That's what I was wondering:confused:

$500,000 was the initial pledge on Tuesday prior to knowing any real information about the extent of the damage and the need and whether China was even willing to accept it (they, like the U.S., haven't historically been keen on taking foreign aid after disasters).

As much as Bush sucks, during his administration, the U.S. hasn't been stingy with relief aid and money following natural disasters. I'm sure that if more money is needed (China, after all, does have a several metric ****loads of cash on hand), it will be forthcoming.

Really? The were pretty stingy with Katrinia relief money, despite the hollow words of pledging. FEMAldahide trailers come immediately to mind.


Guess domestic disasters don't rate.

You won't find me in any way defending our ability to efficiently and effectively spend money. But that is the beauty of international aid:

1. We don't generally spend the cash, we just give it to other people.
2. The military is allowed much greater leeway in the way they can be involved. And say what you will but when our military has clear well defined tasks they are generally pretty good at accomplishing them; with Katrina being a decent example, most of the governmental success stories came out of the military's limited ability to get involved. (Not that our military is going to get anywhere near inner China).

Didn't mean my post to be a criticism on Bush rather, it struck me odd to come across these two figures, half a million and twenty million and thought it spoke scores about what we value, or what our politicians value anyway.

Except. McCain will still be the war candidate. Here's a compendium of polls about the Iraq War.

In a totally unrelated aside: my husband will be a delegate at the Wisconsin Democratic Convention, mid-June.

Hey that's really cool. Tell him congratulations and I hope he has a lot of fun.

:snap:

The name John Hagee may haunt McCain for a while.