Xerox helps you say Thanks

from Anhaga:

XEROX IS DOING SOMETHING COOL

If you go to www.LetsSayThanks.com, you can pick out a thank you card that Xerox will print and send to a soldier currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to a member of the armed services. It is FREE and it only takes a few minutes.

Whether you are for or against the war, our soldiers over there need to know we are behind them. This takes only minutes and it's a wonderful way to say thank you.

Please take the time and please pass it on for others to do. We can never say enough thank you's.

Card designs were drawn by children from all around the US.

Letterman's zipper

So wow, what a shock. Like all guys, David Letterman has a hard time keeping it in his zipper.

First of all, is anyone really surprised? Don't most people hook up at work these days? He's never had one complaint filed by any of the women he was involved with, not one. People have been fired or let go, but none of them has stepped up and said it was because they either were or weren't sleeping with the boss. And certainly for the last decade or more, when the uber-hypocritical conservatives were calling the shots, there is NO WAY anyone with anything even close to a legitimate gripe would not have filed suit. So the conservatives who are whining now should put a big ole stinky sock in their pieholes and shut up already.

The only people who might have a complaint would be those who were co-workers of the co-opted. This was pointed out by an attorney on the Today Show and maybe she has a point. Suppose you and a co-worker did the same job, side by side, except she was screwing the boss and you weren't. Come bonus time, did it cross your mind that she might get a little something extra in her envelope?

But that should be easy enough to prove or disprove. Check the tax records. If Dave wanted to give her a little something out of his own pocket, that's nobody else's business. And I'm hard pressed to see that as creating a hostile work environment, although I'm quite sure some drama queens will make it into a big brouhaha. And if your co-worker is prettier than you and gets more attention from the ignorant Y-chromosomes in the office, does that make it a hostile work environment for the less attractive worker, or the more attractive worker? You can see the wheels spinning on this already, right?

Imagine if Bill Clinton had had the balls to get ahead of the Lewinsky mess. He should have gone to Hillary in private and fessed up and taken his well-deserved lumps, then gone to the hearing and said, YES, I had sex with her...next question? Then he could have cut his lawyers loose on the conservatives who were pushing to impeach him for doing something they themselves were doing, screwing their mistresses or whomever, or playing footsy between the stalls in the mens' room at the park.

And no, this isn't the same thing. Letterman wasn't elected to office, nor does he claim to represent anyone but himself. While the standard for being an honest and trustworthy individual may be tarnished, he isn't in the same category as the Palin clan, who were trotted out as paragons of virtue by Sarah Palin, until she had to admit that they didn't practice what they preached while she was wanting to legislate everyone else's bedroom activities.

Of all the things about this that piss me off, I'm most angry at the patronizing attitude of conservatives, pretending to protect the wronged women. If a woman in this day and age won't stand up for herself, won't speak up if she feels she's being put in a hostile work environment, then she's got herself to blame. The last thing women in this country need is a group of self-interested men who talk out of both sides of their mouths, with a camera in all bedrooms and their hands in our pockets, claiming to speak for the best interests of the little, stupid women who voted for them. Ladies, collectively we have more balls than the guys do, and it's time we started standing up for ourselves. A little sisterhood will go a very long way.

Meanwhile, prosecute Robert Joel Halderman for extortion, name Stephanie Birkitt as an accomplice if appropriate, and get back to more important news, like healthcare.

GEICO Cuts Ads

A wake-up call for Glenn Beck and his ilk:

GEICO Cuts Ads from Glenn Beck's Show

Healthcare for Congress

"For the average worker, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan would probably look quite attractive," said Pete Sepp, a spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union, a pinch-penny advocacy group.

Indeed, a question often surfaces: Why can't everyone enjoy the same benefits as members of Congress? The answer: The country probably couldn't afford it -- not without reforms to bring costs way, way down.

Given their choices, lawmakers can tailor coverage in a way most Americans cannot. If a child has asthma, for instance, a federal employee might opt for coverage that costs a little more but has a bigger doctor network and lower office-visit fees.

