A few years ago, this was heroic Jim Letten, the big-game hunter, on a float "slaying the Kraken"... now...
Comment Scandal Likely to Blow Wide Open The Lens / M. Mosley
The $th Estate Must read over at AZ... "If Jim Letten was commenting, holy fuck, was that ever dumb."
Things are about to get interesting.
On a related note, I got to attend a little Q&A session with Letten's successor, Ken Polite.
The chat was interesting. He explained the basics of the office. He stated 'the office is the ultimate check and balance (especially in this area) on politicians to ensure their office is not for sale.' He talked about Danziger and how the government shutdown affected his office. He talked about "restoring confidence in the office." He talked about his time at Harvard ("I hate the snow"). One of the interesting things I found was he talked about how none of the previous US Attorneys in the Eastern District had ever bothered to meet with all the Sheriffs and police chiefs in their district (preferring to stick to the city and more or less ignore the more rural areas) and none had ever had a face to face meeting with the chief federal public defender (preferring a strictly adversarial relationship). He was very frustrated with "2 decades of stagnation at the top management within the office" (while the chief US attorney turned over regularly, none of the more senior employees did, much to the detriment of the office). One other nice quote: (talking about crime in New Orleans), "All too often, the victim and perpetrators look like me." I even got to ask a question of Mr. Polite. I asked, "So, what's the transition been like? Easier or more difficult than you expected?" He seemed to enjoy answering my question and broke it down in 2 parts: outside the office and inside the office. He said that outside the office, he was far better received and supported than he ever dared hope, especially considering he was taking over for such a long tenured and popular chief prosecutor. He then said inside the office was far more difficult than he expected (and he was expecting a rough road). He says he spends an inexcusably inordinate amount of time dealing with internal personnel issues. "Some people are supportive of change until it happens". He said he's also only 4 months into the transition and he hopes it gets smoother.
Mr. Polite's #1 piece of advice for young people was also, "Choose your friends wisely; it reflects on yourself."
Showing posts with label Corruption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corruption. Show all posts
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Monday, December 5, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
News and Notes - Local Edition - 24 September
Corruption in the New Orleans Taxi Certificate Markets. From The Lens. Excellent reporting. But, but, but, the Times-Picayune told me Nagin eliminated corruption in the taxi bureau?
Another one Louisiana can be proud of: David Vitter named one of the most crooked members of Congress. If you go to CREW's website, they like to point out how many people on their old lists are now behind bars.
Poor John Fleming. At least he made The Daily Show.
Watching Jay Cutler thrown to ground repeatedly was extremely satisfying. I'm actually glad Ingram fumbled. He got taught a lesson in ball security in a situation that didn't really matter and we got to watch more of the Cutler beat-down. 1/21/07: Never Forget.
Tulane brings back CS. The first of the Cowen-eliminated programs returns. Note that for years, Tulane has done without an ABET-accredited Computer Science program in the 21st Century. How can you call yourself a University without at least CS?
Back to Bacchanal. Great expose on the whole flap. Especially searing on the out-of-towner, absentee-landlord next door.
SOS from Avondale. Gambit coverstory. Note there might be some interesting Avondale news coming down the pipeline shortly...
Garland violated the Public Trust, Stephanie Grace. James Gill's epic takedown of Garlandfill. Everyone is taking a whack at the pinata.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Review: "The Big Uneasy"
I missed the chance to see The Big Uneasy premier at The Prytania and a lot of other opportunities since, but felt it was pretty important to watch it. I downloaded it off Amazon and just finished it and here are some of my thoughts.
The Big Uneasy doesn't cover a lot of new ground that a local that's read the paper won't know, but it's good to know that a lot of it will reach a wider, national audience. It did a great job of some of the more qualitative issues (addressing "Why don't we move New Orleans?" in their "Ask a New Orleanian" segment), but I was a bit disappointed when it came to some of the more technical aspects. I may have had high standards, but I expected more.
One of the things that constantly annoyed me was little glitches. For example, there's a progression where they show land loss from 1932-2010, but the graphic is wrong. They pulled the graphic from Blum and Roberts (or some derivation thereof, like the Mike Schleifstein writeup) and the progression should have ended in 2100, NOT 2010.
There's another screwup where they're interviewing Ivor van Heerden and he's talking about building on sand horizons in the London Ave. Canal and he's talking about water seepage through sand and he says that sand is a bad foundation because it's not strong enough. Well, actually, sand is a pretty good foundation. It can withstand a pretty hefty load without subsiding, when compared to many other layers you'd encounter in South Louisiana. Now, the larger issue that Ivor was talking about is absolutely 100% correct (water seepage through sand) and that was his main thrust of his excerpt; the structural point was sort of an (irrelevant) aside, but because the editor left the whole interview unedited, it sort of makes the subject look (to technical eyes) like he doesn't know what he's doing, when he (at least in this case) does.
I'm probably being nitpicky, but I'm an engineer and that's just what I'm gonna do. One of the things I was really disappointed in wasn't what was in the movie but what was left out. When talking about LSU, Sean O'Keefe's is never mentioned. There was no real mention of the actual structure of the Army Corps of Engineers (military officials that come and go while 90+% of the Corps are civilian engineers, etc.). Dr. Bob Bea is big on organizational issues contributing to disaster, well, wouldn't it be great to ask Dr. Bea (who had worked at the Corps back in the day) about leadership churn at the Corps?
Another issue is the dynamic between Congress and the Corps. They made the point over and over that the Corps is Congress' pet and they had one good example where they went through all the Congressional websites highlighting all the water-resource bills various congressmen have corralled. I would have like to have seen them go a bit further there.
I'll even lay out a great example for somebody to take: dredge companies. I'd love to see someone look into crooked dredge companies. There are examples out the wazoo. For example, on one coastal restoration project, the dredge company was paid per cubic yard of material dredged, but not on what actually made it to the build site, so they could lose all the material they wanted between Ship Shoal and the deposit site and there was no contractual mechanism to penalize them.
