Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu Loses Runoff Campaign to Republican Challegnger Bill Cassidy

Red is for the parishes that Cassidy won while Blue is the parishes that voted for Landrieu. It wasn't even as close as it appears on the map.

The 2014 midterm elections officially wrapped up on Saturday and the Republican party extended their total gains to nine US senate seats when the polls closed in Louisiana for a runoff election for the US Senate seat held by incumbent Mary Landrieu. Observers both inside and outside the Sportsman's Paradise believe the December runoff campaign may not have been necessary if the ballot in the November general election wasn't split between multiple Republican candidates. Last month, both Landrieu and challenger Bill Cassidy failed to get more than 50% of the vote, making last week's runoff necessary.

Sen Landrieu's re-election bid seemed doomed late when she said in an interview shortly before the general election that she stated southern states like her native Louisiana were hostile towards women and minorities. Just days before the runoff voting, she gave a radio interview where she implied the host was illiterate and hung up only part way through when she was facing repeated questioning over her support for 0bamacare.

Nationally, Landrieu was further hurt by the Senate Democrats rejecting a hastily put together bill supporting the KeystoneXL pipeline by a lame-duck session of congress and President Obama's executive order that effectively gave amnesty to more than 5 million illegal immigrants late last month. Offshore drilling and energy exploration in the Gulf of Mexico contributes millions of dollars to Louisiana's economy annually and it's believed that the oil from northern Alberta's Athabasca oil sands that would be carried by the proposed pipeline would end up in a Louisiana refinery.

Senator-elect Cassidy had previously served as a Congressman from Louisiana's 6th district and in the Louisiana's Senate after receiving an MD from the LSU school of Medicine and helped establish the Greater Baton Rouge Community Clinic.

Today's Train of Thought- Stopping Power- June 18th, 2013

Today's train of thought takes us to rural northern Louisiana and a railroad town that's better known for being the end of the line for an infamous duo of Depression-era fugitives.

Sometimes known as the Jonquil Capital of Louisiana, Gibsland, LA is a railroad town that is perhaps best known for being where Bonnie & Clyde met their end. The duo met their end off of Louisiana Route 154 south of town when they drove into an ambush set up by Texas and Louisiana lawmen in May 1934. In town, a museum commemorating the ambush that ended Bonnie & Clyde's interstate crime spree was opened by the son of one of the posse members was part of the manhunt that took down Parker and Barrow.

No less than three railroads made themselves at home in Gibsland as well. The east-west line through town belonged to the Illinois Central until the mid 1980s, when successor Illinois Central Gulf spun off lines from Iowa to Louisiana in order to focus on its primary Chicago-New Orleans line.

This included the 1986 formation of MidSouth Rail, which ran from Shreveport, LA to Meridian, MS by way of Vicksburg and Jackson, MS. Within a year of MidSouth's formation, they would acquire a controlling interest in the North Louisiana & Gulf logging railway, a shortline formed in 1901 that ran between Hodge, LA and Gibsland where it would interchange with either the Illinois Central or Louisiana & Northwest- another independent shortline.

By 1994, the Kansas City Southern would acquire the MidSouth, seeing it as a key asset for establishing what would be known as the Meridian Speedway- a strategically located rail line that would link Dallas with Atlanta thanks to cooperation between the KCS and Norfolk Southern.

As KCS continued expansion through the deep south, Texas and Mexico, the Class 1 carrier became less interested in some of the marginal branchlines that were included in the MidSouth acquisition. This included the former NL&G line between Hodge and Gibsland and in 2005, KCS announced they were leasing the line to Kansas-based WATCO (along with other branches in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi).

In the summer of 2005, WATCO began operations on the somewhat deceptively-named Louisiana Southern [the entire line is located in the northern part of Louisiana- NANESB!], which continues to haul logs, paper and forestry products along the Hodge line.

Three years later, the previously independent Louisiana & Northwest would be acquired by Patriot Rail- which to this day operated between Gibsland and McNeil, AR some 70 miles north.