The plan most favored by federal workers is Blue Cross Blue Shield, which covers a family for about $1,030 a month. Taxpayers kick in $700, and employees pay the rest. Seeing a doctor costs $20. Generic prescriptions cost $10. Immunizations are free. There is no coverage limit.

Federal employees also enjoy a significant benefit denied the average American: There is no such thing as a preexisting condition, which keeps many sick people from obtaining insurance. Once hired, federal workers are eligible for coverage no matter their health, with no waiting period.

Voters sense a disconnect...

I'll say we sense a disconnect. I've been saying it forever — term limits and no lifetime benefits for Congresscritters. Once you are out of office, you can sign up for COBRA (hahahaha) just like everyone else, then go get a job and see what kind of healthcare is available. Oh, btw, that job cannot be in any way a lobbying job. All elected officials should have to sign a lifetime binding contract to that effect.

Representative Steve Kagen, a Democrat from Wisconsin, is the only Congressperson who has refused to accept federal healthcare benefits. He is the lone member who actually understands what the issue is about, or at least what it should be about. From the same LA Times article:

Kagen recently had knee surgery, writing checks for more than $4,500 after bargaining for a reduced-rate MRI and a 50% discount on the operation. (He is still dickering over the hospital bill.)

"If every member of Congress put their heads on their pillow every night like I do ... knowing this could be the night I lose my house, we'd fix healthcare in a week," said Kagen, who spent decades as a doctor in the Green Bay area before winning office in 2006.

Kagen said his wife and three of his four children have health coverage. But not his oldest daughter, 28, who can't afford insurance.

She's a nurse in Miami.

The only people who should have lifetime taxpayer-financed healthcare are those armed forces personnel who have served 20 years or seen combat (including National Guard members). All others, welcome to my world.

Kiss My Big Blue Butt

I need heroes, and in addition to Helen, I have found another. Susan DuQuesnay Bankston of Kiss My Big Blue Butt is a woman of my stripe. Or perhaps I am one of hers. Whatever. I like her style.

Thanks to Mark H. for letting us know that the Texas Board of Ignorance, errr Education, has decided that history is what they say it is ---

United Farmworkers founder César Chávez is an unfitting role model for students, and former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is not an appropriate historical figure. So say “expert reviewers” in their report to the Texas State Board of Education, which recommends removing the two U.S. leaders from the social studies curriculum taught to its 4.7 million public school students.

I don't know what the big deal is here. I mean, if you let little minority kids know that they, too, can make a difference in the world, then the next thing you know, they'll start thinking they can be President or something.  This dangerous trend must be stopped.

Check her out.

Margaret and Helen

This is without a doubt my new favorite blog to read. Margaret and Helen are thoughtful, opinionated, brave, and old enough to not give a crap what anyone thinks of them. I hope Michelle Obama reads their blog. Helen does most of the posting and Margaret drops in her two cents, but what a pair they are! They are fabulous.

On Sarah Palin's resignation:

Margaret, I watched Sarah Palin’s resignation speech and all I have to say is, “What the hell was that?” My God that woman is an idiot. I have said this before, but I feel the need to say it again. Her problems did not come because the media was against her. Her problems come because every time you stick a microphone in front of her mouth a whole lot of stupid falls out.

Things are getting tough and once again she is trying to hide behind that dysfunctional family of hers. She actually stood there and talked about how the Palins had a family meeting and everyone agreed it was time for her to step down as Governor. Well, I call bullshit. The only family meetings the Palins have usually involve someone peeing on an early pregnancy test stick...

I read them and feel like I've found my political doppelgangers. I mean it. Really.

Limburger conservatives

Christine Todd Whitman
"...we need to provide a compelling counterpoint to the Obama administration’s tax-spend-and-borrow policies…"

Michael Steele
"Well, if spending the hard-earned dollars of the American people and redistributing their wealth and moving towards a collectivist socialist approach to government, if that helps you realize you're a Democrat, then, you know, good riddance."

