Le Show; 2022-05-22

From deep inside your audio device of choice. Let us gentlemen, as I'm sure most of you know, the early years of the 20th century were influenced profoundly by the work of a certain Dr. Freud, Sigmund Freud, invented pretty much the practice of psychoanalysis and his insights even outside of his own style of practice influenced a lot of Western society. Although in the later years of the 20th century, Freudian style analysis fell out of favor with a lot of folks, except for Woody Allen I guess. And the focused move to other styles of psychological and psychotherapy, just was a development moving forward, progress.

And yet at least one of the contributions of Dr. Freud has in the last week come back to prominence. This is speaking at the George W. Bush Institute of something, forget the name of it, but it was an institute, it's a proper institute. Well, it's an institute. Here is former president of the United States, George W. Bush. Russian elections are rigged. All opponents are imprisoned or otherwise eliminated from participating in the electoral process. The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. Welcome back, Dr. Freud.

Hello, welcome to the show. Two years of dust, swept in the corner, two years of junk and magazines, a picture of a sunset that you drew me, folding in a box of memory, a damn-out win or never killed us, cooped up every night and day, bought me hell this thingy coming, we know he likes it as much as me. I don't mind, one day, one side, but keep me in your thoughts when we say good-night. Take down that picture from the wall, a blank canvas before our eyes, we don't need

any of those things no more, another day and some rise. I don't mind, one day, one side, but keep me in your thoughts when we say good-night. I know I want you on time, but keep me in your thoughts when we say goodbye I know I want you on time, but keep me in your thoughts when we say goodbye

I know I want you on time, but keep me in your thoughts when we say goodbye I know I want you on time, but keep me in your thoughts when we say goodbye But keep me in your thoughts when we say goodbye I know I want you on time, but keep me in your thoughts

I know I want you on time, but keep me in your thoughts I know I want you on time, but keep me in your thoughts when we say goodbye Well, the current issue of Wired magazine has a piece about nuclear fusion, you know, like the H-bomb, but without the bomb part

nuclear fusion, which has been held up as the real future of nuclear power going forward, it means generating a reaction, kind of close to the temperature of the sun, which is, you know, touchy, little bit hard to handle But the point of the piece in Wired is that the process, as it's currently developed, involves using two isotopes of hydrogen, which is known as heavy water when it's mixed with oxygen, and Tritium, our old friend Tritium, now the interesting thing about this is that the piece in Wired suggests that Tritium is rare and getting rarer, and will be a problem going forward if hydrogen fusion becomes our energy source of choice And then there's this, to Pans Nuclear Regulator, this week approved plans by the operator of the Wrecked Fook plant to release its treated radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean, that is, next year, saying the methods are safe and risks to the environment minimal

What is that waste water radioactive with? Tritium, they could just save it up for the, for the H, H plants, the plant was submitted by Tokyo Electric Power to the government, that's based on the government's decision last year to release the wastewater as a necessary step for the ongoing plant cleanup and decommission There's still concern in the community and neighboring countries about the potential health hazards of the release of the wastewater, that includes Tritium, a byproduct of nuclear power production, and a possible carcinogen at high levels Well then, let's keep the levels low, shall we? More than 60 isotopes selected for treatment can be lowered to meet safety standards except for Tritium, it's safe if diluted, times scientists say impact of long-term low-dose exposure to the environment and humans are unknown

And the Tritium can have bigger impact on humans when consumed in fish than in water, it's from the AP The head of the nuclear authority in Japan said the plant is made conservatively, so the radiation impact on the environment could be still below the legal limit, Tom Well, I'm a baby, the legal limit. Yeah, in case of any thinkable risks, all right then, there's the challenge right there So, maybe we shouldn't be dumping the Tritium, maybe we should be keeping in more big tanks Daylight Waterford, Connecticut's critical to find a solution for storing the nation's spent nuclear fuel, why that's the statement of the energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm

During a visit to a nuclear power plant in Connecticut, what a discovery, it's critical to find a solution for storing the nation's spent nuclear fuel You know, the waste, she was invited to tour and here is the most fortuitously named facility in the entire energy industry Milestone nuclear power station, there you go She and the local congressman Joe Courtney are both working to change how spent nuclear fuel is stored nationwide To solve a decades-long stalemate, again from the associated press spent fuel that was meant to be stored temporarily at current and former nuclear plant sites nationwide, is piling up Some of it dates back to the 1980s Quote, it's important for us as a nation to say we're finding a place to store nuclear waste in one place, so the communities are not bearing the responsibility and we are consolidating the waste

