Higher Ed Meltown in Louisiana

First off, this email has been going around, relating to the possible merger of the schools of sciences and engineering at UNO:

Dr. Peter J. Fos, President of The University of New Orleans, is deciding right now on whether or not to merge the College of Engineering into the College of Sciences.  This merger will have a very negative impact on the engineering community for the following reasons: 

1.       The perception by the engineering community will be that engineering is no longer a priority for the university.  Until 1972 the engineering program was housed in a department within the College of Sciences.  The perception by employers before the creation of a School of Engineering was that UNO really did not have an engineering program.
2.       Parents will question the viability of the engineering programs at UNO once the news goes out that the colleges will be merged.  It is already difficult to recruit high school students to attend UNO, and the proposed action will make this task even more difficult.  The perception will be that UNO is “cutting” engineering.  We had this same problem when the last university administration proposed combining engineering programs into one general engineering program.
3.       While within Louisiana, Louisiana Tech and Tulane have combined engineering and science divisions, this action will have a huge negative impact at UNO.  Louisiana Tech, which has a College of Engineering and Science, took this action long ago as a strategic move to align the needs of the engineering programs with the mathematics, physics, and chemistry departments (they have chemical engineering).  There is still a separate College of Applied and Natural Sciences.  At Tulane the combination of engineering and sciences has resulted in a reduced emphasis on engineering.  All other engineering programs in the state are housed in Colleges of Engineering.
4.       The New Orleans area needs an engineering school located in New Orleans.

What can you do? 

1.       Contact Dr. Peter J. Fos, UNO President, and give him your opinion on this merger.  His contact information is:

a.       Direct Telephone 504.280.5536

b.      Fax 504.280.6872

c.       Email pfos@uno.edu

2.       Contact our local politicians as follows:

a.       Mitch Landrieu, Mayor of New Orleans – 504.658.4800 or mayor@nola.gov

b.      John Young, Jefferson Parish President – 504.736.6405 or JohnYoung@jeffparish.net

c.       Senator Conrad Appel – 504.838.5550 or appelc@legis.la.gov

d.      Other local parish or state legislators who you may know

3.       Contact your company Human Resources Manager or Supervisor and express your concern to them and ask them to intervene in your behalf.

As past Chairman and Member of the UNO Engineering Advisory Board (comprised of every major corporation in the area) for over thirty-five years, I cannot stress enough the importance of your voice in this proposed merger. 

Sincerely,

Michael S. Benbow, P.E.

C.E.O.

M S Benbow and Associates

Direct 504.836.8976

The merger idea has been shelved, but the layoffs have now started and I'd like to add my thoughts as a current grad student.  

Everyone knows that Jindal has axed $700 million (and counting) from the higher ed budget in Louisiana.  This has hit all state universities extremely hard.  Even LSU has not been immune; LSU has shrunk from 33k+ students down to around 28k students, with hundreds of faculty departing.  Until this year, LSU faculty had not had a raise in 8 years.  Within the UL system, faculty haven’t had a raise in 7 years.  You’re not going to retain your best staff under those conditions, period. I highly recommend this piece from The Advocate: "Rising Tide".  It notes that LSU's out-of-state enrollment has plummeted, while Alabama's has soared.    
 
UNO has a couple of additional factors working against it.  First, before Katrina, UNO was 17k+ students.  After Katrina, they took an enormous hit in enrollment (the city’s population was halved for a long period after the storm). 
 
Second, the registrar had a policy of academic probation if students didn’t keep their grades up.  If they didn’t pull up their grades the following semester, they were banned from registering the next semester and were forced to reapply. This policy was on the books for decades, but was unenforced until recently.  When the new registrar announced that they’re following that policy to the letter of the law, they kicked 800 students out in a single semester. 
 
Third, UNO has implemented admissions requirements that aren’t terribly high, but Louisiana’s high schools (public, private, and parochial) aren’t capable of preparing them adequately. When UNO started requiring a 19 on the math portion of the ACT*, only 8,000 seniors per year in Louisiana were capable of meeting that.  Once again, that number INCLUDES private and parochial schools in Louisiana (which have substantial enrollment).  That’s the entire pool in the state that can meet that (frankly, pretty low) threshold.  If you want to be an engineering student, you’ll need to do much better than that to make it to graduation.  The biggest problem with the low pool is not necessarily the public schools in the Baton Rouge/New Orleans corridor; it’s the rural schools in Louisiana.  The math scores at the rural schools frankly suck (public, private, and parochial). 
 
