Before and after from Digitalglobe.com

Don't expect the Sri Lankan government to help. Give a few bucks online to these organizations for a happier New Year:

The Red Cross www.redcross.org

United Nations World Food Programme www.wfp.org

Save the Children www.savethechildren.org

Mercy Corps www.mercycorps.org

other charities listed on the Tsunami Help blog tsunamihelp.blogspot.com

Other worthwhile charities:

Code Pink's Help Iraqis/Global Exchange fund for Falluja refugees www.codepinkalert.org 

Canadian Harambee Education Society (send a Kenyan or Tanzanian girl to high school) www.canadianharambee.ca

Seismic monitor:  www.iris.edu/seismon/

Why Michael Crichton is full of shit: "They don't call it science fiction for nothing."

Coming in January: "I Hate 2004"

R.I.P.

Susan Sontag

Jerry Orbach (at right, with James Earl Jones, Julie Harris, and Angela Lansbury in 1969, at the Tony Awards)

See also: The Quotable Briscoe, the rejected Ben & Jerry's flavor Cherry Orbach, and buy a Jerry Orbach t-shirt to fight cancer.