The best example of all on how crooked the dredge companies is the River Dredge Wheeler. Wheeler was commissioned in 1982 after being designed from the keel up for one purpose: keep Southwest Pass open. It was a purpose-built tool designed to maximize efficiency and minimize cost for a very specific purpose. Since it's commissioning, it's been almost entirely unused. It sits in "ready reserve" most of the time next to the ACoE headquarters at Riverbend. You see, back in the early 80's, a group of congressmen (including Bob Livingston, you can fill in the rest of the 'usual suspects') got elected and decided that "the government is obviously incompetent and let's let the free market do everything!" Now, they couldn't just lease the Wheeler to a private operator; that wouldn't result in enough political donations to the politicians. So, they decided to let it out to private dredge companies. Then, embarrassingly, nobody bid; it was too big a job for even a consortium of companies. The Corps then went back, sliced and diced the dredge job into small tranches that private dredge companies could tackle (with huge project management staffs to keep track of everything). This highly inefficient system continues to this day. A few years back, a Dutch company wanted to bring in some ultra-modern dredges and do the job much cheaper than the local companies could do with their antiquated equipment. The dredge companies then squealed like stuck pigs for government protection ("GAH! Jones Act! National Security! DEY TOOK ER JERBS!"). The Dutch, who had plenty of work building the Palm Islands in the UAE dropped their inquiry after a while.
On a related note, after Katrina, there were scores of letters to the editor demanding to "privatize the Corps." What would a privatized Corps actually look like? Wouldn't you still have to have some sort of project management staff to oversee the whole mess?
Dr. Bea does make the excellent point that the Corps no longer has as large a technical staff and that lots of personnel are now outside contractors and a lot of those who remain are more project managers than competent technical professionals. That is, frankly, a criticism you could extend to many, many other industries. Contractors and subcontractors and consultants are a major feature of any heavy industry today. I will say this: you can pull up Karen Durham-Aguilera's CV shows a P.E. licence and a technical Master's. The Vicksburg office of the Corps is still a center of excellence in geotechnical engineering. OTOH, I've also had interactions with Corps employees who couldn't set up a free-body-diagram to save their life.
How 'watered down' has the Corps become? I'm not sure I have an answer, but I'll put forward an idea. On projects I've worked on, when there's a really immense challenge and there's no time to argue over budgets or organizational hierarchies and you get the MBA's to just stand out of the way and let the engineers 'do their thing,' you'd be astounded with the results. In virtually every measurable metric (LTI's, delivery time, and {counter-intuitively} cost), these "Apollo-program" projects outperform the day to day engineering jobs we put together. There's total, bottom-up efforts to get it right. It's very similar to Scott Adams' "Bet on Engineers" philosophy (WSJ Op-Ed here).
The Corps is closed to finishing a major effort to get New Orleans' levee system up to 100-year protection as quickly as possible. How did they do along the way? Well, there are some good things they've done and some not so good things. The Ms. Garzino's faulty pump incident is quite worrying (updated letter here). So is the ongoing issue with debris in some of the levees (and what annoys me the most about that is the immediate 'shoot the messenger'-reaction as opposed to 'gee, maybe we oughta enforce these contractual requirements and penalize some contractors'-reaction). There's also the question of workplace atmosphere that was brought up by the Levees.org personal attacks on company time issue. I think a commander of the Corps has more to fear from fostering a workplace environment of, say, sexual harassment, than one where technical competency is valued and a good engineering product is turned out.
In the end, the Corps is a big bureaucratic organization. They're not the only one who's had a major engineering disaster, but we'll have to see how they respond. Do they build a better organization or do they fall into the same old traps? It hasn't been settled one way or the other and the proof will be in the pudding (what gets built and how it holds up). I will say this for the critics of the Corps: they only responds to INTENSE criticism. The Corps doesn't really get tact and nuance. You have to whack them in the head with a sledgehammer to get their attention.
Keep paying attention to Levees.org and Fix the Pumps.
NOTE- Small edits for grammar and spelling.
The Big Uneasy doesn't cover a lot of new ground that a local that's read the paper won't know, but it's good to know that a lot of it will reach a wider, national audience. It did a great job of some of the more qualitative issues (addressing "Why don't we move New Orleans?" in their "Ask a New Orleanian" segment), but I was a bit disappointed when it came to some of the more technical aspects. I may have had high standards, but I expected more.
One of the things that constantly annoyed me was little glitches. For example, there's a progression where they show land loss from 1932-2010, but the graphic is wrong. They pulled the graphic from Blum and Roberts (or some derivation thereof, like the Mike Schleifstein writeup) and the progression should have ended in 2100, NOT 2010.
There's another screwup where they're interviewing Ivor van Heerden and he's talking about building on sand horizons in the London Ave. Canal and he's talking about water seepage through sand and he says that sand is a bad foundation because it's not strong enough. Well, actually, sand is a pretty good foundation. It can withstand a pretty hefty load without subsiding, when compared to many other layers you'd encounter in South Louisiana. Now, the larger issue that Ivor was talking about is absolutely 100% correct (water seepage through sand) and that was his main thrust of his excerpt; the structural point was sort of an (irrelevant) aside, but because the editor left the whole interview unedited, it sort of makes the subject look (to technical eyes) like he doesn't know what he's doing, when he (at least in this case) does.
I'm probably being nitpicky, but I'm an engineer and that's just what I'm gonna do. One of the things I was really disappointed in wasn't what was in the movie but what was left out. When talking about LSU, Sean O'Keefe's is never mentioned. There was no real mention of the actual structure of the Army Corps of Engineers (military officials that come and go while 90+% of the Corps are civilian engineers, etc.). Dr. Bob Bea is big on organizational issues contributing to disaster, well, wouldn't it be great to ask Dr. Bea (who had worked at the Corps back in the day) about leadership churn at the Corps?
Another issue is the dynamic between Congress and the Corps. They made the point over and over that the Corps is Congress' pet and they had one good example where they went through all the Congressional websites highlighting all the water-resource bills various congressmen have corralled. I would have like to have seen them go a bit further there.
I'll even lay out a great example for somebody to take: dredge companies. I'd love to see someone look into crooked dredge companies. There are examples out the wazoo. For example, on one coastal restoration project, the dredge company was paid per cubic yard of material dredged, but not on what actually made it to the build site, so they could lose all the material they wanted between Ship Shoal and the deposit site and there was no contractual mechanism to penalize them.
The best example of all on how crooked the dredge companies is the River Dredge Wheeler. Wheeler was commissioned in 1982 after being designed from the keel up for one purpose: keep Southwest Pass open. It was a purpose-built tool designed to maximize efficiency and minimize cost for a very specific purpose. Since it's commissioning, it's been almost entirely unused. It sits in "ready reserve" most of the time next to the ACoE headquarters at Riverbend. You see, back in the early 80's, a group of congressmen (including Bob Livingston, you can fill in the rest of the 'usual suspects') got elected and decided that "the government is obviously incompetent and let's let the free market do everything!" Now, they couldn't just lease the Wheeler to a private operator; that wouldn't result in enough political donations to the politicians. So, they decided to let it out to private dredge companies. Then, embarrassingly, nobody bid; it was too big a job for even a consortium of companies. The Corps then went back, sliced and diced the dredge job into small tranches that private dredge companies could tackle (with huge project management staffs to keep track of everything). This highly inefficient system continues to this day. A few years back, a Dutch company wanted to bring in some ultra-modern dredges and do the job much cheaper than the local companies could do with their antiquated equipment. The dredge companies then squealed like stuck pigs for government protection ("GAH! Jones Act! National Security! DEY TOOK ER JERBS!"). The Dutch, who had plenty of work building the Palm Islands in the UAE dropped their inquiry after a while.
