Your philanthropic choices (or lack thereof) are your business, however, if you're like me, you've got some really mixed feelings about the Red Cross. Something you might consider for hurricane relief donations is Modest Needs, which focuses on keeping people out of the poverty/public assistance cycle. They have very low administrative costs and always do full disclosure on their financials, so you know exactly where your money is going. Also worth your consideration: Mercy Corps. Like Modest Needs, they have administrative costs of less than 10% of the money they collect. So your dollars do more heavy lifting. ...

You know, we gay men are always being accused of being nothing but walking hard-ons, just promiscuous slutty wankers sleeping around all the time and up to know good. And a new study out of Liverpool suggests that we're not the only whores on the block. A team from Liverpool John Moores University claims that their review of paternal discrepencies over more than 50 years of data shows that one in 25 fathers is not the biological parent of their child. The study takes into account lots of crap about paternity tests and DNA and the like, and it all suggests a...

Since 2000, almost 100,000 claims have been filed nationwide by employees of nuclear weapon research sites detailing the health hazards associated with creating better bombs. There are 35 sites in California alone, and among these one site -- The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory -- accounts for half of the 3,500 California-based claims. Some of those are due to just plain ignorance. Workers would wander into radiation-contaminated areas without protective gear. They were assigned to film open-air nuclear blasts from 15 miles away. And the extent of some safety instructions from technicians was as helpful as "don't pick up any of that green...

Bombay, India received over 37 inches of rain in 24 hours -- the heaviest rainfall ever recorded, bringing life there to a virtual halt. 25 people in Bombay died from being trapped in cars or having their houses collapse on them. Another 53 people in the state are also dead, and 130 people are missing. Since the monsoon season began June 1st, 633 people are dead and 5.6 million are homeless as a result of this season's incredibly heavy downpours according to the Home Minister, Shivra Patil. ...

You hear about how many people were killed on a daily basis in Iraq by the insurgency, but have you ever actually added them all up? Luckily for you, the New York Times has people who'll do that for you, and the total they've come up with is 800 civilians per month have been killed between August, 2004 and May, 2005. According to the Iraqi Interior Minister, approximately 12,000 Iraqis are not leading better lives since the American occupation -- because they're dead. That's an approximation. A study last year upped the number of civilian dead to as many as 100,000. This...

For those of you biting your nails out there over the pending global disaster known as Avian Flu, good news! It appears that the deadly strain just waiting to be unleashed will have a much easier time getting from Asia to the rest of the world! Yay! The flu has spread to migratory flocks of birds rather than captive chickens and other fowl, and 5,000 dead ducks (and geese) have been found at Lake Qinghaihu in western China -- and being that this is western China, that means they're closer to Europe, and you, and me! So far, avian flu hasn't made...

One you probably won't see at Smoking Gun: Jeffrey Vernon Merkey lives in Utah. Mr. Merkey says that he's been involved in Open Source development for 10 years, specifically relating to Linux. Mr. Merkey just filed suit against SlashDot, Groklaw and 230 other online sites and even some real people because, according to Mr. Merkey, they're all violating his constitutional and statutory rights to free speech and religion. And what's more, Slashdot is "a far right wing Internet news website that posts libelous (sic) and defamatory content and is used by Open Source Community members to anonymously post hate speech, death...

Acrylamide is formed when starchy foods are baked or fried at high temperatures. Acrylamide is on a list of chemicals known to cause cancer by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. So, the Environmental Law Foundation wants to put warning labels on potato chips that eating them might, you know, kill you. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that eating too much of anything deep-fried is an invitation to a heart attack, and that FDA has concluded that acrylamide does kill lab rats if they eat acrylamide in high doses, do we really need warning labels on potato...

Every single one of Canada's existing heterosexual marriages came one step closer to being rendered meaningless as the nation's ruling government approved four confidence votes in favor of the legalization of same-sex marriage throughout Canada. God did not appear in a puff of smoke and rain fire and brimstone down on the provinces, nor did Jesus and/or The Holy Ghost come riding in on chariots, and not even Satan made an appearence laughing and passing out cigars as Canada comes within one final step of joining the Netherlands and Belgium as havens of heathen sex rituals. When asked why no natural disasters...