Timshel

Because people need to link to this...

2011-08-07T23:03:00.003-05:00

As they came by shouting "This is what Democracy looks like" it occurred to me that they were probably right about that. Elites and lawmakers quietly dividing up the wealth of the nation in a hotel suite while clueless douchebags and idiot kids prattle on to no affect in the street is pretty much exactly what American democracy looks like in 2011.

TKGOTW

2010-10-29T22:03:00.001-05:00

Fuck you guys for talking shit about me not pulling my blogging weight. In the meantime, play this here puzzle game called Thomas Was Alone.

Congratulations

2010-10-19T00:30:00.003-05:00

Here's a little congratulatory music for our douchebag Governor and our dick Senator.

*adding that this video is totally cliched, but I like the song, so, meh, get a life.

Bobby Jindal is a giant fucking douche part 10081

2010-10-18T22:49:00.003-05:00

So the other day I'm reading the Advocate's weekend editorial page and I see this editorial about how Louisianans should really be worried about higher ed cuts:

"It’s not an overstatement to say the future of higher education in Louisiana is seriously threatened as never before," CABL said in a recent commentary on the crisis. But unfortunately, as CABL also said, "most of the public and many of our state leaders don't seem to recognize" that there is a crisis.

It’s not an overstatement.

There is a crisis, and CABL frankly criticized those who would minimize the severity of the cash crunch about to hit. The good-government organization did not single out by name the State House leaders who wanted even deeper cuts this year, and more cuts in the fiscal 2012 budget than the Governor's Office is already working on.

But those are among the people who should listen up.

Of course the typically wishy-washy Advocate doesn't bother to name any State House leaders in their editorial, but it doesn't really matter. It's the Advocate. That CABL is giving this the urgency it deserves is it's own surprise.

A concerned student (who happens to be President of LSU Student Government) then sent a letter to prominent northeastern publications in states where Presidents are nominated by their parties and where our current governor has been spending a great deal of time.

A Jindal administration flack responded with a giant FUCK YOU to the entire populace of Louisiana with the following:

A spokesman for the office responded to a call by LSU’s student body president for Gov. Bobby Jindal to spend more time in Louisiana dealing with the budget crisis and less time campaigning around the country for out-of-state candidates.

Kyle Plotkin issued a statement from the office saying that it was great that the student body president is getting involved in the political process and saying that the governor’s chief of staff and policy director talked to him on Monday.

But the statement gave little doubt to the governor’s position that there is more fat to be cut from higher education.

“The reality though is that higher education officials are not delivering the value our students deserve,” said part of the statement. “In FY 2010, Louisiana ranked ninth in the nation for the amount of state dollars spent on higher education as a percentage of state taxes. So the answer is certainly not to raise taxes on the backs of Louisianians.”

Big giant straw man argument from the Governor's office there, and I don't think it will take any of you long to find it. But that's beside the point. The request from a student at the state's flagship university is for the Governor to come home and "deal with this." Or hell, deal with anything. The response from his office is pablum about taxes. This is the giant douchebag of a Governor we have in Louisiana.

Time Killing Game of the Week

2010-10-16T00:26:00.003-05:00

I honestly don't even know what the object of this game is.

Bonus Chilean mineros video!

This mfer knows how to party

Success!

2010-10-16T00:23:00.001-05:00

See here.

Please don't go

2010-10-05T21:45:00.006-05:00

And now something completely different. A topic dear to my heart - Go Cups. Lafayette City-Parish Council is bringing up an ordinance tonight (for the second time) that would ban Go Cups from downtown bars. All logical-seeming arguments about reckless endangerment aside, go cups are a thing I would be quite sad to see go. I actually continue to use the argument that "I didn't know it isn't legal everywhere" when I walk out of a bar in any other state with drink in hand. Shameless, and seldom works, but at least they tend to laugh it off.

There's a story about it at the Independent: Will the 'go cup' ban go? It mentions an unnamed downtown business that is lobbying for the ban, and I've heard it is a certain Group that starts with an R and rhymes with Wusso. Why they are so passionate about eliminating go cups has yet to be determined, but I'll be watching for news on tonight's session.

What are they thinking?

2010-10-05T20:49:00.005-05:00

Since Mr. Prado has decided to repeatedly prod me about a post, I'm gonna double up.

I've noticed a bit of a parallel in my home state and current residence lately - the fact that the rest of the nation is a bewildered by the senate race standings. Not that this is restricted to Louisiana and Wisconsin, but I've seen a lot of commentary about each in recent weeks.

First an editorial from the Washington Times: The scandal card fails in Louisiana. Though some of the comments are lame, the point is that all Vitter has done to seemingly erase the scars of scandal has been to constantly evoke OBAMA and PELOSI in all caps. No matter that calling Melancon a steadfast liberal is a complete joke; anti-obama fervor is strong enough in Louisiana to defy all reason or fact.

Which brings us to the WI senate race. Senator Feingold is trailing Ron Johnson (amateur climatologist and recently accused abusive priest enabler) simply for being in the senate. Much has been made recently of Feingold ads where he actually supports recent healthcare legislation instead of running from it. Democrat Feingold runs ad touting health care vote. . I'm personally glad someone finally has the huevos to actually do this, but most people are scared for him. He'll win in Madison and other left-leaning cities, but its going to be a hard race in the rural counties.

Results

2010-10-04T22:39:00.002-05:00

There's an election results analysis from the special for LT Gov and LA3 Republican runoff coming, but I can't post it yet. Too much Saints, drinking, and going to Las Vegas to get it done at the moment. I will be staying at the Hard Rock tomorrow night with nothing to do until Wednesday. Depending on whether or not I get my self some wifi from them tomorrow night AND don't spend it in random Vegas bars I may talk about turnout, tea partiers, and Sammy Kershaw. Otherwise don't expect anything else from here until Saturday. Unless AhQuoi gets on it.

TKGOTW

2010-10-02T00:15:00.001-05:00

Aaaaand we're back.

Good luck with this one.

Will be in Las Vegas for work for a few days next week and still not posting very much. Begging my man AhQuoi to post again.

In the meantime we should all go vote against Bobby Jindal on his stupid Constitutional amendment tomorrow.

Fuck the Leotards

2010-09-29T23:09:00.003-05:00

A variety of things have kept me from posting lately. At the end of last week I didn't have power at my condo. Then there was a Saints game, then there was me being lazy. Anyway, just wanted to give you an update that I haven't been totally without purpose since the terribly disappointing loss to the Falcons on Sunday. I have stepped up my efforts to bring public awareness to the cursed nature of black pants on Sundays (or any other football days).

A close friend has kept a close look at the uniform combination the Saints have sported on the field under the Payton regime. The numbers don't look great for black pants. A brief breakdown:

My friend has much more detailed records of these numbers including opponents, QB passer rating per game, etc. Overall it's just pretty much clear that the Saints don't perform as well in black pants. So I tweeted some things at a hopefully influential media member last night and may have managed to finally help move this fringe fan concern about the uniform into an actual newsworthy item about performance. Here's a quote of the exchange I shared over email with a journalist for a New Orleans news org about the black pants.

From: Ricky Prado
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 9:16 AM
To: News Guy

Subject: Gold Pants vs. Black Pants

News Guy,

Thanks for at least entertaining some of us kooky fans out here in our obsessions over the uniform. As I mentioned last night, a friend put this together, but he says not to credit him or his employer will know that's not spending enough time working.

Anyway, the info is attached. Based on a cursory glance at the opponents, it doesn't look like there is any substantial difference over the whole in their quality. We've beat good teams in black pants and lost to bad teams in black pants. My guess is that if we looked at final winning percentages for opponents while wearing black pants or gold pants, they'd be about the same, but that's a job for Elias or ESPN or someone like them and not for people who work full time jobs that aren't in the sports business. The clear fact is that we win at a much higher percentage in gold pants than in black pants. I've long personally supported the theory that dressing professionally in any field brings a more professional attitude and demeanor to your work. The black pants look amateurish and our heroes play like it. Another compelling theory is expressed in this abstract of a social psychology study that suggests black uniforms in competitive sports correlates with increased aggressiveness and can draw more penalties than might be warranted. This may account for the drastic difference between white on gold and black on black. It also may account for the horrid pass interference call in the Falcons final drive down the field on Sunday. I personally have a lot of reservations as to the study without actually being able to see the whole method and the conclusions they've drawn.

http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/frank_black.html

And also the black pants look hideous.

Hope you have a great day, and keep up the great work at [your news org]!

Ricky Prado

---------------------------------------------------------

From: NewsGuy@newsorg.domain
Date: Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 9:32 AM
Subject: RE: Gold Pants vs. Black Pants
To: Ricky Prado

I"m not quite sure I can explain how much your final line makes me laugh. All of this statistical data to possibly back up fans' theory that the team does worse
in black followed by the "black pants look hideous line." That's fantastic.

But seriously, thanks for sending this to me. I'll take a look at it and try to work something out. I may actually try to contact a pyschology expert and go a little more
in depth on this so it may take until next week.

Thanks again. I'll get on it.

Have a great day and keep on reading and following me! I just hope I"m not seen as some doofus by Saints fans. Just try to do my job.

News Guy
News Org Writer

----------------------------------------------------------

Ricky Prado
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 9:53 AM
To: News Guy

Subject: RE: Gold Pants vs. Black Pants

No, that's what we think about [really annoying guy that doesn't know shit about footbal and gets to talk at people for several hours a week]. Keep up the great work and hope to see something about these godawful black pants whenever you can get it done, thanks!