On a related note, after Katrina, there were scores of letters to the editor demanding to "privatize the Corps." What would a privatized Corps actually look like? Wouldn't you still have to have some sort of project management staff to oversee the whole mess?
Dr. Bea does make the excellent point that the Corps no longer has as large a technical staff and that lots of personnel are now outside contractors and a lot of those who remain are more project managers than competent technical professionals. That is, frankly, a criticism you could extend to many, many other industries. Contractors and subcontractors and consultants are a major feature of any heavy industry today. I will say this: you can pull up Karen Durham-Aguilera's CV shows a P.E. licence and a technical Master's. The Vicksburg office of the Corps is still a center of excellence in geotechnical engineering. OTOH, I've also had interactions with Corps employees who couldn't set up a free-body-diagram to save their life.
How 'watered down' has the Corps become? I'm not sure I have an answer, but I'll put forward an idea. On projects I've worked on, when there's a really immense challenge and there's no time to argue over budgets or organizational hierarchies and you get the MBA's to just stand out of the way and let the engineers 'do their thing,' you'd be astounded with the results. In virtually every measurable metric (LTI's, delivery time, and {counter-intuitively} cost), these "Apollo-program" projects outperform the day to day engineering jobs we put together. There's total, bottom-up efforts to get it right. It's very similar to Scott Adams' "Bet on Engineers" philosophy (WSJ Op-Ed here).
The Corps is closed to finishing a major effort to get New Orleans' levee system up to 100-year protection as quickly as possible. How did they do along the way? Well, there are some good things they've done and some not so good things. The Ms. Garzino's faulty pump incident is quite worrying (updated letter here). So is the ongoing issue with debris in some of the levees (and what annoys me the most about that is the immediate 'shoot the messenger'-reaction as opposed to 'gee, maybe we oughta enforce these contractual requirements and penalize some contractors'-reaction). There's also the question of workplace atmosphere that was brought up by the Levees.org personal attacks on company time issue. I think a commander of the Corps has more to fear from fostering a workplace environment of, say, sexual harassment, than one where technical competency is valued and a good engineering product is turned out.
In the end, the Corps is a big bureaucratic organization. They're not the only one who's had a major engineering disaster, but we'll have to see how they respond. Do they build a better organization or do they fall into the same old traps? It hasn't been settled one way or the other and the proof will be in the pudding (what gets built and how it holds up). I will say this for the critics of the Corps: they only responds to INTENSE criticism. The Corps doesn't really get tact and nuance. You have to whack them in the head with a sledgehammer to get their attention.
Keep paying attention to Levees.org and Fix the Pumps.
NOTE- Small edits for grammar and spelling.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
"On the websites"
In honor of C-Ray:
Labou via Hulu.
Note C-Ray's speech at about 1:24-1:25 or so.
"...and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!"
Check out AZ for the juicy details from the St. Pierre trial. Some of the best blogging I've ever read.
UPDATE- Much more to read at my new favorite site, Slabbed
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Books on Edwin Edwards
One of the things that always frustrates me is learning history that's too recent for the history textbooks, but before I started to regularly read the newspaper. I've been interested in reading up on some recent Louisiana history and the Leo Honeycutt biography caught my eye:
Leo Honeycutt's "Edwin Edwards"
The book features extensive interviews of Edwin Edwards made while he was in prison. Frankly, the book stinks. The beginning is actually quite good and the book covers quite a lot of non-EWE-related Louisiana recent history, which I appreciated. The chronicling of the media's influence on campaigns is one of the best parts of the book. I also like how much the anti-Edwards camp is exposed as hypocrites (Foster for being pro-Duke, pro-gambling and Buddy Roemer for being the "father of legalized gambling in modern Louisiana"). Towards the end, though, the book became unreadably bad. James Gill was quoted extensively, but only at the end when it served the author's bias. There were a couple of quotes that, when a fuller quotation was given, would have conveyed the exact opposite of what Honeycutt was trying to portray. The book also had some minor typographical errors throughout, but for a first edition that was sort of rushed out, I'll forgive. The blatant pro-Edwards bias ruins the book towards the end. I couldn't finish the book, it was that bad.
Tyler Bridges' "Bad Bet on the Bayou"
Instead of finishing Honeycutt's book, I picked up Bad Bet on the Bayou. It is a history of gambling in Louisiana from the Louisiana State Lottery Company to the conviction of Edwin Edwards. The earlier history is fantastic. I loved how it described pre-suburbanization Jefferson Parish as nothing but thugs, scoundrels, and prostitutes. Sometimes, you'll hear suburbanites complain about all the corruption in New Orleans, but the shit that went down in the 'burbs is amazing.
Tyler Bridges really stuck it too Edwards. He got a little too preachy at times. His most effective passage was when he chronicled the damage done by gambling addiction to a half dozen Louisiana families.
After reading both books, first off, I would have never read nearly as much of the Honeycutt book had I read Bridges' book first. I'm also ardently anti-gambling and Bridges' book only reinforced my views. The best way to stop gambling is math education, but if we did that, half the state education budgets would be in the red!
As far as EWE goes, I think that Edwards' first two terms were OK, at least he didn't push gambling. His third was crap, but then again, it was the oil bust, so anyone would have had a hard time. Edwards' fourth term, well, I'll let the man describe it for himself:
"The best thing that could happen to me would be to win the election and die the next day"
-Edwin Edwards to John Maginnis, just before the runoff election against David Duke
Leo Honeycutt's "Edwin Edwards"
The book features extensive interviews of Edwin Edwards made while he was in prison. Frankly, the book stinks. The beginning is actually quite good and the book covers quite a lot of non-EWE-related Louisiana recent history, which I appreciated. The chronicling of the media's influence on campaigns is one of the best parts of the book. I also like how much the anti-Edwards camp is exposed as hypocrites (Foster for being pro-Duke, pro-gambling and Buddy Roemer for being the "father of legalized gambling in modern Louisiana"). Towards the end, though, the book became unreadably bad. James Gill was quoted extensively, but only at the end when it served the author's bias. There were a couple of quotes that, when a fuller quotation was given, would have conveyed the exact opposite of what Honeycutt was trying to portray. The book also had some minor typographical errors throughout, but for a first edition that was sort of rushed out, I'll forgive. The blatant pro-Edwards bias ruins the book towards the end. I couldn't finish the book, it was that bad.
