September 2006 Archives

A Western diplomat called it "deja vu of the pre-Iraq war period".

Oh, oh. Not this again. The US administration puts out a document that wildly inflates the WMD capabilities of a Middle Eastern state. Simultaneously, that administration unleashes a PR machine designed to build fear and paranoia towards said Middle Eastern state. Equal parts sympathy and fear on the part of the US's allies leads to global acceptance for the claims made in the report.

No, wait! Someone of authority actually called those f*ckers on it this time.

Everyone paying attention? This is your brain on truth.

Been feeling materially fortunate lately, and have been working harder at on passing it on to groups that need support. The mountain of "we need" mail has to get parsed a little, at least into "oh, no f*cking way," "geez, not them again," and "maybe" piles.

I try to at least read the info in the "maybe" envelopes. Searching on a eco-focused one I hadn't heard of, I ran across Charity Navigator, a charity evaluating site. It's a great place to look at how groups spend contributions (scores are higher for those with the best program to administrative cost ratios) and find out lots of other key info. You can also see comparisons between peers (or similar size and cause).