With all these factors combined, the enrollment at UNO has plummeted from 17k+ to ~9k currently.  Applications have remained strong, but they’ve taken a few serious hits along the way. 
  
The state also has a lot of universities all over the place.  We spend as much money supporting universities in such metropolises as Ruston, Hammond, and Monroe as we do supporting UNO in New Orleans, yet the overwhelming majority of the state’s population resides in the New Orleans/Baton Rouge corridor. 
 
Jindal has, in essence, privatized the state university system in Louisiana.  Instead of fully privatizing them, there’s still state restrictions on the schools though.  The universities aren’t allowed to set their own tuition.  There are other restrictions, for example there are 9 semester hours of English and 3 hours of biology required for all students.  The average degree is ~120 semester hours; that’s 10% of the time at the university that’s dictated by the state legislature.  If fully freed from restrictions, UNO could probably survive on its own.  Also, keep in mind, as bad as it is for UNO, there are other schools in far more dire straits.  In the UL system, only Grambling has managed to balance its budget for the coming year.  LA Tech faces an even bigger deficit than UNO (nearly $2 million in the red at LA Tech for the current year). 
 
The previous university administrations had kicked the can down the road and met the previous budget problems with shifting reserve funds around and hocus pocus, without fundamental changes to the university.  In their defense, they were assured by the Jindal administration they wouldn’t have to suffer through the cuts year after year and it would pass.  So, they put bandaids in place.  Now the bandaids have burst, blood is gushing out, and the new university administration is desperate to stem the tide.  President Fos is a big improvement over the previous administrators and strongly supports science and engineering at UNO, but he doesn’t have a lot to work with at the moment
  
As both State Treasurer Kennedy and Clancy DuBos have recently said, UNO built a good chunk of the middle class in New Orleans.  Education, at all levels, is your primary investment in the future.  What’s going to happen next? 
 

The state has money. Oil prices are up and there's enough money for Jindal to hand out a $4m no-bid efficiency study. For that same amount of money, UNO could more than double the budget for the college of engineering.  

Long term, I'm actually fairly optimistic for UNO.  UNO is still a very good value, but tuition has gone up more than 50% since 2008 (and that’s before Jindal announced he’s allowing the universities to start raising tuition 10% per year to raise funds++). UNO’s out of state tuition is still less than in-state tuition at the California schools.  It offers in-state rates to certain out of state students with good test scores.  If UNO gets through the next few years, I'm optimistic that they'll start to put these problems behind them.  

I'm less optimistic for LSU and here's why: BR Chamber of Commerce plots the death of TOPS.  I've read 80% of LSU students are there on TOPS.  Under that Chamber proposal, if you look at the ACT statistics*, TOPS would be cut off from 89% of Louisiana high school graduates.  The Legislature has been plugging state Higher Ed funds into TOPS year after year to feed the monster, only to discover the following year, the beast is still hungry, partly because the state universities now have less state funding (quite the vicious circle).  Either late in Jindal's term or very early in Jindal's successor's term, TOPS is either going to need a substantial infusion of revenue or Pat Taylor's dream will slowly wither and die.  LSU will not survive the fall of TOPS, at least, not as a flagship university.  

__________________

* ACT Statistics for Louisiana in 2012 here.  Look through those numbers.  

++ I still have yet to see a list of "favored majors" under the WISE Act.  The WISE Act is still a very empty proposal thus far.  

Some Notes about the SELFPA-E

The Wagon Wheel near the mouth of the MS River.  Photo by author.

So, the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Agency (split into 2 branches: East and West) was created in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in order to do away with the incompetent, nepotistic, and unprofessional parish-level levee boards who spent more time running casinos than maintaining levees.  The history of how corrupt those levee boards were goes back well over 100 years; the original Louisiana State Lottery Company was founded to pay off levee bonds.

The SELFPA-E has fought a drawn-out battle with the Corps of Engineers on how the levees will be armored.  They fought the battle on technical merits and won a significant victory by getting the Corps to agree to geotextile armoring of the levees.  Make no mistake, that will save lives in the event of a storm.

Recently, SELFPA-E has been in the news over filing a lawsuit and Jindal has sworn to gut the board in retaliation.  So says Garrett Graves, "“I don’t see any scenario where this levee district doesn’t get gutted — or, say, ‘reformed’ — in the next legislative session.”