She said that in front of what appeared to be a concrete bunker that stores spent fuel There's renewed momentum, says the AP to figure out a storage site or sites to free up the land where the waste is currently being stored and move it away from population center's fault lines, floodplains, and in the case of Southern California, right by the ocean To responsibly use nuclear power, the congressman from Connecticut says, we have to move on this issue Energy department is working to develop a process to ask communities if they're interested in storing spent nuclear fuel on an interim basis That would solve the problem temporarily, but some, including activists in the anti-nuclear world, well, the union of concerned scientists, let's say He says his main concern, he's the director of nuclear power safety there, is concerns that planning for interim storage could undermine efforts to figure out a permanent storage repository underground

If there's a place to ship fuel to, there won't be the political momentum to site an underground repository which is the only plausible safe long-term solution for the waste, he says Long-term as in hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of years Japan's lifting the evacuation order for a fuk village next month, allowing some of the residents to return home after almost a decade Authorities have decided to end the difficult to return zone That designation was assigned to an area in the northeastern village of Katsurau It's going to allow the region to host permanent residents again, if they dare The boss of Hinckley Point C, nuclear plant in England, has blamed pandemic disruption after admitting the new nuclear power station will start operating a year later than planned

And will cost an extra $4 billion That's so unusual for nuclear plants, you have to blame the pandemic for it because otherwise you've never The first unit at the site is now scheduled to operating June 20, 20, 70 years later than planned Costs estimated between 31 and 32 billion, why I got that on me? The French nuclear firm EDF, that's a partner in the plant, says this would not affect the cost of British consumers or tax spreaders We met by the French company EDF and China's CGM, which is a junior partner in the project And in December of last year, maintenance checks on the primary circuit of C-VOL-1 nuclear plant in France Revealed corrosion near the welds on pipes of the safety injection system, checks were then carried out on the same equipment at unit 2, revealing similar defects

EDF decided to replace the affected parts, requiring an extended shutdown of the plant, and to also take its two other units that choose B offline to carry out similar checks In mid-January of this year, EDF announced that the similar faults on the safety injection system pipe welds to those discovered at C-VOL-1 had been found at C-VOL-2 and choose B-2 In addition to sit 10-year in-service inspection at Pendley-1, also revealed stress, corrosion At the moment there are 12 reactors shut down as a result of the issue, among a total of 30 reactors in France currently shut down the others for normal maintenance or 10-year outages Only dependent, dependable, reliable, clean, safe, too safe to meter, our friend, the atom, and now The average American has their personal information shared in an online ad bidding war 747 times a day

According to the Tech Journal of the Register, for an EU citizenly average one, that number is less than half 376 178 trillion instances of the same bidding war happen online in the US and the EU The extent of real-time bidding RTB, that's what goes on behind the scenes as as are served, love that word, served, I'd say shoved, but they say served, to you, the person who uses the internet And me, the technology that drives almost all online advertising in which is said relies on sharing of personal information without user consent, that is real-time bidding

17 billion last year, the numbers only apply to US and Europe, real-time bidding involves the sharing of information about internet users, it happens whenever a user lands on a website that serves ads Advertisers can include nearly anything that would help them better target ads, those advertisers bid on the ad space based on the information the ad network provides, this all happens in milliseconds Anything based on the interactive advertising bureau's audience taxonomy, the basics, age, sex location, income, and the like are included, it doesn't stop there all sorts of websites, fingerprint their visitors, even charities treating mental health conditions, and those fingerprints can later be used to target ads, unrelated websites Including our Amazon and Facebook's RTB networks, that means the scope of the RTB industry is again much larger than this report describes

Council and civil liberties describes RTB as, quote, the biggest data breach ever recorded, unquote, even that may be giving advertisers too much credit, it's freely broadcast data, calling it a breach implies action was taken to bypass defenses, of which there aren't any, according to the register Is RTB violating any laws at all? Yes, claims Gartner Privacy Research of IP Nader Hennine, he told the register of the ad tech industry justifies its use of RTB under the legitimate business interest provision of the EU's privacy law, multiple regulators have rejected that assessment, so the answer would be yes, it is a violation of the law, Hennine opined As far back as 2019, Google and other ad tech giants were accused by the UK of knowingly breaking the law by using RTB, a case it continues to investigate