Here, rrpicturearchives.net contributor James Jackson caught WAMX GP50 #5005 thumping across the KCS diamond at Gibsland with a cut of woodchip hoppers for WATCO's Louisiana Southern on May 12, 2006. The lead and trailing units are still in Union Pacific yellow, but the bell on the nose of #5005 indicates that this unit started out life on the Chicago & Northwestern. The middle unit is a former CSX GP38 borrowed from Locomotive Leasing Partners (LLPX)- the unit actually did wear orange during its later days on CSX; the railway set aside a number of older GEs and EMDs for dedicated Maintenance of Way service and would paint them orange.

Once the train clears the KCS line, the gate emblazoned with all the stop signs will be swung 90 degrees to block the Louisiana Southern/Louisiana & North Western line from the KCS mainline. The gate, while not designed to bring a freight train to a halt, is meant to provide a clear indicator of which line is open and which trains should yield.

Hurricane Isaac Makes Landfall in Louisiana Ahead of Katrina Anniversary

Michael DeMocker, The Times-Picayune photo

Evacuation orders were lifted along much of the Gulf coast on Thursday after the considerably weaker but slower-moving Hurricane Issac moved inland in the run-up to the seven year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall.

There was some concern about the possible impact on New Orleans, which is still recovering from Katrina some 7 years later, but the Big Easy was spared a direct hit from Isaac as the storm made landfall twice, coming ashore southeast of New Orleans in Plaquemines Parish for the second time. The storm continued north from there, continually losing strength as it made its way into Arkansas.

While pumps and levees in the Crescent City held up during the city's latest brush with Isaac, suburban and rural areas just outside of New Orleans were hit with flooding as rain from the slow-moving storm overwhelmed neaby bayous.

Earlier in the week, a strengthening Isaac had sideswiped Haiti and the Dominican Republic and forecasters put the hurricane on a trajectory to hit the Florida Gulf Coast around the same time as the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL. Governors Bobby Jindal or Louisiana, Phil Bryant of Mississippi and Robert Bentley of Alabama had pre-emptively declared States of Emergency in the coastal regions of their respective states ahead of Isaac's arrival. The three governors- all Republicans- also cancelled their scheduled visits to the GOP convention to attend to the neccesary disaster prepeartions and cleanup.

Although Isaac was relatively mild compared to other hurricanes that came ashore from the Gulf Coast in recent years, the Cat 1 hurricane still caused widespread problems- particularly in Louisiana. As many as 820,000 residents were without electricity on Thursday- some 39% of the state's population.

Effort to Recall Michigan Governor Abandoned After Walker's Wisconsin Win

Less than a week after Wisconsin governor Scott Walker handily survived a union-backed recall campaign, a group seeking to recall Michigan's Republican governor has abandoned their effort after coming up well short of the required 807,000 signatures.

This is actually the second time a liberal organization called Michigan Rising had attempted to reall Gov. Rick Snyder. Like Scott Walker, Snyder was elected to office with the backing of the Tea Party that saw a number of conservative candidates winning US House seats and governor mansions.

"It has become abundantly clear that Michigan Rising was not going to accomplish its goal," Fealk said.

The group will continue work to stop "the corporate takeover" of Michigan and plans to develop a progressive think tank and leadership development organization, he said

Meanwhile, teachers unions in Louisiana have begun circulating petitions to try and force a recall of Republican governor Bobby Jindal and a number of state lawmakers who backed the governor's statewide school voucher program.

The Louisiana Association of Educators Board of Directors unanimously voted Saturday to endorse the effort to recall Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Recall organizer Lee Barrios told the board she also is seeking endorsements from the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO.

She said a number of teachers signed the recall during a rally on the Capitol steps during the legislative session.

Barrios said there was some talk of dropping the recall because of insufficient signatures by the September deadline, but organizers decided to "double our efforts" and branch out and try to bring in organizations.

"We want it to look successful," Barrios told the LAE board.

In addition to Gov. Jindal, the Louisiana recall effort is targeting State Speaker of the House Chuck Kleckly- a Republican representing Lake Charles in Baton Rouge- as well as St Tammany Parrish GOP state representatives Kevin Pearson and Greg Cromer.

