The New Quake.
November 27, 2005 5:24 AM   Subscribe

Five people killed and dozens injured, after an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the richter scale hits Iraq. More news coming in. But to try and avoid just a pure newsfilter thread, let's pose a question for debate now; will the US miss another golden PR opportunity to reach out to the Muslim world, like they did when the Asian tsunamis hit?
posted by Effigy2000 (23 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: meh, kind of lame to imagine the US doing wrong here -- more for your personal blog than here.



 
Especialy seeing as how, you know, Iran is probably next on the hit list...
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:40 AM on November 27, 2005


Correct the FPP to say Iran instead of Iraq.
posted by HuronBob at 6:03 AM on November 27, 2005


Effigy2000: "Will the US miss another golden PR opportunity to reach out to the Muslim world, like they did when the Asian tsunamis hit?"

Or, you know, with the really bad Iran quake in 2003.
posted by Plutor at 6:08 AM on November 27, 2005


Iraq, Iran, what's the diff?
posted by jpburns at 6:26 AM on November 27, 2005


Yay, it's not a disaster, it's a "PR opportunity."

Bleh.
posted by blue mustard at 6:29 AM on November 27, 2005


Will the US miss another golden geography/spelling opportunity?
posted by allen.spaulding at 6:37 AM on November 27, 2005


that's a serious sized eathquake, but not really a huge disaster. i can't imagine why the usa would be involved at all (or, indeed, why it's on mefi...). one significantly larger hit chile in june, and while the govt's response has been pretty crappy, i don't think anyone expected much in the way of international help.
posted by andrew cooke at 6:40 AM on November 27, 2005


("significantly larger" is a bit silly, because it was probably also deeper underground - the richter scale measures energy rather than social impact - but 11 died).
posted by andrew cooke at 6:41 AM on November 27, 2005


The world gave a massive response to the tsunami, both from governments and, especially, from private individuals. It's true that most governments didn't give anything like what they pledged to give but it's my understanding that that shortfall was more than made up for by private individual contributions. I don't recall the exact details but certainly some charities gave money back to those donating.

If missed PR opportunities are what you're after I suggest looking no further than the ongoing disaster in Pakistan and Kashmir.
posted by vbfg at 6:57 AM on November 27, 2005


GYOBFW.
posted by quonsar at 7:00 AM on November 27, 2005


Effigy2000 posted "..to try and avoid just a pure newsfilter thread, let's pose a question for debate now.."

So you want it to be politics filter to filter out the news filter? I venture to suggest that this was not an ideal way to present this event. In fact, I'm not so sure it's post-worthy reallllllly.
/noise
posted by peacay at 7:01 AM on November 27, 2005


will the US miss another golden PR opportunity to reach out to the Muslim world

Like how when he went to China, home of the Uighurs he fucked over to buy China's blind eye on Iraq, to talk about "religious freedom", and in between complaints about Christians not being allowed to proselytize he totally mentioned them?

So, yes.
posted by queen zixi at 7:06 AM on November 27, 2005


MetaFilter: It's about the links.
posted by sjvilla79 at 7:38 AM on November 27, 2005


"Will the US miss another golden PR opportunity to reach out to the Muslim world, like they did when the Asian tsunamis hit?"

WTF? The US response was first-rate, efficient, by far the best in the world.

In a single sentence, you have shown just how detached from reality the Metafilter community has gone. Or fallen. Congradulations. You have single-handedly succeeded in making me think of leaving Metafilter.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:38 AM on November 27, 2005


Response to ParisParamus,

Promice?
posted by Richard Daly at 8:49 AM on November 27, 2005


In a single sentence, you have shown just how detached from reality the Metafilter community has gone. Or fallen. Congradulations. You have single-handedly succeeded in making me think of leaving Metafilter.

Totally. The whole "reaching out" thing could be seen as a bit naive couldn't it? I mean, how do you know the US isn't behind this earthquake?

This has all the earmarks of a Weather Wars experiment, much like the "hurricanes" and "tsunamis" of late. As the FPPer did note, however, Iran is probably next. Freakish killer tornadoes for those folks, perhaps.
posted by First Post at 8:50 AM on November 27, 2005


I refuse to participate in your sociology thesis on trolling.
posted by srboisvert at 8:57 AM on November 27, 2005


I think ParisParamus leaving Metafilter would be great PR for Iran(q), reguardless of any earthquake.
posted by Balisong at 8:58 AM on November 27, 2005


I second that.

"Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya."
posted by nevercalm at 9:07 AM on November 27, 2005


I am sorry, but for US to provide quake releif is too much like,stopping a gang rape,so the victim's makeup can be redone.
posted by hortense at 9:24 AM on November 27, 2005


You have single-handedly succeeded in making me think of leaving Metafilter.

You play that song too often.
posted by thirteen at 9:38 AM on November 27, 2005


Will the US miss another golden opportunity to rock out in the name of The Lord? Will MetaFilter miss another golden opportunity to drive out the evil neocons? Will Letterman miss another golden opportunity to unleash a fatwa on Oprah? (Oprah... Fatwa. Fatwa... Oprah.) And what about Naomi? Tune in next week, when quonsar says: "FGYOFBFW. F!"
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:41 AM on November 27, 2005


PP, Effigy2000 and Richard Daly hardly represent the metafilter community. they do, however, represent the finest in metafilter entertainment: Eff uses a mild geological event to rip on the US, pointing to an example that reveals his utter ignorance on the subject of the response to the tsunami and Daly can't spell promise any better than PP can spell congratulations.
posted by quonsar at 10:29 AM on November 27, 2005


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