Burma’s horror could have been avoided if the country’s paranoid military rulers had listened to the warnings they had been given well before the approach of Cyclone Nargis.- Peter Goodspeed, National Post

A full 48 hours before the storm crashed ashore, Burmese officials were provided with computer-generated plots of the storm’s likely route that accurately predicted its landfall, trajectory and strength.

Yet nothing was done to warn or to evacuate people from the path of a cyclone packing winds of 200 kilo-metres an hour with a three-metre-high storm surge.

Even as traumatized Burmese began counting thousands of dead Sunday morning, the state-controlled television aired its regular lineup of soap operas.

Mantuition: The results of self-serving leaders are catastrophic. I don’t think soap opera’s are going to do it.