So dig in everybody, speaking of ad tech, the US Federal Trade Commission this week says it intends to take action against educational technology companies that unlawfully collect data from children They're using online educational services, children should not have to needlessly hand over their data and forfeit their privacy in order to do their schoolwork or participate in remote learning, says the FTC, especially given the wide and increasing adoption of ad tech tools The agency says it will scrutinize educational service providers to ensure their meeting, their legal obligations under the children's online privacy protection act makes you want to be a child The FTC Federal Trade Commission voted five to nothing to adopt the policy statement indicating the willingness to defend children's privacy extends across party lines The vote for public is Democrats on the FTC voted for it, the White House issued a statement in support of the vote

The children's privacy act took effect, just about two years ago I'm sorry, about 22 years ago, was amended in 2013 and applies to commercial websites and online services including mobile apps The FTC signalling its intention to pay closer attention to violations of the children's privacy law over the past 22 years, the FTC has fined over two dozen companies for gathering data from minors without explicit parental consent Biggest such settlement came in 2019 with Google and YouTube agreed to pay 170 million, they got that on them to resolve allegations of children's privacy act violations that year And yet more, tracking marketing and analytics firms have been exfiltrating the email addresses of internet users from web forums prior to submission and without user consent According to security researchers, some of these firms are said to have also inadvertently grabbed passwords from these forms

Oops, I didn't need to grab your password, dude! And research paper scheduled to appear at a security conference later this year The authors describe how they measure data handling in web forums on the top 100,000 websites They created their own software to measure email and password data gathering from web forums The information through a web form by pressing the Submit button generally indicates the user is consented to provide that information for specific purposes But web pages because they run JavaScript code can be programmed to respond to events prior to a user pressing the Submit button Many companies involved in data gathering and advertising appear to believe they're entitled to grab the information web site visitors into forms with scripts before the Submit button has been pressed Facial recognition bands passed by US cities are being overturned as law enforcement and lobbyist groups pressure local governments to tackle rising crime rates

Look out there's crime in July the state of Virginia will scrap its ban on facial recognition California and New Orleans I'm trapped may follow suit according to Reuters, Vermont, adjusted its bill to allow police to use facial recognition software in child sex abuse cases Meaning the church it's a smart smart smart smart smart smart world and now Apologies for the weak latest gentleman for listening pleasure the chief executive of galaxy digital holdings leading crypto currency company listed on the Toronto stock exchange As issued a maya culpa has the chief executive for his role in the collapse of two popular quote currencies and warned that the sector the crypto currency sector is likely to struggle in the near future risky assets in general appeared poorly over the last six months

For many reasons and now Mike Novogratz the outspoken CEO of galaxy digital he was one of the top promoters of two popular cryptocurrencies Luna and Terry USD They've crashed even more violently than bitcoin and ether in the past few weeks those currencies currencies losses wiped out $40 billion in investments Mike Novogratz promoters of these other quote currencies Luna and Terry USD had gone so far as to get a tattoo of a wolf howling at the moon with the tag Luna on his arm in January He tweeted the pic and added the line I'm officially a Luna tick in a show of total belief in their future yet after the value of Luna collapse last week

He seemed to disappear but this week he re-emerged with a public letter that acknowledged his poor judgment and backing those two currencies so forcefully it was a big idea that failed he wrote Reading the stories of retail investors who lost their savings is heart wrenching he wrote He also cautioned about the near term future for crypto So he's sorry Doesn't say if he's going to get rid of the tattoo Jason Mamoah actor took to Instagram to apologize for taking photos in the sistine chapel by posing posting a sweaty shirtless workout video That's how we apologize He's currently in room the Rome shooting a movie

Tenth installment in the fast and furious saga He posted snaps have been self below the famous Michelangelo paintings that adorned the walls and ceilings of the chapel earlier this month and the caption he wrote But disgruntled fans quickly pointed out in the comments the visitors are typically forbidden for taking photos or videos in the chapel And he posted another video in which he addressed the controversy after a brief moment of working out He just loved you in Italy if you ever thought I disrespected your culture that wasn't my intention He'd previously visited the sistine chapel when he was 1920 for the current trip he provided a donation so that his friends and crew members from the film Good joining him on their days off from shooting I found people really wanted to take photos with me he said I was very respectful

