The Top 40

Which is why I only donate things that are barely used or worn (shopping mistakes). I cut up all tee shirts into cleaning or disaster rags.

Buying used clothing overseas and then selling at home is actually one the few legitimate businesses engaged in by expat Nigerians. It's a niche market that they've pretty well cornered, along with 419 scams and parts of the illicit narcotics trade.

Donating clothes which the affluent poor don't need and collecting food that an obese welfare class won't eat does nonetheless allow a person to think well of himself. Mission accomplished.

When we were down and out, churches gave us furniture that was so unusable it should have been taken to the dump. The food we got was often the same. Completely past the dates of expiration.

And we never fared well with the clothes, either. Still, beggars can't be choosy, so we accepted their 'kindness' with gratitude and worked like hell to get out of our situation.

Still, beggars can't be choosy, so we accepted their 'kindness' with gratitude and worked like hell to get out of our situation.

And that's why charity is so much better than welfare. It inculcates an attitude of gratitude and thankfulness instead of "Where's my check?"

I have to admit that my clothing donations are probably useless. I'm pretty frugal (OK, stingy) and tend to keep it until it wears out. You should see my car. It still runs great, but the body is practically dissolving.

I think canned food at least is probably good for years past the expiration date. Pasta or cereal, not so much. Expiration dates are probably required by government regulations. We didn't have them when I was a kid.

We received boxes of outdated flour mixes, cereals and the like. Not bad, if you don't mind the weevils.

Weevils are protein.

Army's $5B failed pixelated uniform getting scrapped

The cammo pattern works well in hills where the terrain is mostly karst, which is where the majority of the mountain fighting takes place in AfStan. As for the uniform itself, the troops involved in the testing hated the velcro and said the pockets were in all the wrong places.

The Army went with what the REMFs in the Uniform Selection Board thought would make E-Ring desk jockeys look "warrior-ish"...

I dunno. The Salvation Army place where I used to manage an office got all the swank brands of tofu chicken and Paul Newman organic foods, so-called "whole" foods. The supplicants wouldn't touch 'em!

However, the middle-class women in their Suburbans would show up for the day-old bread like it was their only sustenance. It was part of their fun competition for super-coupon-discount mom of their running pack.

The Goodwill stores are the only industry that's growing in the South. I'm thankful for the suburbanites who donate their flashy duds for me to buy for $3.89. When I was in sales, everyone I worked with shopped at Goodwill until we could afford the new stuff. The savings paid for the dry cleaning.

I could make a case for buying up the name-brand size 2 stuff eschewed by the typical double-digit size shopper, and reselling it at the upscale consignment shops for a bit of a profit. There's gold in the Goodwill stores, and not just for the Goodwill juggernaut.

When I lived in San Diego, every so often, we would hold a garage sale. People would buy our used clothes and sell them in Mexico. They were hard bargainers though. I had a suit I was selling for 2 dollars. One person was only willing to pay one dollar for it. I let him have it for a dollar. The purpose was to make more room in our closet so we could buy more clothes.