Gore vs. Bush

From the 2000 debate (quoted by this BBC story)

Gore: "Under the [Texas] governor [George W. Bush]'s plan, if you kept the same fee for service that you have now under Medicare, your premiums would go up by between 18% and 47%, and that is the study of the Congressional plan that he's modelled his proposal on by the Medicare actuaries."

Bush: "Look, this is a man who has great numbers. He talks about numbers.

"I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the internet, but he invented the calculator. It's fuzzy math. It's trying to scare people in the voting booth."

This is who our neighbor to the south voted for...

Haiti

I've seen a few queries about my deployment to Haiti. This is the scoop:

I applied to a few organizations in hopes of helping in Haiti. Only Merlin responded, but by then a Canadian UN recruiting agency had asked me to go and help the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Haiti. I enjoyed cooperating with OCHA in Sri Lanka so this makes me very pleased.

I resigned from the World Food Program and am right now in Frankfurt en route to Ottawa to collect my tent (and see my Dad) and then Santo Domingo where I will have a day of training before heading to Port-au-Prince - perhaps on Tuesday.

I don`t know much more about what will happen except that I understand I'll be living and working this close to the Aeroport Toussant L'Ouverture airport.

Meanwhile Sharky is expecting confirmation of a different opportunity in Port-au-Prince. No details yet.

We're are fine

There was a suicide blast a few kilometres from our compound just now but we're both fine.

I'm really looking forward to when we've left this country...

Frozen beauty

If only I could afford it I would buy this beautiful 100 year old photograph by Wilson A Bentley. (Story here.)