World Relief Day

Captain Ed has named January 12, 2005 World Relief Day and is asking all bloggers and readers to participate by donating their earnings from one day to the relief effort for Southeast Asia. Donations may be made at any time, of course, but January 12 is the big day. Considering the size and scope of this tragedy (now over 121,000 dead and still rising) and the imminent danger that those who remain alive are in (starvation, dehydration, disease) it seems a small thing to donate one day's income to the relief effort.

All donations will go to World Vision, an organization renowned for its parsimonious use of donated funds for administration and its generosity to all the suffering of the world.

Won't you please join us?

UPDATE: Indonesian authorities expect the death toll to exceed 400,000. An entire city, consisting of 150,000 inhabitants, appears to have been wiped out and helicopter surveillance has revealed no signs of life at all. Several inhabited islands have disappeared. Authorities in India are being accused of underestimating the death toll.

This is by far the most devastating tragedy in recorded history.