Was the Kool-Aid that good for the last eight years? The *Democrats* are about big government? Have you not been paying attention, or is it only bad when it's not your guy? Do you have any idea what the deficit is now (vs. what it was when the Shrub took office)? Tax-spend-and-borrow?? Who mortgaged our great-grandchildren to China?? Increased taxes on the American people? Since when do you care about taxes unless they affect the top 1% of income earners? btw, have you figured out yet that Obama is talking about raising taxes letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, and increasing the capital gains tax for families making over $250K from 15% to 20%, which is less than the 28% tax on capital gains under your hero, Reagan? Activist judges? Can you say Patriot Act?

Financially, conservatism is a joke. It's all about the very few haves increasing their holdings at the expense of the have-not-so-much, while conning them into believing they have a shot at joining the uber-wealthy. It's about a two class system, the top 1% who have everything and control everything, and the rest of the schmucks who scrape and serve.

And now poor Rush is apoplectic over the carved-in-stone eventuality of having a disabled, black, gay, pregnant teenage girl appointed, all because Obama had the audacity to say (two years ago) that it would not be a terrible thing to have someone who had empathy for people other than their pals.

Sad effects of the sinking economy

These are the kinds of things assholes like Bernie Madoff and his wife never bother to consider:

Aokigahara Forest is known for two things in Japan: breathtaking views of Mount Fuji and suicides. Also called the Sea of Trees, this destination for the desperate is a place where the suicidal disappear, often never to be found in the dense forest.

Taro, a 46-year-old man fired from his job at an iron manufacturing company, hoped to fade into the blackness. "My will to live disappeared," said Taro. "I'd lost my identity, so I didn't want to live on this earth. That's why I went there."…

How sad is it that an average person just trying to live their life ends up feeling such despair. And how infuriating is it that Madoff is whining about wanting to be in his $6million apartment until his official sentencing — as if anyone is stupid enough to believe he wouldn't skip town in a heartbeat. Let him rot, I say.

A.I.G. can bite me

From the NY Times:

The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.

[ … ]

A.I.G., nearly 80 percent of which is now owned by the government, defended its bonuses, arguing that they were promised last year before the crisis and cannot be legally canceled. In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., said at least some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives.

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury,” he wrote Mr. Geithner on Saturday…

Are you people for real? Why were no strings attached to the bail-out money? For crying out loud, politicians live on pork, there is NO WAY they couldn't have tacked on some conditions for how this money was to be used. If these so-called managers and corporate "leaders" had an ounce of dignity or compassion, they would refuse the bonuses.

Anyone think they will? Me neither.

57 States

Not that the people who keep bringing this up will read, or accept, this, but here is a little remedial exposition, not courtesy of Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. Their candidate lost, largely due to the failing economy the Bushites handed all of us, but in no small part thanks to the dim bulb he was saddled with as a way of getting the religious right's support. I suppose it's understandable, if sad, that they need to keep hammering on any single point they can dredge up.

It shouldn't surprise me that Obama isn't allowed a simple and obvious mis-statement, saying 57 instead of 47, but the uber-conservative spunky Sarah Palin can make all kinds of mistakes, or just not answer questions at all because she doesn't know the answers, and still get votes. I guess she has an excuse - she's the victim of a piss-poor liberal educational system, right? Conservatives of all stripes and mouth sizes can say anything and get a retraction the next day. Bush can shred the Constitution, but he's a conservative so it's ok, we should just trust him and go along.

