Now is the time to act

So get off your ass and act if you want the deduction.

Feb. 28 is the deadline for individuals and corporations to donate to charities providing earthquake relief in Haiti and claim those contributions on 2009 tax returns.

Source: IRS.gov

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CHILE EARTHQUAKE: 8.8 Magnitude Quake Hits Chile

This earthquake is the largest I've ever heard of. The TV news is saying it is one of the 10 largest. If Haiti's had been this large the deaths would have been in the millions. Chile gets many earthquakes and has better construction standards, but even those didn't prevent massive damage.

An 8.8-magnitude earthquake, one of the largest ever recorded, tore apart houses, bridges and highways in central Chile on Saturday and sent a tsunami racing halfway around the world.

Chileans near the epicentre were tossed about as if shaken by a giant, and authorities said at least 214 people were dead.

The quake was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 900 kilometres to the east. The full extent of damage remained unclear as scores of aftershocks — one nearly as powerful as Haiti's devastating Jan. 12 earthquake — shuddered across the disaster-prone Andean nation.

President Michele Bachelet declared a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile and said the death toll was rising.

"We've learned that it was a shallow thrust earthquake, which means it had the potential to cause a tsunami, which it did in this case," said Jessica Sigala of the U.S. Geological Survey.

"The earthquake in Chile released about 500 times the amount of energy that the earthquake in Haiti did," she told CBC News.

[snip]

Did you catch that? Five hundred fucking times the magnitude of the Haitian quake. Now this teacher puts the magnitude at 35 times that of the Haiti quake. No link, but I've seen some stories that rate it at 1,000 times. You can decide which number is correct, but they're all pretty damn bad.

The quake struck at 3:34 a.m. local time (1:34 a.m. ET) and was centred 325 kilometres southwest of the capital, Santiago, at a depth of 35 kilometres, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

In the hours after the 90-second tremor, the U.S. Geological Survey reported 11 aftershocks. The strongest was a magnitude 6.9.

The President of Chile by some accounts had declared a state of catastrophe within 3 hours. Three God damn hours!!1!!! Can we elect her here and set her loose in NOLO?

It appears the earthquake has trumped the killer whale story on CNN.

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Haiti holds Americans accused of smuggling children

I won't go too deeply on this story except to comment on the stupidity of the "smugglers". You'll note in the story they arrived on US passports. When interviewed on CNN, Laura Silsby (the leader), said, "We didn't realize we needed any papers for the children." (ed- paraphrased)

What the fuck is that? She got into Haiti with a US passport and needed none for the children or any other paperwork? Hell, you can't walk out of a store with a toaster without a receipt. Why did she think she could walk out of a country with children with no paperwork?

Police seized five men and five women with US passports, as well as two Haitians, as they tried to cross into the neighboring Dominican Republic with 33 children two months to 14 years late Friday, Haitian authorities said.

Border police "saw a bus with a lot of children. Thirty-three children. When asked about the children's documents, they had no documents," Haitian Culture and Communications Minister Marie Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said.

Speaking in her detention cell near Port-au-Prince airport, Laura Silsby, head of the Idaho-based New Life Children's Refuge charity, said the group's aims were entirely altruistic.

“We came here literally to just help the children. Our intentions were good," Silsby told AFP. "We wanted to help those who lost parents in the quake or were abandoned."

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