Ricky Prado

We'll see if this goes anywhere, but I'm optimistic.

Republic of West Florida

2010-09-22T21:10:00.002-05:00

Also known as "The Florida Parishes."

This is interesting enough news reporting of history' intersection with current news, especially because of it's Mike Foster contentiousness angle. I wonder if he got Bobby Jindal involved?

In any case the area of Louisiana we're currently fond of calling the Florida Parishes won their independence from Spain 200 years ago tomorrow. It really is a fairly compelling aspect of the pre-statehood history of Louisiana, but by 1810 the Spanish influence in the southeast part of the North American continent was so pathetic we should really examine why these assholes took so long to get with the American spirit of democratic revolution.

Time Killing Game of the Week

2010-09-17T23:11:00.000-05:00

Park your car. I dare you.

Reggie makes sense!

2010-09-16T21:44:00.001-05:00

Quote:

"Obviously something has to be changed. You've got universities making millions of dollars off these kids and they don't get paid. The majority of college athletes who come in on scholarship come in (with) nothing. That's where you have a problem. You're making all this money off these kids and you're giving them crumbs and then you're surrounding these kids with money and telling them not to touch it."

Defend LSU ONE night?

2010-09-16T20:32:00.002-05:00

And reality kicks you in the face...

"I was fired because I wouldn't play the game with the system staff," he said at a midday news conference in the Administration Building. "I always put the concerns and the well-being of our students, faculty and staff first. Now I have paid the price with my job."

...

Until a permanent replacement is found -- a process that, Ryan said, could take nearly a year -- Lombardi will be interim chancellor as well as system president, and he will run the campus with two system vice presidents and Joe King, the UNO provost, according to a news release from the system office.

At his news conference, Ryan said this plan looks like the first step toward making UNO a feeder for LSU's Baton Rouge campus, the system's flagship school.

Upheaval in our state university system will not begin and end at UNO, but they seem to be the current whipping boy. This will spread around as schools are asked to account for cuts of nearly 1/4 of the monies distributed to them by the state. Should be equally fun and depressing to watch.

In comments to my previous post Richard P. mentioned that we have too many four year institutions in this state. Surely this might be true, but then that puts us in the very difficult position of deciding which ones get folded into some kind of glorified community college system and which ones get shuttered so that we can reallocate resources to the "schools that matter." Is UNO, the only public university in the state's largest city, an institution we should be treating as though it doesn't matter?

Holding my nose...

2010-09-15T21:40:00.003-05:00

Old readers of this blog will know the disdain in which I generally hold the "Flagship," but when the struggles in funding of higher education fall at the doorstep of LSU it's hard to ignore.

Yesterday news arrived that LSU faculty are teaming up with some unnamed national union to begin a drive for union membership.

"We're looking for a way to increase faculty leverage as we attempt to save this institution, save the state," said faculty senate president Kevin Cope, "and with that, ask the state to be honest in its dealings with its most trained personnel."

However, professors said at this point, it seems the only way for them to defend themselves is to pull together.

From this morning's story on the NBC affiliate in Baton Rouge, it seems the Chancellor may feel generally sympathetic to them.

Chancellor Michael Martin responded to the idea of a union.

“LSU embraces shared governance. The current system we have is working well especially during these difficult times, but I always welcome dialogue among all parties. The input from the Faculty Senate, Staff Senate, and Student Government is critical to being a strong university. We are open to any discussion that will help to advance the mission of the university and service to the people of the LSU community.”

LSU followed up today with the release of a study that suggests that proposed and already implemented cuts by the Jindal administration will have a worse than dire effect on higher education at the state's largest and most important institution of higher learning.

The closure of colleges and the loss of nearly 700 positions – including 350 faculty positions – would likely send thousands of Louisiana high school students seeking an education out of state if LSU were stripped of $62 million in state support in the next fiscal year, according to the results of an exercise requested by the State Division of Administration.

...

A reduction of $62 million in state funding, added to the $42 million in budget cuts already incurred by the university, would have an even greater actual impact because of the resulting revenue loss from a drop in student enrollment, loss of grants and contracts as a result of fewer faculty, and a reduction in funds brought in by auxiliary units such as residence halls, the Student Union and other self-generating units that depend upon student enrollment. Those additional revenue losses would result in the layoffs of hundreds more faculty and staff.

Details of cuts here.

The amazing thing about all those links and heavy words about these looming and already executed budget cuts discussed above is that the man primarily responsible for them is barely mentioned. Where's Bobby Jindal in all this talk of unions, laid off faculty, and disappearing students? Read all those links and try to find Bobby Jindal even mentioned. The Advocate's political blog brought up the study today, but typically doesn't link to anything and only obliquely suggests where these cuts are coming from.

The hypothetical budget cuts released late Wednesday are part of a state-mandated, budget-cutting exercise of higher education and other state agencies in preparation for the loss of federal stimulus dollars and some state revenues next summer.

Read them all, I dare you (my emphasis on previous quote).

Someone needs to get out there and kick some shins in Baton Rouge, but no one really seems interested.

[update]

...fucking ridiculous, copied and pasted without edit from WBRZ:

Numbers are in for LSU's worst case budget cut scenario the state asked for. It's $62 million, which would lead to layoffs, degrees cut and lost students.

University leaders described the situation as heartbreaking. They said people's passion for LSU is what's so special about the university. It's also what's most on the line if the cuts come to life. No students, no programs and no learning are in LSU's future if the state's financial crisis comes to campus next year.

"Maybe we're crying wolf. We get accused of that, but I think the wolf has been here already, and the next time around, the wolf is gonna be a hell of a lot bigger," said Chancellor Michael Martin.

The next time, "the wolf" could devour almost 700 jobs, half of that faculty, along with half of the colleges at LSU, which leaves every person at the school vulnerable.

"I fear that around the country, they're looking at us as a fire sale, go get their very best and leave the rest," said Martin.

The possibilities enrage educators.

"It's absolutely absurd to consider that LSU would go down the tubes, but that's what's happening," said professor of voice Pat O'Neill.

Students said they are also sad.

"If my degree is affected, I'm gonna want a good education elsewhere," said sophomore Catherine Threlkeld, "and I do think students will leave if this comes to reality."

With predictions of fleeing students numbering in the thousands, the community is scared.

"We depend heavily on LSU students, faculty and staff to support our businesses, and so if they were to have a cut that dramatic, it would really affect our sales," said business owner Clarke Cadzo.

Critics of the cuts said the very soul of LSU is at stake, and that's something administrators said the state cannot live without.

"Take us out of the equation, and ask what the world's gonna look like," said Martin. "I don't think it's gonna be that pleasant for anyone."

The university will have a better idea of what's to come early next year, but legislators will have the final say on what to give and take from higher education. Session wraps in the summer.

The Board of Supervisors will approve the 2011-2012 budget a month before classes start.

Where is the Governor in any of this reporting? It's absolutely impossible to understand.

Not much to say right now

2010-09-14T21:28:00.003-05:00

I'm not there. I'm gone.

Not really, just busy at work, and when I'm not at work I'm busy either drinking or watching the NFL, which apparently is pretty boring this year if not for all the hilarity. Also the election season is a super-boring one too.

In the meantime in one of the great hypocrisies of modern sport, Reggie Bush (who is really pretty much a big douche bag) is giving up his Heisman Trophy because the NCAA and the assholes at the Heisman Trust thought he got a little uppity in the way he flaunted their rules about payment to athletes.

Kicking Arse and Taking Names (and Money)

2010-09-12T12:01:00.004-05:00

Succinct discussion of Jindal's recent out-of-state fundraising activities in relation to his climb through the GOP hierarchy from Stephanie Grace editorial at NOLA.com this morning. Included is an obvious explanation of why Jindal has no reason to endorse Vitter (even if he does get pressured by the national GOP at some point). Jindal looks afield for friends, allies:
If Jindal-supported Minn. GOP candidate for governor Tom Emmer does end up winning perhaps Bobby can use his influence to convince Minnesota leadership to enforce term limits on NFL quarterbacks. No more career Fav-re's!

One interesting development this weekend was the fact that "The Jindal administration has formally applied for $147 million in education funding Louisiana is eligible to receive from a recently passed federal stimulus bill." Wha!? I thought everything about the stimulus was evil and just part of the PELOSI/OBAMA socialist agenda (I love when they capitalize those names in LA GOP candidate press releases.) I'm glad he's at least allowing this sorely needed money for education. The questions is how's he going to spin it - he already did the publisher's clearing house big check thing.

Spears v Vitter

2010-09-09T07:44:00.005-05:00

In a fitting addition to this circus that is the LA senate race, now this. No, this is not the forgotten Spears from Kentwood (or whatever florida parishes town she's from, I can't remember). Its Firefly Digital co-founder fighter Mike Spears:

Independent U.S. Senate candidate Mike Spears faces an uphill battle to beat Sen. David Vitter Spears on Election Day, so on Wednesday, Spears vowed to beat Vitter in a mixed-martial arts cage match.

Read the whole story at the Advertiser.

One ridiculous excerpt:

"You and other career politicians like yourself, hell-bent on ruining this nation, have blood on your hands," Spears said. "I think it's time you have blood on your face."

##Update: Made this post this AM thinking I was spreading a minor story, but have since learned that a ton of folks have picked it up, including the Huffington Post and Fox. If only Miss Stormy Daniels was still in the race.....

Football Starts Tomorrow

2010-09-08T16:21:00.001-05:00

I'm on the way to New Orleans in a couple of hours. Sorry about the light posting, I've been busy and trying to wrap a lot of things that can't seem to get wrapped up at work.

