Nagin gets the Taiwanese Animation treatment

Actually not that far off from how he actually governed.  (H/T @skooks )

Guilty, Guilty, Guilty

Guilty, a photo by Noladishu on Flickr.

I got the opportunity to be in the courtroom today. I was a little late for the reading of the verdict.

I've been thinking about it and the one thing that still makes me a little sad: out of everything Meffert, Nagin, and St. Pierre did, nothing was more evil than the Interoperability Grant.

One thing we learned from the I-35W Bridge Collapse was what a difference a good, interoperable communications system can make. Despite the fact a damned interstate fell into the Mississippi and dozens were in danger, only 13 people died. Dozens were swiftly rescued from the water by adept, well-coordinated rescue work. Minnesota had the system that New Orleans lacked after Katrina.

Of all the charges today, not a single one related to the Interoperability Grant. In all likelyhood, nobody will ever to go to jail for it. Think of the lives in Katrina that could have been saved.

"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

Race

Race
Originally uploaded by Noladishu

Took a break from studying to go see "Race", When I first got there, the filmmaker introduced herself with a British accent and then the movie started with lots of Doug Brinkley interviews and I thought, 'oh crap, time to head for the exit'. I stuck around and it thankfully got much better than that.

The later parts of the film featured much less of Brinkley and much more of Jim Carvin, the political consultant who has never lost a mayor's race. He's a fascinating character who can at a instantly dissect both candidates strategies and their chances of victory. Among his main features of advice: run for politics like you're playing golf (stick to the plan, don't get flustered and don't pay attention to what the other guy does).

There was also lots of Nagin. My favorite part was when Nagin interrupts an interview, says, 'hey man, let me tell you about Sun Tzu', reaches into the top drawer of his desk and gingerly pulls out this copy of "The Art of War" that's covered in dog ears and book marks and underlines. The book is falling apart and it looks like he reads the book every single day.

The movie is only 60 minutes long, so there's plenty that's left out, but nothing that really throws the story off too much. If I could give one piece of advice: cut Brinkley's scenes and add much more Carvin.

If God Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise

Spike Lee came down and blasted a shotgun at New Orleans. His camera caught the good, the bad, the guilty and the innocent. The main feature of Spike's documentaries is the expansive, if schizophrenic coverage they provide.

Here are a few thoughts:

My absolute favorite part of the entire thing was how they covered the plight of the elderly. More than whites or blacks the elderly had it the worst of anyone. Too many stayed in their homes in Lakeview or elsewhere. They had ridden out Betsy and Camile and just weren't evacuating. Too many drowned in their homes. Many more just had more change and chaos than they could take. So many just lost the will to live, more than any physiological illness.

From there, the rest of the film is a mix of the good, the meh, and the atrocious.

The coverage of the levee situation is atrocious. Ivor van Heerden and Brad Pitt are levee experts and Ivor says the reason the Corps is building things right is because the trial lawyers are on their ass! The Corps is given very little chance to speak (for good or for ill), and Dr. Calvin Mackie (the first black engineering professor at Tulane), who was sterling in "When the Levees Broke" dismissing dynamited-levee-conspiracy-theories, was not really referenced.

Good job on covering mental health issues.

The most questionable part of Spike Lee's style is who he decided to put in the film. It's a very mixed bag. John Kerry? Tracie Washington and Brinkley do not speak well to Spike Lee's judgment. Fuck Brinkley. Fuck anyone who wants to put a camera, mic, or pen in front of him. In his horrible book, the "Great Deluge", he writes that in 1927, they blew up the levees to flood all of the black people in the Lower 9th Ward. Nope. That's how shitty a historian he is.

IMMENSE smackdown of Warren Riley, et. al. by General Honore for panicking people about snipers and raping babies. Honore showed real leadership (unlike, say NOPD) and put his body in front of panicky soldiers with loaded rifles and told them to stand down and realize they were in an American city. As a post-script, I've been told they later realized that the alleged "sniper" near Charity was the PVSV popping off relieving pressure on a liquid oxygen tank used for the hospital.

Schools, meh. Would have liked some mention that the School Board was in the process of being flushed down the toilet before the storm.

Crime & NOPD. Man, what a disaster.

Nagin and the history question... Nagin was allowed to talk way too long and say way too little.

Ivor is also an expert on mining and oil and gas safety...

Tracie Washington is an expert on Dispersant

The BP part, meh.

Nagin Ad

Nagin Ad
Originally uploaded by Noladishu

Anyone know the story behind this ad that was on the back of today's paper?

