Just want to add, the earthquake here in China was a horrible thing, and I don’t mean to cheapen that. I’ve cried reading about it, seeing pictures, horrible. I just wish the people here were at least allowed to know about what their government is doing with places like Burma.

I’m in China now, and the whole thing makes me sad. No one here knows or cares a bit about what has happened/is happening in Burma. The coverage of the earthquake here has been beyond obsessive (every channel on tv, 24 hours a day, covering the earthquake, for quite a few days), and my wife and her mother have had nightmares about finding dead bodies, because of that obsessive coverage. Apparently people are/were not allowed to even play games in net cafes without being kicked out, i.e. don’t be happy, people are suffering!

But what about the burmese? What about their suffering? Argh. It’s the government here that is the cause of that, of the burmese people not getting any help. No one cares. No one knows. The PRC’s manipulation of chinese culture is absolute.

A case of condoms weighs 16 pounds. A MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) weighs an average of 16 ounces and could support the life of a family for a day if needed.

Assuming that they aren’t edible condoms. Keep in mind that those EU – UN people have kinkier condoms than Americans do.

Seriously, though, UN relief organizations generally do an amazing job (I’m not talking about peacekeepers in the Congo). In many cases, you’re talking about unarmed civilians who ignore their own personal safety to restore a broken water system or provide food to the massive refuge camp on the Sudan border or some other God forsaken part of the world. There’s really no other organization that even begins to compare to what the UN does in that regard.

Maybe it’s connected to the fact that China has its own problems to deal with, and we caught both at a moment where one couldn’t interfere with the other’s affairs. (Don’t know if the world really works this way – I’m just sayin’.)

I just wonder, if China didn’t have its own hands full, if this approval to help would have come down from the Burmese leadership.

A case of condoms weighs 16 pounds. A MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) weighs an average of 16 ounces and could support the life of a family for a day if needed.

What would be interesting is know the number of condoms in a case. I would think it would be quite high. I thought about googling it, but I feared I’d end up clicking on porn sites or computer virus sites.

“Minimal cost and space” for condoms still takes the place of clean water, food, and shelter that people NEED to survive.

You might want to rethink your priorites as if you were a victim while you are sitting in your nice ’shelter’ typing away at your computer and able to go get a drink and food anytime you want.
Logic is no where to be found in your statements.

SwampRat on May 23, 2008 at 2:37 PM

I’m glad we’ve had this little discussion. I’ve already mentioned this conversation to a superficially “pro-life” liberal neighbour. I told her if they are this quick to needlessly object to birth control, why should anyone take their claims that abortion is murder seriously? Their agenda about sex and reproduction begins before abortion is even a possibility. She told me she now understands my point and conceded I was right about abortion. So, by all means, keep up your good work objecting to birth control!

This is exactly why I don’t believe a single word the “pro-life” movement says about the fate of human fetuses.

thuja on May 23, 2008 at 12:01 PM

Per your words, “thinking this through logically”:
A cyclone devastates the area.
Thousands upon thousands of people are dead.
Crops are destroyed.
Livestock, animals, and human corpses are rotting in the open air.
As a survivor, what are your essentials?
Clean water, food, and shelter. Oh, and condoms so we can continue to screw around!

“Minimal cost and space” for condoms still takes the place of clean water, food, and shelter that people NEED to survive.

You might want to rethink your priorites as if you were a victim while you are sitting in your nice ‘shelter’ typing away at your computer and able to go get a drink and food anytime you want.
Logic is no where to be found in your statements.

As for the leadership of Burma, do not think for a moment that they are not profitting personally by allowing aid into the country. Evil is evil and there is no good in their intent.

I wonder how much the bribe was.

This is amazing.
133,000 dead, you are sifting through the massive devastation, the stench of decaying bodies fill the air, house in ruin, everything you ever worked for destroyed, most every person you loved or knew, killed or missing. You reach down among the rubble, you grab an arm pinned under the rubble and begin pulling, it doesn’t budge…it pulls back, you pull it, it pulls back. You walk around and there is woman trying to pull her husband’s leg out, the same person you are trying to save. Your eyes meet, tears and all of the emotions come out, you embrace, and there on the top of the destroyed house of dreams, you begin a new life…if only you would have had condoms…

right2bright on May 23, 2008 at 10:40 AM

It’s simply not the case that we are making some big decision between condoms and food and medicine. Condoms are neither expensive nor heavy. We can send food and condoms with only trivial more expense. Why not send both? But instead of thinking this through logically, you concoct some irrelevant bathos and accuse me of evil?

This is exactly why I don’t believe a single word the “pro-life” movement says about the fate of human fetuses.

Update: Of course, the UN could have put its efforts into more pressing matters in Burma than mass distribution of condoms.

This is par for the course for the UN. People starving to death…. send them condoms. You wouldn’t expect the UN to put it’s primary goal of depopulation aside just because of some starving people would you?

This is always the way of the UN, their political objectives first and mercy? Well I don’t think mercy appears anywhere in the UN vocabulary. Let them eat condoms.

Peope have sex even after cyclones and may not want children to result.
thuja on May 23, 2008 at 10:25 A

This is amazing.
133,000 dead, you are sifting through the massive devastation, the stench of decaying bodies fill the air, house in ruin, everything you ever worked for destroyed, most every person you loved or knew, killed or missing. You reach down among the rubble, you grab an arm pinned under the rubble and begin pulling, it doesn’t budge…it pulls back, you pull it, it pulls back. You walk around and there is woman trying to pull her husband’s leg out, the same person you are trying to save. Your eyes meet, tears and all of the emotions come out, you embrace, and there on the top of the destroyed house of dreams, you begin a new life…if only you would have had condoms…

Of course, the UN could have put its efforts into more pressing matters in Burma than mass distribution of condoms. See-Dubya has the details at Michelle’s site.

The UN is making perfect sense in sending in condoms. Peope have sex even after cyclones and may not want children to result. The ability of See-Dubya to see something racim in that almost makes me wonder if Reverend Jeremiah Wright ghost-wrote the column.

The left is correct about the right and racism. When the right brings up, racism it’s always transparent that it has other aims like its anti-sex/pro-human overpopulation fetish in this case. When people see racism used so transparently for other purposes, they get suspicious. The left, on the other hand, thinks racism is evil and thus genuinely does see it everywhere. The left’s racial paranoia is sincere. Paranoia is always sincere.

Chalk one up for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. After meeting with Myanmar’s military dictator Than Shwe today, Ban won approval for relief workers of all nations to help save the lives of Shwe’s own people.

Ed Morrissey

Better late than never I guess, but how many of the victims of this disaster have died that could have been saved, didn’t this cyclone happen about three weeks ago? My hats off to Ban Ki-moon but the UN needs to do a LOT better next time.

Dr.Cwac.Cwac on May 23, 2008 at 9:07 AM

now they are considerate rapists..

yeah.. being raped by the blue helmets in exchange for protection from the other thugs..

DaveC on May 23, 2008 at 8:48 AM

Did you ree See-Dubya’s post?

The United Nations will send nearly a quarter of a million condoms into cyclone-hit Myanmar to help needy survivors with no access to contraceptives, a UN official says.

Now there will be no DNA evidence of rape. Smooth move, UN. Stay classy.

Hey, it’s a first step. Now when the blue helmets arrive at least the young girls will have some protection when they get raped in exchange for food.

rbj on May 23, 2008 at 8:35 AM

yeah.. being raped by the blue helmets in exchange for protection from the other thugs..