Yes, whenever I hear news on Hurricane Irene, I sing Come On Eileen in my head.  The song will probably have more airplay in the coming weeks since the 80s.  Parodies are certainly being worked on as I type.  Watch.  =D

But seriously people.

After sitting in the 3rd “worst traffic jam in history” with Hurricane Rita, as well as hunkering down at home through Hurricane Ike, I thought I’d put together a quick list of important things to remember when preparing for a hurricane for all my friends and family who will be discovering first hand the mighty power of Hurricane Irene about to hit the east coast.

Better safe than sorry so here we go:

1. Don’t rely on FEMA.  The local, state and federal government are not there to help you.  One word: Katrina.
2. Essential papers like drivers licenses, identification cards, credit cards, passports, SSN cards, birth certificates, marriage certificates, insurance documents, etc., should all go in a large plastic covered folder that can close and be protected or ziploc bag.  Keep this somewhere high and dry and easy to get to if you need to evacuate.  Yes, you can keep some in your wallet or purse, but don’t forget what’s in your filing cabinets and safes that is too important to leave behind.
3. Have a list of important telephone numbers in the event your electronic devices that store this information has no power.  Yes, use a pen and write it down on a piece of paper.  Put that piece of paper in your plastic bag for safety.
4. GET CASH NOW.  Hurricanes hate electricity.  (evil ATMs included).
5. Charge your cell phones, handheld gaming devices and any external batteries.  Too late to get a land line set up if you don’t already have one as they more reliable.  You may find yourself charging your cell phone in your car so be ready and make sure you have charging cords too.  Oh – and TEXT rather than call if you only have cell — gets through faster.
6. Fill ‘em if you got ‘em.  Gas up all your cars and fill any gas tanks/cans you have as back up in case you can’t get to a gas station or it’s shut down.  Refer to #4 on what hurricanes knock out first.
7. First Aid kits.  Buy them for your house and for your car.  Better to be covered twice than be in your car miles from home with no band-aids when you get a hangnail.
8. Treasured items – photos, mementos, baby shoes – keep them close and easy to put in a box if you need to get out fast.
9. If you stay home, stock up on bread, canned food items, bottled water, and any other non-perishable food items.  Get a variety too.  If your power is out for 10 days, as many here in the Houston area experienced with Hurricane Ike, peanut butter sandwiches get boring after a couple days.  So think bread, saltines, crackers, nuts, candy, peanut butter, small cans of meat (yes, vienna sausages are yummy in a pinch), cereal, pop-tarts, lunchables, cookies, etc.  Stick to the evil middle aisles of the grocery store to find the best food not needing refrigeration.  Not many healthy food items make it very long without refrigeration, so consider this an early holiday feeding festival.
10. Don’t forget your pets!  They need food and water too.
11. Purchase an ice chest and fill it with ice.  Fill your freezer with ice too.  You will use a lot of ice.  A LOT, if the power goes out.
12. Know where to disconnect your electric garage door opener so you can get your car out if you need to evacuate.
13. Buy Sterno in case your electricity is out and you need to camp out and cook in your back yard or on your patio/balcony.  Same for coal or whatever other product needed to use a grill.  Buy a grill if you don’t already have one.  You can always use this later.
14. Don’t forget matches or lighters.  Duh.
15. Move inland if you’re living in a high rise.  Our house shook when Hurricane Ike hit the Houston area and we lived SIXTY PLUS (yes, 60+) miles inland from the gulf.  Don’t think for a second that your building will not move in ways only rollercoasters should.  You may be safe from rising water, but not from wind damage and flying objects.
16. Speaking of flying objects, pick up loose objects outside before the storm hits, so they don’t become projectiles.  When Hurricane Alicia hit Houston in 1983, a large percentage of the buildings downtown had their windows broken.  It wasn’t from the wind, but from gravel and other objects blowing off the roofs of buildings that did the damage.  So put away lawn chairs, tables, door mats, hammocks, potted plants, rakes, etc.  Tornados are family to a hurricane.  They go together.  Remember the cow in Twister?! Be ready to possibly see the weirdest things fly through the air.
17. Remember when I said fill ‘em if you got ‘em?  Prescriptions.  Important.
18. Buy batteries.  Lots of them.  All sizes.
19. Flashlight(s).  It’s not just a funky song. Have plenty around and know where they are if you have to find them in the dark.  Trust me on this.  :)
20. And know where your tools are too!
21. Candles.  Kerosene lanterns.  Buy them.  Just be careful not to start house fires.  Don’t laugh.  It happens.
22. Purchase a battery charged TV or radio.  TV preferably so you can see what’s happening around you and your family.
23. Buy long extension cords.  You never know when you may have no power for days, but your neighbor is sitting pretty with A/C and full service of all things electronic.
24. If you do have to evacuate, unplug all electronics and turn off your lights in the event of water/wind damage and power outages.  Put things up high that are of value in the event of rising water if you’re on ground level.
25. Invest in an emergency tire inflator and make sure your spare tires are full.
26. A weather radio is a good investment.
27. Fill your bathtub with water in the event city water lines are cut off.  You may need this for bathing AND flushing.  Yes, flushing.  See #28.
28. If it’s yellow, let it mellow.  If it’s brown, flush it down.  Yeah, you read that right.  Just keep the lid down.
29. Playing cards, reading material, board games … there’s nothing worse than a bored child.  Except a bored child in a hurricane with no video games or DVDs or TV.  Word.
30. Prepare to cook everything in your refrigerator/freezer before it spoils if necessary.  Just remember you must limit the number of times you open them or else the food will spoil more quickly.

