“Something happened a long time ago in Haiti. People might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon the third and whatever . . . and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, ‘We will serve you, if you get us free from the Prince.’ True story. And so the Devil said, ‘Okay, it’s a deal.’ . . . Ever since they have been cursed.” ~Pat Robertson
O.K. I think Pat was wrong about his story and wrong about the way God works. God doesn’t curse a whole country with an earthquake or any other disaster because some evil people got together and did a little voodoo ceremony, if they ever did.
However, I listened to the clip, and Mr. Robertson is obviously concerned for the suffering of the people of Haiti, asking people here to pray and to donate money for relief. Even though his theology and his history are both a bit (a lot?) wonky, he doesn’t deserve the lambasting he’s received from some quarters. See this blog post by David Sessions.
Gene Veith on what really happened with Haiti and Napoleon and why we owe Haiti.

Al Mohler: “Does God hate Haiti? God hates sin, and will punish both individual sinners and nations. But that means that every individual and every nation will be found guilty when measured by the standard of God’s perfect righteousness. God does hate sin, but if God merely hated Haiti, there would be no missionaries there; there would be no aid streaming to the nation; there would be no rescue efforts — there would be no hope. . . . In the midst of this unspeakable tragedy, Christ would have us rush to aid the suffering people of Haiti, and rush to tell the Haitian people of his love, his cross, and salvation in his name alone.”

Google reconsiders China: We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
I don’t know what they mean by finding a basis for cooperation with the Chinese government, but it’s about time Google refused to be stooges for the censors in China.