C'mon folks. Vodou, anyone? You know, West African magic, where the word 'zombi' comes from in the first place? Even in the popular entertainment context, I do believe the first zombies in film were from Haiti.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie

Given the long history of Haiti, an isolationist view is understandable. What has resulted from all the years and $$$$ of outside intervention? Haiti is still the poorest and most destitute nation in the hemisphere.

By that measure though have any major aid groups been 'responsible' in Haiti. I fear your position leads to arguing that virtually none of the groups that attempted meaningful assistance should have done anything in the first place. Given what they each spent out of pocket without much hope of equivalent return kind of just leads to isolationism.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/How-did-the-Red-Cross-Spend-in-Haiti

The UN Caused a Cholera Epidemic in Haiti has been added as a related post - related requested by longde on that post.

How did the Red Cross Spend in Haiti has been added as a related post - related requested by longde.

When responsible people screw up, they make things right. Else, they really should not do anything in the first place. The UN and NGOs really have done more harm than good to Haiti and many have used the facade of doing good to enrich themselves: *related=http://videosift.com/video/How-did-the-Red-Cross-Spend-in-Haiti

Regimes supported

Juan Vicente Gomez, Venezuela, 1908-1935.
Jorge Ubico, Guatemala, 1931-1944.
Fulgencio Batista, Republic of Cuba 1952-1959.
Syngman Rhee, Republic of Korea (South Korea), 1948-1960.
Rafael Trujillo, Dominican Republic, 1930-1961.[citation needed]
Ngo Dinh Diem, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), 1955-1963.
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran, 1953-1979.
Anastasio Somoza Garcia, Nicaragua, 1967-1979.
Military Junta in Guatemala, 1954-1982.
Military Junta in Bolivia, 1964-1982.[citation needed]
Military Junta in Argentina, 1976-1983.
Brazilian military government, 1964-1985.
François Duvalier and Jean-Claude Duvalier, Republic of Haiti, 1957-1971; 1971-1986.[citation needed]
Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay, 1954-1989.[citation needed]
Ferdinand Marcos, Philippines, 1965-1986.[8][9]
General Manuel Noriega, Republic of Panama, 1983-1989.
General Augusto Pinochet, Chile, 1973-1990.
Saddam Hussein, Republic of Iraq, 1982-1990.
General (military), Suharto Republic of Indonesia, 1975-1995.
Mobutu Sese Seko, Zaire/Congo, 1965-1997.
Hosni Mubarak, Egypt, 1981-2011.
Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Kingdom of Bahrain, 2012.
Saudi royal family, 2012.
Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan, 1991-2012.[10]
Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia, 1995-2012.[11]
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea, 2006-2012.[12]

Well he's wrong then. The south was also exploited by the north, just like we today exploit places that are poor. We get rich off of poor places just like the North getting rich on the South and it's slavery. France is rich mostly because it exploited Haiti, and left it in shambles, till we came along and destroyed it even more. Chomsky has reported a lot on this, I suggest you read him since he's an honest intellectual who has his sources all correct.

It's just a fact that the US made a ton of it's wealth from slavery, doesn't matter what booms or busts happened. Make any argument you want, but the US became wealthy by first conquering land and killing all in their path in a designed genocide. Then taking Africans and bringing them here to work the land they stole as beasts of burden. You can also make a compelling argument that the Nazis were under a threat from terrorists, doesn't make it ok that they attacked Poland.

Certain places would be prohibitive-What about in Haiti after the quake? They used these and used sea water most likely.
Once they are up they can be used for a long time as permanent structures for housing.

Please tell me this was somewhere like Haiti or Somalia, not the U.S.

>> ^Kofi:

As with times immediately after gun massacres "Now is a completely inappropriate time to be asking such questions or raising such issues".
Yah huh. Right.

Romney opened the door. If you're taking cheap shots at FEMA as wasted money when there isn't a disaster, you deserve to have those statements shoved down your throat when its necessity is demonstrated.



>> ^renatojj:
Governments are not the only organizations capable of preparing and dealing with disasters, and they're very far from being the best at it.

Yes, because the Red Cross did such an excellent job with all the donations they received for Haiti and 9/11.

Very well stated. The devil's bell (which it's called in Ecuador and which name I like more than the others) has strong mythology about it, but it is apparently so difficult to extract the Datura from it, that most people I talked to about it just sort of laughed me off. I've spent more than two months traveling in both Ecuador and Colombia, six of those weeks studying with a leading northern Andean ethnographer. When you're on the road, it's a lot of fun to talk about these kinds of extreme phenomena, but for the most part, it's touristy b.s. The plant is much more famous for the hallucinogenic tea that can be made from the flowers themselves, which is also fatal if prepared incorrectly. Btw, Datura is the same compound that produces the infamous Vodou zombies in Haiti, made famous by Harvard ethnobotanist Wade Davis's "The Serpent and the Rainbow."

Vice loves to sensationalize this kind of thing, and I'm frankly a little annoyed at the characterization of the current political atmosphere in Colombia. Even the U.S. State Department's travel.state.gov, which is notoriously over-sensitive, has only qualified warnings about the dangers of traveling in rural areas. Colombia is a lot safer than the introduction to this story has painted it. Total disservice to the country and culture that gave this journalist his story. But Vice likes to dirty it up to sell mags to hipsters.

Still, totally entertaining and somewhat informative. Nice find.>> ^legacy0100:

lol I don't know about this one. Vice reporters are often a bit naive at times...
Still this was very well Directed. Had great atmosphere and pacing. Very good.

Well and of course we know #1 actually can be continued as for some reason there seemed to already be people there.

So in fact they probably found it first a LONG time ago up by Alaska's volcanic chain via the Russia/Alaska land-bridge that would have existed there for a time; plus someone would have to fill me in but I'm not entirely sure where the Polynesians "may" fit into all of this--as I know they were also known to be GREAT seamen and went very far on extremely small vessels (the ones I'm thinking of you actually have your legs in the water and it carries about six people and is designed sort of like an odd Catamaran)--Hawaii for example was settled into by 300-500 CE. Then the Vikings in Greenland, Canada, and North America (I think just Maine and a few points in Newfoundland--they also didn't stick around for long in these areas as they left these "western" camps to go back to Greenland for the winter). Finally, Columbus made it who sailed around The Caribbean a bit (basically Cuba then Haiti I think; if I remembered right--after coming from the Canary Islands).

There may even be more history to it as unfortunately we know how history is written AND if you don't have that much of a language and worse no paper or way to reference or keep track of old material, telling your story becomes VERY hard as it was never recorded in the first place. All we have left is archeology to help guide us to these newer, more exact figures and finders.

BUT, Columbus did find the first real trade route for 15th century Europe to a "New World", one that had its own spices and plenty of bounty, and THAT is what meant everything. THIS is what people should remember, not that he found it first or the round Earth garbage--that is just bad teachers and even worse (as I READ THEM) terrible history books!

>> ^rottenseed:

Dear Haiti,

Seriously, it's 2011. 3rd world country shit ain't cute anymore
Signed,
the rest of the fucking world
PS: yours was only 7.0...nice building code, dicks>> ^Selektaa:
Dear America,
Please STFU.
Love,
Haiti



You do know that the richter scale is logarithmic, right?
The energy yield from a 5.9 is equivalent to ~43 kilo tonnes of tnt, whereas the energy yield from a 7.0 is over half a million tonnes.