Oil of "Oh, Lord"

Man this oil spill is a nightmare. Just a clusterf*ck of epic proportions. I'd always felt bad about it, but now that I've actually been to the Gulf coast (sort of) and heard first hand how much its going to devastate that awesome region - from fishing, to tourism to poor little oil covered pelicans - it really breaks my heart.

As you know, once in a while we like to break out of our shell here at GitW HQ and offer a helping hand to the world at large. If you're interested in lending a hand, here are some things you can do:

- Go down and clean up oil! If you want to volunteer to scrub that stuff, go to OilSpillVolunteers.com. This is only recommended for people who actually live down there.

- Buy Dawn. The soap maker is donating $1 of every bottle of dish soap it sells toward cleaning up the spill. Apparently dish soap is very helpful in getting oil off little critters.

- Throw money at the problem. This is usually my strategy. The National Wildlife Federation, Alabama Coastal Foundation and Audubon Society are all involved in the cleanup and could use some coin.

- Write angry letters. This one tells the President to pass more wetlands protection legislation, this one calls for a halt to offshore drilling (if you're politically inclined that way).

- Boycott BP. These guys are really just the worst. I know there's a tendency for some people (myself included) to go overboard with the whole, "Blame the corporations!" shtick, but it really does look like there were warning signs on the Deepwater Horizon rig that BP ignored in order to avoid shutting down for a few days because it would have cost them a few million dollars. Because of that, they've lost billions of dollars and destroyed an entire economy and ecosystem. Bravo, lads! Keep in mind, BP brands include Castrol, AmPm and ARCO.

(Note: I stole a lot of these ideas from my former co-worker's blog, and she in turn stole them from US News & World Reports. Gotta give credit where credit is due).