I wonder if the people who are making their ignorant digs now will be prepared to eat crow if the country doesn't become a black Muslim socialist state annexed to Syria and Saudi Arabia in the next four years. Mind you, I'm using the word “conservative” liberally, if you will excuse the expression. Hell, Rush Limbaugh couldn't define conservatism if you held a gun to his head - he can only parrot back what he was told by the very smart people who run things (like Karl Rove, who knows exactly what conservatism is). If the poor schmucks in the US ever figured out that conservatism is really about establishing and maintaining a small ruling class who control all and have most of the money, maybe they'd stop voting for the people to whom they have ceded their obligation to think. All anyone has to do is take a good look at who has the money and gets all the breaks in the US right now. Could it be any clearer? Wake up, Kansas, the neo-cons don't give a rat's ass about you, never did and never will, except during the next election. Then they'll be lookin' to buy y'all a can of Bud.

Carving the turkeys

The long knives are out. Hard to believe that Sarah Palin didn't understand that South Africa is a country on the continent of Africa, not a district in the country of Africa. She isn't so much younger than me that basic geography should have escaped her education. She couldn't name the countries in NAFTA, or those in North America?? WTF??



It's sad to see Bill O'Reilly almost tripping over himself to come to Palin's defense &mdash do you suppose he'd be as generous if a Democrat didn't know these things, would he say they could be “tutored” and brought up to speed on something they should have learned by the time they were in junior high? Reid Buckley has already paved that road.

Newsweek has been embedding reporters in campaigns for several election cycles now, with the promise that none of the revelations would be published until after the election. I'm thinking maybe that shouldn't happen when they have clear evidence that the person who will be second in charge of this country can't name the other two countries that share our continent. The GOP should be embarrassed and ashamed. They won't be; they'll blame the “liberal media” that has protected Shrub for eight years, or they'll somehow blame Clinton, but they won't accept responsibility for nominating a nincompoop to the second highest public office in the country.

Folks whose only news source is Fox will be stunned to see these reports, but they'll find a way to discount every one. Folks whose only news source is Rush Limbaugh won't have a thing to worry about, because they'll never hear about these reports, except in Limbaugh's twisted retelling. Too bad.

I have the audiobook of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder by Vincent Bugliosi (of Helter Skelter fame). He makes a convincing case. The citizens of this country were lied to after 9/11, and swallowed the lies whole, in no small part because the press failed to do its job. At the time, the news was filtered to such an extent that very few people really knew what was going on. He goes a long way in exposing the media coverup for what it was and still is, along with the major players.

Whether you like John Kerry or not, and I'm not a fan, you have to be a complete GOP stooge to claim he flip-flopped on his Iraq war vote. He, like most others in Congress, chose to trust what turned out to be an untrustworthy administration. When he found out he had been lied to, he said had he known the truth, his vote would have been different. How that is a flip-flop instead of an indictment of the administration is something I never understood. I'm sure a Limburger could explain it to me. Or maybe I'm just not smart enough to get it, maybe it takes a special kind of intelligence, like Palin's, to understand why conservatives are always right. Personally, I think they should pull their collective heads out of Karl Rove's ass — I wonder if Palin knows who that is.

Guess who's coming to the White House?

Barack Obama is the President-elect and on January 20, 2009, will become the US's 44th President.

OMG, run for your lives! The scary black people are taking over, white women will be rounded up and forced to have abortions, five-year-olds will be sold as sex slaves, we're going to be bombed back into the stone ages by terrorists, you will be forced to have socialized medicine and your taxes are going to wipe you out!!

Seriously, only the most brainwashed conservatives really believe this country is going to be destroyed. If Shrub couldn't do it, it cannot be done. Period.

Remember how the conservatives were screaming that they had a mandate four years ago? Think they'll recognize one when they see it? I don't.

Speaking of Shrub, let's not forget he's still got a couple months to screw us over. Remember the brouhaha over Bill Clinton's pardons? Let's see what GWB has up his sleeve. He still has time to take away even more of our Constitutional rights, decimate environmental policy and pass tax breaks for his already wealthy friends. I hope Obama has somebody keeping track of the details.

Election Day

It's going to be an historic election, regardless of who wins (and I'm really hoping that the McPalin ticket loses). I have the luxury of being able to continue voting third party, since I live in a foregone-conclusion state. If I were still in PA, or maybe in FL, I might have to vote in an effort to push the conservatives out. This group has overstayed their welcome.

