Ann Coulter in her January 6th column makes a good suggestion:

And has some enterprising reporter asked Sen. Patty Murray what she thinks about the U.S.'s efforts on the tsunami? How about compared to famed philanthropist Osama bin Laden?

In December 2002, Murray was extolling Osama bin Laden's good works in the Middle East, informing a classroom of students: "He's been out in these countries for decades building roads, building schools, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health-care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. It made their lives better." What does Murray say about bin Laden's charity toward the (mostly Muslim) tsunami victims?

Please make a note to ask Patty when she's back in town. I'm sure you will. We'd like to know what she thinks.

Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao and Dr. Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory report on their findings:

NASA scientists studying the Indonesian earthquake of Dec. 26, 2004, have calculated that it slightly changed our planet's shape, shaved almost 3 microseconds from the length of the day, and shifted the North Pole by centimeters.

There is an interesting map at the above link that shows the epicenter and surrounding aftershocks along with the plates that caused the main earthquake.

Most references to early reports on this story opined that the earth wobbles more than this during a given year - but I think the key issue that hasn't really been explored is that this event didn't happen over a year - the earth began to spin faster and changed its shape and axis in a veritable instant on December 26th.

I don't know about you, but that is more than just a little scary to me.

There are so many stories of peril, of horror, of escape, of loss, of reunion - it is overwhelming.

This past weekend, whatever Anderson Cooper was expecting when he interviewed Dayalan Sanders about how he and all of the children living at the Samaritan Chidren's Home in Sri Lanka managed to escape the tsunami - it wasn't this (or click the picture to the left - requires MS media player). Sanders is the founder and Director of the orphanage.

It does demonstrate that fervent, faithful Christians can be found everywhere in service to humankind. Who but a Christian or a descendant of Moses would stand before the terrible seas and command them to be still? A Detroit News story on Dayalan's and his charges' experience is here. The orphanage has been completely destroyed. I have been able to locate Dayalan's US address at which to send donations. This is one place where a few gifts would create a huge impact.:

Samaritan Home Relief
P.O Box 83608
Gaithersburg, MD 20883

UPDATE: You can now donate via PayPal at this site.

UPDATE: If you haven't heard yet, Jordan Golson's site - Cheese and Crackers has vaulted to the top of the blog ecosystem with incredible tsunami video coverage. While there are many voices on the many videos that he's serving up from various mirrors - none of them can be heard commanding the seas to be still. Michelle Malkin discussed 'Video Blogging' as the emerging 'TV Show' of the internet but somehow doesn't use my work as an example of "adding content and commentary to news footage". In at least a couple of cases, I have made considerable use of video editing software.

The above heading is the title of a CNN news article today.

Contained in that article is this text:

Scientists believe that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.

Now that's an earthquake. The scientists are quick to say that the earth's wobble over a year exceeds what happened with this event. To me, it is concerning that this happened in but an instant. It will only be a day or so now before the death toll hits 100,000.

They are currently estimating as many as 59,000 dead from the earthquake caused Tsunamis in South East Asia. There is incredible potential for disease and wide ranging problems with water and food.

I have personally had a relationship with World Vision for more than a decade and believe that they have the most efficient operation in the relief business. Their site is slow because of the disaster but will eventually come up.

I was in the 1989 San Francisco earthquake which was in the 7 range on the Richter scale. The earthquake in SE Asia was somewhere around a 9. That's an almost unimaginalbe release of energy - some 200 times more powerful than the San Francisco earthquake. This energy was primarily translated into wave action which produced the death and devastation that we are seeing.

The death toll from the tsunamis is unimaginable - but this has the potential to have a far larger impact from starvation and disease.

Fox News also has this report with other relief agency references on how to help.