Cue to AhQuoi...

Time Killing Game of the Week

2010-09-03T23:11:00.002-05:00

I actually really enjoy this one. It almost rivals Blix.

What, me worry?

2010-09-02T23:35:00.002-05:00

Gulf "platform" catches fire and moratoriums kill us, but don't sweat it everyone, Lafayette is recession-proof.

$7200/person for killing rats

2010-08-31T20:52:00.002-05:00

Who knew nutria hunting was so lucrative?

In the 2009-10 season, 445,963 nutria tails, worth about $2.2 million in government-paid bounties, were collected from 306 participants. About 42 percent of those hunters turned in 800 or more tails. Terrebonne trappers turned in 106,226 rat tails for cash, far more than any other parish. Plaquemines and St. Mary parishes followed, with 69,294 and 67,631 tails, respectively. Lafourche Parish trappers turned in 39,564 tails.

"Did anybody kill them or hang them or anything?"

2010-08-31T20:20:00.003-05:00

No? Then I guess everything is okay, nothing to worry about here. We got this.

In more pleasant news, Rising Tide 5 was well worth the time. The function's keynote speaker had her own account of some of the race issues "off the job" in Grand Isle earlier this summer.

I can't encourage you enough to click on both of these links.

It doesn't matter what this is about

2010-08-29T23:40:00.003-05:00

Enjoy. Won't link, find it yourself. I bolded "Facebook."

Brackett has mobilized student opposition to the project. She has launched a Facebook page, gathered 2,000 signatures and organized a rally against the plan. Brackett says part of the college experience is learning to make your own decisions, and living with the consequences.

Didn't see it

2010-08-29T22:27:00.002-05:00

While I was driving back to Lafayette Mary Landrieu was on Meet the Press this morning with Mayor Mitch. Not sure why Glenn Beck came up, but here's The Hill Blog's remarks about the exchange.

Landrieu said Beck had said the Gulf Coast could be rebuilt by private industry after the storm and flooding, but said that out of 200,000 homes lost only about 5,000 had been rebuilt by nonprofits.

"He is preaching a gospel that never has existed, doesn't exist today and never will," Landrieu said. "We follow the gospel, Mitch and I do, of Jesus Christ; we know what to do."

The senator said that when no one else there to help the region's residents, "God was here."

None of that makes any sense to me, but Glenn Beck sucks, so I'll post the little bit where he was mentioned.

You can read the whole transcript here. I'll highlight this portion about funding to supposedly rebuild schools in the city of New Orleans:

Now, I wouldn't have said it the way the secretary said it. Some people say, "Oh, it was a great opportunity." I think that comes out wrong. I think it gave us the responsibility of building back something that should not ever have gotten to where it was before. It's a, it's a huge responsibility, and it's one that we should take very strongly.

I highlight it because I honestly believe--despite his determination to take something "strongly"--Mitch Landrieu when he talks about obligations, duties, and civic responsibilities. It was a long discussion that you can read or probably watch somewhere, but something about that little bit struck me as particularly important.

TKGOTW

2010-08-27T07:40:00.002-05:00

Alright folks, Mr. Prado asked me to fill in for him on this week's segment. As Ricky mentioned previously I am a nerd, er..I mean engineer, so I'm throwing out some more physics-based games for you all.
First is a Rube Goldberg inspired game: Dynamic Systems
Then the less flashy but not so simple Black Circle.
Have fun.

Why'd they even bother

2010-08-26T22:06:00.003-05:00

Thanks to the TPM for linking to this story from the Ouachita Citizen:
'Tell them I lied'
It calls out a laundry list of LA GOPers who supposedly "leaned on" Traylor hard to run but then abandoned him when it counted most. My question is, what the freak was the point?

Tea Party is Coming on Strong in Louisiana

2010-08-25T22:16:00.002-05:00

Good luck, ladies and gentleman. We've come a long way in the Gret Stet from sending the inspiration behind "Share our Wealth" clubs to the US Senate to the rise of the Tea Party Patriots.

Tea Partiers don't think much of 3rd District candidate Hunt Downer either.

I'd go back and link to Tea Party Patriots and their horror over the drilling moratorium, but fears over lost jobs in the oil industry just seem quaint now.

Today the "populists" beg government not to interfere with POSSIBLE employers. We have come a very long way indeed.

If God is Willing

2010-08-23T20:41:00.003-05:00

I'm going to immerse my post-work time in Spike Lee's new documentary for the next couple of days. I was in New Orleans last weekend and will be again for Rising Tide this weekend, so posting is likely to be lighter even than the normally light posting you're totally used to already.

I very much enjoyed When the Levees Broke, so I'm excited about this new effort by Spike Lee. He's just generally pissed about the situation and it shows in his film-making. This is a good thing.

In the meantime I'm trying to convince my friend and Timshel contributor AhQuoi to post a bit about the things happening up in Wisconsin. As far as Senators go, Russ Feingold is fine by me. Sure the campaign finance act with his name on it is gigantic piece of crap, but he's good people.

Time Killing Game of the Week

2010-08-20T23:25:00.001-05:00

Lazy Edition.

This game sucks.

Sorry, see you at the Saints game tomorrow.

Moratorium not really a big deal so far...

2010-08-19T23:15:00.001-05:00

Louisiana loves to buck trends. Even theoretical ones.

Sternly Worded Letter

2010-08-19T21:13:00.002-05:00

I am very excited about the Transocean vs. BP throwdown that's about to ensue.

In a sternly worded letter to BP's attorneys, Transocean said the oil giant has in its sole possession information key to identifying the cause "of the tragic loss of eleven lives and the pollution in the Gulf of Mexico."

BP's refusal to turn over the documents has hampered Transocean's investigation and hindered what it has been able to tell families of the dead and state and federal investigators about the accident, the letter said.

Dept of things that only matter when you're a Democrat

2010-08-18T22:01:00.004-05:00

U.S. Senator David Vitter's troubled aide Brent Furer expensed his travel costs to taxpayers when he flew between Baton Rouge and Washington D.C. to deal with his court appearances.

Vitter’s U.S. Senate office expense account records show two trips by Brent Furer from Washington, D.C., to Louisiana--one in 2007 and the other 2008.
The dates of the trips match times Furer was scheduled to make appearances related to his Dec. 28, 2004 arrest for driving while intoxicated and other related charges, according to Baton Rouge City Court records.

Vitter was asked in writing if he was aware of the circumstances and reasons Furer gave for the travel. Vitter was not available for comment, said his spokesman Joel DiGrado on Wednesday afternoon. DiGrado issued a prepared statement late Wednesday, saying that Vitter "certainly doesn’t condone any questionable timing of these trips."

Of course David Vitter has never been asked to appear in court for any of his own questionable conduct, so we can't really expect him to answer for someone who works for him. But let's just ask ourselves what would be on Fox News tonight if Mary Landrieu had put travel costs for criminal charges on her office's expense report on behalf of an aide who held his wife against her will and threatened her with a knife.

Our Shitty Senate Race:

2010-08-17T20:48:00.002-05:00

Charlie Melancon, Democratic candidate for US Senate from the Gret Stet of Louisiana:

"I support freedom of religion, but let's give the families of 9/11 victims a voice about where this mosque should be placed because putting one near Ground Zero isn't appropriate,"

If you wanted to you could vote for Neeson Chauvin or Cary Deaton in the Democratic primary. But who the hell are those guys? Looks like we're doomed for boredom and disappointment.

In the 3rd District looking to replace Charlie Melancon is 28 year old Ravi Sangisetty. You can watch this interview with him here on youtube.

He has no message. This is the boringest federal election season ever.

Wait everyone. It's not all over?

2010-08-17T20:22:00.002-05:00

Plenty of oil is still in the Gulf. Or not. Who really knows?

Our seafood is tainted. Or maybe not. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. Whatever the case I'm going to eat it anyway. Today for lunch I ate some mushrooms stuffed with crab, crawfish bisque (which should be fine), and a half shrimp poboy. I would have had crab cakes too, but no one at the table wanted to indulge themselves.

I'm pretty sure if you're reading this poorly maintained blog you're already reading the one I'm about to link to, but if not, please read about Gaston's adventure preventing exactly the catastrophe we continue to experience. You won't be disappointed with Gaston's resourcefulness.

Feeling Confident About My Prediction

2010-08-16T21:13:00.002-05:00

A couple of months ago I predicted a Katrina 5th anniversary present for the Gulf Coast.

Despite confidence in the final processes of the relief well, we're still "about a week" away from BP initiating the Bottom Kill. Given the general turmoil out in the Gulf that is the peak of hurricane season, I'm thinking August 29th is looking pretty good.

Current Reading

2010-08-16T20:30:00.003-05:00

I'm currently engrossed in a book about a personal hero of mine.

The book carries an unfortunately Dan Brown-esque title, The Jesuit and The Skull, but as far as popular history goes, I'm into it.

In an early chapter the author discusses the popular mindset at the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. It's important to remember that just about 200 years ago the principle of extinction itself--the idea that any species could possibly cease to exist in God's perfect world--was essentially anathema. 130 years later De Chardin challenged the Catholic Church even further by discovering and essentially proving--along with several other important scientists--that man himself had changed significantly over the course of world history. He was persecuted and censored by his Church to the end of his life for these challenges. But he remained loyal to his oaths and continues to affect his Church decades after his death.

So far it's all well-worth the time I've put into it.

