A time to celebrate

The most recent victory in the War on Terror was won earlier today when Iraqis went to the polls for the first time in decades to choose who will be their leaders in the time to come. The turnout so far has been even better than anticipated. Yes, there were some attacks, and some Iraqis and Americans were killed. But the feared bloodbath, with bombs going off in polling places all over the country killing hundreds or even thousands did not materialize. Iraqis faced their fear and walked to the polling places, some from many miles away, to exercise their franchise.

I'm not going to quote other bloggers, for I am sure there are far too many to do them all justice. Just hit the links in the blogroll and start looking and I'm sure you will find more than enough commentary from all of us who have looked forward to this day with hope and not a little trepidation.

To be certain, this is just another step, not the end of the journey by any means. The ballots must be counted, the government formed, and a constitution drafted. Ultimately, Iraq must become able to take responsibility for its own security. Our troops will stay; for how long is not known. Even then there will still be a US military presence in Iraq so that we can quickly bring the ultimate projection of political will to bear on any other nation in the region that it becomes necessary to confront in this war. Hopefully, Iraq will be the only one. Hopefully, Iran's mullahcracy will be toppled by internal forces. Hopefully, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will continue their efforts to root out terrorists and deny them a haven in which to hide and train, and funding for their operations. Hopefully, Syria will get the message and do the same.

It's not over yet, not by a long shot, but a very large hurdle has just been overcome. Congratulations to the people of Iraq for having the courage to stand up and be counted. And thanks to all the coalition troops from all the various nations who have joined with us in the cause of liberty. Thanks to all of you we can now look to the future with renewed hope and sense of purpose. And to all those naysayers who said this election would never happen, that it was doomed to fail even before it began, I only have this to say:

In your face!!!!!

Oh, puh-leeze

The Daily Texan, the newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin, published an opinion piece wherein they basically compare what happened at Abu Ghraib prison to the horrors of Auschwitz.

Never again.

That is the lesson that we Americans should be learning from the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Never again ... will Germans kill Jews in Poland.

The author then goes on to name several cases where murder on a massive scale has happened since the end of World War II.

Actually, what "Never again" means to the Jews is that they will not allow another Holocaust to be perpetrated upon them. In the larger sense, it means that the nations of the world should not allow another tyrannical government to engage in the systematic mass murder of a large portion of the population. Certainly the world has not succeeded; the depredations of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot are examples of such horror. Yes, this type of activity has happened in Iraq as well. My question, however, is who was in power when it happened? Answer: Saddam Hussein. If anything that happened at Abu Ghraib is comparable to what happened at Auschwitz, it's what Saddam ordered to be done there before the United States removed him from power. In contrast, what happened after pales into near insignificance.

To my extreme gratification, the comments in The Daily Texan's forum regarding this editorial are, so far, unanimous in their rejection of the author's views. Perhaps there's hope after all.

Death of an actress

Early yesterday morning, an aspiring actress from the Seattle area was shot and killed when she, her fiancee, and another couple were accosted by armed muggers.

Interesting that all the laws which make it illegal for average people in New York City to carry concealed handguns didn't prevent this thug from doing so.

Would the victim still be alive if she and/or those she was with had been armed? It's impossible to say. If, at the first sign of trouble, they had drawn their weapons I say it's likely the perps would have turned and run. Once the fatal shot was fired, however, all the guns in the world wouldn't have saved her, although they might have allowed one or more of the thugs to be brought to justice, either in court or in a grave. A more important question is whether or not they would have attempted the robbery at all if they knew there was a good chance their targets were armed.

<rant>
How many times do we in the pro-defense community have to bring up the statistics that show an armed citizenry is a deterrent to violent crime before these pinhead leaders get the message? Of course, that's assuming that said pinheads really want what's best for their constituency rather than what's best for their statist aspirations. I'm sure a lot of people who support strong gun control are well-meaning, albeit mislead and misinformed. However, I believe that some, such as Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, and Chuck Schumer, are not interested in reducing gun violence so much as they are trying systematically to disarm the citizenry because they know that it's the best defense against a tyrannical government. Their socialist plans, if allowed to be implemented, would correctly be perceived as such a tyranny. And, though they may have deluded themselves into believing it's what's best for America, they still understand that it can't happen unless and until average citizens are no longer able to defend themselves effectively. They believe that average Americans are so ignorant or stupid that we won't be able to see the wisdom of the all-encompassing State they want to put in place and that we'll fight against it. Which we will, of course, not because we're stupid but because we will remain free even unto the gravest extreme. But we can only do that if we're armed. They know this, and they fear it.
</rant>

Making with the funny

A good friend of my father's sent me the following in an email a while back.

