Much support for India but 0 support for the Gulf Coast.

[Dillon 2,197]

Jeff I think you got the whole point of where I was coming from. I don't think everyone outside the US hates us but I do feel the United States has a very serious foreign relations problem. I have many friends outside the US so I'm no stranger to people overseas.It's saddens me that some of the best intentions can be viewed totally out of context or the wrong way. I wasn't trying to slam Avsim in any way I just thought they should say something since this is a very major disaster. We have hurricanes all the time but what other US city in history has ever been destroyed like this. Of all the other major disasters that have happened over the 6+ years I

[btacon 1,789]

"Edited by bt to insert the most important word in our vocabulary...please"Dillon...you said nothing wrong. You attacked no one. You stated the obvious.I'm afraid this country is in a huge state of denial. Folks that I work with are acting like nothing has changed, just another storm. A couple of weeks, and things will be back to normal. Things may never be back to normal. New Orleans is lost. It will never be the what it was prior to the flood. It may never come back. Only time will tell. Then there is Biloxi, Gulfport, and surrounding area. I was stationed at Keesler for 4 years, today I hear that Keesler is largely destroyed. That's right, destroyed, and that is from Keesler's own web site.Wake up America...this is a human tradgedy on a scale that this most blessed nation has never faced before. There are approximately 1 MILLION refugees, many of whom have no place to return to, no matter how the rebuilding will fare. Instead of sniping and fighting we need to join hands, now, and help our fellow citizens.Tom...if you have time to post ad's for Wing's of Power, you have time to post information on how we can help each other. Please put some donation banners up. Please put up links to organizations which will point us to the right charities. Please find out what we can do to help, then tell us. Not a hurclean task in my mind.bt

[Dillon 2,197]

Thanks BT I'm finding the best thing to do is do what's right in your heart and leave it at that. I shouldn't have to ask that something like this get acknowledged. That should have told me something right there. I walked right into all this foolishly.I was wrong for asking because a situation like this should be obvious. If it's not then asking is not going to do anything but start a bunch of mess and that's exactly what happened.The things that might move me don't move or affect others the same way, that's life... :-roll I'm just happy to find out that the info I got earlier about my family is not confirmed so there still is hope. :-) Either way I'll still be down there helping out...

[Guest Shalomar]

Donny AKA ShalomarFly 2 ROCKS!!!My heart goes out to those directly affected by this tragedy. Comparing scopes is not helpful to those affected, but there is one major distinction between the Gulf Coast and Indonesia: There is a far, far greater chance of the same thing happening again. According to meteroligists, we are into an active hurricane cycle that could last 25-40 years, which have occured every now and then without global warming's help for centuries. New Orleans was the expected target for a while of Ivan just last year. Early indications of *possible* further activity within weeks. We are not past SAR, it may be too early to discuss rebuilding. But let's do it right and first seriously consider whether certain locales should have been built on in the first place. At the very least, let's have some intelligent architecture, like "disposable" first floors with breakaway walls storm surge can flow thru, aerodynamic considerations and relative mass being a *major* factor. And if it's impractable to build the structure you want safely, build a smaller one. I say that to anyone planning to build new construction in vulnerable spots *anywhere*. While this tragedy is fresh in our minds, what about preparing for the next one? It's not like it hasn't happened before. It is certainly very unlikely *not* to occur again. At some point, it's just bringing disaster upon ourselves for a short term economic and lifestyle gain.My deepest sympathies are with those paying the price now.Best Regards, Donny:-wave

[Gavin 99]

Dillon>First off Iraq is a ravaged nation that we are already>spending billions of dollars on. Iraq get's press everyday. >As far as 'simmers in Iraq', who there can think about simming>when suicide bombers are floating around every corner??? That>must have been a joke on your part...No it wasn't a joke it was a statement. You're absolutely right that people there probably have more serious things to think about than simming. However, neither of us know how many, if any, people in Iraq have a PC and a copy of some FS. Some people use FS as a form of relaxation and a means to forget about the problems of the world. Would you concede the possibility that some people may also do so in Iraq?>>New Orleans is in America. In America we are afforded the>luxury of having computer outlets that sell Flight Simulator. >This is where Avsim and other sites come into play. As>Microsoft has attested, there is not a major city in the>United States that simmers don't reside. Imagine simulation>has given us KMSY and the Avsim library has many files from>different versions of Flight Simulator over the years with>free additions for this area from people living in this>area...>>I'll tell you this, I pay Flightsim.com a yearly fee for first>class membership and be damned if a disaster happens in my>area and nothing is said about it. The Flightsim community>has supported many things outside the realm of FS in the past.> You

[Guest Charlie]

If you professional pains-in-the-#### were really that concerned about helping, you wouldn't have time to spend here harassing Avsim. Over at Flightsim.com, the thread was quickly locked and Tom has been more generous than I would have been in letting this one continue.