Today's Train of Thought- Haven't the Foggiest, September 19, 2011

Today's Train of Thought takes us to the bayous right outside of the Big Easy on a foggy Louisiana morning.

Here, the motive power seemingly tries to blend in with the enveloping morning mist as it leads a southbound merchandise freight past Milepost 853 on Kansas City Southern's New Orleans Subdivision.

The rather self-explanatory New Orleans Subdivision traverses Louisiana diagonally between Shreveport and New Orleans by way of Alexandria and Baton Rouge, LA and is one of five lines that radiates from Kansas City Southern's Shreveport, LA hub. Lines also head east to Meridian, MS, north to Kansas City, MO, west to Dallas, TX and south to the Houston area.

Here, railpitcures.net Brian LaFleur (aka 'Pork Chop') caught Kansas City Southern SD40-2 #661 rounding a curve at Almedia, LA in August 2004, just outside the train's final destination of New Orleans.

ExxonMobil Announces Significant Oil Find in Gulf of Mexico After Chaotic OPEC Meeting in Vienna

Oil giant ExxonMobil [NYSE- XOM] announced on Wednesday a major discovery in the Gulf of Mexico that could yield as much as 700 million barrels of oil.

Exxon began exploratory drilling at the Hadrian prospect in 2009. The company had finished two wells at the site, located about 250 miles off the Louisiana coast in 7,000 feet of water, and had a rig on location and an approved permit to drill a new well when operations were halted due to the temporary moratorium after the BP oil spill last year.

In March, federal regulators signed off on Exxon's revised permit to drill the new well in the Keathley Canyon area of the Gulf, the company's first approved under the new regulatory regime put in place after last year's spill. The new well extends about 23,000 feet below the sea surface, and the rig is continuing to drill deeper, said company spokesman Patrick McGinn.

"We estimate a recoverable resource of more than 700 million barrels of oil equivalent combined in our Keathley Canyon blocks," Steve Greenlee, president of ExxonMobil Exploration Company, said in a statement. "This is one of the largest discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico in the last decade. More than 85 percent of the resource is oil with additional upside potential."

The announcement came on the same day as a surprise announcement from the OPEC meetings in Vienna that the member states would leave production levels unchanged, causing a jump in oil prices.

OPEC officials said that because of a policy deadlock, the group will maintain present output ceilings with the option of meeting within the next three months to consider a hike.

"We are unable to reach consensus to ... raise our production," OPEC Secretary General Abdullah Al-Badri told reporters, in comments reflecting unusual tensions in the 12-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi called it "one of the worst meetings, we've ever had," while analysts covering OPEC for more than 20 years said they could not remember any other time that the normally closed group had admitted to such divisions in its ranks.

Some even saw the abortive meeting as a harbinger of demise for the organization, which produces more than a third of the world's petroleum.

"OPEC is ... on the point of break-up," said Marc Ostwald of Monument Securities. "A broader perspective is that the post World War II world order is fracturing in a spectacular fashion, be it the EU/Eurozone, the World Bank/IMF, (or) OPEC."

Other experts were less outspoken but agreed Wednesday's outcome would weaken the image of OPEC as a major regulator of oil markets.

The news caught markets by surprise, sending oil prices sharply higher. Benchmark crude for July delivery was up $1.25 to $100.34 per barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange after trading lower ahead of the OPEC meeting.

Saudi Arabia and other influential Gulf nations had pushed to increase production ceilings to calm markets and ease concerns that crude was overpriced for consumer nations struggling with their economies. Those opposed were led by Iran, the second-strongest producer within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Oil minister Rafael Ramirez of Venezuela- like Iran, a price hawk - said there was a "very tight" discussion in OPEC, in comments to his nation's state media. Any production increase "could cause a collapse of our price," he added.

While the Saudis and the Iranians are frequently at loggerheads over pricing, past meetings normally fell in behind Saudi Arabia, which produces the lion's share of OPEC output. But this time, the Saudi-Iranian rivalry combined with major political and economic uncertainties to lead to deadlock.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Algeria and Qatar were reportedly in favor of production increases while Iran, Venezuela, Angola, Ecuador and Iraq were opposed.