A Brief History of Our Ancestors

Division of the human family into two distinct
political groups began some 12,000 years ago.
Humans existed as members of small bands of nomadic
hunter/gatherers. They lived on deer in the
mountains in the summer and would go to the beach
and live on fish and lobster in winter.

The two most important events in all of history
were the invention of beer and the invention of the
wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the
beer. These were the foundation of modern
civilization and together were the catalyst for the
splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

Liberals and Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and
that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the
glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so
while our early human ancestors were sitting around
waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed
close to the brewery. That is how villages were
formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing
animals to BBQ at night while they were drinking
beer. This was the beginning of what is known as
"The Conservative Movement".

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at
hunting learned to live off the conservatives by
showing up for the nightly BBQ's and doing the
sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the
beginning of the "Liberal Movement". Some of these
liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest
became known as 'girliemen'.

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the
domestication of cats, the trade union, the
invention of group therapy and group hugs, and the
concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide
the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years, conservatives came to be
symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal
on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized
by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime
added), but most prefer white wine or imported
bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their
beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are
standard liberal fare. Another interesting
revolutionary side note: most of the women have
higher testosterone levels than men which led to
most Liberal men shaving their legs.

Most social workers, personal injury attorneys,
journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group
therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the
designated hitter rule because it wasn't "fair" to
make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red
meat and still provide for their women.
Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys,
lumberjacks, construction workers, medical doctors,
police officers, corporate executives, soldiers,
athletes, and generally anyone who works
productively outside government. Conservatives who
own companies hire other conservatives who want to
work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to
"govern" the producers and decide what to do with
the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more
enlightened than Americans are. That is why most of
the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives
were coming to America. They crept in after the
Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying
to get MORE for nothing.

Here ends the lesson in world history.

Satire that speaks truth about the Rice hearing

Via Acidman:

Steve over at Hog on Ice nails it with respect to the Rice confirmation hearings:

The hearings were historic, mainly because it’s not that often that you get to see seven or eight Democrats slander and abuse a successful black woman. Not since they stopped wearing sheets. But then Condi isn’t black or female. She’s conservative, so NOW and the NAACP revoked her credentials. From now on, whenever she fills out a government form, she has to list herself as a white male, and in certain states she could also be forced to buy golf clubs.

The rest is just as good.

Cox and Forkum give their take on Senators Boxer and Kerry voting against Rice's confirmation.

If you ask me, I say they voted against her not because they didn't think she could do the job but because it was a symbolic jab at the President. They knew she was going to be confirmed; they even said so themselves during the hearing. But they had to get in this dig so that they could continue at least the illusion of relevancy.

If only the people of California would finally realize what a rank hypocrite Barbara Boxer is. After all, as Steve says:

Boxer put on a fine show going after Condoleezza Rice the other day at the confirmation hearings. She said, "I personally believe—this is my personal view—that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth." We all know how loyalty to a cause can make us forget our integrity. For example, a whiny feminist crone might support a Democrat President disbarred for lying and credibly accused of rape. Or she might vote for every hysteria-based, estrogen-reeking anti-gun law put in front of her, while holding one of California’s few carry permits.

Targeting the Cos

In this installment of "Putting on my conspiracy hat" we have the latest news involving comedian Bill Cosby:

LOS ANGELES — A female acquaintance of comedian Bill Cosby has leveled an allegation against him that has prompted a police investigation in Philadelphia, the entertainer's attorney said Thursday.

Attorney Walter Phillips wouldn't discuss the specifics of the allegation but said it amounts to, at the most, "inappropriate touching."

When I first heard this, I couldn't help but speculate that this is an attempt to set up Cosby in response to his recent exhortations to the black community to start taking responsibility for themselves. This is in direct contradiction of civil rights "leaders" such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who seem to want black people to wallow in their victimhood and put all the blame for everything bad that happens to them on the white oppressor, thus maintaining their own power and ensuring that their "job" is never actually finished.

