IMPORTANT NOTICE - Credit card fraud

We have received the following e-mail from Bandit Basheert:

My husband's credit card was used 3 times fraudulently yesterday (fortunately our card company smacked it closed and notified us) - anyway he just got a note from Small Dog Electronics that said they were hacked and someone obtained credit card info. They were the company that matched the Haiti Donations and that we put onto the blog.

I'll send you more info as I get it...

If you have donated to the Haiti Appeal through Small Dog Electronics please check with your credit card company and take the necessary steps to prevent fraudulent use of your card.

E-mail from Small Dog:

NOTICE OF POTENTIAL CREDIT CARD INFORMATION BREACH

Thank you for your recent order to Small Dog Electronics. We greatly appreciate your business and hope that you will come back again. Small Dog Electronics strives to protect your privacy in placing orders at our web site.

I am very sorry to report that we have had a security breach in our database during the period of time that your order was placed. As a result, it is possible that your credit card information has fallen into the hands of those making this unauthorized intrusion into our order system.

The security breach has been corrected and our database is now fully secure.

Please examine your credit card statement as soon as posible and contact your credit card's
issuing bank to dispute any unauthorized charges and have your credit card replaced.

Monitoring of your credit report can be obtained at http://www.privacyguard.com
Note, you can also check your credit report at the offical site required by The Fair Credit Reporting Act: https://www.annualcreditreport.com

Please accept our most sincere apologies. We take your privacy and your trust very seriously.
We are committed to making customers for life and while I do not like to have to inform you of
this temporary security breach, we know that it is the right thing to do.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need further information. You may also contact Cindy Fuller, assistant controller at cindy@smalldog.com or call 800-511-6227 ext 618

Sincerely,

Don Mayer
CEO
.

Helping Haiti - UPDATE 2

This is part of the latest report from the BBC:

Up to 10,000 US troops will be on the ground or off the coast of Haiti by Monday to help deal with the earthquake aid effort, US defence officials say.

Tuesday's earthquake has left as many as 50,000-100,000 people dead.

The UN has launched a flash appeal for $562m (£346m), saying three million people would need help for six months.

The UN said a total of about $310m (£190m) in international aid had been pledged so far for the relief effort.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that distribution of food and medicine was under way, but correspondents say there is little immediate sign of a co-ordinated relief effort on the ground.

The UN's World Food Programme says two million people will need food aid, but it has so far managed to feed just a few thousand.

Meanwhile, the head of the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said thousands of people were waiting for surgery in Haiti's hospitals, AFP news agency reported.

Correspondents say survivors seem increasingly desperate and angry as bottlenecks and infrastructure damage delay relief efforts.

Port-au-Prince's small airport is filled to capacity and US air traffic controllers have taken charge to help manage the influx of planes.

The port is too damaged to use and roads are blocked by debris, although the main route from the Dominican Republic is now clear.

Our readers have responded to this humanitarian crisis in a very generous and compassionate way. We thank you all.

Unfortunately, there are further victims in this catastrophic event:

IFAW is mounting an emergency animal relief mission in response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Many people have perished and been seriously injured, and homes and buildings around the capital have been decimated.

Many animals are also suffering, so IFAW is partnering with WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals) to mount a coordinated animal relief response.

Once the human relief efforts have taken hold and security is in place - and depending on the needs we find on the ground - our team will deploy to begin treating critically injured animals...vaccinating them against deadly diseases like rabies and leptospirosis...and distributing food, water, and basic medical care.

To donate, please visit IFAW.

Thank you SoCalWolfGal, for sending us this information.

+++

To continue to donate to other relief organizations:

Red Cross

Twitter donation ($10 to American Red Cross)

International Medical Corps

International Red Cross

Small dog

Doctors Without Borders

Partners In Health

Oxfam

Direct Relief International

UNICEF

MADRE

World Food Programs (United Nations)

HuffPo article about donations made by credit card.

UPDATE 2

Our friend CR46 had fresh news from Haiti, which she received via ham radio directly from friends who are helping with the rescue of the victims.

