The Zoo over Ambuscade Street

You know, I've been trying to avoid posting anything on this, because it makes me so freaking angry, but there's no excuse for people being trapped and dying days after the hurricane passed. No excuse. I'd say more, but it would just degenerate into rabid frothing, and I think I need to avoid that today.

Prince William Police Department is looking to send up to 75 people down there for as long as a month. I can't remember which special group is getting called first (I don't think it's SWAT, and I know it's not CDU), but Erik's going to try to go along if they open up a more general call for volunteers. I'd go with him if I could.

[EDIT] $100 away to redcross.org. I'd send more, but at this point I'm going to be really hurting for gas money (forget food) until next Friday. I'll send more then - I don't really need the money I've budgeted for playing at MDRF and PARF, so I'll leave myself enough for food/water and donate the rest.

[EDIT2] You know what bugs me even more? The fact that a little common sense and pre-planning could have mitigated so much of the death and destruction. *STAB*

This just makes me want to cry.

[EDIT] And this makes me want to rage about responsibility, and somehow makes the current nightmare there even more potent. Yea, yea, consider the source (of the original page), but it's hard to dispute the fact that foreign governments have been more proactive and forthcoming with aid than our own Federal government. Which doesn't even get into the stories I've heard passed on through Erik from other law-enforcement personnel down there.

Y'know, I really don't agree with the course the Federal government has taken over the last, oh, hundred and fifty years or so. The government should protect our borders, deliver the mail, and that's really about it. Events of the past few years have grudgingly led me to admit that perhaps, just perhaps, trade and economic regulation (Enron much?) might be a valid task under certain conditions, if only because of the vast disparity between the very, very few wealthy and the very, very many poor and lower-middle class. The gap is growing, folks, but that's a rant for another time.

To the point - disaster relief is something that the Federal government has a moral obligation to lead and take charge in, especially for devastation on this scale. However - our government has failed in that responsibility, failed badly. People are still dying! Days later, and there are still people dying who could have been saved if only we had been smarter, faster, more organized, and less involved with things that, quite frankly, just aren't anywhere near as important as real, humanitarian concerns.

Birthday cake can wait, thanks, when there are people trapped and starving by the hundreds in one of the richest countries in the world.

Fu-Master and Buck are discussing "gothic." It's every bit as entertaining as you might imagine. Fu-Master insists that his kids "know how to avoid the stuff." What, is "gothic" contagious? Cause transmissions to fail and termites to invade? Is directly responsible for male pattern baldness?

It's a damn good thing they can't see my face when we're all sitting at our desks, or I'd probably be in big trouble. Maybe I should come to work on Halloween decked out in full loligoth splendor. That could be fun. I could even have Melissa make me up something delightfully Victorian. Like this. Or this. ^_^

Actually, I think I do want something delightfully Victorian, or perhaps flavored with a touch of Edwardian elegance. I like the Edwardian ballgown shoulders quite a bit. Oddly enough, the thing I'm disliking the most about the fourth and fifth seasons of Upstairs Downstairs (other than the fact that they killed off most of my favorite characters!!!) is that with the transition to WWI and then the Roaring Twenties, we don't get any more of those gorgeous Edwardian ball gowns.

Now, I just need an excuse to wear one so I can put Mel to work...

This is freaking brilliant, and is a perfect example of why hotlinking to someone else's site is a Bad Idea, folks. I'm going to snicker uncontrollably every time I go past Fuddruckers now. And they deserve it, too, since they jumped on the fake-chocolate-milkshake bandwagon.

This also made me snicker madly. Other than being close to (OK - in, and it should probably extend all the way down to Hampton Roads) the "Will get nuked first" zone, I'm gold!

[EDIT] Hokay, being dumber than normal this weekend - link fixed.