Category Archives: this and that

Charities offering relief to countries affected by the Tsunami

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There really isnt much to say.
I have listed below some of the aid agencies that are rushing men, material and resources to South and East Asia in support of the quake relief efforts.
Please Do consider giving.
Doctors Without Border
Medecins Sans Frontieres will be sending a charter to Indonasia within 24 hours. They are also sending an assessment team to Indian, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Burma. I think very highly of MSF.
you can donate to MSF through this page.
Prime Minister’s relief fund in India
Dr Manmohan Singh asked for donations to his National Relief Fund to help support the flood-effected people. Obviously, they havent made this easy. This page gives you the account number for sending checks to the relief fund. Mark it to the local Indian Embassy/consulate. If you want to pay through credit card, use this form.
Oxfam
Oxfam is taking donations for its relief efforts in areas affected by Tsunami in South and East Asia. They are active in some of the quake effected areas – specially in Sri Lanka.
You can donate to Oxfam through this page.
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
I am not huge on Red Cross. But let us face it – they have the best ground operation in South Asia. They already have an extensive operation – helping to evacuate victims. Their site allows you to define where your donation dollars go.
You can send money through this page. For those in India, it is probably easier to send a check to Indian Red Cross.
World Vision
This BBC story said that one third of the dead in the coastal regions are children. World Vision is trying to help. You can donate to them through this page.
CRY is the most well known NGO in India among those that work with children. Their online donation page is here. Although, I havent seen anything yet about what they can do in supporting the relief efforts.
Update: There is a more India specific list of agencies here)

Witches

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It seems that in middle age Europe, burning women as witches gained currency largely because it was extremely cold. Record cold destroyed crops. People looked for someone to blame. Witches came in handy.
Emily Oster, a doctoral student of economics in Harvard, crunched weather data of years 1520 to 1770 and showed that there is a correlation between sharp drops in temperature and burning witches. Her study was published in the Winter issue of ‘The Journal of Economic Perspectives’ and is available through her website.
This story in NYT magazine might be easier going.

SOX

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I have been completely sucked into the Sarbanes-Oxley nightmare. Argggggh! It is the most useless piece of regulatory nonsense ever enacted in the history of mankind. I have no time for anything else this week ….
On the way to a client office in New York this morning, the taxi got stuck in a huge throng of people very near Times Square. The cops had stopped everything on the road. There were all sorts of people – cops TV cameramen, onlookers wielding cameras, girls waving banners …. It was some sort of a NASCAR car rally about to begin. A number of interesting looking sports cars that you get to see only in TV eventually drove by on our next lane. The cab driver was hopping up and down with excitement. He seemed to know the name of every race driver on the rally. Most of them looked rather young.
I felt quite ignorant. I also had a sneaking suspicion that it was not by accident that we had managed to land right in the middle of a rally.

Random links

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Good story in the Guardian about how Bangalore’s creaking infrastructure is failing to scale up to the needs of the booming IT industry and its growing population.
Also in Guardian, 70 anecdotes about Leonard Cohen on his 70th birthday
Zadie Smith gave a talk about her American road trip peddling her new book
Isaiah Berlin virtual library
Great hackers is Paul Graham’s new essay
Lastly, if you havent yet checked out, you ought to check out Vivisimo