Fox News is reporting about voter intimidation in Philadelphia. If true, it is inexcusable. Anyone intimidating voters should go directly to jail for the next four-eight years, depending, and forfeit their right to participate in this election and maybe the next. If the Black Panthers, or the Klan, or anyone else, are stupid enough to be there intimidating anyone, poll workers, voters, whoever, they need to be thrown in jail pronto, and anyone who was so intimidated that they left needs to file a complaint and be allowed to vote, tomorrow if necessary. Seriously, they are in Philadelphia — have these morons forgotten MOVE? And no bullshit about how a guy in a para-military outfit holding a billy club isn't meant to be intimidating — would the same be said if he was in a white sheet and hood holding that same billy club?

I just read the David Brooks Op-Ed in the NY Times. What a jackass. Maybe if a masochistic mood strikes, I'll elaborate more fully. Suffice to say he continues with the lame conservative diatribe of whining about how Obama is a child of privilege, one of the dreaded “upscale educated class” ill-suited to be President, while McCain is “an old warrior with a record of making hard decisions and absorbing the blows that ensue.” He leaves out the parts about philandering and gambling. McCain is to be revered, Obama is to be feared.

Brooks writes that this country is coming to the end of a “long boom” economically, which tells me he is one of the feared upper-class richie riches, completely clueless how the majority of people in this country have lived over the last thirty years.

Perhaps he has made an inadvertent point, however. Early in the article, when he is describing the perfect storm of ending eras in which we find ourselves, he writes, “Politically, it probably marks the end of conservative dominance, which began in 1980.” He concludes with

We’re probably entering a period, in other words, in which smart young liberals meet a stone-cold scarcity that they do not seem to recognize or have a plan for.

In an age of transition, the children are left to grapple with the burdens of their elders.

And who's fault is that?

Yes We Can

The Tano Sokolow remix of Lee Dorsey's version of Alain Toussaint's Yes We Can is making the rounds as Obama's unofficial campaign song, but the version I remember is the Pointer Sisters cover, their first big hit:


Pointer Sisters With Gaylord Birch

Like, Socialism

From The New Yorker:

…The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist.

Umm, what is the definition of Socialism again?

Palin's "Straight Talk"

Blogger Anil Dash has an interesting post about Sarah Palin and the linguistic choices she makes. I think it is fair to say the choices are hers, because her run-on sentences and semi-coherent ramblings can't possibly be the work of any speechwriter who is on the Republican payroll.

…I don't usually write about politics here; I leave the ugliness to those who seem to revel in it. But I think a lot about language, usually in a more lighthearted context like talking about yo mama jokes or lolcats. What's striking to me this election season, though, is that Sarah Palin has chosen to abuse her command of language so obviously without suffering any serious criticism for it thus far.

The crux of the issue is simple:

1. Sarah Palin has unequivocally associated Barack Obama with the idea of terrorism and specifically with "terrorists".
2. Republican President George Bush has defined in our National Security Strategy, and the Republican Party's platform affirms, that we may identify and strike at terrorists before they have committed any defined acts of aggression against American citizens.
3. George Bush has made clear, by stating before a joint session of Congress that "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
4. Palin has used deliberate choice of language to avoid these connections being highlighted by the media, while increasing the likelihood that the target audience for her message will be incited by her statements.

Through these arguments, it becomes clear that Sarah Palin's assertions are designed not to prove that Obama is unqualified for the office of the Presidency of the United States. Rather, she appears to be attempting to convince a substantial portion of her supporters that Obama supports terrorism against the United States and thus should be, at the very least, incarcerated as an enemy combatant (which we are doing to American citizens already) or at worst, assassinated for supporting terror…

Dash makes some interesting points and he gives Palin credit for being intelligent enough to know exactly what she is doing, which is something too many Democrats have failed to do.

