I’ve got a couple of deadlines staring me in the face and my brain is full of post-holiday cobwebs, so this site will probably remain on semi-hiatus for a few days. But please be sure not to miss this post about Hearts & Homes. I’m quite serious about this: thismodernworld.com receives somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 visitors a day — and that’s visitors, mind you, not hits, or page views, or any of the other obfuscational statistic-benders — and if every single one of you donated a buck, we could pull these people out of the hole.

We’re powerless spectators, so much of the time these days, watching events over which we have no influence or control. Here’s a situation in which the readers of this site alone could make a concrete difference. And that seems like a pretty decent way to head into an uncertain new year.

So go give ‘em a buck or two, okay? As a favor to me, if nothing else. Let’s make a small, but very real, difference.

Update: the response so far has apparently been huge. I’ll post specific numbers when I have them, but it looks like we’ve raised well over a thousand dollars in a single day, and I don’t think we’re anywhere near through yet. I am extraordinarily touched, and my thanks go out to everyone who responded (with special thanks to Wil Wheaton for helping to get the word out on his site as well).

I’m sure the dogs would thank you too, if they knew how to use computers.

…but it looks like Unocal got their pipeline.

The Bitter Shack of Resentment has some thoughts on the matter.

Update: well, somebody’s getting their pipeline. Alert reader Bill Von Novak forwards this CNN story, which states that “the Japanese conglomerate Itochu has expressed interest in participating, but no company has joined the project. Unocal said it has no plans to do so.”

The Washington Post plays catch-up:

High on the Bush administration’s list of justifications for war against Iraq are President Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons, nuclear and biological programs, and his contacts with international terrorists. What U.S. officials rarely acknowledge is that these offenses date back to a period when Hussein was seen in Washington as a valued ally.

Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now defense secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of U.S.-Iraqi relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an “almost daily” basis in defiance of international conventions.

More.

Also, in case you haven’t seen it already, here’s the list of U.S. corporations that supplied Iraq’s weapons program.

(Links via Cursor.)