post 150: CALL FOR INFO

1. Does anyone know anything about Deaf schools or institutions or organizations in Louisiana, particularly the N'Orleans and Biloxi areas? Anyone know if they need help? We po' deafies, sure, but maybe we can find extra clothes and set up a point person to send them out.

2. New Orleans is gone. Sorry. We lost the city. Maybe we wouldn't have lost the city if the President had not cut millions of dollars to the Corps of Engineers and taken away the national guard (who tend to be responsible for maintaining the levees.) Maybe we wouldn't have lost the city if he'd been paying attention instead of, apparently, playing guitar - no, he couldn't have stopped the hurricane, but maybe he could have, for example, picked someone to oversee the disaster efforts? N'Orleans Mayor is bitching about just that.

3. Ridor posted this interesting thing on his blog:

If people really wanted to keep New Orleans intact -- Jason Lamberton and I had a conversation via the IM recently and frankly, we had the same thing in mind. In fact, we IMmed each other at the same time of our "imagineable solution' for the city of New Orleans -- drain Lake Pontchartrain. It was frightening that we had the similar idea.

Simply close the flow into the Gulf of Mexico (mainly because it is on the same sea level) and drain the lake as much as they can -- sell the water to the West -- perhaps New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona or California? Build a massive pipeline from the lake to the southwest -- hell, Alaska did, did they?

Try to keep the lake down as much as 15 to 30 feet below the city. It is a possibility. Hell, the city of New Orleans can make bottled water called Lake Pontchartrain -- yeah, I know the lake itself is salt water but ... we can remove the salt and make bottled waters! Not bad idea ... the possibilities are endless -- they can simply drain the lake to prevent it from breaching the levees ever again.

We cannot get rid of hurricanes but we can modify the arrangements *around* us -- the only option is to close the lake and drain!

Only problem is, this lake is huge. I mean, huge. I think it's cool to try to think of new ideas, but why not just build the city where, you know, it can't be hurricaned into the ocean again?

Besides, it takes a LOT of energy to remove the salt from water. Not to mention all the fish and animals in the local environment who survive because of the lake. And the further outlying regions that depend on those fish and animals for food... you take away the lake, you start a chain reaction where land and animals die off. We could wind up with a hot desert, or maybe even more hurricanes (who knows how the weather will be affected if you remove a large body of water.... and put it somewhere else?)

God, this sucks. I miss N'Orleans.