AP reports on the post-Katrina real estate boom, echoing Sam's thoughts about hurricane relief by selling off underwater real estate (similar issues to viaticals, really)...

and Overlawered covers the first Katrina lawsuits against the oil companies, similar to my prediction (not identical, as the lawyers haven't thrown in the anthropogenic climate change - hurricane intensity angle... yet).

In this alt.food.wine thread I found an interesting discussion about what exactly various parts of a pencil taste like, after someone described a wine as "Graphite and smoke on the finish." I certainly chewed up many pencils while I was school, but not for the flavor. This is an easy experiment though, so I immediately found a pencil and a sharpener. The lead don't taste like nothin' to me, either dull or sharpened. (I have to admit it did feel a bit cool on my tongue, no doubt due to its temperature being lower than my tongue's.) The shavings, now, they smelled like pencil shavings.