I had to reprint this gem from the Readers Report section of the November 14, 2005, issue of BusinessWeek. Yes, this man is an idiot:

How To Stop A Hurricane In Its Tracks

Noting the various schemes you mention to “tame hurricanes” (”Herding hurricanes,” Science & Technology, Oct. 24), a simpler and more practical way to deprive hurricanes of energy would be to lower the surface water temperature: Dump several thousand tons of a cryogenic liquid (e.g., liquid oxygen at -297F, or even colder liquid nitrogen or liquid hydrogen) in advance of an approaching hurricane. The U.S. Air Force has some 500 KC-135 tankers, each with a payload of some 80,000 pounds. A dozen tankers converted to carry and drop a cryogenic fluid, each flying, say, five missions, could drop 2,000 tons in front of a hurricane, significantly lowering the surface temperature of the water in its path. Depriving an advancing hurricane of its energy would also avoid the legal and political problems that could result from methods designed just to divert its direction.

William Bailey
Oakton, Va.

Here is an excerpt from an article by Paul Elias posted on the Associated Press newswire this morning with regard to medical research efforts derailed by Katrina, such as the world-famous Bogalusa Heart Study:

About 300 federally funded projects at New Orleans colleges and universities worth more than $150 million including 153 projects at Tulane were affected in some way, according to an initial survey by the National Institutes of Health.

One of the biggest blows is the likely destruction of frozen urine and blood samples from thousands of patients enrolled in the Bogalusa Heart Study, the world’s longest-running racial study of risk factors for heart disease.

Samples collected and frozen since 1973 thawed out when the hurricane knocked out electricity and backup generators failed at a Tulane lab in New Orleans.

“It’s irreplaceable. That’s decades of research,” aid Dr. Paul Whelton, senior vice president for health sciences at Tulane. “It makes you want to cry.”

If the blood and urine samples are damaged or contaminated, future tests can’t be done using them. However, Bogalusa’s chief researcher, Tulane cardiologist Dr. Gerald Berenson said he had analyzed much of the data already collected and saved it on his computer, which was not damaged.

“The Bogalusa Heart Study will go on,” said Berenson who visited New Orleans, but not his lab, on Tuesday. “We’ll just have to pick up the pieces from what we have.”

Tulane cancer specialist Dr. Tyler Curiel was one of the few researchers who decided to ride out the hurricane in New Orleans in an effort to salvage decades worth of research.

After the storm passed, Curiel spent the first few days transferring vials from broken freezers to liquid nitrogen tanks with the help of a flashlight.

He later fled to his in-laws’ house in Denver and then returned to his lab for a day, grabbing whatever he could in an effort to save blood and tissue samples from an ongoing ovarian cancer project.

One thin silver lining to all the lab damage: It appears that no deadly diseases were released from the area’s “hot labs,” where researchers routinely handle and store some of the world’s most dangerous germs.

I came across this photograph (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) on a news site and wanted to share it. It’s a shot of the floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina as they filled the streets near downtown New Orleans this morning. Absolutely amazing.

In order to make my move last week as smooth as possible, I needed to rent a moving truck. I had planned on getting a 10- or 15-foot truck so that I could do the move all in one shot, and made the reservation accordingly. However, in the words of Jerry Seinfeld, the rental company was able to take the reservation, but they weren’t able to hold the reservation. So, I arrived at the truck rental place and they had no clue who I was or why I was there. (Hint: I wanted a truck.)

Well, after some head scratching and obscenity sharing behind the counter, they came to the conclusion that all of the 10- and 15-foot trucks were rented, and all they had left was a 24-foot truck. Doing some quick math in my head, I realized that the truck was probably two times larger than what I needed, but it should work out. I was not ready for Big Bertha, though.

The woman escorted me out to the truck and started it up. It took two people - armed with flags, mind you - to back the truck out of its holding cell and get it prepped for me. There it was — a 24-foot dock height diesel GMC C7500 truck, complete with two steps to get into the cab, and a GVW of 26,000 pounds. (Apparently, that’s the maximum weight for a class D license. One pound more would require me to attend trucking school.) There is nothing like overkill for moving a small amount of stuff.

Long story short, it was fun to drive around and see the tops of the SUVs, and even more fun to drive a vehicle with air brakes, but I think I’m all set with dock height trucks for the near future.

Not long ago I heard a young man ask why people still kept up Memorial Day, and it set me thinking of the answer. Not the answer that you and I should give to each other-not the expression of those feelings that, so long as you live, will make this day sacred to memories of love and grief and heroic youth–but an answer which should command the assent of those who do not share our memories …

[...snip...]

… So to the indifferent inquirer who asks why Memorial Day is still kept up we may answer, it celebrates and solemnly reaffirms from year to year a national act of enthusiasm and faith. It embodies in the most impressive form our belief that to act with enthusiam and faith is the condition of acting greatly. To fight out a war, you must believe something and want something with all your might. So must you do to carry anything else to an end worth reaching. More than that, you must be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhpas a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out. All that is required of you is that you should go somewhither as hard as ever you can. The rest belongs to fate. One may fall-at the beginning of the charge or at the top of the earthworks; but in no other way can he reach the rewards of victory.

[An excerpt of a Memorial Day address delivered by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., May 30, 1884, at Keene, N.H., before John Sedgwick Post No. 4, Grand Army of the Republic.]

It’s on the Travel Channel almost every day.

You can practice it on TLC’s web site when you’re really, really bored.

The average jackpot in tournaments has grown tenfold in as many years, just due to the increase in popularity.

What is it? Well, it’s Texas Hold’em, of course. Perhaps the most fun of poker games (mainly because it’s more a community game than a looking-at-your-cards-and-weeping style game), Hold’em is pretty addictive when you’re actually playing. Like most games, it has its own lingo and the stats folks get a kick out of computing the odds of each hand, but it’s really not all that hard to learn.

Last weekend, Laura and I went to our friends Amanda and Jim’s house to play poker. (For background info, Jim is a numbers guy and loves to play for money, so we made him dumb it down for us and use fake cash, a.k.a. poker chips, instead!) It was such a blast and so addictive that I had to go out the next day and get a poker chip set of my own. And, in typical style, it’s not any ordinary poker chip set. Nay, this set comes in an aircraft-grade aluminum case lined with black padding and an eggshell lid. The chips are all 11.5g clay composite chips, which means absolutely nothing to me except that they feel cool and weigh 21 pounds in the case. Plus, I now have another excuse to have people over, which makes me happy.