Garrett Graves is the chair of the state Coastal Protection Agency.  He is Jindal's point man on coastal issues.  For a little background, he doesn't have any technical background (engineering, geology, etc.), although he was a staffer in Washington DC and his father owned a local construction and engineering company.   I'd say on the whole he's done a decent job, despite the red flag of not being able to work a partial differential equation if it bit him on the ass.  Note that there is a pending public records lawsuit over his correspondence.

John Barry's credentials are impeccable.  There's really no other individual in the entire country as qualified to serve on SELFPA-E.  If you haven't read "Rising Tide" then you're really missing out on one of the greatest books in Louisiana history.  Fun fact: a Tulane donor had a copy FedEx'd to every single incoming freshmen when I went to Tulane.  They felt it was the best primer on Southeast Louisiana available.  Barry has won the Keck Award and the Abel Wolman distinguished lecturer awards from the National Academy of Sciences.

Here is a Barry OpEd in National Geographic.  Here's what could be his farewell address to the SELFPA-E: "This could be my last meeting," Barry said ...  "As you know I'm a historian, and I don't believe history happens. People make history," said Barry, author of an award-winning book, "Rising Tide," on the great Mississippi River flood of 1927. "I think this board has really made an effort to make history — and I'm not just talking about the lawsuit."

Who will we replace Barry with?  Well, so far there are two names in ring: Hassinger & George Ackel III.  Hassinger is a lawyer who already serves as the chairman of the Non-Flood Protection Asset Management Authority (running the casino, Lakefront Airport, etc. that were the Orleans Parish Levee Board legacy assets).  His appointment would signal a return to the days where board members are more concerned with lining their pockets than serving public safety.

While it's true George Ackel III ran a small construction company in the immediate aftermath of Katrina (now defunct, as far as I can tell), the first return when Googling him is horse-racing.  Yep, horse-racing.  His father was a developer in Jefferson Parish.  His grandfather was a Jefferson Parish politician who racked up $26,000 in ethics fine, the most ever in Louisiana history.

Frierson, of Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, and Blanco are justifiably horrified with the direction the nomination process is going.  It takes a major "Good Government" reform of the post-Katrina era and chucks it out the window.  We are still dependent on the Feds for significant actions, from finishing the post-Katrina levee rebuilding (the permanent pump stations are just beginning construction and there's still the Option 1 vs. Option 2 controversy), sediment management from upstream dams, Mississippi River water management, beneficial use of dredge spoils, ... The list goes on and on.  The optics of the moves are already terrible ("I'm sure the timing of Chevron's donation was coincidental.").  My own opinion is if this is really the direction we're going, I hereby nominate this man to be the next head of SELFPA-E:



UPDATE: James Gill hits one out of the ballpark.

UPDATE 2: In a bizarre meeting, John Barry is sacked.  The qualification committee also passed up the head of Tulane's geology department for someone with political links to Ray Nagin and Bobby Jindal.  Hmm...  Here's another letter to The Advocate by Barry.  Clancy DuBos, who endorsed Bobby Jindal for his first term, lays into the qualification committee for betraying the public trust.  

Molleresque

Molleresque, a photo by Noladishu on Flickr.

"Whiz Kid Turns 40" by Jan Moller

A positively Molleresque article from the Times-Pic. You know, the last guy the paper liked calling a 'Whiz Kid" is now a "broken, humiliated man" in the federal pokey.

Hmm, I wonder where this might lead....

Bobby and Mitch

Lost in all the news that Mitch Landrieu announced his intention to run was one little point on who will benefit the most: Bobby Jindal.

It should be clear to anyone that Bobby Jindal has national ambitions. If he's going to run, he needs a robustly rebuilt New Orleans. He can't allow it to haunt him on the campaign trail ("Why should you be president if the biggest city in your state is still drained of people - look at the Lower 9th Ward and Chalmette and..."). Bobby Jindal also seem to be one of those rare Republicans from up north that get how important New Orleans is to the state economy.

No matter how the race turns out, Jindal won't have to worry about Mitch running against him in 2011 (he'll either have his hands full or he'll be politically dead from the loss). He'll also have an easy path for appointing his chosen successor as governor into the lt. governor's chair*.

