Disaster relief? Call in the Marines President Bush suggested a larger disaster relief role for the armed forces in his national address last week, and Congress has indicated it will take up the issue this autumn. Though the topic has emerged at other troubled times - most recently 9/11 - Congress has always avoided amending Posse Comitatus, the law that has kept active-duty soldiers out of civilian law-enforcement affairs since Reconstruction.
posted by Postroad on Sep 19, 2005 - 43 comments

Naïve in Thailand: The misadventures of an unprepared 43-year-old Brit who drops everything to try and help with tsunami rebuilding. Pet peeve? "The only real irritation has been the American Christian volunteers."
posted by NortonDC on Jan 16, 2005 - 88 comments

Is Paypal making money? I read this on thier main Red Cross Page: PayPal will donate 100% of the proceeds to the National Disaster Relief Fund of the American Red Cross.

All donations are tax deductible. Include your address (for a tax receipt) in the "Shipping Address" field when making your donation.

PayPal will realize no profits from money donated to this fund.

Yet, I play Utopia and they have a donation account setup through paypal which states this: All funds raised through this campaign -- minus a commission of $0.30+2.9% which PayPal takes on all payments -- will be forwarded directly to the Red Cross.

So does Paypal give 100% of donations directly donated to its page, and take a commission on accounts set up through secondary pages such as Amazon? If so, with almost $6 Million dollars, that is almost $2 Million dollars!!! (if I did my math right, please correct me if I am wrong.)
posted by da5id on Sep 17, 2001 - 14 comments

FEMA for kids! Let Herman the spokescrab guide you through the catalog of potentially civilization ending disasters. Education is great. Entertaining your kids on cabin fevered summer days is better. I have friends that when they bring their young buck over send him to my computer to play the kiddie offerings at nick.com (sorry dead link this time o' night it seems). But I can just hear the sunburned Minnesota five year old who's been overly femafied asking mommy after her bedtime story, "August is hurricane season. Is it windy now because we're going to have a hurricane?" Mom strokes child's hair, "No, here we're only prone to devastating thunderstorms, tornadoes, floods, kidcicle causing cold and blizzards. Now you have sweet dreams and quit worrying about ridiculous things like that. 'Night." Like of course, a kid that age would really find the FEMA website riveting to begin with. . .
posted by crasspastor on Jul 1, 2001 - 9 comments