Tyler Bridges' "Bad Bet on the Bayou"
Instead of finishing Honeycutt's book, I picked up Bad Bet on the Bayou. It is a history of gambling in Louisiana from the Louisiana State Lottery Company to the conviction of Edwin Edwards. The earlier history is fantastic. I loved how it described pre-suburbanization Jefferson Parish as nothing but thugs, scoundrels, and prostitutes. Sometimes, you'll hear suburbanites complain about all the corruption in New Orleans, but the shit that went down in the 'burbs is amazing.
Tyler Bridges really stuck it too Edwards. He got a little too preachy at times. His most effective passage was when he chronicled the damage done by gambling addiction to a half dozen Louisiana families.
After reading both books, first off, I would have never read nearly as much of the Honeycutt book had I read Bridges' book first. I'm also ardently anti-gambling and Bridges' book only reinforced my views. The best way to stop gambling is math education, but if we did that, half the state education budgets would be in the red!
As far as EWE goes, I think that Edwards' first two terms were OK, at least he didn't push gambling. His third was crap, but then again, it was the oil bust, so anyone would have had a hard time. Edwards' fourth term, well, I'll let the man describe it for himself:
"The best thing that could happen to me would be to win the election and die the next day"
-Edwin Edwards to John Maginnis, just before the runoff election against David Duke
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Louisiana is slipping...
Between New Jersey, Chicago, and South Carolina, Louisiana is losing its street cred. Not even a mention on Stewart:
COME ON LOUISIANA! We can out buffoon them!
Maybe Stacey Head and Tracie Washington caught in a bizarre Julie Quinn-esque love triangle! Warren Riley caught doing blow in the evidence room with hookers! Maybe a DNA-encrusted diaper or two?
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..."
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Thank You, South Carolina! | ||||
| ||||
COME ON LOUISIANA! We can out buffoon them!
Maybe Stacey Head and Tracie Washington caught in a bizarre Julie Quinn-esque love triangle! Warren Riley caught doing blow in the evidence room with hookers! Maybe a DNA-encrusted diaper or two?
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..."
Thursday, July 30, 2009
News from China
I just started reading "Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang". I haven't read in far enough to give an evaluation of the main part of the book, but I can say I'm impressed with the preparation. When it comes to modern China, you'd be lucky to name anyone past Deng Xiaoping. The authors that put the book together understand this and have 2 introductory chapters, an index of names in the back, and fill the narration with notes and explanations. They've done an incredible job at making the book as accessible as possible and I commend them for it.
I've noticed a few news stories from China lately that fit well with the flow of the book thus far that I'll highlight:
Think US infrastructure is in bad shape? Look at this building collapse in China.
Chinese steelworkers protest layoffs, by killing boss. Private steelmaker takes over state-run factory and orders 25,000 layoffs. 30,000 workers, including the 5,000 still keeping their jobs, beat the manager to death. Remember that the economic crisis has also hit Chinese factory jobs hard and, while their economy is still growing, there's a lot of frustrated, unemployed factory workers out there. Perfect recipe for a little revolution...
Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future - NYTimes. Crooked bureaucrats have been selling academic records to lesser-performing students to help them get jobs and academic visas, leaving the honest students in the lurch working menial jobs.
China doesn't have the Rule of Law, at least not in the way we understand it. If a Party official doesn't like the law, they disregard it. Which leads me to my last story...
Chinese Workers Say Illness Is Real, Not Hysteria - NYTimes. Chemical plant leaks H2S (!) and government response is, 'suck it up and quit whining, pussies.'
Hydrogen Sulfide is something every oilworker learns to fear. It's an extremely toxic gas that smells like rotten eggs. The first thing that happens when you're exposed is you lose your sense of smell. You smell it briefly and then it goes away. And then, about 30 seconds later (at sufficient concentrations), you keel over dead. It's not something to fool around with. Why is it still going on?
"...the plant has a complicated corporate structure that includes investors from Hong Kong and a number of local government officials."
Ah, now I understand. Say whatever you will about corruption in this country, but we haven't hit that low.
I've noticed a few news stories from China lately that fit well with the flow of the book thus far that I'll highlight:
Think US infrastructure is in bad shape? Look at this building collapse in China.
Chinese steelworkers protest layoffs, by killing boss. Private steelmaker takes over state-run factory and orders 25,000 layoffs. 30,000 workers, including the 5,000 still keeping their jobs, beat the manager to death. Remember that the economic crisis has also hit Chinese factory jobs hard and, while their economy is still growing, there's a lot of frustrated, unemployed factory workers out there. Perfect recipe for a little revolution...
Files Vanished, Young Chinese Lose the Future - NYTimes. Crooked bureaucrats have been selling academic records to lesser-performing students to help them get jobs and academic visas, leaving the honest students in the lurch working menial jobs.
China doesn't have the Rule of Law, at least not in the way we understand it. If a Party official doesn't like the law, they disregard it. Which leads me to my last story...
Chinese Workers Say Illness Is Real, Not Hysteria - NYTimes. Chemical plant leaks H2S (!) and government response is, 'suck it up and quit whining, pussies.'
Hydrogen Sulfide is something every oilworker learns to fear. It's an extremely toxic gas that smells like rotten eggs. The first thing that happens when you're exposed is you lose your sense of smell. You smell it briefly and then it goes away. And then, about 30 seconds later (at sufficient concentrations), you keel over dead. It's not something to fool around with. Why is it still going on?
"...the plant has a complicated corporate structure that includes investors from Hong Kong and a number of local government officials."
Ah, now I understand. Say whatever you will about corruption in this country, but we haven't hit that low.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Bad week for Goldman Sachs
If you haven't read The Great Bubble Machine by Matt Taibbi, take the time to do so. It's a very broad article, so it doesn't nail Goldman down as well as a more specific article and it's by no means a complete catalog of their sins, but it captures the scope of Goldman's transgressions and reach.
Goldman Sachs has called even more attention to Taibbi's piece by howling about the article. Here's Taibbi vs. Van Praag (Goldman Vice President/PR-guy nicknamed "Von Doom").
