Whatever you think of the argument proposed by the article as a whole, this Salon essay on overdevelopment of the storm-vulnerable coast begins with a paragraph of such welcome comic relief that it's worth savoring:

Hurricane Katrina has turned New Orleans into "a wilderness," said one public health official, who begged evacuated residents not to return to the city for at least a week. Rife with poisonous water moccasins and fire ants, downed trees and power lines, without fresh drinking water, power, gas or sewage, the storm has made the battered and flooded city uninhabitable.

It's really just that second sentence, but what a doozy! The goofy confusion of its syntax (in which the storm itself is whimsically thirsty and gas-deprived, not to mention "rife" with everything from serpents to power lines) is part of the fun, but mostly it's those fire ants. Yowza! Forget about the tons of water, the tons of mud, the block upon block of wrecked homes. The strandings of families. Watch out for the fire ants, my friend. You think they're a problem when things are dry? Well, you've never met one who's just been soaked out of his nest. That there's a fire ant with NOTHING TO LOSE.

Give him room, folks, give him room...