Check out Charity Navigator. They haven’t rated everybody, but they have rated many (and if you register (at no cost), you can suggest charities that you would like to see rated).
Another place to check out how well (and not so well) non-profits do with your donations, at least in Washington, is the Secretary of State’s Charity Search.
Two other items worth noting: Charity Navigator has not yet figured out how to objectively measure a charity’s effectiveness in their programs, so can tell you only how much of their revenue goes to programs (I’m willing to believe, until given evidence otherwise, that an outfit with a higher program-to-administrative spending ratio is likely to also have programs that are at least as effective per dollar as the outfits with more overhead); and the Salvation Army is a religion, not a charity, and does not therefore have to file an IRS 990 (and they have declined to make their financial records available).

Matt Groening and David X Cohen talk about the possibility of Futurama coming back. People seem to be taking the interview as indicating that there’s something definitely in the works, but that’s not how I read it:

“Three months ago, I would have said we were going to start tomorrow,” says writer David X. Cohen, who collaborated with Groening on Futurama. “And one month ago I would also have said we were going to start tomorrow. So …” He pauses. “My current estimate is that we’re starting tomorrow.”

But don’t miss our WPA Futurama poster matches.

Paranoia becomes reality: stinky rings for your phone.

Yet again I am judging Reflections contest entries. To all young writers: read more good writing. Practice. Try to have something to say. Have someone read your writing, comment on it, and then write another draft.

I wasn’t going to post any exerpts this year, but this one just cries out:
“The thought of my father leaving me, his only daughter, for another woman made me feel noxious.”
Oooh, me too!

In a story of "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" gone horribly wrong, a French man is reported to have dated his mom on-line for six months before meeting her on the beach. The horror, the horror.

So I get a bulk—er, standard—rate envelope, with no return address, and inside it is a plain white card with a weird abbreviation of the name of my bank at the top, and the amount of my original mortgage loan below that. The text reads

Your mortgage with [weird abbreviation of bank name] can be re-negotiated with a 5 year payment rate of 2.00%*. This yields a monthly payment of [Some amount not much less than my current P&I amount].

Then there’s an 800 number to call and a case number to reference. That footnote? In print substantially smaller than anything else on the card, it reads

4.66 APR/40 YR Term ADJ / P and I / [blah, blah] / excludes taxes and insurance / rates subject to change / certain conditions may apply
[Name of outfit making this offer] not affiliated with [weird abbreviation of bank name]

Really? I can sign up for a 40-year mortgage? With people who are so proud of their company that its name appears only in the smallest type on the card? Oh, happy day!

I’m going out of town for a while, so here’s some crappy old links (with no glittering commentary) that have piled up in my to post list, just to tide you over. Oooh, I’m so nice.

Chicago Historical Society
A salt of the earth test, the writings of Sir Thomas Browne
Science Groove
Charles Darwin continues to have a posse

List of lists for the year-end roundups, keep an eye on this one as it grows.