposing our miserly ways and the lies of Powell and Bush in the past week. The piece also notes how we and other countries have often "pledged" money for such disasters in the past and never actually delivered.

Bush today finally took a few minutes out of his vacation, 4 days after the fact, to publicly comment on the devastation. He called Jam England Jan Egeland, the U.N. guy who said rich nations were stingy, "very misguided and ill informed," qualities he knows a little something about.

We still haven't pledged anything beyond the $35 million of a few days ago, though Bush says it's "only the beginning." Those are just words, chump. Do something.

Death toll is up to 115,000 as of this writing.

Comments

Previous Comments

A friend of mine forwarded this to me today:

Please call the White House Comment Line, (202)456-1111, and leave a message for President Bush, asking him to use the $50 million he plans to spend on the inauguration for relief for the Asian tsunami victims. This is more money than the U.S. has pledged so far for assistance in the disaster ($35 million as of today). Spain and Germany have pledged more!

Say that to do this would demonstrate genuine compassion. And please send this suggestion to everyone you can think of. Perhaps if the White House gets enough of these messages, something will get through.

The guy you refer to Jam England is Jan Egelund. And he's definitely not jamming in England. Make it a habit to learn people's names. You owe that much sensitivity to the people you talk about

Good point, Anonymous (did I spell that correctly?). That typo was really insensitive of me. Thanks for your condescending advice.