Mad for Avastin

2010-08-16T20:20:00.004-05:00

Came across this Kaiser Health News article today mentioning my favorite sound-byte spewing LA GOP senator. Breast Cancer: How Politics Is Driving Up Costs

This Fiscal Times story outlines the recent Avastin debacle that Vitty became so vocal about. Basically, any action by the FDA will not take the option of the drug off the table, but it will likely result in many payors not reimbursing for use of the drug for that specific type of breast cancer. I'll let you check it out and decide for yourself. One highlight:

Drug companies are in the business of selling drugs, and, as Genentech's Sandra Horning argued to the advisory committee, they are also in the business of selling hope. Allowing patients with metastatic breast cancer to hope for a few more weeks that their tumors weren't progressing provided substantial solace to those women, she said. That comment provoked heated rebuttal from many advisors, including several of the practicing oncologists on the committee, about whether that was worth the vomiting, stomach pains and raised blood pressure that many women experience on the drug.

And then the ending tag:

If the FDA caves to the pressure and allows Genentech to keep advanced metastatic breast cancer on the Avastin label, it will be one more indication that the nation still isn't serious about controlling health care costs by complying with science-based medicine.

TKGOTW

2010-08-13T21:49:00.002-05:00

Continuity. It's really fun from about levels 9-19. But don't be drunk. Everything after that I can't speak to anything other than frustration.

Fake Football Game 1

2010-08-12T22:43:00.003-05:00

If we only looked at the "starters," the defending champions of the NFL pretty much got their asses kicked. The Saints didn't tackle well and Thomas Morstead was (sort of?) injured. The sad thing is that I had a hard time even giving a crap about the first fake football game of the season. Granted I've been working quite a bit lately, but I just didn't really care that much. One of the best parts of preseason is seeing almost-rans like Adrian Arrington and Chris Ivory and rooting for them to make the team. This year I was rolling 3s with some friends by the middle of the 3rd quarter and pretending like I gave a fuck on teh twitters.

Meanwhile this snake hanging out in front of my door on the second floor of my building can't be a good omen for what's coming for this season.

Oil and HazMat EVERYWHERE!

2010-08-11T20:17:00.002-05:00

We live in a dangerous world.

Farmers in south central Louisiana have been evacuated from areas surrounding an oil-spewing well near Paincourtville. An eighteen-wheeler carrying hazardous materials overturned a few miles south of my office on I-49 earlier causing evacuations of businesses and homes near the area and shutting down the interstate there for upwards of 6 hours.

But tropical systems keep getting downgraded when they make their way into the Gulf. Maybe we should name Tony Hayward director of FEMA and let him disperse chemicals and petrol products into the environment every hurricane season.

Wow Cao

2010-08-11T18:19:00.004-05:00

The TP brought this story to my attention this morning:

Cao was one of the two GOP reps to vote for the emergency spending budget, that is estimated to save over 2,800 teaching jobs among other things.

His comments on the vote:

"The children of Louisiana deserve the best education possible," he said. "For a long time we have been at the lower end of the list, but we have made great strides in the last couple of year, and I would like to continue that momentum."

Its not like he does this kind of thing on every bill, but he has occasionally showed an unusual ability to think for himself. The guy likely has a snowball's chance in Erath at re-election, but his ability to go against the obstinate GOP mandate (proving government ineptitude by breaking it from the inside) should be recognized. But I guess ever voting for anything that Obama agrees with makes him too far left.

The article goes on to remind us of the conflicting positions of our Governor and congressional delegation on the issues covered by the bill.

By the way, our esteemed "2nd attempt at GOP response to a presidential address" Rep. Boustany took up Vitter's previous strategy and decided not to vote.

It's probably because of all the anchor babies

2010-08-09T22:37:00.002-05:00

Teachers are having trouble finding work in Louisiana's largest and fastest growing parishes.

Justice is a warm colostomy bag

2010-08-08T21:58:00.003-05:00

I had the good fortune to spend my entire morning in the local Walmart while I waited for the fine men and women there to change my ravaged tires.

For the first time in about 3 years I read the Sunday Advocate front to back. This weekend happened to include this story about the extremely costly sick old people in our state prison system.

The article really has to be taken as a whole. Several state legislators see an opportunity in releasing elderly criminals back into society. For decades these criminals were entirely too dangerous to catch a whiff of the sweet smell of freedom. Now that they're costing the state three times as much money to provide medical care it's time to ship them out of the state penal system.

Long story short, if you want out of Angola, get some cancer.

Time Killing Game of the Week and rant

2010-08-06T20:43:00.004-05:00

This isn't a game. I don't care what buzzfeed.com says.

This is a game. And it's pretty fun. You've probably played it before, but spend some time with it.

I mentioned buzzfeed because it is not much different from digg.com. Yesterday on the twitters I mentioned that the business at digg.com and the supposed Digg Patriot "controversy" is why "social media is ultimately lame, insular, and mostly just sad."

It's not necessarily that social media is itself lame, insular, and sad. It's really the people who use these truly ground-breaking tools and decide that life doesn't exist outside of them. To read that story about Digg it's important to remember two very important points.

1. Some freerepublic.com assholes created an entirely "web-based" community dedicated to "promoting" conservative "web-based" blogs, articles, etc. through the Digg mechanisms.

2. Some other guy "infiltrated" this group, exposed their widely-known biases, and then railed about an inherently riggable system in a world based on coding as though it was ground-breaking news. Then he wrote something like 5000 words about it and assumed that anyone should give a fuck.

I gave up on the expose' somewhere around the "Getting Dirty" header.

If you believe that 1) tampering with Digg results is particularly underhanded and worthy of going undercover in order to expose the scheme to the world in a 140,000,000 word essay or 2) you should form a team of rapid response activists in order to surreptitiously advance your agenda in the online "blog" world you are pretty much a big douche bag, and you need to get a life.

Just get out of the house for a little bit. It doesn't matter where.

LA-3

2010-08-05T21:24:00.002-05:00

Well this is sort of boring: $500 on facebook ads and getting over the "1000 fan" hump. Is this what politics has come to?

At the bottom of that post is some information about Lafayette donors to candidates in the 3rd district. That's sort of interesting. This political season in Louisiana is really shaping up to be very boring.

None of the Above

2010-08-05T19:19:00.003-05:00

Interesting opinion column from Stephanie Grace at the TP on GOP senate candidate Traylor.

Chet Traylor runs for U.S. Senate on the I'm-not-Vitter platform

She certainly doesn't do him any favors, but even reading between the lines this guys seems like a huge dud. Whoever drafted this guy should've also drafted a campaign advisor or something. Not having a prostitute and diaper fetish should not be the only qualifier for US senate.

More from the TP on Traylor here

Screw Pat Swilling

2010-08-04T22:40:00.003-05:00

The second part in a Picayune series on the greatest Saint to ever play football quotes Pat Swilling about Rickey Jackson:

"You look across on the other side and you've got Rickey Jackson there, that's almost like saying you've got a Lawrence Taylor or an Andre Tippett, " said Swilling, one-fourth of the famed Dome Patrol linebacking corp that consisted of Jackson, Swilling and inside linebackers Vaughan Johnson and the late Sam Mills. "You've got one of the best players who's ever played the game on the other side, and that forced offenses to come back to me. That gave me an opportunity to make plays and make a name for myself."

Pat Swilling just benefited from Rickey's greatness and over-inflated his own sense of self-worth over it. Then he went to play for the Lions and didn't do a damn thing.

STATS:

Pat Swilling sacks with Rickey Jackson:

1991: 17
1992: 10.5

Pat Swilling in Detroit:

1993: 6.5

Rickey Jackson during same years

1991: 11.5
1992: 13.5
1993: 11.5

To be fair to Pat Swilling he had a couple of good years with the Raiders before he hung it up, but still, screw him. I don't see how you can look at Rickey through the bone and put Lawrence Taylor over him.

Stan Brock gets it. He actually had to practice against City Champ and then line up against all the other OLBs and DEs in the NFL during his time as a right tackle.

"He was a hell of a football player. I think he's the best linebacker. There were a lot of others who got more recognition, but I don't think there are any others who can say they were a better linebacker than Rickey."

Part 2 of this series on the "King of the Muck" is better than the disjointed part 1, but just read both of them. Rickey Jackson really may be the best outside linebacker in the history of professional football. He's inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday. His speech should be one for the ages.

You can also view a fairly pedestrian slide show of pictures not really appropriately indicative of his general bad-assedness here.

It's hot.

2010-08-02T22:12:00.002-05:00

It's so freaking hot outside no one can really determine HOW hot it is.

The Onion of Hammond, Louisiana imagines a better world for all of us. Please read Hammond Action News. It would be on my sidebar if I could only figure out how to edit my sidebar.

Now come the earthquakes?

2010-08-02T21:16:00.002-05:00

Oh man, something's really wrong. We're pretty much fucked. Jeffrey talked about the Saints Super Bowl victory bringing on the apocalypse, and I guess I just expected it come more quickly than the slow death we're having to actually deal with.

Not much to say

2010-08-02T20:36:00.002-05:00

Had a real shitty day at work today.

Thanks to AhQuoi for posting a bit for the last few days. Keep posting AhQuoi, please!

In the meantime Donaldsonville's paper has published a profile of the lone Democrat vying for Charlie Melancon's seat in oil-ravaged LA3.

