Are you Ready Kids?

The US Department of Homeland Security wants you to secure the homeland with the help of a family of mountain lions who teach preparedness for the unexpected.

You are about to meet a family of mountain lions that are prepared for any situation. Rex the dad is an explorer who loves taking his family on adventures. Purrcilla is the energetic and wise mom. And Rory is the strong-willed daughter who loves helping her parents plan for the family's many adventures.

There's also Hector, Rex's speedy, begoggled hummingbird buddy. Hector delivers important security communiques between the forest and the office of DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, who, if he were an anthropomorphic mountain lion, would look something like this:

When not attending CougarCon and creeping out the normals, Rex and family like to engage in preparedness activities such as: Making a kit, making a plan, knowing facts ("In 1280, 'earthquakes' were called 'eorthequakynge'."), and crouching with flashlights while gazing romantically into the distance. After learning these crucial aspects of preparedness, children are invited to take a quiz. If successfully completed, they receive a diploma from Readiness U -- equivalent to a BS in Homeland Security.

Sure, all this preparedness is useful for securing the homeland, but why mountain lions? Simple: if there's one animal you can trust with homeland security, it's the mountain lion. Well, except that one mountain lion that threatened Jack Bauer's daughter on that one episode of 24. But that was probably a Manchurian cougar sent by Serbians. Kim wasn't prepared for the unexpected, e.g. brainwashed mountain lions, and it nearly cost her her life. Are you prepared?

Come to think of it, mountain lions seem to have a lot of aliases: cougar, puma, American lion, Mexican lion, Florida panther, painter, silver lion, brown tiger, deer tiger, ghost cat, sneak cat, king cat, catamount, mountain screamer, Indian devil, purple feather, Felis concolor... awfully suspicious behavior for a cat. Instead of trusting them to instruct children in preparedness preparation, shouldn't they be on some sort of watch list?