Nah, that can't be right. I mean nothing like that has ever happened before, right?

Selling used police firearms

Via the GeekWithA.45 comes a short article which tells how the Sweetwater, Florida police department is going to trade in their used pistols for new ones at a local gun store. The reaction from the GFW's is as you would expect:

"When you buy a used gun, it's like buying a used car — you're not going to pay top dollar for it," said John Shanks, director of law enforcement relations at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "These guns are going to go back into the civilian market. They're going to be very inexpensive to buy."

When you examine this paragraph, it's pretty amazing to see how efficiently it expresses the agenda of the "Brady Campaign" (formerly Gun Control, Inc.). To wit:

• Used guns are less expensive, therefore bad. One technique that proponents of victim disarmament use is to work toward making guns as expensive as possible. That way fewer people can afford them, especially those living in poor neighborhoods that will likely have greater need of effective self-defense.


• More guns in the civilian market means more gun crime. This ignores the fact that these guns will only be sold at gun shops which are legally bound to confirm that the purchasers are allowed to own guns under the law. It's not like the gun shop is going to say, "Well, we got all these guns so we can go ahead and sell them to anyone who wants one. Hell, we'll just give 'em away on the street." It doesn't matter if the guns are new or used, expensive or cheap, gun shops that sell to criminals are breaking the law and will get busted for it.


• The flip side of the previous is that fewer guns in the civilian market is good. By logical extension, then, no guns is the ideal situation.

I was also interested to see this statement from the Sweetwater police chief:

"I have a moral obligation to my men, to their families and to the community," said Fulgueira. "Number one, I'm not going to send my men out there with weapons that are going to malfunction."

One commenter at the Geek's site commented on this and wondered if it was then okay to sell malfunctioning pistols to the gun shop for sale to the public. The thing is that these are Glock pistols. They are about the most robust pistols ever made; after all they were designed for use in the military. It's likely that the most any of them will need is a good cleaning, and probably not even that. Any problems will likely be minor such as needing to replace some part in the trigger assembly. Worst case is probably a barrel replacement. It's why I have a Glock as my carry piece.

Lying. Through. Her. Teeth.

So I'm listening to the Hugh Hewitt show via streaming audio and he's playing clips from the Senate confirmation hearings for Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. He mentioned that Little Green Footballs had posted the text of the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.” As Charles notes:

LGF reader Model4 points out that Barbara Boxer was simply lying through her teeth today at Condoleezza Rice’s confirmation hearing, when she said the bill passed by Congress authorizing the war in Iraq was, “WMD, period.” But of course, you won’t see this lie exposed in any mainstream media reports.

His characterization of Boxer's comments is entirely correct. They were included in the clips that Hugh played.

In addition to those comments, Boxer (D-PRK) basically accused Rice of lying and putting her loyalty to President Bush above the truth. Once again, Charles has the goods. Rice showed incredible restraint when she told the Senator, “I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity.”

Here's this Senator, sitting up there and insulting the intelligence of Condoleezza Rice, and everyone else who hears her words. But it's just another example of many Democrats' favorite technique: The Big Lie. Say something that's false often enough and loud enough and people will start to believe it. Fortunately, as shown by the election results, it appears that most Americans see through the fabrications and obfuscations and recognize them for what they are. Now if only we could say the same thing about Californians....

True patriotism

I'm poking my head up from dealing with Real Life™ for a moment to point out this segment of todays Neal's Nuze. In it, Neal Boortz notes:

There are 240,000 Iraqis in the United States that are eligible to vote in the upcoming Iraqi elections. To ensure their participation, polling places have been set up throughout the country in Maryland, Los Angeles, Nashville, Chicago and Detroit. Yesterday, the first batch of folks started to trickle in. Now, keep in mind that the mainstream media in this country wants you to be convinced that democracy in Iraq is doomed, the election will be a failure and the war in Iraq was a mistake. With that in mind, let's take a look at what some of the Iraqis in the United States are doing to be sure they are registered to vote:

He follows with a few examples of Iraqi citizens living in the US who are going through a not-inconsiderable effort to be able to vote in the first free election Iraq will have seen in 50 years. Here's one:

67-year-old Abdul Al-Haddad drove six hours from Raleigh, Carolina to New Carrollton, Maryland to register to vote. Speaking through a translator, he said ''I feel I am responsible for my country, to build a free Iraq."