[Guest Mike94]

Sonar5,for your unqualified and offending comments about germans, you may want to translate and read the following about the german government to offer help to the U.S.:--------------------- Schr

[btacon 1,789]

Uh-huh...thanks for those constructive comments Charlie. In the meantime, the Gulf Coast region is melting down, but that's ok...don't bother to tell me cuz flightsim.com and avsim.com is where I go to "get away".Posted this morning by Glenn Reynolds, of InstaPundit Fame a letter from a colleague. I reprint it here in entirety, with the link to Glenn's site for proper attribution. The story speaks for itself.We have no time to squabble about how to help, we just need to help. Now. In whatever way we can. In my opinion, we are on the verge of a disaster that WILL rival the Tsunami of 2004. You're free to draw your own conclusions.bthttp://instapundit.com/archives/025279.php A BLEAK REPORT FROM NEW ORLEANS: A colleague sends this email. _____________Dear Colleagues,I'm not sure how many of you know Bill Quigley. He is an amazing person, law professor at Loyola New Orleans, head of their clinic there. . . .Anyhow, Bill's wife is an oncology nurse in New Orleans, and therefore decided she could not evacuate but would need to stay with her patients at the hospital. Bill apparently decided he would do likewise. Below is an interview with him about the situation in that city as of early Wednesday morning.....BILL QUIGLEY: This is sort of the nightmare scenario that everybody was really worried about, but the problem for New Orleans is that everybody who had their health, had money and had a car, they left. Okay, so we have probably 100,000 people trapped in the city right now, maybe 50,000 or 60,000 people in the Superdome who are there without electricity, without flushing toilets, without food, without water. And they are people who had to walk over there or take a bus, because they didn't have a car to get out.There are people in nursing homes, there's people in these little hospitals all over the place.And then there's still -- YOu can see when you're looking out the window at night, you can see flashlights in the water where people are walking around out in the neighborhoods completely dark. You see a flashlight where somebody's walking down the water. As you said, tomorrow night, you are not going to see those flashlights, because tomorrow night, they expect that we're going to have nine to 15 feet of water. So those people that are walking out there with flashlights, they're not going to be there.And the hospitals are full. The hospitals are turning people away, because they don't have enough food and water to be able to take care of the people who are in the hospitals. So, the boatload of people that came apparently to the hospital this morning or this afternoon, a father, a mother and two little kids came in a boat, and the people at the hospital turned them away, sent them away, because they didn't have room for them. Another 20 people walked up to the parking lot -- parking garage. They had been in the Holiday Inn downtown. That Holiday Inn lost electricity, lost everything. So those people just left, and they have been wandering around the city looking for a place to stay, and the security guards had to turn them away. They sent them back into the flood waters because they didn't have enough food or water or that to even be able to take care of necessarily the people that are here.So who's left behind in New Orleans right now, you are talking about tens of thousands of people who are left behind, and those are the sickest, the oldest, poorest, the youngest, the people with disabilities and the like, and the plan was that everybody should leave. Well, you can't leave if you're in a hospital. You can't leave if you're a nurse. You can't leave if you are a patient. You can't leave if you're in a nursing home. You can't leave if you don't have a car. All of these things. They didn't have - there was no plan for that.And so, we are talking about somewhere in the neighborhood, I think, of 100,000 people probably in the metropolitan New Orleans area that are still here. And the suggestions from local officials are, you know, in the suburban parish next to us, they announced on the radio -- we have one radio station, have no TV, have no cell phones. Nothing. The only calls we are able to get are the calls that come in. And the suggestion was that people should take a boat over toward the interstate, and then they would pick them up there.But, you know, these people don't have a car, people who live in an apartment with their mother, you know, people who are sick. That's why they couldn't leave. They don't have cars. They certainly don't have boats!And so, there's a huge humanitarian crisis going on here right now.AMY GOODMAN: Bill Quigley, I wanted to ask -- this is a bit of an odd question. You're a law professor. We usually talk to you about the crisis that's going on in Haiti, where you have been a number of times and represent, among others, Father Jean-Juste, who is in prison there. How does what you are seeing in New Orleans right now, how does it compare to Haiti?BILL QUIGLEY: Well, you know, I had always hoped that Haiti would become more like New Orleans, but what's happened is New Orleans has become more like Haiti here recently. You know, we don't have power. We don't have transportation. At this point, I think, at least the people in the hospital have some fresh water, but they're telling people you can't drink the water out of the taps. So there's people wandering around the city without water, without transportation, without medical care. So in many senses, we have about a million people in the New Orleans area who are experiencing, you know, what Haiti is like.AMY GOODMAN: Have you seen any National Guard?BILL QUIGLEY: There are apparently some National Guard who are on the roof, who are helping with the helicopters. We have seen one or two here or there. There's been reports that there's thousands of them that are coming in, but again, I don't know how they would get in. People are not able to - you know, the communication system is so bad that for a large part of the day, the mayor, the chief of police, the governor and those people couldn't call the one working radio station. And so they had to walk into the radio station to be able to talk to the people who are out here trying to figure out what's going on.So it is really a disaster, and the people who aren't in New Orleans, I know, are dying to get back to their houses. But the people who are in New Orleans are, in all honesty, dying, and there could be a lot more casualties unless there's a lot of help real fast.AMY GOODMAN: Bill Quigley is a law professor at Loyola University. He was speaking to us from the hospital he is staying at, Tenant Memorial Hospital in New Orleans, where his wife Debbie is an oncology nurse. After we spoke to him early this morning, the electricity, backup electricity, went out at the hospital.___________So there you have it. A pretty bleak picture.