Unfortunately many relief people (workers) have not been able to been venture out on their own. The one second hand "ham radio" info I got said it is horrible , unfortunately a large percentage of the population is dead or wounded. (this is from my Search and Rescue friends on the ground in Haiti) They went out without "support" and are digging people out--they said it is scary but when people realized that they had the tools (S&R dogs) to find injured and dead that they found a "group" that is escorting them (basically a gang). It is worse than they have ever seen ( even compared to the big Mexico City earthquake that I was with them on). Looting is rampant -- not for profiteering , but for survival. They are only miles from the Port-o-Prince airport--but it seems to be a surreal type of world.

Tomorrow if a "ham radio" message comes through I will post an update. Please do not let any "slow" responses stop you from contributing--it speaks to the large scale of the damage that the organized systems are broken down! That means even more help is needed. Please keeep these people in your thoughts and actions!
.

A big thank you and best wishes - Open thread

To all our readers and fellow bloggers, have a fantastic holiday season, wherever you are and whatever festivals you celebrate. May all your wishes come true in 2010 and may it be filled with health, peace, love, happiness and harmony. Thank you for your contributions to this blog and for the good vibes you have sent us over the past few months.

Enjoy this collage from around the world.







(Click on pictures to enlarge)
.

I'm back!

I couldn't get used to Wordpress, sorry...

I've wasted a whole day faffing about over there and didn't manage a single decent post. I'm researching a lot of stuff, so you can imagine my frustration.

Some of the features were cool, but Blogger is a LOT easier for an old gal like me. I was very excited at first, but it's better to admit that I made a mistake sooner rather than later.

As you can see, I've tweaked a few bits and pieces, changed some of the graphics, etc. You can make suggestions, OK? Whatever makes life easier.

I have to go and cook dinner. It's getting really late and my husband will pass out any minute now.

You can use this thread to continue the discussion about the financial disclosure, misplaced decimal points and all that.
.

Children...

Our sons posing for a catalogue. Paul is on the right

The previous post about education brought back memories...

My husband and I started remembering our boys schooldays and a lovely story took centre stage. It's a little classic.

Our youngest son was seven years old and the homework was to write sentences using words finishing in -ight.

His teacher, good old Mrs Allen, wrote: "Paul, you make me smile." We think she was rolling on the floor laughing. This is what Paul wrote:

"My mum and dad never fight."

"My mum is always right."

From the mouths of babes...

( My husband CAN see the funny side.)
.

Back to normal

Thanks everybody for the kind words regarding the technical hiccup a couple of days ago. Our computer guy turned up first thing this morning as promised, which was totally out of character, so we were still drinking tea and coffee in bed!

It took him 10 minutes to replace the network card and 40 minutes of animated conversation in "Franglais" and voilà, I'm back in business! I gave him a cheque, au revoir and all that, but I forgot to sign it... he'll be back sometime this afternoon.

It's great to be able to access all my files and blog to my heart's content once more. My husband is a happy bunny, with the laptop all to himself again.

As we're already off-topic, I'll use this post to answer a few questions.

I'm not American and I'm not French. We're British ex-pats living in France.

We caught the election bug last year and followed the campaigns the best we could, on TV, youtube and on the blogosphere.

My husband became a youtube addict, watching all Obama's speeches. I became very interested in the desperate housewife from Wasilla and didn't buy the story about Bristol's pregnancy. I lost a bit of interest after the election, but by December my curiosity got the better of me and I started following Palin Deceptions.

Other Trig truth blogs appeared and I followed them as well. In February, one of these blogs was intimidated into shutting down. I was furious and decided to start my own blog. As Babygate is not the only "gate" in Sarah Palin's repertoire, I called it palingates and proceeded to learn about the governor's shenanigans in more detail.

I'm not fussy and try to keep all the gates fresh in people's memories. Occasionally Sarah Palin provides us with a shiny new one, so there's no shortage of material!

In the past four months I've learned a lot about Alaska and American politics, made several wonderful friends and became part of a privileged community of intelligent, thinking people.

The comments went from zero to quite respectable. The discussions are animated, humorous and there are the occasional fisticuffs, which I think is normal. We're not sheep and don't follow one single line of thought in the same blind fashion as on some other blogs and sites. Hopefully the people who fell out with each other in one thread will kiss and make up at some point, in future threads...

As you've probably noticed, I'm dead against censorship and REALLY believe in free speech. Things may get a bit heated sometimes, but I trust my readers to be able to work things out without my interference.