Also I went wading around in the Gulf this weekend with all eight of my nieces and nephews in the waters off of Pass Christian, MS. Had we driven a bit farther down the beach highway along Mississippi's coast we would have seen all the "responders" cleaning oil off the beaches. Maybe they cleaned our section of the beach before we got there and moved on. I don't know. The water seemed fine. So far so good. The shrimp po boy I ate at L'il Ray's was as delicious as they usually are; however, in retrospect I should have gone with the soft-shell crab po boy. I've never eaten one, but every time I see the concoction on a menu I consider ordering it and can't ever bring myself to do it.

Why won't he write me back

2010-08-01T17:45:00.002-05:00

Oh boy, Vitty was on Fox News again this afternoon. Received an alert about this story and accompanying video here. This time it was regarding Obama's continued lack of response to letters Vitter and other GOP senators have sent requesting info on a Homeland Security memo. This memo, written by 4 high-ranking lawyers in the department, includes among other things a description of a possible program deferring enforcement of some immigration laws in what the senators are calling an amnesty program.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has already addressed the issue, and even did it on Fox and Friends according to this story:

"The White House doesn't support amnesty and I think people that support comprehensive immigration reform don't support amnesty either. What we need to do again is try to figure out how we're going to secure borders, deal with those that are here, but do it in a comprehensive way and do it at a federal level, because as frustrated as Arizonans are, and we understand that we can't have a patchwork of immigration laws throughout each of the 50 states."

Not an expert on this, but I would think that there are tons of memos going around with all kinds of options and strategies outlined that never get acted on. (I can just imagine the kinds of crazy things that popped up during the last administration.) This appears to be a recurring strategy of Vitter and his boys in the Senate - not actual action or anything, just sending the administration a letter and then crying to the press that you are appalled by the lack of a response.

Follow the bouncing ban

2010-07-31T19:36:00.005-05:00

So the House recently passed an amendment, co-sponsored by Rep. Melancon, to lift the moratorium on deepwater drilling. Brief summary from WDSU here.

Now Mr. Prado, the progenitor of this fine blogus space, has made it pretty clear that he is in favor of a moratorium. Whereas I understand his arguments, my personal jury is still out. This is partly due to my current residence, which happens to be in one of those cheese-laden middly western states where the politically vocal are typically wackos - be it on the left or the right. I'll leave it at that for now.

So this vote is being used for fodder on both sides of LAs upcoming Senate race. Melancon's amendment drew bipartisan support and will likely help him with those against the ban, but Vitter is already out in the press calling it weak. Touting the strictness of Scalise's measure, Vitter was also quick to point out that the LA Oil and Gas Association was against it. He's even bringing out the specter of Pelosi.

“This amendment is nothing more than sleight of hand, otherwise it would have never gotten the vote of staunch drilling opponent Nancy Pelosi," Vitter said.

On no he didn't. Gotta give it to him, Vitter sure knows how to hit those sound bites.

TKGOTW

2010-07-29T20:30:00.005-05:00

I'm out of town again this weekend. I have a short day at work tomorrow and then off to New Orleans to celebrate my uncle's 60th year in the Jesuit order. Maybe Ahquoi will hold it down for a few days, because I don't think I'll be posting.

Here's your game. Explore your surroundings with paint balls in order to complete each level.

When you're done with all that, read Oyster's latest post at the Lens.

Wellheads in shallow water are also very difficult to cap

2010-07-28T21:51:00.002-05:00

Stopping leaks ain't easy. And it always seems to take longer than initially expected.

According to the Coast Guard, it will take crews 10 to 12 days to plug a spewing wellhead that is leaking over 30 barrels of oil per day near Barataria Bay.

Although officials had been optimistic that the flow from the abandoned well could have been capped by today, that date has been pushed back.

What's 30 barrels a day anyway?

Oil disappearing cont'd

2010-07-28T20:45:00.003-05:00

If you spent any time watching, listening to, or reading news today, you may be confused that all is well again in the Gulf of Mexico today. As I quoted yesterday, our local media hasn't helped much. The somewhat pervasive perception that now that the well isn't spilling anymore everything is just peachy keen is difficult to avoid.

So it was refreshing again to see Mother Jones investigator Mac McClelland bring everything into focus again today.

"Lower part past the barrier untouched with globs of oil that washed up last night," she said. By "untouched," she means by cleanup crews, and that "barrier" she's talking about is the one the press isn't allowed past. I sent another text to Drew Wheelan, who's also in Southwestern Louisiana, doing bird surveys for the American Birding Association, asking him how big the biggest tar mat on Grand Terre—the scene of those now famous horrifying oiled-bird photos—is. "20 feet by 15," he said. "But bigger ones submerged slightly."

If I managed to find that much oil with my BlackBerry without getting dressed or leaving the house, let's hope Thad Allen, who is quoted in the article as saying, "What we're trying to figure out is where is all the oil at and what can we do about it," can locate some more with the staff and craft of the United States Coast Guard at his disposal.

The Picayune has the night's comprehensive list for Louisiana oil sightings today. I guess they found some after all. The question is what the hell anyone is going to do about it?

I guess our governor could demand that someone just throw some rocks in the water. It has to be more effective than sand berms, right?

Nah, not really, maybe worse really...

Gov. Bobby Jindal said this: "No one can convince us that rocks in the water are more dangerous than oil. That is absolutely ridiculous. The only people who believe that are the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., who can't see the oil, smell the oil or touch the oil."

...

The governor knows full well that since the day the rock idea was broached by Jefferson Parish politicians, the foremost authorities on Louisiana's coastal ecosystem have come out against it. These are not Washington bureaucrats. They are men and women who have long lived and worked in coastal Louisiana; many of them are natives. They have spent their lives becoming expert on how the system functions, why it has been crumbling and what must be done to save what is left.

*Please read that whole delicious column*

In equally sad news about the general state of things, I had the misfortune of hearing the last bit of this interview with BP's new CEO on NPR this morning on the way to work. Dudley:

"It's a very restorative body of water . . . that's how [Louisianians] feel as well. . . . The Gulf will restore itself."

Listen to the whole thing here:

To be sure, Dudley hedges through that last bit with reassurances that "BP will still be here for years," but in the context of the rest of the interview it sounds more like a threat related to the fact that we need them to be here for years in order to keep drilling oil and holding our economy hostage:

"There are people along the Gulf Coast that think that because we capped the well, then we're going to pack up and leave — that's not the case," he said. "We'll be there for years. We'll have offices across the Gulf Coast."

Dudley acknowledged that safety measures that Hayward introduced three years ago upon assuming the post of CEO were not implemented fast enough. He vowed to ensure that they become a key part of BP.

"There's no question with this accident we have to up the trajectory on this dramatically," he said. "And that's what we will be doing."

But BP's safety record might hinder future exploration. Legislation before Congress would prevent companies with poor safety records from getting new licenses for exploration for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

Dudley said such actions would have a negative effect.

Vitty cries Death Panel

2010-07-28T16:11:00.003-05:00

How dare the FDA make a science-based recommendation

Our boy Vitter is doing everything he can to rack up the headlines these days. Who cares that it was an independent advisory panel of medical experts that voted 12 to 1 that the drug's limited benefits were far outweighed by the risks to liver health, and that its not even a final binding decision. The bastards.

(Note: Tried looking this up at FDA.gov, but no dice. Did find this story out of boston that mentions more details about the panel decision, including how it is only regarding a very specific breast cancer type and only in conjunction with chemo and another med.)

Wikileaks

2010-07-27T21:09:00.004-05:00

The only reason I mention Wikileaks is because I really do think it's important to make the point that the major obstacle stopping big news organizations from serving the same purpose that Wikileaks does is that big news organizations are gigantic pussies. The New York Times, Washington Post, et al have all the resources to provide exactly the same function, but are scared to do so because of silly concerns like "access" and advertisers. They should all be ashamed of themselves.

Julian Assange and his krewe really expose this weakness to the rest of us. Whatever that means for the future of journalism is beyond me.

Gulf Oil Has Disappeared?

2010-07-27T20:12:00.003-05:00

I don't share the optimism of LSU scientist Ed Overton.

Because of the rate that oil is breaking down, Overton believes oil will stop washing ashore in two to three months, instead of the six months he originally predicted. Then, plankton will eat the bacteria, which will return to the food chain.

"I'm cautiously optimistic this time next year, this will be a bad, sad memory," said Overton.

Besides the whole, "we don't really know how the deployment of a third of the world's total supply of oil dispersant into our Gulf will affect it," I'm struggling to see how it's possible in six months that this will all be little more than an unpleasant memory. Ask Alaska.

Also, read the American Zombie about his trip out to the Gulf on Friday.

[update more or less immediately after posting] From today's Advocate, Where the hell did all the oil go anyway?

128 million to 219 million gallons of oil leaked from the well.

...

"What we’re trying to figure out is where all the oil is at and what can we do about it," retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Monday. "There is still a lot of oil that’s unaccounted for."

The oil is "definitely out there" Allen said, but officials are having a difficult time finding it.

...

Allen said that another reason oil may be hard to detect is that it may be "slightly below the surface" of the water depending on the temperature and time of day.

But most people fear that the oil is far below the surface and they don’t know where it will turn up. A group of Florida researchers have maintained that there are miles and miles of oil plumes on the floor of the Gulf.

Read that whole article, it's pretty good and was in my head when I started the above post, I just neglected to link and quote it.

"We are united, however..."

2010-07-26T12:16:00.002-05:00

Accelerated revenue sharing gaining momentum

From Walter at the Independent comes this alert to a bipartisan letter led by Sen. Landrieu and Sen. Murkowski of Alaska asking for accelerated royalty revenue sharing for oil-producing states. 'Bout damn time. They are hoping to fit it into the upcoming watered-down climate legislation. The Ind quotes a quite telling portion of the letter:

Each of us and our constituents hold varying views on offshore energy production in the federal waters seaward of our states. We make no collective statement on such production — some of us would favor it and some of us would not necessarily favor it. We are united, however, in our position that any such production in federal waters must include a program in which affected coastal states and coastal political subdivisions are entitled to a share of the federal revenues resulting from such production.