Mississippi Flooding Update: More Flood Gates Opened at Morganza Spillway; Mississippi River Closed to Shipping

AP Photo

The Army corps of Engineers announced that they had opened a 16th lock on the 125-bay Morganza spillway on Wednesday, sending an estimated 108,000 cubic feet of water per second gushing through the flood control structure.

26 parishes (counties in Louisiana) have been declared disaster areas, with E. Felicicana, LaFourche, Franklin and Richland parishes being added recently. Parts of St. Martin's Parish- just east of Lafayette, LA- are under a mandatory evacuation order on Wednesday in advance of the approaching flood waters.

Further downstream (but north of New Orleans), the Corps of Engineers said they had opened up nearly 330 of the 350 bays on the Bonne Carre spillway, sending water from the Mississippi River rushing through at a rate of 316,000 cubic feet per second into Lake Pontchartrain.

To the north, the US Coast Guard had closed down the Mississippi River around Natchez, MS to shipping earlier this week over concerns about additional strain on the levees from barges and river traffic. However, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that the Coast Guard was allowing barges loaded with coal, timber, iron and steel to pass through at the minimum speed.

Local officials on both sides of the river from Mississippi town of Natchez breathed a sigh of relief as the Coast Guard and NOAA revised their estimate for the floodwater's crest from 63 feet down to 62 .5 feet. The crest is expected to be reached on Saturday- the previous high water mark dates back to 1937 at 58.4 feet.

Pat over at And So it Goes in Shreveport has much much more.

UPDATED 5/15: US Army Corps of Engineers Opens Up Massive Floodgates Along Mississippi River

UPDATE 5/15: Although residing in a part of Louisiana relatively unaffected by the Morganza floodwall being opened up, blogger Pat Austin of And So it Goes in Shreveport has been updating frequently througout the weekend.

Louisiana reigonal news aggregator The Dead Pelican also came reccomended by a trusted source during the Deepwater Horizon spill last year and should have ample links to local coverage around Baton Rouge and the Morganza floodway.


For the first time in nearly 40 years, the Army Corps of Engineers opened up the first of the 125 massive floodgates of the Morganza spillway to relive pressure on a number of older downriver flood control structures protecting Baton Rouge and New Orleans from a swollen Mississippi River.


The decision to open up the spillway to protect New Orleans and Baton Rouge means that towns throughout the Atchafalaya Basin west of Baton Rouge are bracing for rising floodwaters, with some communities and businesses getting ready to evacuate or erect levees of their own. Elsewhere in the basin, farmers have been working around the clock to harvest their wheat crop before the rising waters from the Morganza Flood wall. There are an estimated 15,256 acres of farmland throughout the basin and another 2,853 acres located in the fore bay area between the floodwall and Mississippi River.

While farmers would be able to harvest some of the wheat, other crops in the basin such as corn, soybeans, sugarcane and rice would be considered a complete writeoff in the floods.

For the past two weeks, the Mississppi River had crested past flood levels as two major storm systems dumped considerable rainfall on the Mississippi and Missouri River headwaters in addition to the melting snow.

Earlier this month, the Army Corps of Engineers blew up an earthen levee in Sikeston, MO to prevent further damage to the town of Cairo, IL. Since then, floodwaters have struck western Kentucky and Tennessee (including Memphis) and Mississippi, surpassing record flood levels set back during 1937.

BP Begins Static Kill Procedure on Deepwater Horizon Well

Crews have been steadily pumping drilling mud into the undersea gusher over the last few days in a bid to permanently seal the blown out well at the DeepWater Horizon site.

The process seems to be working so far and crews will start pumping cement into the well over the next few days while an 18,000 foot relief well is being drilled. The relief well would intersect with the blown out well, but work on that has to wait until concrete is added to the plug. The concrete could also take at least a day to dry and settle.

