Poor bloody Philippines, the Poland of the Pacific Rim.
When it is not being invaded, colonised, or genocided, its many, many inhabitants are the world's labour pool. Where the Irish or African-American once toiled, today you'll find a Philippine. Whether it's hanging from a scaffolding on a dubious Dubai building site, or slaving away over a hot stove in the bowels of a luxury cruise liner in the Caribbean, you'll find a Flippino.
And, to add injury to rampant Catholicism, now the Philippines are home to a theoretical Category 6 Typhoon (the scale usually goes to 5. This poon went to 11, so to speak).
As ill-timed as Russel Norman's cut n paste of a Philippine climate change spokesperson on Parliament's floor appeared, Norman of Queensland had a point. The funneling effects around the convoluted Straits of Malacca is fairly well-known. As far as climate change canaries in the mine omens go, any prick in chaotic weather systems has a very welcome home here.
What is to be done is another point entirely. According to Kim Stanley Robinson's so-so novel 2312, we are still in the the early years of the Great Dithering. So NZ sends aid packages as says there there, putting off the great migration for at least another electoral cycle. Hercules Returns indeed.
