The Mud Army (Update on top) (Updated Video: Now uncensored!)

UPDATE:

The Mud Army now has a Facebook page so locations in need can be sorted faster and details conveniently posted for all volunteers. Comments and photos are encouraged. It’s a really great page and an even greater idea! Welcome to an old community attitude presented in the new social media! I love it!

Original Post begins here:

28 January 2013

It’s almost Deja’vu. But then you look around at the debris lining the streets, the trees lying sideways on top of fences with their roots torn from the ground and you realize it’s not deja’vu at all but history repeating itself in a most unfriendly way.

The same towns and properties upended with flooding two years ago in Southeast Queensland Australia are again being saturated with four days of non-stop rain and destructive winds. The thing that makes this time different is the efforts made by the Australian Federal Government to assure people in affected areas are given timely updates with information about evacuations, shelters, road conditions and the like. The main power company, Energex, even sent out automated evac alerts via telephones. (We have two landlines and both received the alerts.)

Ironically, Prime Minister Julia Gillard was already in Southern Australia lending support to the families devastated by recent fires when she was called to the airwaves to show support for Queensland flood victims. She mentions one of her deputies having already spotted The Mud Army in action and smiles – knowing how comforting it is for all of us to know that army is on the move.

The Mud Army consists of military, off-duty police and firies, businessmen from small to millionaire status, farmers, ranchers, mums and dads, grandparents and teenagers all digging in and working side by side to clear debris, sludge, mud, dirt and water from roadways and properties so evacuees can get out and help can get in. It’s the community version of all hands on deck and no one questions who is or isn’t standing beside them. All will work tirelessly until the storms have passed and the job is done.

In this broadcast, Ms. Gillard demonstrates the purpose of a federal government (to help its people especially in times of stress) the efficiency of her federal government (help is shipped even before it’s fully needed) and never once does any other official step forward to criticize, condemn or question the apportionment of federal funds. There is a crisis. People have lost their homes and businesses. Insurance companies will be held accountable for making timely payouts to claims and no politician will dare lay claim the government shouldn’t be spending tax-payer monies to help the communities in trouble. (Some may grumble afterwards but certainly not while a crisis is underway.)

We are in for a roller coaster ride in the form of severe weather in this millennium – we need to get it right now to avoid total catastrophe in the future.

For Australian Queenslanders, this time the future was only two years away.  How long will it be for the good people of New Jersey? And how long will they be told to wait next time?

Don’t take your eyes off the foam:
(Now without the censor)

 

Ban Life Jackets: Think of Drowning as a Gift.

 

Exactly.

 

What if the Right to Smoke Cigarettes had been written into the Constitution…

… would you still fight as hard for the right to smoke, 200 years later, after science had proven how dangerous it was? And not just dangerous to the person smoking but to those around him?

The science that unmasked the inherent dangers of gun violence in the United States has been successfully suppressed by National Rifle Association lobbyists since the 1980’s. Just like the big Tobacco companies before them, the NRA paid elected officials to quash current and make illegal any future research on the issue of gun violence.

If you’d known about the science, would you still hold so tightly to your 2nd Amendment rights that you would oppose any form of gun control – slash – regulations research or legislation concerning public availability of military-style weapons or super ammo?

It seems to me this issue is a chance for us to evolve as a society or prove we are no better educated than our slave-holding, tobacco-growing forefathers.