I would never want to do anything to disrespect someone's culture so if I did I apologize I definitely paid to have that private moment and gave a nice donation to the church And if apology ladies and gentlemen S. Oil Chief Executive Officer Hussein Al-Katani apologized over the explosion of its refinery in Korea promised to take all measures possible to prevent such incidents from happening again I would quote I would like to express my deepest condolences and apologies to the deceased who lost his life from an incident in S. Oil Orson refinery and to his family My apologies also go out to the injured workers and local residents close to the refinery To whom we've caused discomfort he said I myself and S. Oil will provide full support to make sure the injured workers get the best treatment possible And give utmost care to assist their quick recovery

A fire was ignited in the compressor during the startup process after maintenance according to S. Oil and firefighters And, well, not an end yet, in a trial as huge symbolic importance for Keeve, Vedam, Shishimarin A 21-year-old Russian tank commander charged with murdering an unarmed 62-year-old civilian He pleaded guilty, could be sentenced to life, asked by the widow of the dead man if he repented he told her yes I admit guilt I understand you will not be able to forgive me I apologize for everything I have done, uncork And, deadline Alpina Michigan Alpina Public Schools officials apologized this week for not releasing information sooner after racist words, homophobic statements, and anti-Semitic symbols were found who had painted on the rock in front of Alpina High School Officials said they became aware of the hateful language on the rock, last Saturday, and listed students volunteers to paint over the hate speech to avoid exposing it to the public Alpina Public Schools strived to create a kind and welcoming environment for all students

Administators thought the first thing to do was paint over the rock and then discuss what they should do next We spent too much time deciding what to do, said one of the school officials, I just think it's unacceptable to treat other people that way The rock was donated to the school several years ago students have since used it as a kind of message board for current events and celebration But the school district has apologized about the rock The apologies of the week, ladies and gentlemen, a copyrighted feature of this broadcast I don't know who do I lean on when there's no foundation stable

I go to the rock, I go to the rock, I go to the rock I go to the rock, I go to the rock, I go to the rock, I go to the rock And when I go to the rock, I go to the rock, I go I go to the rock and enter into the rock I go to the rock and enter into the rock, I go to the rock, I go to those that ain't enough And I go to those that ain't enough that ain number ten, he's still right With the earth all around me sinking safe Oh cry I go to find an art in the rock If I scared, for I need a drink When the storms of life are ready, will return to you. When those winds are all blown, and is there a rare for you, rare for you? In the time of tribulation, God in the realm,

I will be the same when I go to the heart. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, that the builders in the ancient, I run to the mountains, and I tell them, He's still on the way. When the earth goes around me, the sinking sea, I run to the mountains, and I tell them, He's still on the way. When the earth goes around me, the sinking sea, I run to the mountains, and I tell them, He's still on the way. When the earth goes around me, the sinking sea, I run to the mountains, and I tell them, He's still on the way. When the earth goes around me, the sinking sea,

I run to the mountains, and I tell them, He's still on the way. When the earth goes around me, the sinking sea, I run to the mountains, you can go to the rock, you can go to God, I can go. I know, I know, I know, I can goю, I know, I can go, to the rock, This is Lesho. Long time listeners to this or some other program, perhaps, may recall

an acronym, Mr. Goh. It was the Mississippi River Gulf outlet. It was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s, slopping over into the 1960s. It was a straight line canal between the Gulf of Mexico and the city of New Orleans, the outskirts thereof, to give shippers a less curvilinear route to the city than via the Mississippi River, which curvy linear as its middle name. That canal was found in two investigative reports that we've discussed on this program, to have contributed mightily to the flood damage associated with Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And it was subsequently in, I guess, 2007, ordered by

