The best and worst of 2004
 

List them people.
The best thing that happened was John Kerry losing the White House. :thumbsup:

The worst thing that happened was George Bush winning the White House. :thumbsdn:

I'm not sure about the Kerry part, but I agree on the Bush part. I don't completely despise GWB, but there are advisors and members of his cabinet that I would have been overjoyed to see leave, preferably through an upper floor window. :eyebrow:

BTW, the thumbsdown :thumbsdn: is spelled thumbsdn if you want to get the smiley. I'm guessing you somehow overtyped it.

I think a tsunami that wiped out most of the coastlines of SE Asia and the Indian Subcontinent probably qualifies as one of the worst of 2004.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...wl_nm/quake_dc

7,000 dead and many more anticipated. The scale of this event is almost unimaginable.

12,300 dead at last count. Nature versus man is putting up man vs man numbers. I can't get my head around the scale of this thing.

As of this morning, that death toll is estimated 23,000. Imagine enough corpses to fill all of the seats at the Alamo Stadium in San Antonio, TX.

Before Saturday, I'd have said Those Four Hurricanes were the one of the best and worst things to happen in 2004 simultaneously. Best because I'm a weather buff and I love big weather events. Worst because it was four hurricanes all hitting the same region in a span of about 6 weeks. I miss my tomatoes and the general quality of citrus around here sucks.

my sister is in Phuket. She was up on a mountain side riding an elephant when the destruction occurred. Her hotel is completely gone. Other than the 3 hours for the elephant ride she had spent all her time on the beach right in front of her hotel. An hour into the elephant ride she was pretty mad at her friends for talking her into the whole elephant thing because she would much rather be sunbathing on the beach. A little while later she thought otherwise. She lost everything but the cloths she is wearing and her camera. Her passport is longgone but she does have her life. Her friends that she went with are ok, but a couple of people they had dinner with the night before are missing.

How did you hear from your sister? Are the internet Cafes up and running? Is she still in the area, or did she move on to another city?

A sports utility vehicle is wrapped up in power lines on Patong Beach, Monday, Dec. 27, 2004, in Phuket, Thailand. Rescue teams converged on beaches and remote islands in search of the missing Monday as the Thai prime minister said that up to 700 people perished when earthquake-spawned tidal waves devastated idyllic resort areas of southern Thailand. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett)

she had become acqainted with the owner of an internet cafe before this happened and she gave my sister access for a couple of minutes so she could let us know she was ok. we're still waiting to hear more.

Holy Cow. That's a near hit. (I don't like saying "near miss" because it was a full miss, and a near hit.)

I can't imagice 23,000 people that were there at 6:45am and gone at 7:15am. That's insane.

This quake measured 9.0 on the Richter scale, the 4th largest earthquake since 1900 and the largest since the 1964 Alaska quake, but the tsunami's are what did most of the damage.

Sending good vibes out that way....

Radar, was your wife affected?

BBC reporter vacationing in Sri Lanka describes he and his 'partner' sleeping only 3 meters from the waves when the tidal wave struck. They were awaken by unusual sounds and yelling. They managed to run out the back, get carried inland, and hang on a tree for while. The tree is now gone. He describes the sudden quiet when flood waters stopped flowing.

His room was completely destroyed. Others had immediately assumed he was gone.

Last number I heard was between 22 to 23 thousand dead. But a number of 40,000 is not unreasonable. Massive areas in Sumatra have not yet been contacted.

The length of the quake is also unusal - about 1000 kilometers. Equivalent to a quake everywhere from LA to San Francisco.

Sometimes we must learn from experience. Its a fact of life - and death.

This after typhoon and hurricanes in record numbers on both the western Atlantic and western Pacific. Something like the 26th typhoon of the year struck only last month. I'm so upset. I can't even get a good tomato. Clearly god must be punishing the world for letting us elect George Jr.

OK, this covers two worsts. 1) The earthquake and all it entails, 2) THE MEDIA.

i'll post the link. my mother forwarded my sister's email to my aunt who apparently works at a newspaper. apparently the story wasn't interesting enough on it's own because the author decided that if my sister is a christian in Thailand she MUST be a missionary, and let's make it 3 years while we're at it. she isn't. she is an english teacher in Seoul trying to pay off student loans, she went to Thailand for Christmas because it was cheaper than flying to the states.

bad media

Did you know your sister is Amy Poehler??

http://cellar.org/2004/amy_poehler.jpg

uh, no. who is amy poehler? oh, and i also like that they used a photo from 4/5 years ago. i hadn't even paid attention to that.