This, my friends, is the face of the New Iraq that the US is trying to foster and which we hope will bloom in the Middle East. The effort that these people are going through should serve as an inspiration to all citizens of the United States and motivate us to vote in each and every election, regardless of how we cast those votes.

Fallout from Rathergate

The panel investigating the story on Bush's Texas Air National Guard service that CBS aired shortly before the election, and which relied on forged documents, has released its report. As a result of this investigation, four high-ranking staffers were ousted. The producer of the piece, Marty Mapes, was fired outright. Three others, Senior Vice President Betsy West, 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard, and Howard’s deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy, were asked to resign. In reponse, Marty Mapes released a statement. In it, she says:

I am shocked by the vitriolic scape-goating in Les Moonves’s statement. I am very concerned that his actions are motivated by corporate and political considerations -- ratings rather than journalism. Mr. Moonves’s response to the review panel’s report and the panel’s assessment of the evidence it developed in its investigation combine not only to condemn me, but to put all investigative reporting in the CBS tradition at risk.

Corporate considerations I can believe. After all, CBS is in business to make a profit and having a producer who is so clearly tainted would be bad for the bottom line. Political considerations, on the other hand, I think are unlikely. You're both probably liberal Democrats. It's about the bottom line and not having a producer who screws up on staff, regardless of whether or not her political bias had anything to do with it.

Much has been made about the fact that these documents are photocopies and therefore cannot be trusted, but decades of investigative reporting have relied on just such copies of memos, documents and notes. In vetting these documents, we did not have ink to analyze, original signatures to compare, or paper to date. We did have context and corroboration and believed, as many journalists have before and after our story, that authenticity is not limited to original documents. Photocopies are often a basis for verified stories.

Saying that these particular photocopies are a valid basis for this story is like saying that a photograph of the Chicago skyline that contains the Sears Tower is a valid representation of Chicago in the 1960's, which was before the tower was built. These documents cannot be trusted not because they are photocopies, but because they show something that simply did not exist at the time the originals were purported to be created. I don't care how many people swear up and down that our hypothetical photograph represents the reality of the time. It simply cannot do so.

I cooperated fully with the review panel, provided them with more than 1,000 pages of reporting and background materials and answered each and every one of their questions completely and truthfully. To the extent that my answers differed from others’ statements, I can only emphasize my own honesty and integrity in attempting to reconstruct the details of the days leading up to the story’s airing.

Cooperating fully with the investigation and providing them with complete information doesn't absolve you of responsibility. If a criminal tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on the stand, he is still guilty.

It is noteworthy the panel did not conclude that these documents are false. Indeed, in the end, all that the panel did conclude was that there were many red flags that counseled against going to air quickly.

Indeed it is noteworthy, but not in the way that Ms. Mapes thinks it is. By not concluding that the documents are false, despite the overwhelming and incontrovertable evidence that they are, shows that the panel is either biased itself, or is afraid to speak the truth. I fail to see how anyone could have any doubt, given all the evidence, that these documents were fabricated. Tortured theories about expensive typesetting machines are the best that supporters could come up with and there is just no way that an ANG Colonel would have one of those machines, let alone use it for routine memos.

I am heartened to see that the panel found no political bias on my part, as indeed I have none. For 25 years, I have built a reputation as a fair, honest and thorough journalist.

Maybe so, but she sure blew it big time. She should have copped to it right away once the evidence that these documents were fabricated was presented. But she stuck to your story, and continues to do so. I can't prove that she was motivated by political bias, but her actions are certainly consistent with such motivation. That level of proof is apparently good enough for her to conclude those documents were accurate so it's good enough for me to conclude that she was pursuing the political agenda of doing whatever she could to ensure the election of John Kerry.

Goodbye. And good riddance. I only wish Dan Rather had been shown the door as well, but that's a whole other post.

"Us" vs. "Them" and the Governor of Washington

Blogging will be light even for me for a while as I will be busy working on what will be the largest financial transaction of my life so far. However, I did want to draw your attention to this post by the ever-irascible Kim du Toit regarding the difference between "liberals" and "conservatives."