Congress to be closed. And so the water could never flow from the Gulf to the city via that channel again. That's the last I knew about it until a report this week from our guest on this program. Amanda Moore, who is head of the Gulf program for the National Wildlife Federation. And she's on the line with me now. Amanda, thank you for speaking with us. Thank you for having me. So is what I set up to now, accurate? You are accurate. Good job. Thank you. I spent a lot of time on that documentary. So you report this week revealed to me for the first time. I'm sure your regular readers knew about it that nothing has been done. Once the canal was closed, nothing has been done to remediate the land that it flooded or anything else that it affected. It's just laying there unprepared and

uncompensated for. Is that that's where we are at the moment, right? That is where we are on the side of the federal government's investment in funding. So the state of Louisiana has not let it all just weigh there. They have been earnestly trying to advance restoration at the scale that they can. But the core has not invested any funding. Congress has not allocated any funding to restoration of the coastal area impacted by the Mr. Goal. Has the Congress been requested by the Corps to do such an investing? So there is a dispute over the cost share. So in 2007, when the Congress said that in word of and the Water Resources Development Act, that the channel needed to be closed to navigation and they needed to

come up the Army Corps needed to come up with a plan for restoration, there was nothing that was super explicit about who pays for the actual construction of the restoration plan, the projects and plan. And because of that, there has been ongoing disputes. They've gone to court. And ultimately, you'll take an act of Congress to figure out, to clarify so that we can move forward. And what's really and furiating about that is that it's been 15 years and the communities are the losers, right? When they can, you know, the Corps, they cannot interpret things and just everything kind of states stagnant, we don't get that federal investment that's due, then the communities that were impacted by the Mr. Goal favor the burden of that cost share dispute because they don't get the restoration works that they justly deserve, right? So it's pretty shocking that it hasn't happened in 15 years and we

have opportunity right now. There has been two year question, has the Corps requested? I know the state of Louisiana has requested clarification. There have been lawsuits where this is brought up. They went up to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, I believe, and they said that it was premature to rule on. So essentially, we're stuck with Congress having to figure this out. Literally an act of Congress, again, to figure this out. Tell me a little bit about the communities in the area of the Mr. Goal. This is, if I'm not mistaken, St. Bernard Paris. Yep. And the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East communities were all also impacted. You know, after Katrina, the Corps tried to initially define the area impacted as about 60,000 acres area of coast. The independent scientists that know the system well said, no, no, it's at least 600,000 acres. And they want the Corps shifted their

plan and they made their study area 600,000 acres. What we've seen since the channel has been closed with just a rock dam, like a navigational dam. We've seen shifts in solanities of over a million acres of coastal habitats surrounding New Orleans directly attributed to a shift in the hydrology of that channel. So it was more impactful than we even realized. So to the point about the communities, most a lot of communities were impacted to an extent, everything around like concentrate, but the communities most directly impacted by the channel were New Orleans East, the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, and St. Bernard Paris. And of course, during Katrina, there were numerous levy breaches and you saw a lot of catastrophic flooding, deadly surge, and the communities from the Lower Ninth Ward especially, was probably the one that was most visible. But I don't know if there were any structures in St. Bernard Paris that didn't take water.

I'm sure most people listening aren't that familiar with St. Bernard Paris. To my recollection, 100% as you said of the Paris, the county in North American terms, were flooded. You had people on their roofs for three days, four days without food or water. And the reason people aren't familiar with that is because there were no television cameras in St. Bernard Paris. The television cameras went to the freeway close locations in downtown New Orleans, and let's put it this way. The demographics of St. Bernard Paris are very different from those of New Orleans. So you did not get a full picture of the demography of the disaster when you didn't see St. Bernard Paris. I've driven through there, I've driven to locations in St. Bernard Paris. There are businesses that are up and running, as I said, 100% of the homes were affected. Have people rebuilt? Yeah. For many years after Katrina, there was

a lot of concrete slabs and what were subdivisions, just homes completely wiped out. They did a lot of innovative recovery work. I was actually down there last week, and I was just every time I go, I noticed more and more homes and more and more happening in St. Bernard. So it definitely, you don't have to look far in the communities like the Lower Ninths Board in St. Bernard Paris to see Katrina impact still 17 years later. But the St. Bernard is definitely rebuilt, and I don't think they have the same population that they did. And definitely the Lower Ninths Board does not. But it's a vibrant suburbian community of New Orleans. I want to get back to the core. When the core wants to do a project in what

I've read and found out about it, it's fairly, shall we say, on the front foot when it comes to contacting local Congress people and other officials to sort of push the idea of what it wants to do. In a matter of fact, that's what it did when it conceived of the Mr. Goh in the first place. Is it not? It button-holed local. They definitely worked. Yeah, they worked with the state and with the port of New Orleans, and there were a lot of different entities involved, exactly. But the core was not a shrinking violet when it came to advocating for the Mr. Goh, as I recall, reading about, I wasn't here at the time. But so have they just been sitting quietly by the telephone waiting for Congress to say, what would you like us to do? Yeah, I mean, we felt like when they came out with their Restoration Plan in 2012, the

