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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (25355)	8/21/2007 9:48:19 PM
From: Steve Felix	Respond to of 28931

Yeah, I thought that was great. The Onion is always good, but every now and then there is something that just makes me laugh out loud! Here is a piece from the Financial Times that speaks to what I mean about not understanding what people are thinking. "Mr García thanked "God almighty" that the tremor was not as devastating as past events," Is that as in thanks for only killing so many of us, as opposed to, you made the damned earth so why is it shifting and cracking and killing your worshipers? "where a church collapsed on parishioners during an early-evening Mass." Guess they were as safe as the Jews in the temple. I'm pretty sure they were praying for their god to smite those Romans. _____________________________________________________ Devastating Peru earthquake leaves at least 400 dead By Lucien Chauvin in Lima Published: August 17 2007 03:00 \| Last updated: August 17 2007 03:00 Peruvian president Alan García placed parts of the country under a state of emergency yesterday and flew to the worst-hit zone after 400 people were killed in a 7.9-magnitude earthquake that hit the country on Wednesday night. Mr Garcia's chief of staff told Reuters that "about 400" people had been killed, while Peru's civil defence institute reported more than 1,500 people injured. Many victims were in the city of Pisco, where a church collapsed on parishioners during an early-evening Mass. The mayor, Juan Mendoza, reported that 20 per cent of buildings in the city of 116,000 people were in ruins. The capital city Lima was spared substantial damage but the nearly two-minute tremor has left the city's 8m people on edge. "We are safe but people are afraid to go back into their houses. We still do not have electricity, which I think is making people nervous," said Nelly Villegas, who lives in a Lima shanty town. The department of Ica and Cañete, a province in the south of Lima department, were both placed under a 60-day state of emergency. Margareta Wahlstrom, deputy head of the UN's humanitarian arm Ocha, said the UN had mobilised $1m (€745,000, £504,000) for emergency assistance. Relief workers expect the number of dead and amount of damage to increase. Oxfam International, which had personnel in Pisco only hours after the tragedy, estimates that as much as 60 per cent of homes in the city may have been damaged beyond repair. The most urgent needs, according to Rafael Rey, production minister, are tents and water, especially in Pisco, where the water service has been disrupted. The earthquake knocked out sections of the Pan-American Highway, that runs the length of the Pacific coast, as well as the Central Highway, which connects Lima to the central highlands and jungle. Land and mobile lines were also down for several hours after the earthquake and remained patchy yesterday. Mr García took the country's main telecommunications companies to task, saying the government would not permit another disruption in service. Seismic experts say Peru was spared a much greater tragedy, given the magnitude of the earthquake. The epicentre was 84 miles south-east of Lima at a depth of 40km. Mr García thanked "God almighty" that the tremor was not as devastating as past events, such as an earthquake in May 1970 that killed as many as 70,000 people. Additional reporting by Mark Turner at the United Nations Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007