Even the NY Times noted the Goldman's PR shitstorm: The dense revolving-door conflicts of interest are appalling. Goldman is howling about Taibbi’s article, but the bottom line was articulated last week by the economic blogger Felix Salmon of Reuters. He wrote that he couldn’t “think of a single government regulation over the past couple of decades which has remotely harmed Goldman Sachs” as opposed to the many that “have done it a world of good.”
And just to cap it off, a hacker stole some of their secret trading code and shipped it to Eastern Europe.
I think the most devastating indictment of Goldman Sachs came from analyzing their trading for major clients (universities, pension funds, etc.). Zero Hedge has been tracking their trades for major clients and developed a compelling case of Goldman front running major trades. Goldman will buy up some shares, then process the (large volume) purchases for their client, then sell their front-run shares. The institutional purchase will be so large, it moves the market. Goldman is shafting their client and putting trust in the whole system at risk for a fairly small pot of money. How did Goldman respond to Zero Hedge? They pressured the NYSE to stop releasing data that caught their hand in the cookie jar.
There is one bright spot out there: among the requirements being considered in new banking regulations: extremely large reserve requirements for mega-corporations (Citi/Goldman/etc.). Now there's a regulation that would put a crimp on Goldman. If you pose a lot of risk to the system, you have to carry around extra reserves to go along with your risk. We'll see what happens with the regulation.
UPDATE: Goldman will be laughing all the way to the bank. Massive profits for the last remaining investment bank.
"At a time when the supposedly progressive party controls all the political branches of the federal government, our economy is being run like a glorified banana republic." -LGM
Meanwhile, Krugman says more signs pointing to a jobless recovery.
UPDATE 2- Goldman Sachs employee caught doing what they do best (fuck us). Unfortunately, this 15-year-old girl was actually an undercover cop.
UPDATE 3- Bashing Goldman Sachs is a Game for Fools. By Michael Lewis. Bitingly satirical take on Goldman's recent woes. Well worth your time. Lewis has been on a roll with his last few articles.
Goldman Sachs has called even more attention to Taibbi's piece by howling about the article. Here's Taibbi vs. Van Praag (Goldman Vice President/PR-guy nicknamed "Von Doom").
Even the NY Times noted the Goldman's PR shitstorm: The dense revolving-door conflicts of interest are appalling. Goldman is howling about Taibbi’s article, but the bottom line was articulated last week by the economic blogger Felix Salmon of Reuters. He wrote that he couldn’t “think of a single government regulation over the past couple of decades which has remotely harmed Goldman Sachs” as opposed to the many that “have done it a world of good.”
And just to cap it off, a hacker stole some of their secret trading code and shipped it to Eastern Europe.
I think the most devastating indictment of Goldman Sachs came from analyzing their trading for major clients (universities, pension funds, etc.). Zero Hedge has been tracking their trades for major clients and developed a compelling case of Goldman front running major trades. Goldman will buy up some shares, then process the (large volume) purchases for their client, then sell their front-run shares. The institutional purchase will be so large, it moves the market. Goldman is shafting their client and putting trust in the whole system at risk for a fairly small pot of money. How did Goldman respond to Zero Hedge? They pressured the NYSE to stop releasing data that caught their hand in the cookie jar.
There is one bright spot out there: among the requirements being considered in new banking regulations: extremely large reserve requirements for mega-corporations (Citi/Goldman/etc.). Now there's a regulation that would put a crimp on Goldman. If you pose a lot of risk to the system, you have to carry around extra reserves to go along with your risk. We'll see what happens with the regulation.
UPDATE: Goldman will be laughing all the way to the bank. Massive profits for the last remaining investment bank.
"At a time when the supposedly progressive party controls all the political branches of the federal government, our economy is being run like a glorified banana republic." -LGM
Meanwhile, Krugman says more signs pointing to a jobless recovery.
UPDATE 2- Goldman Sachs employee caught doing what they do best (fuck us). Unfortunately, this 15-year-old girl was actually an undercover cop.
UPDATE 3- Bashing Goldman Sachs is a Game for Fools. By Michael Lewis. Bitingly satirical take on Goldman's recent woes. Well worth your time. Lewis has been on a roll with his last few articles.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Greg Meffert's Complete Deposition
Here's the link for the total (~1000 page) deposition. Here's the great thing about it: it's searchable text!!! Hit Control-F and search for all the references to 4000 Downman Road.
Most of the last 300 or so pages, up until now unpublished, concern various trips paid for by Mark St. Pierre.
Page 921:
For example, the Chicago NFC trip. Here's Dambala's post about it from over a year ago.
Page 909:
Ah, the infamous Hawaii trip. There's an interesting claim that Meffert claimed all these trips on his income taxes. Feds, you interested in some income tax evasion? Maybe get some restitution to shore up the deficit? I'm sure you could not only squeeze a few G's out of Meffert, but you could also squeeze some out of much bigger fish.
Page 963:
The company suing Greg Meffert, et. al. never paid for anyone to go on any trips. Gee, I guess they just didn't know how the Nagin administration likes to run their business.
Most of the last 300 or so pages, up until now unpublished, concern various trips paid for by Mark St. Pierre.
Page 921:
For example, the Chicago NFC trip. Here's Dambala's post about it from over a year ago.
Page 909:
Ah, the infamous Hawaii trip. There's an interesting claim that Meffert claimed all these trips on his income taxes. Feds, you interested in some income tax evasion? Maybe get some restitution to shore up the deficit? I'm sure you could not only squeeze a few G's out of Meffert, but you could also squeeze some out of much bigger fish.
Page 963:
The company suing Greg Meffert, et. al. never paid for anyone to go on any trips. Gee, I guess they just didn't know how the Nagin administration likes to run their business.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Haunted by the Recent Past
Some fascinating reads out there recently. Don't miss these 4 articles:
Mystery surrounds post-Katrina death, and some point to involvement of NOPD officers Saturday's cover story on the Times-Pic. All about some shady shit that went down in the aftermath of Katrina. A bunch of cops allegedly killed a man, beat up the witnesses, stole a car, and tried to hide their crimes by burning the body in a car. I think articles like this will continue to leak out for a long, long time. Lots of incredibly sketchy shit went down after the levees broke and there will never be a full accounting of what went down.