The rest of the story and a link to the full letter

Remainders and TKGOTW

2010-07-22T21:11:00.002-05:00

Giving it to you Thursday because I'll be off the internet for a couple of days as I head out of town tomorrow.

First, well, Tropical Storm Bonnie. Yep, that sort of sucks.

Also David Vitter and Charlie Melancon are throwing around some radically different polling numbers so that they can raise money. If you're following this race I encourage you to use your heads. Of course David Vitter is "leading" the horse race, but probably not by twenty points. I personally don't think Melancon has what it takes to win this thing, but I don't think that it's outside of the realm of reality. Any day now something new about what a scumbucket David Vitter is could come out, thus increasing Melancon's chances.

Your time killing game of the week comes from fellow poster AhQuoi, who suggested this one to me last weekend. I suck at it, because I'm not good with straight lines on the stupid finger pad mouse on my laptop. But it's quite fun. Not surprised it was suggested by an engineer.

And then there are these dirty redneck hipsters who I have to deal with this weekend. Wish me luck.

Oh dear lord

2010-07-22T00:14:00.001-05:00

I don't even know where to start with this.

Didn't make it!

2010-07-21T20:52:00.002-05:00

Today's Rally for Economic Survival was a real barn burner. I didn't make it, but followed it via the live-tweeting of Amanda McElfresh, local reporter for the daily in town.

Typical reporting on this event is available here and here. I'll quote from the Associated Press. It's generally an excellent report on the event minus the President Obama bashing that seemed to characterized the "live-tweet" I witnessed in real time. I'll quote extenively and will bold a few particular points, because I feel they need to be addressed.

T-shirts with slogans like "Drill Baby Drill" and "No Moratorium" were common sights in Lafayette on Wednesday as thousands of people rallied against the federal moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

...

In addition to the deepwater moratorium, Jindal said state Department of Natural Resources data shows permits for shallow water drilling have slowed since the spill began.

"It's ironic that the only drilling going on is BP," Jindal said, referring to relief wells the company is drilling at the spill site.

...

The "Rally for Economic Survival," orchestrated by a coalition of business organizations, was set in the heart of Louisiana's oil patch, where thousands of jobs are tied to oil companies or companies that serve them.

...

Despite the rhetoric, industry experts say a feared exodus of deepwater rigs from the Gulf hasn't yet materialized, and that the business would quickly rebound once the ban expires.

I'm a big supporter of the moratorium. Maybe not in it's current form, but I've argued what I believe is a compelling case for the moratorium in this space previously. I'm going to break down things a bit more now, and will refer back to several of the issues raised in this article to make a few points.

First is a period of analysis to determine what happened on the Deepwater Horizon and a work stoppage that will affect a fraction of the total Oil & Gas industry operations in the state a rational response to what is widely being considered one of the greatest environmental industrial accidents in the history of the United States?

Is it rational to react to the above stated event with a giant rally to argue against said work-stoppage and cries to "Drill Baby Drill" at every opportunity?

Let's reiterate that we still don't know exactly what caused the explosion that opened up the monster at the floor of our Gulf. While we have spent a lot of time blaming BP (rightly) for this tragedy, there are several actors in this situation who have yet to be adequately examined for their role in the disaster. The fiasco with the Transocean testimony today is evidence of this.

As Tuesday's hearing drew to a close, lawyers for all four witnesses who had been scheduled to testify Wednesday notified the board that those witnesses were declining to appear. The witnesses, from Transocean, had been slated to discuss the blowout preventer. They were issued subpoenas, but the board could not compel them to appear because they did not reside within the geographic jurisdiction of the investigation, the board said in a statement.

The fear that a rollback of activity in the Gulf will lead to the destruction of the state economy is a rational reaction to a terrifying national economic situation. It is also a rational reaction for a generally oil & gas reliant local economy against any restriction or regulation against operations. However, that doesn't change the fact that it is an irrational reaction to the current events as a whole. It overstates the economic impact of the stoppage and it understates the extent of the damage that continues to be foisted upon us.

I'll have more on this over the next few days, but it's getting late. The key thing to remind everyone of is that as long as oil exists underneath the waters that wash up on our shores, someone will be willing to extract it. As the AP article referenced above mentions, renewed drilling will begin pretty quickly once a moratorium ends. The real problem these oil companies have AT THIS moment is not knowing what their work stoppage is. They actually can't make a decision to leave or go because they don't really know if legal efforts can get them working again. We'd actually be doing them a favor if we said honestly, "hey, we need 3 weeks, 18 months, 6 years, whatever" and let them decided how to handle their operations. It's costly for them to have rigs that they could move elsewhere to produce just sitting there.

Let's be honest. The jobs being "produced" by deepwater drilling didn't exist four years ago. Our economy wasn't in the tank then, and most of the growth in this sector has come over the last 24 months. While it has helped us "buck" some national employment trends over the last year, we shouldn't let the industry hold us hostage against the true long-term interests of our economic, cultural, and environmental health.

Our oysters were drowned in fresh water

2010-07-21T15:58:00.003-05:00

For Oysters, a 'Remedy' Turned Catasrophe

I apologize if this is old news to many of you, but I just learned about this unfortunate repercussion of the emergency actions taken by the Jindal administration in the first days of this oilspill cluster*&^#. Seems that the "throw everything we can possibly imagine at it" approach probably wasn't best, and resulted in the 80% die-off of LA oyster beds. I know, hindsight is 20/20, but quickly consulting the many readily available experts on this probably would have been wise (they did get approval from the Corps though, of course).

Perhaps Traylor's dirtbaggedness will call Vitter's into question

2010-07-20T22:35:00.004-05:00

Total dirtbag. I'd love to see a "values" debate between Vitter and Traylor. It would be like the dueling banjos of shitbaggery.

[update follows] Monroe's News Star was on this yesterday. Giving up on Gannet as I have I didn't see this.

Liberal blogs I don't follow the way I used to were also talking about it.

There is something to be said that Cathy Hughes report doesn't even mention Vitter's clear prostitution problem even as background.

The Sleeping Giant Awakes

2010-07-20T21:44:00.002-05:00

Grandmaster Wang posts again.

I used to dream of posting Saints commentary as intelligent and generally hilarious as what is commonplace at Moosedenied.com. We're less than a month away from preseason games, but I think I'm looking forward to Wang's insight more than the blah that will be training camp and preseason.

Except of course that glorious weekend when Rickey Jackson is enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

More Rally for Self-Mutilation

2010-07-20T20:54:00.004-05:00

Mother Jones calls out the Rally for Economic Survival as an astroturf event. It's mostly speculation, but does catch LOGA vice-president Don Briggs in some dishonesty about the genesis of the project.

Yet Briggs was hard-pressed to elaborate on the rally's grassroots ties. At first he said the idea had come from "an engineer and his wife and family" and Ewell Smith, the Executive Director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board. But when I called Smith, he gave me a different story. "The Louisiana Oil and Gas Association approached me," he said. "A friend of mine did an introduction to some of the folks in the industry, and the next thing you know they were reaching out to me to speak at this event and asked me to coordinate putting it together."

"Well, I mean, you know, that may have been the case," Briggs replied when I called him back. "It happened sort of so fast." He added that the idea for the rally came out of a meeting with 30 people held at LOGA's Baton Rouge office. But he was still confident that the petroleum engineer, CJ McDonald, and somebody named Becky Plummer had raised the idea of a rally before LOGA did. I was unable to reach either of them for comment.

In other news I may actually make the event. Several of our clients are going to be there because we are vendor to several local oil and gas service companies. Our marketing guy is going, but I may go too. My primary objective would be to client service, but I could take the opportunity to take some notes as well. I'm too busy for snark, though, so it's unlikely.

[updated immediately to add hyperlink on "astroturf."]

More doubt

2010-07-19T21:29:00.004-05:00

I am not an engineer. I'm not a geologist. In an excellent report by some Miami Herald writers we get an account about the debate going on between BP and the US Coast Guard:

Allen gave no details on the size or exact location of the seeps, except to say that one was detected within two miles of the site, another within 80 yards and several others within a few hundred yards.

...

Ian MacDonald, a biological oceanographer at Florida State University who has been researching natural oil seeps in the Gulf for more than 20 years, said the "blurry" videos he has seen broadcast and posted online and the information supplied by Allen and BP remain "somewhat inconclusive."

"From what I've seen, this isn't the smoking gun," said MacDonald, who was among the first scientists to argue that BP and the federal government were grossly low-balling initial flow estimates.

MacDonald goes on to say that the risks of taking the cap off are worse than continuing with the well integrity testing/capping the well deal that's going on now.

Meanwhile my local rag put a couple of reporters on the moratorium beat for the Sunday edition this week. They are uncritically opposed to the moratorium, but it's actually much better reporting than I'm used to from The Daily Advertiser. It's worth the read if you're in to it. Unfortunately I can't link you to it tonight because I don't care to navigate their shitty website. Both articles were on the front page of yesterday's print edition.

The New Normal?

2010-07-19T21:09:00.002-05:00

From a comment to one of Jeffrey's posts... FP questioned whether this was the new "oil rain." The oil rain stuff was obviously ridiculous, but I'm not so sure of this. I'd like some more information about what's dangerous to beachgoers, but this is some disturbing stuff.

