Felice Anno Nuovo Per Tutti from Italy, here's 07.00 PM and from 5 hours will be 2005. Only a thing, in your joy a little place for those in asia who are less fortunate than we are.

Greetings!

Grazie, ragazzo!

Happy pre-New Years...I'm just heading out the door to bring in the New with family. I think all of our thoughts are on the horrible, historic and biblically scaled catastrophe that hit Asia as we close 2004. Don't forget to donate to the http://www.redcross.org/donate/donate.html or another reputable charity. Lets try to help these people out. Hopefully 2005 will bring stability and peace throughout the world (I know that’s probably a bit too optimistic).

Be safe all!

Happy New Year everyone.

Re: Tsumani relief: here's a tip from a friend of mine who works in disaster relief (Doctors without Borders/Medicins Sans Frontiers) :

It's actually better to donate over time and or donate when you can as there is typically a sharp falloff in donations about the time the real relief effort gets set up to get going.

It's going to take 30 days for the relief infrastructure to get established in any meaningful way and with this one, maybe longer since it's not localized.

Since roads are out in a lot of areas and there's not alot of infrastructure in place, AND, because most food was grown locally and is likely washed away, there's going to be need for food, water, and money for as long as a year for the survivors to rebuild. It's going to cost Billions, even though the economies of the area aren't as big as in some western areas.

So, if you can, giving 10 bucks a month is very helpful and may be more helpful than giving 100 bucks right now.... it also means that if you can't give anything right now, but 3-6 months from now you find some money, it's not too late to donate and is not going to be misapplied.

But on a brighter note: Happy New Year and thank God these things happen only once every 500 years or so!

I donated money at work on Wednsday, we have a box set up for it. Over a hundred and fifty thousand dead... oh my God...

The Auld Grump