Devastating and Serious

Here's a couple notes of interest:

Devastating: A Louisiana scientist working on one of my committees at the Academies forwarded this unbelievable graph our way. As you can see, an absurdly indestructable buoy managed to weather the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina's eye and record the storm surge at the mouth of the Biloxi River, where it feeds into Mississippi Sound.The blurb on the master copy that doesn't show up on this image is the following: "One surviving gauge measured the whole storm, a little inland on the Biloxi River.....a 25-ft wall of water. This might be the first measurement of such a surge ever. “Incredible”." Although a crippling surge has been discussed exhaustively in the wake of the hurricane, for me, seeing this rare and horrific documentation kind of pounds the point home. They essentially dealt with a tsunami, on top of a hurricane.


So as not to make light of the situation along the Gulf Coast in any way, I'll label this second element as only 'Serious'. DCist just reported that Dr. Dremo's Bar in Arlington-that bastion of high culture and sophistication-will no longer host Beer Pong on their premises (Scroll down on that link and check-out some interesting reader input). Apparently, the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverages Control found Dremo's guilty of violating statutes under their purview. As you can see in DCist's post, some aren't totally convinced this is true. Anybody have any legal insight into this tragedy? Also, call me ignorant, but isn't that beer pong game pictured on DCist absolutely ridiculous. 36 cups?!