I most definitely don't want to dip my balls in that.

Less Optimistic!

2010-07-18T21:49:00.003-05:00

The summer of oil is apparently characterized by disappointment and despair.

Macondo

2010-07-17T23:15:00.003-05:00

It's one or the other. Still hopeful!

The middle range has created two competing scenarios. One is that that there are leaks that have kept the well from pressurizing further. The other is that the reservoir is running out of gas -- and oil -- after gushing for so long. The protracted nature of the disaster could have partially depleted Macondo, which is the best-case scenario for the pressure test if not the prettiest picture in the broader sense.

Wells said BP favors this second scenario because of the way the pressures rose steadily, fitting a model that's consistent with a well that isn't damaged.

I bolded that statement because I think the release of unchecked oil into the Gulf may actually finally lend credence to BP's optimism. They've gushed so much oil into the Gulf over the last three months that there's less explosive pressure against the reservoir from oil/methane that their expectations of nearly 8000 psi may have possible been over-estimated. We're no less fucked overall, but at least we might not have to keep getting fucked from this well for the foreseeable future. OPTIMISM NOW!

At any rate read the column. Achenbach generally writes about the facts of things. He does a good job in the above column.

TKGOTW

2010-07-17T00:40:00.002-05:00

Struggled with this one after just a few levels. But I'm terrible at games like this.

Object of the game: put the ball in the hole.

"The Well Continues to Hold."

2010-07-16T23:22:00.002-05:00

2 PSI per hour over the next 20 hours does not bring the total to 7500 PSI.

Well pressure continued to rise very slowly Friday evening — about 2 pounds per square inch every hour — and was 6,720 psi by early evening, BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said in a conference call.

That's lower than the 7,500-plus psi figure BP and government officials initially said would be a sure sign the well was sound. But there are a number of possible explanations.

I'm as satisfied as I can be that the "possible explanations" for the lowering of the pressure expectations can sustain my continued moderate hopefulness about this situation. We will know a lot more tomorrow, but today BP sure is sounding a lot more cautious and a lot less optimistic.

Rally for Self-Mutilation

2010-07-15T21:37:00.004-05:00

I mentioned this "Rally For Economic Survival" yesterday. there's news the event from Baton Rouge's daily today. If the predicted numbers actually show up, I'll, uhh, drink myself to sleep some night in the next week or two.

A big organizer and proponent of the event is Don Briggs, President of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association. He's had a weekly space in the local shit-rag for some time now preaching the saving grace that the oil and gas industry is to Louisiana. They provide jobs to thousands of Louisiana residents whose only recourse in injury is to a fickle court system. Now organizers are suggesting their numbers will be swelled by office closures next week so that their workers can attend the rally.

Several national news outlets have expressed an interest in covering the event, including CNN and C-SPAN, Briggs said.

The goal is to present "one unified voice saying, 'Hey, guys, you’re killing us down here,'" said Bruce Conque, vice president of marketing and governmental relations for the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber is working with the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association in organizing the event.

Conque said the high attendance estimates for the rally are based in part on commitments from scores of businesses, political leaders and civic groups from throughout southwest Louisiana who have pledged a show of force.

Some businesses are "shutting down and telling their employees to please attend the rally," Conque said.

So let me get this straight. BP, Transocean, Halliburton, and Anadarko (at LEAST. Several other contract operators were on that rig) kill eleven and maim and injure several others. Response: local oil and gas industry workers are going to show up and beg for the opportunity to be out on the next rig where this might happen. At-will employment baby! Gotta love it.

I do support moratorium efforts. I support regulatory and safety reforms. I support royalties until and beyond the point where risk is mitigated. I support worker organization.

AhQuoi! and other good news

2010-07-15T20:28:00.004-05:00

Thanks to my old friend the engineer for posting earlier. Now that he has finished up another degree and has a job again, he must need some activities to fill his time while he's slacking at work. Here's hoping he brings more in the future. Dear AhQuoi, I have expertise in nothing, so please feel free to post things about whatever crosses your mind. I'm confident I'll find it interesting.

Big things happened in the world of oilspill today! Things are closed now. I'm skeptical of the conspiracy theorizing posited on Olbermann's show yesterday; however, there are some very important matters to consider of the current status of the "capped" well:

First oil will likely flow again:

The Coast Guard said BP likely will release the flow of oil again after the test is done -- siphoning it to ships on the ocean surface in an improved system able to handle up to 80,000 barrels a day until a relief well seals the well permanently.

Second this isn't really a cap. It's a temporary cap. It gives BP the ability to move the oil into collection vessels that could be wildly upset by storm activity in the Gulf of Mexico.

Finally this is still just a test. The testing could determine that the well bore is sufficiently damaged from the blowout and all the subsequent capping activities that we're pretty much fucked for the next 40 years or so. Or a lot longer.

I'm still hopeful, but this hasn't really fixed anything yet. It is undeniably good news for now. So happy birthday Jeffrey! You might be forever associated with an historic day in the Gret' Stet.

A little bit of industry legitimacy given to Costner

2010-07-15T12:56:00.006-05:00

The oil-separating centrifuges will work, but they would have worked better months ago
Just saw this story from IEEE (professional organization for electrical engineers), and since Ricky P has been hounding me about helping him post I figured I should add something that I have some kind of expertise in.

Seems that the machines are actually well-regarded by people in the field (though just 'cause an engineer says it works doesn't necessarily make it true). However, it may not perform so well when the oil/water mixture has reached "Mousse" stage (the spill is now making me hungry for dessert).

I'm all for MONEY NOW!

2010-07-14T22:52:00.002-05:00

But let's hope ~~The Incredible Hulk~~ Bobby Jindal has sound plans for what to do with all those funds.

In the meantime did any of you see the Espys? That was some seriously crappy television.

Sigh...

2010-07-14T20:17:00.002-05:00

Back in the old days when I was unemployed I would have gone to this rally and written up a lengthy report of the goings on. Sadly I'll be working for oil companies (among other businesses) during the Rally for Economic Survival at the Cajun Dome next week.

Here's a link to the sponsors of the event.

Gawker

2010-07-13T20:42:00.005-05:00

All I'll say is that I know this guy, and to call him a "crawfisher" is inaccurate. Oh and also if anyone would have ever brought a guitar to a meeting to promote his song and in the process get across a "message of hope" it would be him. His song was quoted in an op ed in the New York Times this weekend too. They accurately portray him as singing "from the perspective of an oil field worker." The Picayune called him someone who's worked offshore in their story.

He is a very good softball player and not a bad guy at all. But crawfisher he is not. Nor an oil field worker. He's a musician and I guess we can call him an activist now too.

[updated to include "" around message of hope immediately after posting]

Just do something!

2010-07-13T20:26:00.003-05:00

The sand berms appear to be an epic fail.

I've been skeptical of this effort from it's inception, but didn't really think it could hurt. Maybe they should have spent all that time and manpower properly applying and maintaining booming efforts?

If only the show didn't make me want to claw my eyes out.

2010-07-12T22:19:00.001-05:00

True Blood's devastating critique on the war on drugs.

The Gray Lady

2010-07-12T21:25:00.003-05:00

She goes comprehensive on the BP "risk vs profit" record. It's a good read. Just click on it. No quoting tonight.

Meanwhile spillcam seems to indicate that most of the oil is indeed being "contained" right now. It got hairy for a while but it looks like they've closed some more valves and it's really hard to see much oil coming out of there. This is obviously a good thing. Unfortunately we're not out of the woods. In BP's statement about the latest effort they again engaged in the "hey guys, really we don't know what can work at these depths," hedging that I remember very well from the first "Top Hat" measure that resulted in ice crystals forming and another six weeks of winter.

The sealing cap system hasn't been used before at the depths or conditions of the Deepwater Horizon, BP said, adding that the system's "ability to contain the oil and gas cannot be assured."

[snip]

BP expects the integrity tests, which could last anywhere from six to 48 hours, to show whether and how much oil is flowing through the well casing. If the pressure in the casing is high, that's a good sign and shows the wellbore is intact and pulling up all, if not most, of the oil flowing out the Macondo well, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said earlier on Monday. If the pressure is low, it means oil is escaping from the casing and the company may have to reconnect previous containment devices, he said.

A key risk for the new cap is that hydrates might form at the bottom of the capping stack, preventing the cap from properly latching shut, Suttles said. The company plans to inject glycol to prevent hydrates from forming, he said.

In the meantime I'm moderately hopeful. Moderately.

Qualifying

2010-07-10T21:14:00.002-05:00

Well, I decided not to run in the 7th against Charles Boustany. Apparently no other Democrats chose to run against him either. This is the same man who has told mayors and other local leaders that he just doesn't think it's right to fight for spending projects in the district because of general federal budget problems (sorry, can't find the link at theind.com where Nathan Stubbs published a story about this about a year or so ago). No challenger. Yep. Welcome to Lafayette, bitches.

The two "big races to watch" if you're concerned about partisan politics are in the 2nd District and the 3rd District.

I'd add the 4th too as something of a long shot.

In the meantime David Vitter is still a complete douchebag. It's unlikely it comes back to haunt him in this election, but the possibility is there. Clearly there are people out there who know his secrets. When they become credible sources to the state or national press is what matters.

For the Record

2010-07-10T00:41:00.003-05:00

I don't think much will come of Chet Traylor's entrance into the Republican primary contest for David Vitter's Senate seat. I'm fine with it as long as it forces him to spend a little money and depresses some of his natural conservative support. I just don't think it will make much of a difference.

