You could be donating to Haiti right now instead of reading this blog post

You could be donating to Haiti right now instead of reading this blog post.

Hope For Haiti Now

http://www.redcross.org

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Originally uploaded by Laughing Squid.

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Blog Action Day: Poverty is not evenly distributed

To eradicate poverty I believe we need two courses of action. One is meeting immediate needs of shelter, food, medicine and water to allow the impoverished the chance to live to see the end of poverty. The second is far more difficult, identifying and counteracting the root causes of poverty.

Projects which help break the cycle of poverty:
Hygiene programs such as Global Handwashing Day
Citizen media at Rising Voices
Kiva empowering individuals and connecting people
William Kamkwamba’s homemade windmill in Malawi

There are a lot of individual plans to reduce pockets of poverty, but I am unaware of any over-arching strategy for the end of poverty across the globe and the progress we are making against it, we need this.

Part of Blog Action Day 2008 – Poverty

Penalty for selling confidential celebrity medical files? $300

Penalty for selling confidential celebrity medical files? $300. That’s the ruling from The Heidelberg Magistrates Court. The pair sold the records for personal financial gain and did not obtain the records legally. I’m honestly quite shocked at this ruling as Australia has the Privacy Act, which I thought covered medical records, but it doesn’t.

I find it astonishing that when people find private medical records in the street and seek a sale for profit with a journalist, knowing the victim is a celebrity, the penalty is a paltry AU$300.

Does violating someone’s privacy really only deserve a slap on the wrist?

When celebrity news is a billion dollar business, is a $300 fine really appropriate as a deterrent?

Updates and something for your calendar

First, some updates. I should probably mention that sometime recently this blogged passed the 20,000 hit mark, currently sitting at 20,602. The busiest day on this blog was the 29th of January 2008, which was probably due to 78 Women more important than Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan (1410 hits so far). Akismet has caught 50,708 spam for me during this time! (Thanks Akismet) People have made 135 comments, the top three posts are 78 Women, WordPress.com review – after 30 days (WordPress.com vs Typepad) and 4000 hits – WordPress vs Typepad – Ratio of 5:1. The top click is the mp3 file for that podcast song. Thanks WordPress, I love this blog even though I don’t use it that much.

Second, put this in your calendar, Blog Action Day 2008. Follow them on Twitter. Blog Action Day is a nonprofit, grassroots movement of thousands of individual bloggers coming together for one cause.

For 2008, this cause is Poverty and if you make money from your website, you can donate the day’s earnings. So what actions can you do? You can promote it, donate and publish on your blog, podcast or video. It’s on Wednesday the 15th of October 2008, put it in your calendar, along with your next actions.