Assistant Secretary of the Army at that time, Joe Elantar-C, she recommended, the plan was many billions of dollars. She recommended over a billion dollars worth of Restoration projects to Congress. But they could not, because of the cost share dispute, they could not get to, they need to sign a project partnership agreement with the state, and they were just at a stalemate. And really, essentially, what has happened since then, which has been a decade, is, I mean, for all intensive purposes, that plan is sitting on a shelf. Yeah, you referred to the cost sharing dispute. So over time, the core initially was saying a traditional cost share. A traditional cost share is 65 federal 35 state. And they're in negotiations right now, and the 2022 Water Resources and Development Act. And there are all kinds of positions, you know, there's a lot going on in the sausage making right

now, but we feel very strongly that it is a full federal cost. You know, the channel was a federal channel operated and maintained by the federal government. The rock dam that they built to close it, there's actually a couple of navigational closures. Those are all at full federal expense. The Restoration Plan was mandated at full federal expense. And so there's the history there that this is a full federal issue. So there is a plan sitting there. Can you describe what the plan would entail in terms of how St. Bernard and surrounding parts of Orleans Parish would be restored? Yes. So there was a lot of advocacy work. It's actually pretty unprecedented engagement by local communities in St. Bernard and Lower Ninth, Oregon, City of New Orleans and nonprofits, science organizations working with the Corps for them to come up with their 2012 plan. So the plan includes a lot of Mars creation, a lot of shoreline protection along the channel,

Ridge Restoration and some areas in St. Bernard. It involves some Mars creation work in the Central Wetlands Unit, which is behind the federal levees and in between where all the community, the population is from St. Bernard to up into the Lower Ninth Board. There's a 30,000 acre wetland unit that has, they call for restoration in that area. The funnel, the infamous funnel where the Mr. Go meet Santa Costa Waterway and it intersects there. And during Katrina, they call it the funnel because there's a wall of water that came through right there where those two water bodies meet, those two channels meet. That has a lot of restoration work slated and the New Orleans East Land Bridge. It's called a critical landscape feature by the Army Corps. It essentially separates Lake Ponsatrain from Lake Bourne. So it stops the storm surge from going basically from the Gulf of Mexico up into Lake Ponsatrain.

And so there is full, there's a lot of restoration work on that. The Army Corps plan has a lot of synergy with the state of Louisiana's coastal master plan, which is really the state's blueprint. That's how they're spending their oil still penalty dollars, for instance. All of the work that's been done by the state to date has been driven by their coastal master plan, but there's a lot of synergy with the Army Corps plan. So there's a lot of work that we can do and will still be, you know, doing the Army Corps plan, state's plan, the work that up in NGOs support, there's a lot of restoration work that has to be done. And some people think that doing restoration work on that Mr. Go means like filling in the Mr. Go, and that's not at all. That's impossible. Honestly, I think they did a price on that back in after Katrina, and it was like $20 billion or something, because the channel is so big and so deep and so wide. So that's not, and that's not really what we need either. We need to be

restored hydrology in the wetlands and protect shorelines from continuing to erode and protect those critical areas that protect communities. Do we know we humans know how to restore wetlands? We do. They do it all the time in coastal Louisiana. They have some really great successes. I think most of the dredges in the U.S. are working in Louisiana right now. They've gotten pretty good over the years at coastal restoration, and their budget, for instance, in this coming year for coastal restoration is over a billion dollars at the state. So the state is really one of one of the best in the contractors they work with at doing wetland restoration. Your organization is the Wildlife Federation. What happened to Wildlife at the time of the flooding of the Mr. Goh and what's the state of the Wildlife in that area now? When the Mr. Goh was built, you had a lot of the fresh and

intermediate swamps and that gradient of wetlands that you usually see in a healthy river delta and a healthy estuary. You saw a lot of saltwater intrusion, a lot of degradation. So when you have that, you lose diversity of species and you lose that diversity habitat. So when they closed the channel in 2012 with a permeable rock dam, they were really smart about it and they did it right, the Army Corps did this. They did it right at a natural ridge feature that the Mr. Goh cut through. So they restored some of the natural hydrology and like I was saying, we saw the shift in salinity back to pre-Mr. Goh over a few years back to those levels after the channel was closed off. And I think people were very