Flashback to the Interoperability Grant. Out of everything the Nagin administration has done, nothing compares to what Meffert and crew did in this fiasco. After 9/11, it was learned that communications failures cost hundreds of lives, so the Feds set up a grant to several cities to purchase a fully inter-operable communications system on specially reserved bandwidth. Minnesota was one of those cities and so was New Orleans. Minnesota's system worked almost flawlessly and saved lives. What happened in New Orleans? Greg Meffert, the crooked muppet, tried to steer the contract towards one of his cronies. The Feds figured out what he was up to an yanked the grant. No grant, no radios, no bulletproof communications system. A year or so later, Katrina hits, thousands die, and communications failures were one of the biggest complaints after the storm. Out of everything the Nagin administration has done, from NOAH, to Tracie Washington, to Veronica White, to Chocolate City, nothing compares to the Interoperability Grant. That fuckup probably cost hundreds of lives. Someone deserves to get lethal injection for it, unfortunately it looks like Jim Letten is looking primarily into more recent activities. Too bad. I'd love to see Meffert indicted with a thousand cases of negligent manslaughter (Mass Murder?).
Reversal of something or other. Tracing Tracie Washington's history in Dallas. I'd heard some of this, too. I was also reading around the archives of the the archives of the Austin American Statesman and Austin Business Journal. I got beat to the punch on posting. The only other things that I'll add is Tracie Washington allegedly called one of the attorneys suing Cap Metro a son of a bitch in front of a huge number of media people (TV, paper, radio, etc.). That was the final straw that got her fired. Also, the parking lot that drew all the attention was owned by the Praise Tabernacle Church. Tracie Washington allegedly had some sort of connection to the minister. Wasn't really made clear in the articles I read, but they alluded to a connection. The point of the story is Tracie Washington has a very dirty history, but then, we already had indications.
Checkered Past Comes Full Circle. Eli exposes Warren Riley's past. Wow, you talk about some bombshells. Warren Riley was once suspended for hiding a domestic violence call from a cops wife days before the other cop kills the wife and dumps her body in the swamp. I'd always heard that Warren Riley knew where the bodies were hidden because of his days with IA, but never any details. Warren Riley/Eddie Compass/Ray Nagin have supervised the demise of what was once a model police force and its replacement with it's national-nightmare predecessor. The thing is, the people that should be the most afraid of this is the cops themselves. I'm betting it's 6 months until you get another Antoinette Franks (cop that kills another cop).
I'll end with a quote from when Pennington lost after losing to Nagin in 2002:
"Pennington professed to have information abut Nagin that ‘sickened him to the core’, without specifying its nature."
Mystery surrounds post-Katrina death, and some point to involvement of NOPD officers Saturday's cover story on the Times-Pic. All about some shady shit that went down in the aftermath of Katrina. A bunch of cops allegedly killed a man, beat up the witnesses, stole a car, and tried to hide their crimes by burning the body in a car. I think articles like this will continue to leak out for a long, long time. Lots of incredibly sketchy shit went down after the levees broke and there will never be a full accounting of what went down.
Flashback to the Interoperability Grant. Out of everything the Nagin administration has done, nothing compares to what Meffert and crew did in this fiasco. After 9/11, it was learned that communications failures cost hundreds of lives, so the Feds set up a grant to several cities to purchase a fully inter-operable communications system on specially reserved bandwidth. Minnesota was one of those cities and so was New Orleans. Minnesota's system worked almost flawlessly and saved lives. What happened in New Orleans? Greg Meffert, the crooked muppet, tried to steer the contract towards one of his cronies. The Feds figured out what he was up to an yanked the grant. No grant, no radios, no bulletproof communications system. A year or so later, Katrina hits, thousands die, and communications failures were one of the biggest complaints after the storm. Out of everything the Nagin administration has done, from NOAH, to Tracie Washington, to Veronica White, to Chocolate City, nothing compares to the Interoperability Grant. That fuckup probably cost hundreds of lives. Someone deserves to get lethal injection for it, unfortunately it looks like Jim Letten is looking primarily into more recent activities. Too bad. I'd love to see Meffert indicted with a thousand cases of negligent manslaughter (Mass Murder?).
Reversal of something or other. Tracing Tracie Washington's history in Dallas. I'd heard some of this, too. I was also reading around the archives of the the archives of the Austin American Statesman and Austin Business Journal. I got beat to the punch on posting. The only other things that I'll add is Tracie Washington allegedly called one of the attorneys suing Cap Metro a son of a bitch in front of a huge number of media people (TV, paper, radio, etc.). That was the final straw that got her fired. Also, the parking lot that drew all the attention was owned by the Praise Tabernacle Church. Tracie Washington allegedly had some sort of connection to the minister. Wasn't really made clear in the articles I read, but they alluded to a connection. The point of the story is Tracie Washington has a very dirty history, but then, we already had indications.
Checkered Past Comes Full Circle. Eli exposes Warren Riley's past. Wow, you talk about some bombshells. Warren Riley was once suspended for hiding a domestic violence call from a cops wife days before the other cop kills the wife and dumps her body in the swamp. I'd always heard that Warren Riley knew where the bodies were hidden because of his days with IA, but never any details. Warren Riley/Eddie Compass/Ray Nagin have supervised the demise of what was once a model police force and its replacement with it's national-nightmare predecessor. The thing is, the people that should be the most afraid of this is the cops themselves. I'm betting it's 6 months until you get another Antoinette Franks (cop that kills another cop).
I'll end with a quote from when Pennington lost after losing to Nagin in 2002:
"Pennington professed to have information abut Nagin that ‘sickened him to the core’, without specifying its nature."
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Mayor's Office of Technology
Getting confused about the whole crime camera shenanigans? Need a diagram to keep things straight?
I'm working on it. Here's a sample of what I've got started. If anyone is curious for more, let me know.
I'm working on it. Here's a sample of what I've got started. If anyone is curious for more, let me know.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Jim Letten's true nature to be revealed?
WARNING- LONG, MEANDERING POST AHEAD:
After a lot of wondering about what Letten is really up to, it appears that something big is finally in motion.
Jim Letten is the Federal Prosecutor for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He was Eddie Jordan's chief assistant and did most of the heavy lifting in the Edwin Edwards case.
After Jordan left to become Orleans DA, Letten was appointed by Bush. After taking down most of the Morial administration and nailing Oliver Thomas, Jim Letten has been extraordinarily quiet. Very little visible action was taken after the NOAH story broke. The only brief interruption was when the crime camera report from the OIG office came out.
Supposedly, Cerasoli had been sitting on the report for months, at the behest of Jim Letten, who didn't want to endanger ongoing investigations. Cerasoli had to leave for health reasons and had the report released shortly after he left for Boston, straining the relationship between the OIG and Jim Letten's office.
Now, there's a lot of speculation out there about why Letten's office has been so quiet for so long. The dark side of the speculation says he's a Rovian attack dog (along the lines of the Donald Siegelman case)), bent on taking down only Democrats. As evidence, they cite the Canal Street Madam case early in his career. Letten took down a major brothel that served many of New Orleans' movers and shakers. Allegedly, Letten shut the investigation down early because too many Republicans including a few national Republicans, were in the Madam's little black book. There's also a flagrant violation of the Travel Act that has yet to see the inside of a courtroom.