To call Chet Traylor well-known or suggest that this will make the primary a "barnburner" seems a little ignorant of our political situation down this way.

[updated shortly after posting for the following]

The suggestion that the "business community is abandoning" Vitter is absolute nonsense. The only community that might abandon Vitter is the Christian right. Vitter will continue to have the support of most of the south Louisiana "do whatever you do" Catholic rubes. He will see seepage from the evangelical economically depressed areas of central and north Louisiana, but there's much less population there for that to matter.

Again, hopefully it makes him spend some money, but "barnburner?" C'mon.

TKGOTW

2010-07-10T00:25:00.002-05:00

It's actually Saturday now, but whatever.

Your game this week is Coma.

Difficultish. Artistic. Ambient. Brian Eno may or may not have been involved in it's production.

David Vitter. Liar.

2010-07-07T23:38:00.003-05:00

Among all those other things.

The Saints go to tax court

2010-07-07T21:39:00.002-05:00

The Saints haven't paid taxes on the annual "inducements" the state issued during the last decade.

In a just-filed U.S. Tax Court lawsuit, the partnership owning the Saints acknowledges that it didn't treat an $8.5 million annual payment from the state of Louisiana as income and therefore didn't pay taxes on the sum. Rather, the team said the money was an addition to "working capital" and a nontaxable transaction.

I'm no tax lawyer. I file a standard deduction and it takes me about 10 minutes to do my taxes, so I can't speak to any of this and really don't care to research what the responsibility to the IRS is from these inducement payments. If these inducements helped the Saints win the Super Bowl last year, well, good work state of Louisiana! Maybe we can find some way to make BP pay for Benson's responsibility to the IRS. Maybe the Saints can get Susan Spicer to file a lawsuit on their behalf against BP for some future lost revenue due to their negligence. Just enough to cover their IRS penalties and court costs.

In the meantime, what did that $8.5 million get us? Maybe this finally answers some questions I had a few weeks ago on one of my tweeter personas. Specifically, who the hell paid for all this?

Ornstein helped arrange logistics such as game tickets and travel for players’ in-laws, minimizing crises. He also dreamed up irritations for the Saints’ opponent, the Indianapolis Colts, including strategically placing the Saints’ fleur-de-lis symbol around the Miami area.

"There is a little bit of a propaganda battle to how we travel -- the hotels we’re staying in, what the wives are getting, the flowers, the cameras, the billboards -- and that’s one thing we felt like we needed to win prior to even playing the game," Payton said in an interview today. "By the end of the week, the scene was the fleur-de-lis everywhere."

[snip]

Ornstein said there were about 20 billboards, placed along the routes most likely to be traveled by the Colts’ buses after consultation with local police. He was hoping they’d annoy Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, who’d just won a record fourth Most Valuable Player award.

"I brought my billboard guy with me and I said, 'I want that sign, that corner, that corner, that corner,'" Ornstein said.

[snip]

[He made] sure the Saints players and their families received extravagant gifts such as cell phones and cameras during the week leading up to the game, and had an opportunity to show them to the Colts.

[snip]

"Here’s our guys with their camcorders that have 'New Orleans Saints Super Bowl 44' on them, all filming the Colts guys," he said in an interview. "Well the Colts had just checked into their hotel and they had a Super Bowl hat and a Super Bowl t-shirt and it just didn’t cut it."

Money well-spent if you ask me.

Your Day in Qualifying

2010-07-07T21:09:00.002-05:00

Qualifying for fall elections opened today. No surprises anywhere that counts yet.

I haven't decided yet whether I'll challenge His Lordship Charles Boustany in the 7th. You'll all know by Friday at 5pm.

Too far removed from state politics these days...

2010-07-06T22:57:00.002-05:00

This video's been floating around. I'd care but Vitter's got the Senate race locked up so tight it doesn't really matter.

A Rose For Emily

2010-07-06T21:37:00.003-05:00

The Faulkner story is one of my favorite works of short fiction. In real life it's even more dismaying.

link!

By the way

2010-07-06T21:28:00.002-05:00

Everything on the sidebar is outdated. Don't email at the link. Maybe one of these days I'll update that stuff. Or maybe I'll just quit blogging again. In the meantime I'm pretty sure I'm going to go to Rising Tide this year. Should be a good time and I hope to meet a bunch of people who belong on an updated sidebar.

900 Barrels a Day.

2010-07-05T21:51:00.003-05:00

In a March report that was not questioned by federal officials, BP said it had the capacity to skim and remove 491,721 barrels of oil each day in the event of a major spill.

As of Monday, with about 2 million barrels released into the gulf, the skimming operations that were touted as key to preventing environmental disaster have averaged less than 900 barrels a day.

The rest of it is being burned off or otherwise "dispersed." We really have no way to know the extent of the environmental disaster that will unfold from the oil. Not to mention the methane emanating from the reservoir. I'll continue to assume we're mostly getting a good and proper fucking.

27% chance is a low probability.

2010-07-05T18:06:00.004-05:00

That's news to me.

The agency signed off on the minerals service’s biological evaluation, even though that assessment considered only the risks to wildlife based on spills of 1,000 to 15,000 barrels - a minuscule amount compared with the hundreds of thousands of barrels now spewing into the gulf. The assessment also noted that even such modest spills carried up to a 27 percent risk of oil reaching the critical habitat for some endangered species.

[snip]

"Would people get on a plane if they knew it had a one in four chance of a major mechanical problem?" Mr. Rohlf asked, adding, "Federal wildlife agencies made conscious choices - under the guise of science - to allow offshore oil drilling with an identical risk of serious harm to endangered species."

Okay, maybe you don't care about wildlife. What's the risk for a person to step on a rig to go to work (note stats in link include both on & offshore extraction)?

Median days away from work are a key measure of severity of injuries and illnesses. In 2007, the drilling oil and gas wells industry had a median of 30, much higher than the median for all industries of 7. One reason for the high median days away from work is that 25 percent of injuries and illnesses with days away from work are fractures, which typically have a long recovery time. Commonly, workers are injured by being struck by objects (32 percent of cases) or being caught in objects, equipment or material (21 percent of cases).

Sigh.

Meanwhile our latest efforts to protect wildlife from oiled marshes and other migratory stopping points is to try and trick them into stopping in places a little farther north. Hopefully they don't mean areas like Lake Pontchartrain. Likewise let's hope we don't try to trick them into going to Texas. It seems the oil is everywhere now.

[update 2030 7/5/10 for formatting purposes]

Fire a bunch of teachers maybe?

2010-07-05T17:48:00.003-05:00

How do we make education cheaper in our state? Why doesn't the legislature ask "how do we make education better" instead?

Anyhoo, can't wait to see what the latest efforts from the Reason Foundation bring us...

please note that I don't think making education cheaper is a bad thing. Nor do I think that simply throwing money at a generally crappy system will make it better. I just thing the goal of this commission is a little off base...

Fuck you very much David Vitter

2010-07-04T21:30:00.002-05:00

The junior Senator from Louisiana showed up in Lafayette tonight to discuss why it's important to respect our troops. Sent me home. I'm having trouble finding reasons to be patriotic.

Happy Independence Day

2010-07-04T09:02:00.001-05:00

TKGOTW

2010-07-02T23:35:00.002-05:00

Yep, it's that time of the week.

Sega Genesis FTW.

And music!

Mother Jones

2010-06-30T22:32:00.002-05:00

Despite ye olde Yat Pundit's kvetching about Mac McClelland, Mother Jones has been doing great work covering the great gusher in the Gulf. Jeffrey linked to a good story today, but here's another nominee for quote of the day.

So far, the BP spill has not provided environmentalists with new leverage in Baton Rouge. During their most recent session, Louisiana legislators also considered bills that would have allowed plaintiffs to seek punitive damages for injuries related to "the drilling, equipping, operating, or producing of an oil or gas well" and would have taxed oil processing to fund coastal restoration; both failed. As the legislature adjourned, Darrell Hunt, a lobbyist for the Louisiana Sierra Club, lamented that it had not passed a single bill to tighten controls on oil and gas companies since the spill. "If this situation in the Gulf didn't change the minds of people and get them to vote for those bills," Hunt laments, "I don't know what would."

Yet Hunt did not lobby for the punitive damages bill, or the tax on oil companies, or the contingency bill. "It would have been counterproductive," he says. "The Sierra Club is so goddamn weak in Louisiana that any statement of support on those bills would have been just meaningless." Instead, he spent much of the most recent legislative session fending off a bill, promoted by chemical companies, that would have dismantled Tulane University Law School's Environmental Law Clinic, which has a long record of suing the state's anemic environmental regulators to enforce the law.

After you get over the author's too-eager approach to commas, you've got a pretty good summary of legislative action "after the spill." It's pretty sad that the best our state legislature can muster is NOT to strip the ability of a private university's law clinic the to sue the state government.

Months not years?

2010-06-30T20:55:00.002-05:00

Ray Mabus says that the plan to restore our wetlands and rebuild our economy should be ready any day now.

President Obama's point man overseeing the cleanup of the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico expects a plan to restore the coastal region economically and environmentally will take months rather than years.

Let's hope the gathering of ideas "from within the community" happens a lot quicker and is more comprehensive than the work we commissioned from the Army of Corps of Engineers on levee protection.

More than two years late, the Army Corps of Engineers is Wednesday delivering its report on the potential for "high level" hurricane protection in southeast Louisiana, a voluminous document that has been roundly panned for excluding the very thing that Congress is said to have most wanted.