Help the victims

I only made my first contribution right now, using the "American Red Cross" interface at

• http://amazon.com/

If you don't have an account at amazon.com yet, you should definitely create one. The payment is very easy and convenient.



This short posting is addressed to you - I really mean you who is just reading this sentence, not anyone else! You may be surprised how could I know in advance that exactly you would be reading this sentence exactly at this moment - but you know, string theory is a very predictive theory. ;-) The people in Asia suffered a lot, and many of them believe that God was punishing them. You know that it's not true, don't you?



The people in the affected areas will be happy (and grateful) for every package of rice they get. This is a definitely good investment for you if you want to do something good that does not cost too much.



So far, the world has collected roughly 3 billion dollars (at least 630 million comes from America, which includes the government, corporations, as well as individuals, and which is a higher fraction than America has on the world's GDP - the latter is one fifth), and the modest estimates say that at least 2 billion more will be needed for some kind of basic reconstruction - and I hope that you share my belief that the survivors deserve more than that. The Japanese government became the largest donor among the governments (500 million).



I would specifically like to encourage the left-wing readers to donate something because so far it does not seem too obvious that the Left - which normally cares about the poor and unlucky people so much, at least verbally - has contributed a significant amount of money. What are the George Soroses and Michael Moores doing right now when their money is needed? The donations and aid is, so far, dominated by the right-wing US government and the "greedy" corporations.



I guess that the really left-wing people and governments won't donate much. But I urge others, moderate left-wing people and governments. Gerhard Schröder: I know that you're reading my blog. 20 million is pathetic. What about raising it to 500 million Euro, for example? I will appreciate it. Thank you.