Furthermore, remember that Nagin's most loyal backers are Republicans (the "Couhig Conservatives") and Greg Meffert, Nagin's Pampy Barre, is a behind the scenes player with the local Republicans (Intelliport, a Meffert company, put together Joe Cao's new website).
Recently, Nagin's been acting like he know's he's untouchable, either because he has friends in high (Federal) places or because he knows that any indictment of him could tear this city to pieces. Take a look at Jeffery's character portrait of Nagin. Lots of interesting points. Nagin plays the fool, but the joke's on us. Some of Nagin's theatrics below:
He makes the reporters act like total fools (and the reporters are dumb enough not to even realize it).
So, could the much beloved "Dragon-Slayer" really be in on a bigger corruption racket?
There could be a lot of innocent explanations for the delays. First off, corruption cases are VERY hard to put together for one big reason (amongst many others): politicians tend to hire very good defense attorneys. Cases have to be airtight. If you're outside looking in, it can be very hard to put all the pieces into place in a way that will stand up in court, especially if you don't have a snitch (or does Letten have a snitch in Nagin's administration?). Also, the Federal Prosecutor is required to have a certain percentage of his prosecutors on violent crime cases (generally putting local thugs who work through the revolving door local justice system into the federal system on gun charges).
There's no definite evidence to say that Letten is either assisting the corrupt (knowingly or unknowingly) or is just trying to put together a case in tough circumstances.* Whether or not Meffert goes down, or if it's just smaller players, could finally settle the matter, though.
It's getting exciting. I don't know what I'm looking forward to more: the ending of Battlestar Galctica, or what Letten's next moves are.
_______________
*For the record, I think it's the latter. Full disclosure, my dad used to work for a friend of Letten's and used to go to lunch with his boss and Letten. He's always spoken highly of Letten.
UPDATE- Detailed analysis of the legal implications for some of the lawyers involved. A whole lot of lawyers (Tracie Washington, Penya Moses-Fields) probably deserve to be disbarred.
If you really want to get down to business, look at the offsite backups. That will tell you instantly what's going on. Any monkey business with those tapes and you have a serious federal offense.
For real tinfoil-hat territory, Ciber, a Meffert company, was a security contractor for Premier Election Solutions [Diebold]. Nagin, whose reelection depended on higher than expected turnout at satellite voting stations in Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, etc. might have gotten an extra boost from Ciber/Diebold audited machines at those polling stations...
After a lot of wondering about what Letten is really up to, it appears that something big is finally in motion.
Jim Letten is the Federal Prosecutor for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He was Eddie Jordan's chief assistant and did most of the heavy lifting in the Edwin Edwards case.
After Jordan left to become Orleans DA, Letten was appointed by Bush. After taking down most of the Morial administration and nailing Oliver Thomas, Jim Letten has been extraordinarily quiet. Very little visible action was taken after the NOAH story broke. The only brief interruption was when the crime camera report from the OIG office came out.
Supposedly, Cerasoli had been sitting on the report for months, at the behest of Jim Letten, who didn't want to endanger ongoing investigations. Cerasoli had to leave for health reasons and had the report released shortly after he left for Boston, straining the relationship between the OIG and Jim Letten's office.
Now, there's a lot of speculation out there about why Letten's office has been so quiet for so long. The dark side of the speculation says he's a Rovian attack dog (along the lines of the Donald Siegelman case)), bent on taking down only Democrats. As evidence, they cite the Canal Street Madam case early in his career. Letten took down a major brothel that served many of New Orleans' movers and shakers. Allegedly, Letten shut the investigation down early because too many Republicans including a few national Republicans, were in the Madam's little black book. There's also a flagrant violation of the Travel Act that has yet to see the inside of a courtroom.
Furthermore, remember that Nagin's most loyal backers are Republicans (the "Couhig Conservatives") and Greg Meffert, Nagin's Pampy Barre, is a behind the scenes player with the local Republicans (Intelliport, a Meffert company, put together Joe Cao's new website).
Recently, Nagin's been acting like he know's he's untouchable, either because he has friends in high (Federal) places or because he knows that any indictment of him could tear this city to pieces. Take a look at Jeffery's character portrait of Nagin. Lots of interesting points. Nagin plays the fool, but the joke's on us. Some of Nagin's theatrics below:
He makes the reporters act like total fools (and the reporters are dumb enough not to even realize it).
So, could the much beloved "Dragon-Slayer" really be in on a bigger corruption racket?
There could be a lot of innocent explanations for the delays. First off, corruption cases are VERY hard to put together for one big reason (amongst many others): politicians tend to hire very good defense attorneys. Cases have to be airtight. If you're outside looking in, it can be very hard to put all the pieces into place in a way that will stand up in court, especially if you don't have a snitch (or does Letten have a snitch in Nagin's administration?). Also, the Federal Prosecutor is required to have a certain percentage of his prosecutors on violent crime cases (generally putting local thugs who work through the revolving door local justice system into the federal system on gun charges).
There's no definite evidence to say that Letten is either assisting the corrupt (knowingly or unknowingly) or is just trying to put together a case in tough circumstances.* Whether or not Meffert goes down, or if it's just smaller players, could finally settle the matter, though.
It's getting exciting. I don't know what I'm looking forward to more: the ending of Battlestar Galctica, or what Letten's next moves are.
_______________
*For the record, I think it's the latter. Full disclosure, my dad used to work for a friend of Letten's and used to go to lunch with his boss and Letten. He's always spoken highly of Letten.
UPDATE- Detailed analysis of the legal implications for some of the lawyers involved. A whole lot of lawyers (Tracie Washington, Penya Moses-Fields) probably deserve to be disbarred.
If you really want to get down to business, look at the offsite backups. That will tell you instantly what's going on. Any monkey business with those tapes and you have a serious federal offense.
For real tinfoil-hat territory, Ciber, a Meffert company, was a security contractor for Premier Election Solutions [Diebold]. Nagin, whose reelection depended on higher than expected turnout at satellite voting stations in Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, etc. might have gotten an extra boost from Ciber/Diebold audited machines at those polling stations...
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Crime Cameras and City Council Emails - EVEN MORE UPERDATED
The Office of the Inspector General released it's much anticipated crime camera report. First off, all of Ashe Dambala's reportings on Verascent, Imagine, Greg Meffert, and company are totally vindicated. The report exhaustively laid out what got us expensive, broken, useless crime cameras. Also, Jim Letten is directly CC'd on the report with a letter suggesting serious violation of federal law are present in the contracting and accounting irregularities of the Mayor's Office of Technology (MOT).