Jindal should do whatever he can to support Mitch's bid. It would show off his "bipartisan" credentials, which the national press fawn over and he can also be "tough on corruption" {"dragonslaying"} by helping clear out Nagin, who is intergalactically despised.

A Jindal-Mitch alliance would be yet another example of strange bedfellows in Louisiana politics, but it makes a lot of sense for Jindal. If conservatives could think actual strategy, instead of absurd "triple bank shots", they wouldn't shoot themselves in the foot with this infantile shit.

_________________
* Sidenote: who might that be? Timmy Teeple? Anyone got any ideas?

Ashley had a word for guys like this*

FM#1:
Sparks fly over New Orleans health aid. Darrell Issa opened his big fat trap and unleashed this gem:

"Is everyone so poor in Louisiana that the state cannot do more for you? Are you going to be a permanent ward of the federal government? "

First off, nice job throwing your boy, Bobby Jindal, under the bus. Trying to kill off all opposition to Sarah in 2012? Second, Kucinich put him in his place: "Our country is falling apart, and what's happening in New Orleans is a signal condition of where America's priorities are totally fouled up."

FM#2
Scott Cowen sent this email out to students, their parents, and alumni:

Good Morning:

Yesterday, City Council President Arnie Fielkow and I presented “Five Things You Should Know About New Orleans” to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. We wanted to send the national media a different kind of message regarding New Orleans.

Our main points were:

1. The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina will result in New Orleans being a better and stronger city in the future.

Katrina exposed flaws – crumbling federally-built levees (Gee, maybe you should have kept Civil Engineering around to do something about those crubling levees), a government unprepared, poverty and other signs of a community that had failed its youth. But this tragedy also awakened citizens to the need for change.

2. As a result of Katrina, New Orleans can serve as a demonstration lab for disaster recovery and transformation. (You mean like this?)

We now know how to plan for and respond to emergencies. We know the value of public/private partnerships that are revolutionizing our school system and establishing community health centers to provide medical care for the uninsured. We know how to recover our economy and even how to deal with FEMA.

3. Our recovery is a superb example of civic activism and resiliency.

Citizens voted out a wasteful system of seven tax assessors and multiple parish levee boards. They demanded funding for an inspector general to root out corruption and they banded together to demand effective and accountable government.

4. New Orleans is an iconoclastic city, which has retained its distinctiveness and charm despite the challenges and hardships it has and does face.

There are now more restaurants in New Orleans than before Katrina. We ranked first in more categories in Travel + Leisure Magazine’s 2009 “America’s Favorite Cities” survey than any other city. We are a hotbed of entrepreneurship and the quintessential sports town – hosting the Super Bowl in 2013 and the men's and women’s NCAA Final Four basketball championships in 2012 and 2013. Not to mention our undefeated Saints.

5. New Orleans has the potential to become a model city for the 21st century.

Great things are in store for New Orleans. We have gotten a taste of positive change. We want more and we aspire to be a model for the country.

I was honored to share our city’s message on a national stage. I hope you, too, will share these five things with everyone you encounter, especially out-of-town friends and family. Together, we can make the story of New Orleans known far and wide.

Have a great weekend,
Scott

As a sidenote, maybe not this year, but don't be too surprised if Cowen throws his hat into the ring for mayor sometime soon.
________________
* Title Reference

Cowen was also a favorite target of Ashley's

Jindal gets fair warning to knock that shit off

Lightning Strikes Capitol
Originally uploaded by Teddy Smith

Bobby Jindal better watch out:

(Via Reddit)

Hey reddit, I'm a photographer way down here in Louisiana and long time reddit reader. I was out shooting a poster for a movie when a lightning bolt struck right down the middle of our capitol building. Interestingly, this was the same day our governor signed off on dozens of controversial new bills. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.

Anyway, the high resolution image can be examined here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/teddysmith/3683940164/sizes/o/

It's one frame, 30 second exposure. The bolt struck about half a second after I tripped the shutter and it was a VERY LONG 29.5 second wait to see what turned out.

The Penalties of Lemons

For driver's that misbehave, there are a multitude of punishments devised by sadistic judges. Here's a sample.

The Penalty Board. Spin out, spin the wheel.


Penalty Pig. Welded to the car by the Arc Angel. Note the Chief Perpetrator (Jay, the organizer) in the photo, too.

Another penalty involved everyone on your team getting decked out in beads and parading around the entire pit area (~1/4 mile long loop) chanting "we are horrible drivers."