We have sporadic trolls, but they don't last very long. I don't think they can follow the conversations very well.

So there you have it, a potted history of palingates.

Your warmth, respect and support is invaluable and I'm very lucky to be in this virtual room with caring, passionate and consciencious people, bound together in the effort to prevent a certain person from "progressing" in the political scene.

What galls me is that I owe HER a debt of gratitude for bringing you here!

Ah, c'est la vie...
.

Technical hiccup

Hi! I wasn't able to post anything because my modem blew-up during a thunderstorm last night. My husband said he saw a flash right next to me... I saw nothing! But the crack of thunder above my head made me jump and pull all leads from the power sockets very quickly!

We bought a new modem today but it wouldn't work. After a lot of faffing about, I decided the network card on the PC is toast... I connected the modem to the laptop and it works. The only snag is that the laptop is slooooow, so I won't be able to follow up on some suggestions made in the comments on my last post just yet. All my files are on the PC, to complicate things further.

Until my computer man comes over to fix the PC, I'll have to slow down a bit. He promised to come the day after tomorrow, but he's unreliable, etc etc...

I hope to be back to normal very soon. Blogging is highly addictive!
.

Intermission

I'm fed up with Sarah Palin! So I'm going to share some of the music I enjoy with you.

Starting with a classic: "My Back Pages", by The Byrds, waaaay back.



Moving on to one of my favourite TV themes. Let it run on pause for a bit, the buffering is iffy:



This one is an acquired taste. It's in Arabic and can be enjoyed best if you close your eyes when you listen to it the first few times. It must be my Spanish/Moorish blood, but it stirs me.



The next four became personal anthems since moving to France. "Pull up Pull up!" is French rap. Hey, I'm over fifty, but I love to dance! "Boum" is very old, sung by a controversial gay man, Charles Trenet. "La Ceinture" was a major hit in France a couple of years ago, it's full of double entendres. "Je ne regrette rien" goes without saying, it's classic Edith Piaf.









The next one is part of the soundtrack of my favourite film ever. Cinema Paradiso is a moving, beautiful, perfect film. If you have the chance, watch the ORIGINAL version, NOT the director's cut. The latter is over explained and spoils the whole feel of this great film. (Buffering doggy on this one)



I hope you have enjoyed this musical intermission. I have!
.

On being a welcome guest...

I wrote a guest post for I Heart The Mudflats and it has been published! It's really wonderful to take a break from Sarah Palin and write about something that gives me pleasure. Do have a look and let me know what you think, either here or over there. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It's called A Different Kind Of Community.
.

Flying shoes

The Iraqi journalist who threw a pair of shoes at George W Bush was today jailed for three years.

The judges passed a custodial sentence despite both hurled shoes missing the former president, who was filmed twice ducking at a Baghdad press conference in December.

"I wanted to restore the pride of the Iraqis in any way possible, apart from using weapons," said Muntadhar al-Zeidi. "What made me do it was the humiliation Iraq has been subjected to due to the U.S. occupation and the murder of innocent people."

How many years is GWB going to serve in jail for invading Iraq illegally?
.

About time!

The chairman of the New York Post, Rupert Murdoch, personally apologized today for an editorial cartoon published by the newspaper that drew charges of racism.

Considering that Murdoch is the owner of Fox News, that's really big of him!

Report from CNN
.

OT, but this is too horrific to ignore

These terrible bushfires have been blazing since last Saturday and the death toll so far is 170 but may rise to 230.

Most of the fires are just north of Melbourne, state of Victoria, in Australia. There are some starting in New South Wales.

Firefighters say some of the blazes may have been deliberately lit – or relit after being extinguished, a possibility addressed by Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister.

"What do you say about anyone like that? There are no words to describe it other than mass murder,” Mr Rudd said, fighting back tears in a television interview. “This is of a level of horror that few of us anticipated.”

Ordinary people and big corporations from all over Australia are digging deep into their pockets to send relief to the people who lost their homes.

The authorities believe the severity and the speed at which the fires spread is very likely related to climate change.

Extreme weather seems to be affecting communities all over the globe, with devastating results. It's time for all nations to review their approach to this problem.

It's not going to solve itself and if not addressed very soon, it will reach catastrophic proportions for all of us and other creatures that share the planet with us.