Are you outraged out the official response to a disaster initially caused by weather for which we had plenty of advanced warning--weather which was not nearly as severe as predicted? Are you wondering how badly we would have responded to a surprise terrorist attack (which by definition doesn't come with days of warning)?

Me, too. Here's some contact information, to make your voice heard. Remember, they work for you.

1.) Contact the White House

Phone Numbers

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

TTY/TDD

Comments: 202-456-6213

E-mail Addresses

Comments: comments@whitehouse.gov

President George W. Bush: president@whitehouse.gov

V.P. Dick Cheney: vice.president@whitehouse.gov

... ... ...

2.) Contact your Senators.

If you do not have your Senators' names, numbers, and contact information, use this site to find them: [link]

3.) Contact your Congressional Representative.

If you do not already have your Representative's name and phone number, use this site to find it: [link] You need not only your zip code, but the 4 digit extension, as well.

If you do not know the 4 digit extension, you can look it up at the U.S. Postal Service's web site: [link]

4.) Contact a Member of the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security.

The Chair is vacant right now, so I recommend looking at the list, here [link] and seeing if your state has representation on the committee.

You can then find his/her contact information at the link I provided above, for contacting your own Congressional Rep.

As an alternative, you can call the office of the Vice Chair, Curt Weldon, of Pennsylvania, at:

PHONE: (202) 225-2011

The Honorable Curt Weldon R - PA - 7th DIST (Aston)
2452 Rayburn HOB
Washington DC 20515

The Democratic members of the committee have their own web page, so if you can't stomach contacting whomever is on the list for you, go here [link] and call Congressman Bennie G. Thompson, of Mississippi. He's the ranking Democratic member, and he's from Mississippi (areas of which have also endured incredible devastation).

PHONE: (202) 225-5876

FAX: (202) 225-5898

Here's the contact information for the Democratic Office of the House Homeland Security Committee:

Committee on Homeland Security, Democratic Staff 101 Independence Avenue, S.E.
LA-228
Washington, D.C. 20540

PHONE: 202-226-2616

5.) Contact Homeland Security about the FEMA effort.

Direct your messages to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, whom the President has appointed to chair the interagency task force to handle the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and to Under Secretary of Homeland Security Michael D. Brown, in charge of Emergency Preparedness and Response.

PHONE: (202) 566-1600

FEMA 500 C Street
SW Washington, D.C. 20472

E-mail: FEMAOPA@dhs.gov

...

NOTE: If you're contacting a Congress person or Senator who does not represent your area, your e-mail is filtered out. They scan messages for an in-district/in-state address. They will not respond to you, and probably won't even read what you have to say, certainly not in a timely fashion.

I just found this out and decided to pass it on:

Coinstar allows you to donate your spare change directly to the Red Cross and other charities from their machines.

You can find the nearest machine that allows donations on their website: [link]

Link to and story about a remarkable Katrina Disaster Wiki which tries to pin down localized facts via citizen input.

We have been discussing chipping in for gifts for -t, who survived the hurricane okay, but is currently on route to California for an indefinite stay with her folks.

I tried to sum up everything as best I could here: Perkins "Spike's Bitches 26: Damn right I'm impure!" Sep 2, 2005 5:16:37 pm PDT . If you are interested in chipping in, please stop by.

I promise we won't TMI anyone who does so.

Okay, I know I can't make that promise, but please stop by anyway.

Apparantly this is a blog from NO actual time

[link]

Results from the Vote:
1. We should have a new thread that covers Fall TV (covering new series that debut in September or October) and it should have the following spoiler policy:

a) No whitefont at all. ever.
YES: 17
NO: 37
NO PREFERENCE: 2
NO VOTE CAST: 1

b) Whitefont (with show title in black font) for 7 days. Then fade to black.
YES: 21
NO 30
NO PREFERENCE 4
NO VOTE CAST: 2

c) Whitefont (with show title in black font) current season discussion.

YES: 9
NO: 40
NO PREFERENCE: 4
NO VOTE CAST: 4

d) Whitefont (with show title in black font) all the time.

YES: 5
NO: 44
NO PREFERENCE: 4
NO VOTE CAST:4

2. We should have a new Natter TV thread (covering all tv series - new and continuing that aren't covered in separate threads) and it should have the following spoiler policy:

a) No whitefont at all. ever
YES: 11
NO: 38
NO PREFERENCE: 6
NO VOTE CAST: 2

b) Whitefont (with show title in black font) for 7 days. Then fade to black.
YES: 22
NO: 26
NO PREFERENCE: 7
NO VOTE CAST: 2

c) Whitefont (with show title in black font) current season discussion.
YES: 11
NO: 34
NO PREFERENCE: 9
NO VOTE CAST:3

d) Whitefont (with show title in black font) all the time.

YES: 7
NO: 40
NO PREFERENCE: 7
NO VOTE CAST: 3

Posted earlier to Great Write Way, but I realized not everyone reads that, so:

The inaugural issue of "The November 3rd Club," an online literary journal of political writing, is now live on the Web at [link] featuring the poetry, fiction and nonfiction of:

MARK AMES, TONY BROWN, JANE CASSADY, LEA C. DESCHENES, JERRY GARCIA, THERESA CECILIA GARCIA, ELIZABETH P. GLIXMAN, LIZ GONZÁLEZ, S.A. GRIFFIN, BOB HOEPPNER, JOSEPH HUTCHISON, RACHEL KANN, DAVID MACPHERSON, DANIEL MCGINN, RICHARD MODIANO, GABRIEL ROSENSTOCK, ELIZABETH ROSS, SKIP SHEA, JACKIE SHEELER, THOMAS R. SMITH, MARC SOLOMON, ELLA SPRINK, J.E. STANLEY, TODD SWIFT, FISH VARGAS, LAURA LEE WASHBURN and LENORE WEISS.

Brought to you by the editorial work of myself, Richard Beban, Ray McNeice, Michelle Ben-Hur, Carlye Archibeque and Sam Hamill, and the web mastery of Lea Deschenes.

Enjoy, tell us what you think and keep an eye out for our publication readings in Los Angeles, Worcester and elsewhere this October!

Free to a good home:

I have an extra hardback copy of Alastair Reynolds' Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (two novellas in one volume, both take place in the Revelation Space-verse). Email me at my profile addy and it's yours for the price of shipping.

If anyone would like to send items to the refugees in the Astrodome and other Houston locations, you can mail them to the St. Vincent De Paul store located at 5236 Cedar St., Bellaire, TX 77401. They are accepting everything on this list except food.

If you want to donate $$$ to the Red Cross for hurricane relief, here are some donation-matching foundations/businesses that caught my eye:

The Barry Manilow Fund is actually giving double of what people contribute -- the fund itself matches the donation, and then, according to the website, Barry himself is matching the donation. So $1 = $3 thanks to the dude who writes the songs that make the whole world sing.

Whole Foods is matching in-store contributions, up to $1 million.

Amoeba Music is matching donations made at their stores. (Hec, time to go shopping!)

Best Buy is matching in-store contributions up to $1 million.

Peet's Coffee will match up to $25,000; donations go to the Red Cross, and you can donate online.