The Bart Simpson Penalty. You get the picture. And yes, they did write it 100 times on their hood. There's also the related rambling email punishment where drivers must write out several paragraphs explaining why their penalty is unjust.


The Bobby Bosch Penalty involves a pile of relays and you have to figure out which one is dead. As long as you have a multimeter, shouldn't be too hard.


The Burning Man Penalty. The offending team must pitch a tent, everyone has to get inside, and then the most awful techno music in the world (DJ Mix - Hidro-Ponik - Hadron Particles) is blasted into the tent. There is one track on the CD that is over one hour long! The link to download the song is 2 MP3's that are each over 100 megs.

I noted this one on the list:
The Bobby Jindal: "Judge Johnny wanted an excuse to do an exorcism. Maybe he'll just resort to simple voodoo, but if he gives you this one, he'll probably be making it up as he goes."

We'll see if it gets implemented.

The final penalty, I'll leave to Candice to cover later. The judges picked up a calender full of shirtless male models. The offending driver has to strip and replicate the poses until the female attendees are satisfied he's matched the pose on the calender...

Local Politics Roundup - Cinco De Mayo Hangover Edition

Bobby "My middle name is ethics" Jindal kills effort to shine light on Governor's records. Trying to reverse a loophole in his "gold standard" ethics laws that make the Governor's records MORE secret than before.

Mark St. Pierre dropped from suit. Did he just turn snitch?

Mayor Ray Nagin and family went to Jamaica courtesy of Greg Meffert and NetMethods. David Hammer brings the hammer down. Big cover story about Nagin/Meffert and the trips and credit cards. Lots of details about strip clubs.

Nagin's 2008 calender. Analysis by Clancy DuBose, et. al. Works few hours, rarely meets with important individuals (his COO, and his soon to depart Recovery Chief). Nagin tries to hide 2008 meetings with Meffert and Bernardo? I get hiding the Muppet meetings, but why Bernardo? Was Bernardo delivering the mayor some Colombian nose powder or something?

At the end of this article about the red light cameras, TP drops a juicy little tidbit:
ATS, linked to the infamous Johnson Controls (Morial/Pampy Barre energy contract), runs part of the red light cameras.

John Colvin arrested for defrauding Katrina victims in prefabricated housing scheme. None of the articles mention his party affiliation, but from the NY Times archive, I found an article from the 90's saying he was part of a G.O.P. plan to take the legislature in Alabama. Could this guy have some interesting stories to tell? Maybe.

Famous political party switchers: Jim Jeffords, Michael Bloomberg, RAY NAGIN, Loretta Sanchez, Jim Webb, Charles Barkley, Teddy Roosevelt, Rick Perry, and Norm Coleman.

Mitch Landrieu mulls run for mayor. Hmmm... Wonder what the magic 8 ball says about that one.

Links of the day - 16 April 2009

Google's Immigration Fixer. Google has a full-time employee just to handle visa snafus for their (large) H1B, etc. workforce.

The Case for Nuclear Winter. Not even Mr. Gloomy Pants can top this one.

Francois Genoud: Nazi Terrorist Banker. Links to the Nazi's (including Goebbels, Eichmann, Barbie), Ayatollah Khomeini, Carlos the Jackal, and, just for good measure, Bin Laden. My first thought: could this guy be the inspiration for S.P.E.C.T.R.E.? It's funny all those ex-Nazis that stuck around in Europe and had major influence in post-war Europe. Happy ending, though: he died in excruciating pain.

Governing by Chaos: A City In Shambles. Takedown of the Nagin regime.

2009 Budget in a picture. Wall chart of where your tax dollars go.

Saudi's to "regulate" child brides. 8 year olds, dude. 8 year olds.

Crucified nun dies in 'exorcism'. Should have called in Jindal...

Interactive map shows job losses.

Cao seeks heaping helping of pork. Guess he didn't get the memo at the tea parties.

Times-Pic editorial asking Mary Landrieu to push for Letten's reappointment. I like Letten, but there are still some concerns about him. The Canal Street Brothel case was shut down early because of pressure he got after rounding up too many Republican (and Democratic) donors... He's definitely not above politics.