Also check out Cox and Forkum's editorial comic regarding the gubernatorial election here in Washington State. There are definitely some irregularities, such as King County counting about 3500 more votes than there were voters, and the fact that "found" votes were counted in some counties but not in others. There is currently an effort to hold a new gubernatorial election. The organization is Revote Washington and they have taken out ads on the radio and in the newspapers. The Democrats were willing to push it as far as they could to get the result they wanted. I think the Republicans have every right to do the same. We slam the Democrats for going to court over stuff like this but, in this case, they started it by pushing and paying for the manual recount which just made the situation worse. I agree that we need a new election. I expect the Democrats will resist it to the utmost of their ability. We'll just have to wait and see if a court case is filed and, if so, what the result is.

Medical malpractice reform

Neal Boortz talks about President Bush's proposal to solve the problem of increasing medical malpractice insurance costs. There are two parts:

• All class-action suits will be tried in Federal courts.


• A $250,000 cap on awards for pain and suffering, i.e. "non-economic" damages.

Boortz is all for the first but he has an issue with the second as he illustrates with the following example:

Consider this case. About 15 or so years ago two newborn males were horribly disfigured at an Atlanta hospital. A doctor made a horrible mistake during the circumcision process and literally burned the penises off of these two males. The parents of at least one of these babies took the doctor's advice and agreed to a sex-change operation. Since there was no longer a penis, the doctors just surgically changed this poor child to a female. (I lost tract of what happened to the other baby.) Now ... let's consider a medical practice action here. The question of negligence was not an issue. The doctor was clearly negligent .. open-and-shut case. The question was how much to award. Let's consider that award in light of Bush's reform proposals. This child would be entitled to have the cost of the sex-change surgery and the cost of any future hormone replacement therapies covered. The parents would presumably be compensated for the cost of all those male-oriented baby clothes they had bought.

What else would the child get? $250,000, that's what. Here we have a child, born male, who will never be able to father a child. A child who will have a confused sexual identity for the rest of its life. What is it worth to you to be able to have a child? What is your sexual identity worth? Hell ... let's cut to the chase. What is your penis worth?

At the time these babies were born their life expectancy was about 75 years. If you take that $250,000 and stretch it out over that time you would come up with a grand total of about $275 a month. That's it. That's what you get for having your penis burned off by a doctor and for never being able to have satisfactory sex let alone father a child. Do you think $275 a month is enough?

I agree that he has a point. There are cases where significant sums for such damages are warranted.

Like Boortz, I support the implementation of "loser pays." If you sue a medical professional and you lose the case, you are responsible for some or all of his or her legal expenses. Currently, many cases never come to trial because the professionals and the insurance companies know it's often less expensive to settle out of court than risk a really huge judgement against them in trial and pay the legal costs that come with defending the case to the end even if they win. With a loser pays system, I can see two immediate benefits:

• Medical professionals and their insurance companies won't be as reluctant to defend the case through trial if there's a good chance their defense will succeed. Some of those cases will be won by the defendants.


• Plaintiffs and their lawyers will be less eager to sue over just anything since they will now be liable for the defendant's legal expenses if they lose.

There is one potential problem with this system but I think there are also a couple of solutions, one or both of which will come into being naturally. The problem is this: If someone has a valid claim, they may be reluctant to sue since they could be out a lot of money if they lose, both for their own legal expenses and those of the defendant.

The solutions which I believe could naturally evolve out of this are:

• Legal firms will agree to pay the defendant's legal expenses if they lose. They will do this so that at least some suits will be filed since they'll be out of that business if none are. This will also further encourage legal firms to take only cases that they have a reasonable chance of winning, i.e. that are not frivolous.


• Some form of insurance will be made available, either to the plaintiff, his lawyers, or both, that will cover the costs if they lose. This insurance could be on a case-by-case basis, purchased by the plaintiff, his lawyers, or both. In this case it could be up to the legal experts at the insurance companies that are offering this insurance to determine whether or not the case is worth pursuing. Or it could be a blanket policy that the legal firm has purchased and pays regular premiums on. This would probably be best as it would then be up to the legal firm itself to determine whether the case was worth taking on. If they lose cases and the insurance pays out, their premiums would naturally increase.

