How do you define “Prescient?”
I noticed that The Economist Magazine (it calls itself a newspaper) has a weird knack for predicting Major natural disasters. In December 2004, just a few days before the Asian Tsunami, this is what its cover looked like:
And as if that weren’t enough, today, I read in this week’s edition an article about Indonesia where they wrote: “the sprawling Indonesian archipelago remains vulnerable to all sorts of natural disasters, from volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis to outbreaks of deadly diseases”
Imagine my surprise when I later check the internet and read: “3000 Die in Indonesian Quake!”
Conclusion: If The Economist predicts a disaster in your area, just leave..
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The beirut spring is a blog that is interested in Lebanese society and its politics. It started in February 2005 after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri
May 27th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
That’s troubling. Why do you have to worry me like that? On subject, I saw a special on the Discovery Channel here (American media has its tentacles everywhere…) about 10 doomsday scenarios, as in 10 different ways the world could end. The disturbing thing was that global warming, nuclear winter, and the next ice age were presented in the same comic manner as an alien invasion, worldwide possession-by-the-devil and the earth crashing into the sun. Not promising for people who worry about the world we’ll leave (or not leave) for our children.
Off topic, my last trip to Beirut left me bewildered. I couldn’t help but think to myself that it was indescribably disturbing that a five minute walk from a five star hotel was a hundred families living in a building that was on the verge of collapse from constant bombing in a foreign-instigated civil war. It led me to wonder: Is the growing reach of globalisation so cold and heartless that those who would seek to make a buck off a tourist spot could care so little about the squalor that their staff could be living in? Or is that squalor the tourist spot itself?
May 28th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Anything predicted for the Gulf region?
May 29th, 2006 at 3:45 am
keep me posted for the north american front!
May 31st, 2006 at 5:42 am
I hope they never mention Lebanon ~ ever!