Jeffery brings up a good point about the LSU/Charity mess. If Tulane did this, would they get 10% the flack that LSU is getting? Probably not. Here's proof:

Try not to punch your computer screen when Cowen's ugly head pops up to piss on Tulane Engineering's reputation. It still burns me up. Calvin Mackie was a native New Orleanian who was one of the first black PhD graduates from Georgia Tech, Tulane's first tenured black professor in the engineering school, featured on "When the Levees Broke," and a really great professor.

Cowen has injected himself into the LSU mess. Here's an email he recently sent out:

Dear Tulane Alumni,

I am writing today with a call to action as the Louisiana Legislature prepares to decide the fate of the new proposed public hospital for New Orleans, known as the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans, or MCLNO.

This new academic medical center, which will be built and operated with public funds, serves the needs of multiple community constituencies:

1. patients, especially the under or uninsured;
2. the academic institutions which rely on the new hospital to meet their clinical care, research and education missions, including Xavier, Dillard, LSU and Tulane;
3. the greater community of New Orleans.

The new public hospital must be governed by a Board of Trustees comprised of independent trustees who represent the various constituencies. No one group or constituency should, directly or indirectly, control the board seats. [Emphasis in original]

The city’s academic institutions that are critical to the staffing of the new hospital -- Tulane, LSU, Xavier and Dillard -- have been successful partners in providing healthcare to under-- or uninsured patients for centuries. It is a partnership that is equitable, effective and historic. It should not be changed.

Let your voice be heard, and help to preserve the legacy and ensure fair governance of the public hospital in New Orleans.

Sincerely,

Scott S. Cowen
President

He doesn't care what happens, so long as he's at least in partial control of what's built. It would be very interesting to see a battle-royale between Jindal and Cowen/Tulane. Two very powerful groups with tentacles all over the state going at it. Also, don't forget to check out the photos of Charity right after Katrina. LSU intentionally neglected Charity to get a new hospital.

And now to close on a high note- Steam powered iPod charger:

... so that you can still listen to your tunes after the Zombie Apocalypse hits. My grandfather actually gave me that exact same toy steam engine. It's one of the most dangerous toys imaginable. I loved it.

Dinosaurs running around in the Louisiana Governor's Mansion

Since Louisiana's governor is a nutjob who really believes in creationism and thinks Rush Limbaugh is a "great leader," here's a post dedicated to you, Bobby:

Bill the Science Guy takes on Pseudo-Science




I've actually felt a little guilty about not writing more about this earlier. Thanks Oyster, Maitri, et. al. for covering Jindal's anti-science agenda.

Cleaning up the Post-Mardi Gras Mess Part 1 of 2

Poop Scooper
Originally uploaded by Noladishu

Yesterday, there was much fun to be had, but today is the day we clean up, get our ashes, and straighten things up. And boy do we have some big messes to clean up.

The bulldozers have been mobilized to clean up the Quarter.

Yesterday was President Obama's speech to Congress about the Global Financial Crisis. All in all, the reviews seem to be positive. I've only skimmed it so far.

You also can't mention Obama's speech without going over Governor Jindal's speech. This speech pretty much marked the end of Governor Jindal's term as Governor of Louisiana and the beginning of his primary campaign for the Republican nomination in 2012. Forget about him putting the interests of the state before the interests of his political future. Just out of curiosity, did Governor Jindal have his usual mile-a-minute speaking speed? Here's one parody of Jindal already up.

While I confess I haven't finished either speech, I've been reading a lot leading up to the speeches.

At first, Jindal wanted to turn down an extra $25/month for the unemployed (paid for 100% with federal money) claiming it was "welfare." Keep in mind, Louisiana's unemployment system is one of the most bare-bones in the country. The payments tend to be half as large as, say New York's, because Louisiana always wanted to have the lowest possible tax burden for businesses.

If low tax burdens spawned businesses, it would be Louisiana, not California, that has the world's 10th largest economy. Imagine were we'd be on this list if it weren't for all the oil in our backyard. But, don't tell that to Jindal. He adores Bush's economic record and thinks that tax cuts to the wealthy are the best stimulus possible for the economy. Look at what the Bush tax cuts did!

Democrats are seizing on Jindal's hypocrisy of only objecting to a small portion of the stimulus (and only objecting to those portions that would most please the Base). They're calling Louisiana, not unjustifiably, a "Poverty Stricken State" that can't afford to give the ambitious Governor the luxury of turning down millions of dollars. It's also ironic he's objecting to the arts money when our biggest cultural event (Mardi Gras, with it's Billion dollar+ economic impact) is going on.

