Hurricane Katrina made it all the way across the country to Canada and has pretty much died out now, but the aftermath is staggering. The waters are still rising and hundreds are already dead. Areas that are dry now are still expecting to see several feet of water before it’s over with. They’ve barely begun to count casualties, instead they push the floating bodies aside looking for survivors.

Unfortunately, sanity appears to be the first to go among the survivors. It’s barely been a few days and already there have been mass lootings. Now, I can sympathize with looters if they have gone weeks without food and are desperate to survive but these people are just panicing and/or taking advantage of everyone elses misfortune. They are not stealing food and clothing, or other essentials – No, they are taking televisions, guns, and jewelry.

The locals aren’t the only ones – everyone else is panicing over gas prices. Yes, gas prices will go up – but rushing the pumps will only make it worse. If you have gas, use it sparingly – don’t rush to the pumps to top off and stockpile. Take the bus, carpool, leave the SUV at home, or better yet, get rid of it! I see too many soccer moms (or over-compensating males) who live in the outskirts, driving their escalades and tahoes (typically almost into and over everyone else on the road, but thats another rant) across town to work with nothing but their skinny butt in their overpriced clothes – I say make the SUV drivers pay a higher gas price so the rest of us can get a break, or start a mandatory carpool law for large vehicle owners.

Aside from the contamination and disease threats, there are children out of school and families out of work. There are a lot of people who need help and I urge you to donate to support the victims of hurricane Katrina. You can donate online or at your local red cross location, just do a quick Google search or look at the links on the right side of this page (I’m sure some will come up on the ads soon)

One more side-rant while I’m here…

Before Katrina even hit New Orleans, they were talking about how this could be the “big one” the one they’ve known about and feared. If they knew that the city was unprepared for a hurricane, and especially after seeing this years extremely active hurricane season, and knowing they are right there in the Gulf, an open target, under sea level – Why havn’t they prepared better? They knew before it hit that the town would be devastated and many lives lost – why didn’t they spend money to try and prepare the city for it better rather than paying for those annoying tourist ads on TV? The meteorologists were saying for several days beforehand that it was going to turn north. (Originally it was going to hit Florida again, but it slowly drifted towards Louisiana) Knowing the dangers, why didn’t they get the word out sooner – ask people to evacuate sooner before making it mandatory when they realized it was about to hit the fan.

I’m waiting now to see how long it takes then to start enforcing Martial Law to protect everyone from the insanity and stupidity of those who are still there, but as usual I’m sure it will be a little too late.

If you’re named Katrina, at least you have a more interesting story to tell now.