Now, I think the report was exhaustive enough to rise above any criticisms or racially inflammatory reactions.
... and then this came out. Tracie Washington requested the emails of the council's four white members plus one other city official, also white, on Dec. 3, 2008. And this activist got (tens of?) thousands of emails of all the white city council members on a CD in record time. Meanwhile, WWL can't get squat from Nagin because of "executive privilege" (Nagin copying Bush yet again).
With Veronica White and an activist on a fishing expedition against certain council members thrown into the mix, expect fireworks. Oyster recommends a hazmat suit and a silkwood scrub (whatever the later is?). This could end up like one of those late 90's/early 2000's Orleans Parish Public School meetings.
UPDATE- Talk about synchronicity:
The crime cameras at the end of the block are working! It has missed 3 shootings while being inoperative. Now they're back up and aimed at exactly where the shootings were.
UPDATE 2- One thing I found interesting in the OIG report was the installation and wiring standards. Look at the photos at the bottom of the OIG report. Shoddy workmanship. I'll keep an eye out for specific examples in the future.
UPDATE 3- WWL TV led off their news reports with the Veronica White story, not the OIG report. I know WWL is involved in the emails thing, with their lawsuit and all, but I'm disappointed at the choice of lead story.
UPDATE 4- Now the camera is pointed directly at the telephone pole it's mounted on. FAIL!
UPDATE 5- Now all the Council's emails have been compromised...
UPDATE 6- Dambala's take
Now, I think the report was exhaustive enough to rise above any criticisms or racially inflammatory reactions.
... and then this came out. Tracie Washington requested the emails of the council's four white members plus one other city official, also white, on Dec. 3, 2008. And this activist got (tens of?) thousands of emails of all the white city council members on a CD in record time. Meanwhile, WWL can't get squat from Nagin because of "executive privilege" (Nagin copying Bush yet again).
With Veronica White and an activist on a fishing expedition against certain council members thrown into the mix, expect fireworks. Oyster recommends a hazmat suit and a silkwood scrub (whatever the later is?). This could end up like one of those late 90's/early 2000's Orleans Parish Public School meetings.
UPDATE- Talk about synchronicity:
The crime cameras at the end of the block are working! It has missed 3 shootings while being inoperative. Now they're back up and aimed at exactly where the shootings were.
UPDATE 2- One thing I found interesting in the OIG report was the installation and wiring standards. Look at the photos at the bottom of the OIG report. Shoddy workmanship. I'll keep an eye out for specific examples in the future.
UPDATE 3- WWL TV led off their news reports with the Veronica White story, not the OIG report. I know WWL is involved in the emails thing, with their lawsuit and all, but I'm disappointed at the choice of lead story.
UPDATE 4- Now the camera is pointed directly at the telephone pole it's mounted on. FAIL!
UPDATE 5- Now all the Council's emails have been compromised...
UPDATE 6- Dambala's take
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
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"
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"
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Green Dot Day
NOTE- I posted this briefly and then took it down because I was too early. Now I'm putting it back up late because I forgot
It's been 3 years since the Times-Picayune issued their infamous "Green Dot" map on the cover.
The infamous image is below:
Excellent roundup at Regional Modernism: The Map That Launched A Thousand Ships
It's been 3 years since the Times-Picayune issued their infamous "Green Dot" map on the cover.
The infamous image is below:
Excellent roundup at Regional Modernism: The Map That Launched A Thousand Ships
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Karen Gadbois: New Orleanian of the Year
Congratulations Karen Gadbois for being Gambit's New Orleanian of the year!
Yours is the blog that launched a thousand investigations!
Yours is the blog that launched a thousand investigations!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Economic Mess
Bush's Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire. By the NY Times. Excellent reporting. It's being billed as a devastating indictment of Bush, and while it doesn't reflect very well on him, I personally thought Paulson took it on the chin in that article.
With Stevens' Fall, a Pipeline for Lobbyists is Shutting Off. More NY Times. One lobbyist wrote, "“For those of us long on the dole, the coming reality will take some getting used to.”"
Entergy caught with hand in the cookie jar. Not a peep of this from the Times-Picayune. Entergy was caught by the state of Mississippi using the fuel surcharge line item on bills (which they are legally prohibited from making a profit on) to pad their profits. Will their be an investigation in Louisiana? I doubt it. Too many of our Public Service Commissioners like getting generous campaign contributions from Entergy.
At Siemens, Bribery was a line item. This is an unfortunate reality in many overseas business ventures. Reminds me of Enron's Dabhol Power Plant in India.
With Stevens' Fall, a Pipeline for Lobbyists is Shutting Off. More NY Times. One lobbyist wrote, "“For those of us long on the dole, the coming reality will take some getting used to.”"
Entergy caught with hand in the cookie jar. Not a peep of this from the Times-Picayune. Entergy was caught by the state of Mississippi using the fuel surcharge line item on bills (which they are legally prohibited from making a profit on) to pad their profits. Will their be an investigation in Louisiana? I doubt it. Too many of our Public Service Commissioners like getting generous campaign contributions from Entergy.
At Siemens, Bribery was a line item. This is an unfortunate reality in many overseas business ventures. Reminds me of Enron's Dabhol Power Plant in India.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
NOAH and VA Hospital busted
Compare the demolitions to the VA map. Notice a pattern? Someone in C-Ray's administration has used inside information on the VA hospital to strategically demolish properties that will be valuable in the future. That person or a partner in crime will buy up the properties and redevelop them after millions of federal dollars are spent.
Prima facie evidence of a huge corruption scheme that tore down people homes for a profit. Whoever buys these properties will be in on the crime. Wait and see.
Good job, Leigh, Karen, et. al.
Also, I think that the refurbishing of Big Charity would be far more economical (and end up with a far superior final product) than this bloated, Nagin-backed project. Renovations wouldn't be cheap, but the base construction is so sturdy, the final building would be stronger, more aesthetically pleasing and cheaper to the taxpayer.
Prima facie evidence of a huge corruption scheme that tore down people homes for a profit. Whoever buys these properties will be in on the crime. Wait and see.
Good job, Leigh, Karen, et. al.
Also, I think that the refurbishing of Big Charity would be far more economical (and end up with a far superior final product) than this bloated, Nagin-backed project. Renovations wouldn't be cheap, but the base construction is so sturdy, the final building would be stronger, more aesthetically pleasing and cheaper to the taxpayer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)