pleasantly surprised that happened from this rock dam and it has allowed some of the habitat restoration to start taking that wasn't really possible before the channel was closed and while the channel was still open. For instance, up in Maripa, Swamp, North of the city of New Orleans, an upper part of Lake Ponto Train, they are planting cypress trees and they are thriving and they are doing really well. And that correlates to the salinity reduction because the habitat is more conducive now to sustaining cypress trees. You are seeing clams and oysters and different shellfish come back in areas where they had been and thrive in areas where they had been. You are seeing more crawfish sometimes in the area and in these fresher species are kind of starting to come back. And that is really good news because

that means that all the restoration work that is going to come and that is being done right now in the area has a better chance at success. It is kind of priming the area for that restoration. Anytime you say more crawfish, I am in. So this is in Congress at the moment where in a congressional committee as they work on the word act for this year. So it just came out of transportation and infrastructure in the house yesterday. And now we have to wait for a full house vote and then it goes into conference with the Senate version and then we get across the finish line and that is a lot in Congress. I didn't know they had a finish line still. So that one little sequence is like, you know, it is a lot when it is not going to happen.

So we have to keep not take anything for granted. And so we are really working hard to make sure Congress knows how critical it is that they get this done. This is a case of vast damage to the area done by the federal decision along with support from the business community to build the Mr. Goh in the first place. This is not an act of nature. This is an act of man and the man lives in Washington, DC. And as you mentioned it has taken a long time to even come to this point to be thinking seriously about funding the restoration. Your organization is lobbying for this or advocating. Educating. Educating. Which is what you are doing right now.

We will be making help people plug in for sure. And everybody across the country, this is a federal issue. You know, it is a federal channel and we are asking Congress for funds. So anybody that wants to see justice serve from the impacts of Katrina and allow these communities to recover, you know, your voice matters right now. Amanda Moore, Director of the Gulf Program of the National Wildlife Federation. Thank you so much for getting us up to date on this crazy situation. Really appreciate it. Good luck to you. Thank you, Harry. You've always been a great advocate for this. So thank you so much. We appreciate you. Oh, thank you. And now a little bit of news of the godly. Germany's Catholic and Protestant churches have been criticized for their handling of clergy sexual abuse for years by victims, believers in the media. Now they face new pressure from an unexpected corner, the insurance industry, a national association of accident insurance

providers, VSG, sorry, VBG recently complained to the two predominant church bodies in the country that they hadn't been notified of the thousands of sexual abuse cases that have been found in the church group's ranks. According to German law, sexual abuse cases can fall under the rules governing the church's insurance policies. Policyholders must inform the company of known cases and help insurers determine how much compensation they should pay. The lawyers for the insurance association says church insurance policies cover both paid employees and volunteers at church run activities such as liturgies, youth groups, or outings. If an older boy is abused during work, that is a work accident. Those affected in the context of church volunteer work have our fullest sympathy, said a spokesperson for the insurance companies. News of the Godly Ladies and Gentlemen. Copyrighted feature of this broadcast. End just another religion note from Germany. Archbishop Heinrich Koch of Berlin of the Berlin

College has asked forgiveness for the church's discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation. Homophobia was a quote, unholy line of tradition in the Catholic church. He said during an ecumenical service at a Protestant church. According to the German Catholic news agency, he called for respect for the dignity of every human being, regardless of their sexual orientation, announcing that the archbishop archdiocese of Berlin will take measures to ensure this. And Protestant official, Reverend, said in Protestant parishes,

two people who did not conform to heterosexual norms had not been accepted, quote, for far too long. Every phobia, he added, separates from God and becomes a sin. It was the Godly. Always more good news of the God. But that's all for this week's edition of the show back next week at the same time with the same radio stations over your audio device of choice whenever you want it. And it'd be just like solving that nasty cost share problem if you do agree to join with me then, when you're already. Thank you very much. A typical of show-shopped out of the San Diego desk, the Hawaii desk to Pam Hallstead, and the Thomas Wallsherde,

the email address for this program, chance to get cars I talk to shirts, if they still exist, and the playlists of the music heard here on all at harryshear.com and I'm on Twitter at the harryshear. The show comes to you from Century Progress Productions and originates through the facilities of W.I.O. New Orleans flagship station of the Changes Easy Radio Network, so long from New Orleans.