[Guest Toni Rauch]

....and as if that report wasn't bad enough, now we hear that evacuation support has been suspended because some local 'thugs' (putting it very mildly for Avsim rules) have taken to shooting at the rescue choppers.What's wrong with these lunatics??????Toni.

[AWACS 12]

Don't worry, our brothers and sisters from the Air and Army National Guard are their way, they'll take care of that issue.Jeff

[Gavin 99]

>....and as if that report wasn't bad enough, now we hear that>evacuation support has been suspended because some local>'thugs' (putting it very mildly for Avsim rules) have taken to>shooting at the rescue choppers.>>What's wrong with these lunatics??????>>Toni.Really? Surely not?http://online.vatsimindicators.net/916312/3.png

[KevinAu 441]

>Don't worry, our brothers and sisters from the Air and Army>National Guard are their way, they'll take care of that>issue.>>JeffThey have their work cut out. Here's what is really happening down there.http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread...92&page=1&pp=20

[JP_Visser 3]

From the little sensible news i get here,being in or around New Orleans/Biloxi etc is a true nightmare.keep those people in your prayers,donate or help if you can,they really are desperate.cheersJP.

[btacon 1,789]

Get some banners up. Feed the donation stream. Support the Gulf Coast and it's citizens.If not, what's your point? Why? Explain your choice of staying on the sidelines then at least it's not one-sided.AVSIM: Richard Harvey is dead, and yet you have a banner for him. Why not a banner for the Gulf Coast living? (and dead)FLIGHTSIM: On FLIGHTSIM Dillon only suggested a plan to send donations to the Gulf Coast. You took his message down ASAP. What's YOUR point?And by-the-way, this is not an attack.bt

[LAdamson 240]

>AVSIM: Richard Harvey is dead, and yet you have a banner for>him. Why not a banner for the Gulf Coast living? (and dead)Walmart has plenty of "easy" donation locations. Walmart & most of the population would know little of Mr. Harvey. With Walmart & so many other charitys already in place, what's the point of essentially forcing someone involved with these forums to become administators, accountants, and opening special bank accounts. I'm sure that most of us, can easily donate to a charity of our choice, without a banner asking to do so......here.>FLIGHTSIM: On FLIGHTSIM Dillon only suggested a plan to send>donations to the Gulf Coast. You took his message down ASAP. >What's YOUR point?>The same...L.Adamsonedit: I would have to think that many here, assume the owners of Avsim & Flightsim com. sit in plush offices, running "only" these forums daily. And have certainly no problem to administrate credit cards ,checks, and cash donations "with the upmost efficiency"But I know, it isn't so...I'm willing to bet, that Walmart or the Red Cross, can get your donations to where there needed, much faster!