Congratulations, Mitch!

We'll see how the down-ballot votes go, but so far, congratulations Mr. Landrieu.

You won outright majorities every way you break it down: black, white, male, female, Uptown, Downtown. You're the only thing other than the Saints that the entire city has gotten behind.

Good job, Mitch and good job, New Orleans.

UPDATE- NY Times writeup. With a nice little jab at Jefferson Parish in there.

UPDATE 2- The Mitch-mentum came through in a total repudiation of everything Nagin.

My favorite quote:

So the Mayor's race is decided. New Orleans is a predominantly black city with a white mayor-elect, a Vietnamese-American U.S. Representative, and a state governor of Indian descent. Gumbo coalitions, baby.

Snoozing on Politics Until...

I wanted to post a few of campaign commercials for the mayor's race and comment and then this happened. Mitch is now the front runner and, frankly, I think he has my vote right off the bat. It's a ballsy move. He'll either be a phoenix rising from the ashes or this will absolutely destroy his political career. So much for the overly cautious "reluctant warrior." Be sure to read DuBos' writeup.

Anyway, I'm going to post the campaign commercials anyway. I'm posting them in the order I've come across the candidates.

Ed Murray


James Perry


Leslie Jacobs


John Georges


Troy Henry
Video Here. Embedding disabled.

Some notes:
* Murray was the first out of the gate. He needed to be. Liked the first ad, but haven't heard from him since.
* James Perry had a slam-dunk during a debate, but had some issues with his campaign video. I think it balanced out in his favor by a lot.
* Leslie Jacobs got creamed in the same debate Perry aced (not just the Youth Studies Center question). She comes in with the best credentials (on paper), but even before Mitch entered, she was flailing.
* Georges: Yawn.
* Troy Henry: Big ad buy during the Redskins game. As Dambala points out, he's Nagin's man.
* Couhig: I'm still hoping Nagin will endorse Couhig as a belated (and totally unwished-for) favor for his influential endorsement. Nagin's endorsement is the kiss of death (just ask Bobby Jindal). Between Nagin and Mitch, I think it's actually become a fun race, if for no other reason than to watch Couhig flail in agony and misery. If you think I'm being mean to him, remember that I actually donated money to him. Boy, was that a mistake.

UPDATE- 1 more:

Mitch

Let 'em have it!

Burnell Moliere (who stole from NOPS still getting city contracts? Yep, along with Pampy Barre. Nagin's response was a shrug. "Past corruption? No problem, Nagin says"

When did Nagin become the Special Man?

Sunday Reading Assignments

For you while you're waiting on the afternoon Saints game:


An Administration Run Amok. By Clancy DuBos. Goes over the Meffert indictment and what it illustrates about Nagin's 'leadership abilities.'

After Friday’s 63-count corruption indictment against former city technology chief Greg Meffert — once Nagin’s top aide and close friend — it’s hard to distinguish our present mayor from his predecessor.

What Gets Measured Gets Done. By Brian Denzer. Talks about crime, accurate statistics, and successful reform. More on NOLA Stat here.

Blakely Redux. By James Gill. The politician-skewering maestro's first column in a while gets an above-the-fold-headline in the dead tree edition and a well deserving target. Although one contributor on the idiot page disagrees with Gill's assessment of Dr. Blakely.

Deadspin- Why Your Stadium Sucks: Yankee Stadium. Yuck the Fankees.

And two final ones: The Case for Inflation vs. The Case for Deflation. Which will have a greater effect on the economy: Barack Obama "printing money" or Wall Street's financial wizardry going kablooey?

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.

Crime Updates - 28 April 2009

Charges reduced against Mardi Gras trio. If these guys get "Eddie Jordan'd," it would be bad news for the city. You can't have people thinking you can get away with shootings along the parade route.

A Romantic Dinner, New Orleans-style. Recounting a home invasion.

Memo to junkies: don't brink the kiddies along when you buy smack.

13 Armed Robberies Reported. Lots are in the area. My favorite part of the article:

The New Orleans Police Department's major offense logs released Monday show armed robberies comprised the bulk of the city's violent crime Friday through Sunday. The weekend spike in armed robberies came just after NOPD officials announced that reported crimes, especially armed robberies, were down in the first three months of the year.

Keeping an ineffective police chief is starting to take an economic toll: Huge convention cancels (because Nagin/Riley can't keep a lid on crime).

