Think This Is "real World" Enough

[Guest fledgling666]

how about them quakes and tsunamis?

last report i heard is that 55,000, that is 3 zeros, have been counted as dead or presumed dead and another 10,000 people missing. that is an immense number of people, even for the relatively overpopulated areas that were hit. this also marks the second 8+ quake in a week, don't remember where the first was.

[The Old Man]

Yes its been and continues to be a terrible tradegy. Sky News in the UK were allowing people to text, email or call them so they could add their names to a scrolling list of people known to be okay.

Arthur C. Clarke lives in Sri Lanka - has anyone heard if he's okay?

[Raven Wolf]

"Of biblical proportions." That pretty much says it, huh?

I've often herd that the preconceved notion that the Appocolypse happening all at once is false. That this isn't the End... But rather the beginning of the end.

"Who's gonna see a different future?"

[HighPlainsDrifter]

i was watching a special on the History Channel about the end of times and then i went to check my emails and saw on my news section about the earthquake and the Tsuname.........thats what bothers me, plus all those babies and children dead

[Guest Seraphim]

"Of biblical proportions."  That pretty much says it, huh? 

I've often herd that the preconceved notion that the Appocolypse happening all at once is false.  That this isn't the End... But rather the beginning of the end.

"Who's gonna see a different future?"

Disasters like this happen more often than one may thing. Think of the dead in the various wars this century and in centuries past. The Black Death killed about 25 Million in Europe, Asia, and North Africa in 6 years. North Korea suffered a famine and flooding between 95 and 98 that took appropx 3.5 Million human lives. A Tsunami in 91 in Bangladesh killed over 130,000. Famine in Etheopia in 84 killed 900,000. A Famine in China in 1960 got 2 Million. And so forth. I can see the crazed Evangelicals having a Armageddon field day with this, but when it comes down to it. These disasters happen often. It's grim, but more natural than people would like to admit. I don't believe it heralds the end, not the beginning of the end. Just a dark part of the natural process. A reminder that whether man likes it or, he is still under nature and must deal with it's cycles and changes.

[Guest Zion]

I was there, and thank god, I and my girlfriend got back safe!! We were staying at Phi Phi island, which is one of those islands off Thailand that got hit the hardest. There is nothing left on the beach we're the bungalows we stayed at used to be.

By chance we got on a boat that morning to check out the nearby islands, and 1,5 hours laters while we were snorkeling at Maya Bay (Where they shot the movie "The Beach") the tsunami hit. We didnt feel it, other than the underwater currents. I think that the reason is beacause that beach is surronded by these high cliffs, so there's only a "small" passage from the sea.

When we got back to Phi phi, we saw the destruction. People lying dead and debris everywhere we looked. We managed to walk to the other side of the island, to the beach we're our bungalows was and there was nothing left. Beacuse it was soon getting dark (the sun sets around 6 pm) we had to find shelter away from the beach and up in the mountains and also find food and something to drink.

In the morning we walked down to the beach and started helping put with the dead and the injured. Helicopters had been landing and taking off during the night, dropping off food and lifting off with the most critical injured. After a few hours helping out I just couldn't handle it, so we got off the island on the big boats that was continously going back and forth to the main land at Phuket.

and 2 days ago we landed at Stockholm with just my backpack and my dirty shorts but alive!

I'll be posting some photos I managed to take during all of this, at my site. The URL will be posted here soon.

My thoughts go out the the countless people I met that had lost their entire family and I hope that they will find their loved ones and a way to deal with everything.

Emnet from Sweden (aka Zion)

[The Old Man]

I catched this the other day :

https://www.space.com/news/tsunami_clarke_041227.html

so he survived it.

Thanks Perennial, much appreciated.

[The Old Man]

I was there, and thank god, I and my girlfriend got back safe!! We were staying at Phi Phi island, which is one of those islands off Thailand that got hit the hardest. There is nothing left on the beach we're the bungalows we stayed at used to be...

Thanks Emnet, for the first-hand account. Glad you made it back okay.

[The Old Man]

Disasters like this happen more often than one may thing. Think of the dead in the various wars this century and in centuries past. The Black Death killed about 25 Million in Europe, Asia, and North Africa in 6 years. North Korea suffered a famine and flooding between 95 and 98 that took appropx 3.5 Million human lives. A Tsunami in 91 in Bangladesh killed over 130,000. Famine in Etheopia in 84 killed 900,000. A Famine in China in 1960 got 2 Million. And so forth. I can see the crazed Evangelicals having a Armageddon field day with this, but when it comes down to it. These disasters happen often. It's grim, but more natural than people would like to admit. I don't believe it heralds the end, not the beginning of the end. Just a dark part of the natural process. A reminder that whether man likes it or, he is still under nature and must deal with it's cycles and changes.

Yes, I think its definitely part of a continuous cycle . Nature's own brutal method of population control.

[Guest kath]

You know, if you read revelation, it says that all of this will be going on, and that the people will still be marrying, and having children, and when it hits where they are, they will shout to the mountains"fall on us!"

(sigh)

Is it any cooincidence that with in the next 50 yrs, yellowstone will erupt?

or that in the year 2012, a scant 7 yrs from now, that the myian calender will end, and man will come to a new level of existance?

Someone said that they didn't know the day Christ was born, so how could we know when the millenium was?

We know the year. We know it was in december, and it could have been on the first day of winter-

Does anyone remember the comet Hale Bopp? the split taled comet that looked like a bright star in the heavens? I have a photo of it somewhere, can't find the neg though-

anyway, You could look up in the night sky and see it, and yeah, it was bright enough for people to follow.

Muggle thinking I guess.

This stuff, will happen- it will continue to happen, and ya all may not like the reason why.

The earth is a fragle jewel in the heavens. The surface of the earth, while we see as thick, and dirt- really is just a thin shell in areas-

man has the audacity to test nuclear weapond under water- and not only is it killing the fish, but its helping to break the earths crust up once again.

Unless you have read about tsum-s or seen one - and in some areas, yes, they happen alot-

you wouldn't know about the water being drawn back to the sea- I don't know why it happens like that- but it does- and there isn't alot of time when it does happen-

the point is, that maybe we should be more aware of the world around us-

maybe the end is near- maybe its far away- maybe we don't understand because we are doomed to repeat history and more is spent on killing than saving lives. Maybe, and I have seen this happen,

Maybe it takes - something like this to galvenize people away from the hurt and the heartbreak of what war can do.

May this new year bring understanding and compassion.

May the world learn to see- and to care.

Happy new year.

Kath