But, the recent actions by one of these organizations is simply too outrageous to ignore. The Tea Party Patriots are hosting an orientation conference for incoming GOP Congressmen next week. It seems its event conflicts with another orientation conference, sponsored by another group. TPP claims that this competing conference is really being organized by “Washington insiders.” I have no idea if this is true or if it matters, but it is also beside the point.

To ensure incoming Congressmen attend its event. TPP sent out a mass e-mail to its activists, directing them to call the Freshman and urge them to attend its conference. In the email, it included the personal cell phone numbers and email for each new member. This information is now out there, on the internet, forever. Remember, not an office number, but the individual members’ personal information.

This is a terrible violation of trust with these new members, most of whom are supportive of the tea party movement. It is also a breach of their privacy.

One of the biggest challenges in recruiting individuals to run for office is their fear that they will have to surrender their entire private lives to serve. (Trust me, I’ve had to recruit people to run for office.) It is always fashionable to criticize lawmakers, but it is also important to remember from time to time that we do ask quite a lot of them. I’m not shedding a tear for them, just recognizing this fact. It is our biggest obstacle to recruiting small businessmen and regular, average citizens to run for office. It is a big reason we are usually left only with a pool of lawyers who have been dreaming about political power since they were toddlers.

And TPP has just made this problem much worse. Even Congressmen are entitled to some semblance of a private life. Even Congressmen are entitled to some zone where they can easily communicate with their family and close friends or others, at their choosing.

It should be quickly noted that this breach of privacy was made to urge the members to attend a conference. This isn’t exactly fate-of-the-Republic stuff.

TPP needs to acknowledge their mistake and apologize swiftly and very publicly. I’m not suggesting that anyone there have to resign, but the public and, especially, the new members of Congress need to understand that something like this will never happen again.

TPP are good people. I’m sure this was a rookie mistake made in the hot cauldron of today’s politics. But, the days ahead will only get hotter. TPP must ensure that some adults are in charge when those days come.

According to señor Roach via BigGovernment.com, after the release of the San Diego ACORN sting videos—which my daughter Hannah, James O’Keefe, and Andrew Breitbart dropped on the Nation’s head—and following Governor Schwarzenegger’s call for a probe into this batty zoo, Roach took it upon himself to get busy and see if he could ferret out more funky filth from this nefarious gang.

And, as stated, Roach scored more than Dwayne Wade would playing hoops against blind five-year-old, one-legged narcoleptic midgets.

What did Papa Roach come across?  Well, my children, it was stuff like …

• Information exposing the inner workings of ACORN in California.
• Sensitive personal information belonging to employees, members and ACORN clients, such as social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, immigration records, and tax returns.
• ACORN’s political agenda is also laid bare, with thousands upon thousands of documents revealing the depth of the political machine that is ACORN and its disturbing ties not only to public employee labor unions but some of the most radical leftist organizations in existence (I wonder which politicians we will discover are in cahoots with these goofy clowns?).

The timing of this 20k plus page paper plunk of sensitive and incriminating 411 is kinda interesting as well.  Check it out:

• On October 1, 2009 California Attorney General Jerry announced that he was going to do a little look-see inside ACORN’s hull to determine if their San Diego office was as innocent as Bertha Lewis, David Lagstein and the Mange Stream Media screamed them to be.
• “Coincidently,” just a few days prior to when AG Brown was slated to pay them a howdy-doo, low and behold, on October 9, ACORN San Diego decided to do a bit of midnight spring cleaning and dump all their docs in a public dumpster to spruce up the joint before the AG’s arrival.
• Unfortunately for poor ACORN, PI Derrick Roach was parked outside waiting for them to do something stupid like dump 20,000 plus pages of their corporate papyrus and their clients’ personal records in a trash bin behind their slim shady facilities.

By the way, are there laws governing how personal info like social security numbers, tax returns, driver’s license numbers and stuff like that should be handled?  I’m thinking there would be.  Hmmm, I don’t know.  Maybe Media Matters will look into it; if there are laws demanding stringent care and disposal of sensitive info, it looks like ACORN, prima facia, could be in deep crap with a stack of folks for placing their private stories in a public dumpster.

I would now like to address you, Mr. Roach.  Good job, old chap! As Hannah Giles’ father and one who has been on the receiving end of the ACORN/Mange Stream Media stick, please take my advice and brace for the vilifying crunch from these numb nuts.

They’re are going to hit you with retarded stuff like …

• How dare a conservative PI jump into a dumpster and steal trash?!  It’s unethical.
• You’re not a legitimate trash man.  You’ve never been to trash man school.
• The trash did not give its consent to be removed from the dumpster.  California law requires garbage to give its go-ahead before it is embraced by another.
• FOX News paid you 100 kadrillion dollar$ to dumpster dive.
• You tried this at thousands of other ACORN dumpsters and came up snake eyes.
• No other ACORN office would ever dispose of their clients’ records like this, except, of course, for that Oklahoma ACORN branch that left all their computers and crap on the curb after they got kicked out of their building for not paying the bills.

ACORN, naturally, is going into full damsel in distress mode, stating it was an accident and a coincidence that it occurred right before Brown and his boys were to perform their investigative colonoscopy into ACORN’s corrupt underbelly.

ACORN also blathered that Roach stole their trash.  Stole your trash?  Hey ACORN, once you place your clients’ sensitive info and your political playbook into le garbage it is public domain.  Every hooker running a whorehouse with underage sex slaves knows that.

Lastly, will the little darlings on the left report this?  Will Eric Holder call for a brutal investigation into the ACORNucopia of corruption of which BigGov and some citizen soldiers have uncovered?  Garsh … who knows!  I guess we poor little serf’s of Obamaland will just have to wait and see.