Essentially this would be a case of the market providing its own solution to a problem, which is the ideal situation. Right now, since defendants are on the hook for a lot of money even if they successfully defend in court, the system is skewed the way it is in order to minimize overall expense. The problem is that it's still very expensive and the costs are ultimately passed on to you and me in the form of higher medical costs, higher medical insurance premiums, and reduced insurance benefits. I think that going to a loser-pays system, along with one or both of the solutions I presented above (and/or others which I haven't thought of) would go at least the better part of the way toward solving this problem.

Lodge Logic cast iron cookware

In today's installment of Stuff We Like, I present Lodge Logic cast iron cookware. When it comes to cooking, nothing equals cast iron for even heating and heat retention. Iron is among the best conductors of heat (and electricity, for that matter). That means that the cooking surface is more evenly heated regardless of the heat source (we have a gas range, for example, and we love it). The heat retention part of the equation means that the cookware doesn't cool very much when you add stuff to it. Say you want to cook some sausage. You heat the pan and then add the sausage. Some of the heat in the pan is transferred to the sausage but, because the pan has a high heat density, the temperature of the pan does not drop much. With other cookware, the temperature of the pan drops more and you then have to wait for the pan to heat up again.

At this time we only have one skillet and we just bought a two-burner griddle which we haven't used yet. I'm looking forward to cooking pancakes on it. The skillet has quickly become our favorite, although there are some foods (like scrambled eggs) that we still cook on our non-stick skillet.

The nice thing about the Logic line is that it comes pre-seasoned. With cast iron cookware, you have to season it first which, as I understand it, results in a coating of oxidation which is dark and hard rather than the red, dusty rust you'd get if you just left raw iron out in the rain. It's kind of non-stick though not nearly so much as real non-stick cookware. You clean the stuff using only hot water and a scrub brush, using a scraper of some kind to get the stubborn stuff off. It's actually pretty easy to clean. Once you've cleaned it, you wipe it dry and then spray a light coating of cooking spray on it. You don't want to use soap since that wrecks the seasoning and you then have to re-season it. I'm told you actually want to do this anyway about once a year. It's not that hard; you basically just put some oil it in, wipe it around the entire interior surface, and then heat it on the stove for about ten minutes. Continued cooking also contributes to the seasoning. We also have a wok made of carbon steel which is seasoned and cleaned the same way.

One downside of cast iron cookware is that, being entirely made of iron which conducts heat well, the handles get nearly as hot as the cooking surface. Therefore you absolutely must use an oven mitt or heat resistant pad when handling it. There are handle covers available which are made of various materials such as silicon and neoprene rubber and I plan on buying one the next time I see it.

9/11/2001 vs. 12/26/2004

The first date we all know. The second date is the day the tsunami struck many places in Southest Asia causing incalculable damage and, at current count, almost 140,000 deaths. The magnitude of the destruction wrought by the tsunami dwarfs that of the World Trade Center attack. Therefore, some may ask, why are we so concerned about terrorism that we have embarked on the global war against terror and those states who support it when natural disasters of this scale can happen?

Here are what, in my opinion, are the differences between these two events and how we should respond to them.

September 11 was perpetrated by human beings (at least at the genetic level). If given the opportunity, these people would carry out an attack that would equal or exceed the devastation from the tsunami. This is something we can address directly and we are doing so. I won't go over the goal in detail as I've done so already as have many other bloggers. Suffice to say that we're attempting to induce fundamental change in the culture and attitudes of those who wish to attack us.

The tsunami was a natural disaster which was not caused by humans (much as some might think Bush was somehow behind it). Natural disasters like this cannot be prevented. The only thing that can be done is to mitigate their effects. In order to do this, a civil infrastructure must be put in place that provides warning of the impending event and provides evacuation, shelter, rescue, and medical services. In order to do this, the nations and societies involved must have a modicum of wealth. Many of the countries affected by the tsunami do not have this infrastructure in place which greatly contributed to the enormous loss of life. If they want to be able better to handle such events, they need to increase their own prosperity through progress. Simply giving them a bunch of money isn't the answer, although we can certainly provide assistance in the form of technology and support. As for how that increase in prosperity is to be facilitated, it shouldn't be hard to guess my opinion. Here's a hint: theocracy is not the answer, nor is communism/socialism.

In short, both types of events deserve our attention. How we should go about it, however, differs greatly between the two.