If Congress got serious about forcing the governors to "take it or leave it," things would get very interesting.


UPDATE- Oyster rounds up the brutal critiques of the Governor's speech last night. One of the headlines was "Jindal's Speech: Panned, Seared." Ouch.

UPDATE 2- Oh no, Kenneth the Page responds:

Links to peruse while waiting on Parades...

How to ensure a constant supply of bacon on hand.

3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Debtor's Prison. Wonder when someone will try to institute that in this country... Dubai, while you're at it, could you take care of this guy for us?

The Sean Tevis Bill could pose a big threat to future internet-based fundraising. More on Sean Tevis at Wikipedia.

Run a university that looses $200 million on mortgage backed securities and "running it like a business?" Need cash? Sue the alumni! Tulane sues Newcomb alumni, claiming copyright infringement for newly-registered trademark. Can we say, "Patent Troll?"

A bright side to the Financialapocalypse? Lawyers laid off in record numbers. Related: More "FDIC Friday" seized banks. Some more related: Laundering drug money? Yet more related: Tale from the Bush Recession. Very wise business advice: Never deal with someone you wouldn't work with over just a handshake.

Hipster movers. A checklist.

Court to kill exclusion rule? Despite Justice Scalia’s claims, police misconduct is rampant.

As bad as Louisiana's legislature is, at least they haven't pulled this. Yet. What qualifications does one need to be a member of the Tennessee House Republican Caucus? The ability to fall off a log and then claim it’s the fault of the log because real American logs don’t spin when a fat man stands on them?

The Broadmoor urban farmers featured in this week's The Gambit cover story. Great read.

For great local blog reads, check out some of the latest posts at The American Zombie and Oyster's profiling of how Jindal is pushing Creationism on Louisiana public schools and the economic effects. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Also, don't forget about Nagin's missing emails. Is this yet another time when Nagin = Our Bush?

And for one last link, the winner of the "honesty in advertising" award: "CAUTION THIS VEHICLE IS FULL OF POLITICAL PROMISES"

News Buffet - 13 August 2008

Got a few things that have caught my eye lately...

China houses 10 MILLION quake survivors in temporary prefab housing. FEMA could barely handle a hundred thousand or so.

On the military:
The Pentagon as global landlord. Some interesting statistics about the Department of Defense.

The Caleb Campbell Story from Deadspin. Very serious journalism out of Deadspin. Good work.

Greatest Twitter Tweet Ever. No other way to describe it.

On the economy:
Joyous that oil prices have been going down? Don't get too excited yet. A lot of it is due to central banks and the Fed propping up the dollar. A moderate sized intervention has a widespread effect, given how over leveraged most players in the market are.

How the rich think about money. God bless British journalists. They have to do this with ridiculous libel laws. I dare any American journalists to get something like this published.

Some property news:
Section 8 moves to the suburbs.

In New Orleans housing market, Uptown shines while St. Tammany takes a bad hit.

A portrait of the true victim of corruption. From our Karen Gadbois.

Politics:
GOP drops like a stone in voting rolls ...Except in Louisiana. Even Kentucky is smarter than us.

"Principaled conservatism out of Baton Rouge" HA!

On Energy:
The Dark Side of the Toyota Prius. Suck on this smug hippies: you Prius is soaked in the blood of slave laborers!

Great map of the Gulf of Mexico with infrastructure and lease blocks. Be warned, very big PDF file. Unless you work out there, people don't realize how much infrastructure there is offshore.

Chuck Schumer is about the last person you want to listen to when it comes to energy. He wanted to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as, "world oil prices continue their meteoric ascent to nearly $25 per barrel. "

LA Gangs Experiment with Pedal-By Shootings. Reducing your carbon emissions? You know gas prices are getting bad when...

On Evolution:
Tech geek takes on creationist in Kansas. I kicked into his campaign.

Colleges allowed to refuse admissions to students who have creationism in their science classes. Good. Maybe when little Johnny from Mandeville High gets turned down for Columbia, then Louisiana parents might get what Jindal's stealth creationism bill means in the long term to Louisiana. Also, I just realized we have a Louisiana Science Coalition. Anyone a member? How can I sign up?

C Ray loves someone else taking heat

Look at C Ray's reactions to Jindal taking heat over his ducking and weaving over the pay hike non-veto. "For once, I'm not the one making myself look like an idiot!"