What I find fascinating about this election cycle is this: take anything Sarah Palin has said about Obama, and change her name to Joe Biden and Obama's to McCain, then try to imagine that the so-called liberal press wouldn't be taken to task by the biggest fascist mouths around. You'll spot them easily — they are the ones who call themselves conservatives, aka real Americans. You know, the multi-millionaire elitists who claim they are not elitists.

Palin's wardrobe malfunction

With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."

A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign…

Hey Republican Party, welcome to your karma.

Some aides to Sen. John McCain say they weren't happy that running mate Sarah Palin went off script Sunday and turned attention back to the controversy over her wardrobe.

The Alaska governor on Sunday brought up the recent reports regarding the Republican National Committee's $150,000 spending spree on clothing and accessories for the Palin family.

Palin denounced talks of her wardrobe as "ridiculous" and declared emphatically: "Those clothes, they are not my property."

"Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the RNC purchased, I'm not taking them with me," she said at a rally in Tampa, Florida.

A senior McCain adviser told CNN that those comments "were not the remarks we sent to her plane." Palin did not discuss the wardrobe story at her rally in Kissimmee, Florida, later in the day…

And I'll just bet she returns all the clothes. Sure she will. Just like she returned the money for that bridge to nowhere.

As the conservative turns

Colin Powell's endorsement is one thing, but when Ken Adelman says he's voting for Obama, you have to think McCain has screwed the pooch.

Why so, since my views align a lot more with McCain’s than with Obama’s? And since I truly dread the notion of a Democratic president, Democratic House, and hugely Democratic Senate?

Primarily for two reasons, those of temperament and of judgment…

Even James Joyner, a conservative blogger, thinks Adelman's endorsement matters:

While Colin Powell, Lincoln Chaffee, Susan Eisenhower, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Jim Leach, Richard Riordan, Bill Ruckelshaus, and others can be dismissed as outside the conservative movement, Adelman can not…

At least McCain has the uber-conservative Christians in lockstep.

So sad

It really is sad that I can find a new video like this one pretty much every day.

Blog Action Day 08 - Poverty

Today is Blog Action Day '08 and the topic is Poverty. The idea is for everyone who blogs to write something about poverty to raise awareness of the many forms that poverty takes.

I've been very lucky. While I am now as poor as I've ever been, I've never been what could be called poor. Our family wasn't well off, but as kids we had everything we needed and a bit more. Our clothes were clean, we had a place to live and we never went to bed hungry. We were at best middle-class, if only the lower end of middle-class, and the credit for our lifestyle was due solely to my mother's ability to manage the family finances. She gave up a lot for our family. She still does.

When she sold Avon years ago, she would stock up on free samples. I don't think they were free for her, but she stocked up anyway, and at Christmas we'd go to the local nursing home and pass them out. You can't imagine how grateful people were.

There are lots of ways to help other folks without much, if any, expense on your part. One of the sidebar links goes to The Animal Rescue site. They have a sister site called The Hunger Site. All you need to do is click on the large button and you will help sponsor food for someone. I've made the Animal Rescue site one of my homepages, so when I open a browser window, that's the page that comes up. I click and carry on. Couldn't be easier.

One of the more creative and successful groups is Heifer.org, who subscribe to the principle that it is better to teach someone to fish than to give them a fish. Their success stories are inspiring.

Don't just throw out your old clothes, take them to a local Salvation Army or Goodwill store. All you need do is drop off a bag or box, just like you would if you were going to the dump. We've all got closets full of things we never wear for one reason or another. Give it to someone who will. And for crying out loud, make sure the clothes are clean — giving away your dirty laundry is just lazy and ignorant.

You can go to many malls at Christmas and find a tree full of names of children or the elderly for whom Christmas is just another day. Many businesses have these trees also. Pick a name, or a family, and buy something for them. Get your friends or children to sponsor someone.

Results.org has loads of resource information available, for anyone willing to put in a bit of effort.

So there are plenty of ways to help. A little can go a long way.