Kudos to actress Sharon Stone who stood up at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland at the World Conference and raised $1 million in 5 minutes for poverty-stricken Africa.

Seizing her chance during a heavyweight debate on how to tackle poverty in Africa, Stone stood up in the middle of the crowded hall to offer an immediate personal pledge of 10,000 dollars -- then challenged others to follow suit. It rather undercut the big-name panelists, who included Britain's finance minister Gordon Brown, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the billionaire Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

I didn't think Dick Cheney was a good choice to represent the U.S. at the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auchwitz, but I didn't expect this. Can anyone find another time he appeared at an official event so dressed down? I bet not. It's not like he flew commercial and they lost his baggage. So why the nonchalance (at best) and disrespect?

Vice President Dick Cheney raised eyebrows on Friday for wearing an olive-drab parka, hiking boots and knit ski cap to represent the United States at a solemn ceremony remembering the liberation of Auschwitz.

Other leaders at the event in Poland on Thursday marking the 60th anniversary of the death camp's liberation, such as French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Vladimir Putin, wore dark, formal overcoats and dress shoes or boots.

"The vice president, however, was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower," Robin Givhan, The Washington Post's fashion writer, wrote in the newspaper's Friday editions.

[p. photo via Atrios.]

Yesterday, the media reported Prince Charles was livid over son Harry's rental of a Nazi costume, replete with swastika, which he wore to a theme party last weekend. Charles' reported response was that Harry would visit Auschwitz to learn a little about the Holocaust.

Tonight, British media reports Charles is backing Harry and telling everyone to lay off because he apologized, and there are no plans for him to visit Auschwitz.

Prince Charles has rehired his former public relations advisers to get the family through this crisis. If it was the current PR team who came up with the Harry-goes-to-Auchwitz response, I think they are the better firm.

I also have trouble with the Queen's reported comments:

Prince Harry really stepped in it this time. He went to a costume party wearing the uniform of an SS Offcier, complete with swatstika. The 20 year old prince has apologized. Should that be the end of it? His aunt, Sarah Fergueson, thinks so.

Or, should it engender a discussion of whether the current generation of youth are being educated about the holocaust?

In Jerusalem, Robert Rozett, the director of the library at Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, said the photographs of Harry wearing a swastika showed that "the lessons of the Holocaust have not really entered deeply within his understanding and consciousness."

....We would hope that figures like Prince Harry would be more sensitive and not trivialize it. ... We would suggest that Harry and others would do well to learn more about the subject, be more careful about how they use the subject in public."

I agree with Mr. Rozett on that. I also think it probably was just a thoughtless act by Harry with no actual malice or prejudice intended. But, would your kid have done it? In most households I know of, there have been many discussions about Hitler, the Holoucaust and the persecution of Jews. Maybe they didn't have these discussions in Harry's house.

Also, this isn't the first time that the Royal Family has engaged in questinable behavior regarding the Nazis:

In the new issue of The Nation, Christian Parenti investigates the explosion of poppy farming and trafficking in Afghanistan and asks why it took the US so long to crack down on the illicit drug trade which fuels everything from Islamic terrorism to the spread of HIV.

Also in The Nation, Bruce Shapiro explains why the nomination of Alberto Gonzales is a turning point not only for Democrats, but for restraining unchecked presidential power.

On Sumatra:

Desperate, homeless villagers on the tsunami-ravaged island of Sumatra mobbed American helicopters carrying aid Saturday as the U.S. military launched its largest operation in the region since the Vietnam War, ferrying food and other emergency relief to survivors across the disaster zone. From dawn until sunset on New Year's Day, 12 Seahawk helicopters shuttled supplies and advance teams from offshore naval vessels while reconnaissance aircraft brought back stark images of wave-wrecked coastal landscapes and their hungry, traumatized inhabitants.

"They came from all directions, crawling under the craft, knocking on the pilot's door, pushing to get into the cabin," said Petty Officer First Class Brennan Zwack. "But when they saw we had no more food inside, they backed away, saying 'Thank you, thank you.'" "The mob decided how we distributed the food. There were so many hands outstretched I don't think any package touched the ground," added Zwack, of Sioux Falls, S.D.

Elsewhere, Sri Lanka victims got hit again--this time by flooding.

There is an excellent seven page (internet length) article in the New York Times, How Scientists and Victims Watched Helplessly. A snippet:

For those on the shores of the affected countries, the reckoning with the tsunami's power came all but out of the blue, and cost them their lives.....For the scientists in Hawaii, at the planet's main tsunami center, who managed to send out one of the rare formal warnings, there was intense frustration. They had useful information; they were trained to get word out; but they were stymied by limitations, including a lack of telephone numbers for counterparts in other countries.

What makes the article so compelling is that it is personalized. It is a recounting of what individual scientists around the world have said when interviewed.

President Bush has increased the amount the U.S. will pledge to the Tsunami relief effort to $350 million. He's not putting a ceiling on it, and says the U.S. will continue to revise the amount as needed.

Smart move. Good move.

President Bush has named a delegation to tour Asia and assess the Tsunami stricken areas. Colin Powell and Jeb Bush will lead the delegation. They will be leaving on Sunday.

White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy in Crawford, Texas said:

....including the president's brother, who has experience with extensive hurricane damage in Florida, "signifies the high level of importance that the president puts on this delegation."

A very sad story from Kho Lak in Thailand.

Khao Lak, Thailand — The naked body of a dead female tourist was lying in plain sight on a beach in southern Thailand yesterday, her legs caught beneath a heap of wood debris. Her eyes were bulging; her body grossly bloated and pale in the blazing tropical sun.

A few metres, away, a team of rescue workers ignored the corpse. Exhausted and overwhelmed by four days of collecting bodies, they knew the woman's was just one of the hundreds that still remain to be extracted from the apocalyptic landscape of this strip of beach resorts.

Via Converger's diary at Daily Kos:

• Number of deaths due to four Florida hurricanes in 2004: 117
• Number of deaths due to Aceh earthquake and tsunami in 2004: 120,000+
• Homeless due to Florida hurricanes: 11,000
• Homeless due to Aceh earthquake/tsunami: 5,000,000
• US government aid to help Florida hurricane victims: $2.04 billion
• US government aid to help Aceh earthquake/tsunami victims: $35 million
• Estimated cost of George Bush's upcoming inaguration celebration, not including security costs: $40 million
• US government direct cost, per hour, of the US war in Iraq: $9 million

A Pastor's wife in Sri Lanka used some quick thinking and saved 28 children from death by the Tsunami. The pastor was in bed, contemplating the sermon he would deliver in a few hours. The children were in their rooms, playing and getting dressed:

Then he heard the pounding of feet in the corridor outside his room, and his wife burst through the door, a frantic look on her face. "The sea is coming!" she said. "Come! Come! Look at the sea!"

Thanks to quick thinking, blind luck and an outboard motor that somehow started on the first pull, the orphans and their caretakers joined the ranks of countless survivors of the epic disaster that so far has claimed tens of thousands of lives in Sri Lanka and 10 other countries.