Girlfriends Now Become Targets. The unarmed family members/girlfriends don't put up the fight that intended targets do and are easier to find. It reminds me about how in ancient times, they'd hunt down the children so they couldn't take revenge at a later date. Barbaric.

On Eddie Jordan: Defeated. An old post, but essential reading if you want to know how Warren Riley continues to hold a leadership position within NOPD (and not say, cleaning toilets with a toothbrush).

Army soldiers, contractors stole fuel, sold it on Iraqi black market . The fuel may have later been resold to finance the Iraqi Insurgency.

And to close with something entertaining:
Laughing Car Thief Steals Bait Car, Stops Laughing

From the Houston Chronicle. The first douchebag is priceless.

UPDATE - A couple more things to tack on the end:

Goth Kids Terrorizing New Orleans Cemeteries?

Solar Car Tour Hits Bump in French Quarter. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!

David Duke Detained on Holocaust Denial. Neo-Nazi that won the majority of the white vote in Louisiana when he ran for governor. Almost made it into the runoff for Vitter's Senate seat.

Woman Burnt to death in road rage incident. When someone tried to get her out of her burning vehicle (from the wreck she caused) here's what happened:

“I opened the driver’s door wide. It opened easily. The person looked at me, it was a big built woman. I said ’You’ve got to get out of the car. It’s going to burst into flames’.

“The person replied ’F*** off, just f*** off’ and she raised her right fist towards me in a threatening manner before slamming the door shut.

Self-immolation. See Republican Party behavior for more information.

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.

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."

Mayor's Office of Technology

Mayor's Office of Technology
Originally uploaded by Noladishu

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.

Beware the Ides of March

Something is creeping up behind Nagin...

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...

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

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"

Can't Sleep. Clowns will eat me.

Up real early this morning (partly because of this), so I'll post a few links.

Wonkette reports on Draft Stormy movement. "VITTER MUST BE DESTROYED!" Related: David Vitter is a jackass (Iced Coffee and a Bagel).

The Politics of Health Reform. Fascinating to get an outside perspective. A sample from the BBC:


Map of New Orleans political donations. Fascinating to click through for a while. I find it especially interesting that a lot of the old St. Charles Ave./Pickwickian-types mainly donated to Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani. Now there's money well spent!

Stimulus Battle in Perspective: Of course, the last time we saw a vote like this one was probably the 1993 vote on Clinton's first budget -- every single Republican in the chamber voted against it, hoping to prove, once and for all, that they were right about economics and Democrats were wrong. If memory serves, that budget was the first step towards the longest economic expansion on record, the creation of 22 million jobs, and the total elimination of the federal budget deficit. Related: For Republicans, there wasn't much downside to voting no.

More extensions to housing aid in Louisiana? Those overly generous subsidies to landlords is part of what's keeping market rates up. You remove those payments, the market will fall (it already has fallen from it's post-Katrina highs). Probably won't return to pre-Katrina rents, but that's unreasonable to expect.

Gulfport Mayor indicted for Katrina fraud.

Taibbi + Blago. Need I say more?

Roger Clemens has always been batshit insane. Deadspin clarifies the level of insanity: "Then Donahue would rub the hottest possible liniment on his testicles. “He’d start snorting like a bull,” the trainer said. “That’s when he was ready to pitch.” "

State Farm completely pulling out of property insurance in Florida.

Here's a few companies that have never had mass layoffs. I can thing of a few to add to the list, too (Honda, for one).

When it comes to Israel, to revive or dump the two-state solution?

Bill Gates talks about education, especially high school, and what constitutes a successful school. Two most interesting points: a kid is better off with a good teacher in a "bad" school than he is with a bad teacher in a "good" school. Also, in extremely poor areas, the schools with the longest schooldays tend to do the best.

Sad to see Cerasoli go. Oyster rounds up the reacts. One little tidbit: “People were telling me he [Nagin] was saying they would regret getting the office up and running 10 years from now.

Old media, don't piss off new media. Remember that the "Symbiotic relationship between new and old media" isn't a one way street... Also, McCain-endorser's Pedo son gets out of jail early with barely a peep from local media.

So, after closing Our Lady of Good Cousel, et. al.*, the Nazi Pope decides to embrace a Holocaust-denier and a cleric who said Katrina was God's punishment for being too kind to the gays.

Want to see Scott Cowen foam at the mouth? Mention the letters AAUP and stand back.

And for your amusement:

The Thing, remade with G.I. Joe's.

*BTW- Great comic 2 weeks ago Greg. Can't link to your comic, though, because the archives are down.