Elsewhere, NOAA officials had reported that as much as 70% of the oil that spilled from the Deepwater Horizon site has been burned, skimmed, collected, dispersed or naturally dissolved. The report also states that the estimated amount of oil remaining in the Gulf would still be about 5 times worse than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William sound.

Some researchers have criticized the report as being incomplete and overly optimistic, though.

"This is just way too neat," said Larry McKinney, director of the Texas A&M University research center on the Gulf of Mexico. "How can you even do this at this point? There's a lot of oil still floating out there."

"This is a shaky report. The more I read it, the less satisfied I am with the thoroughness of the presentation," Florida State University oceanography professor Ian MacDonald told The Associated Press. "There are sweeping assumptions here."

The report comes after inconsistencies in BP and government estimates in exactly how much oil was pouring from the ruptured well site on a daily basis and even more inconsistencies on the length of the NOAA report. The NOAA initially said there was a more comprehensive 200 page report, but then retracted that and released a 10-page report.

Not Another Gulf Coast Update!- A Whale A Bust?; Undersea Gusher Capped...Sort Of; Michelle Obama "Come Visit the Gulf While I Fly off to Maine"

*TMT's A Whale has suspended testing in the Gulf, claiming that BP used too many dispersants in the area for it pick up oil effectively. The tanker-turned-super-skimmer had undergone testing on rough seas through Independence day with inconclusive results before officially being declared a bust last week.

The owner of TMT, Nobu Su, emphasised that his company absorbed the US$160,000 cost of re-fitting and testing the vessel. Su said he plans on continuing to test and develop the A Whale so it could be used in future oil spills (remember- the A Whale wasn't refitted until a few weeks after the Deepwater Horizon sunk).

*Scene commander and Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said that the cap BP had placed on the undersea oil well late last week was holding up well and that traces of oil were actually coming from seepage at a pair of dormant oil wells about two miles away.

Over the past few days, since a 75-ton cap was placed over the mile-deep well to keep the oil bottled up inside, BP and government engineers have been watching closely to see whether the well would hold tight or show signs of rupturing under the pressure. A rupture could cause a bigger and harder-to-control disaster.

Allen has granted BP repeated 24-hour extensions to keep the cap in place, as long as the company monitors the well scrupulously.

*BP announced that it was selling oilfields and other major assets in the USA, Canada and Egypt to Houston-based Apache Corporation [NYSE: APA] for US$7 billion to put towards a $20 compensation fund the Obama Administration pressured them into creating.

*First Lady Michelle Obama paid a three hour visit to the Gulf Coast region at Pensacola, FL last week, urging people to visit some of the unaffected regions who's economy depends on tourism. She then got an ice cream cone and promptly took off for Acadia National Park in Maine where she and the First Family were spending the weekend.

A second visit, this time along Mississippi's gulf coast to christen a Coast Guard Cutter, is in the works.

* A Louisiana State University study indicates that President Obama's moratorium on drilling could cost the reigon an estimated 8,000 jobs, $500 million in wages and $2.1 billion in economic activity over 6 months if the moratorium is to stay in place. The US 5th Circut Court of Appeals overturned the Interior Department's moratorium on offshore drilling before a second one was issued earlier this month.

Gulf Update: Try Try Again- 2nd Moratorium Put in Place; BP to Replace Cap; Oil Rigs Begin Exit; Gulf's Vietnamese Fishermen's Uncertain Future

*BUMPED & UPDATED- 7/12* Fresh after getting overruled by the 5th Circuit Court, the Obama administration and Interior Department issued a second, more comprehensive drilling ban on Monday afternoon.

President Barack Obama had halted drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet (152.4 meters) to give a presidential commission time to study improvements in the safety of offshore operations. U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman cited legal flaws in the original moratorium in a June 22 ruling, and last week a three- judge appeals court panel denied the administration’s request to place a hold on Feldman’s ruling.

The new moratorium will last until Nov. 30, or until Salazar finds that “drilling operations can proceed safely,” according to the statement.

[snip] “When every single resource available is being deployed to combat this one spill, what would we do if there were another?” Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement today. “The only thing worse than one rig at the bottom of the Gulf would be two.”

No, Congressman Markey. The only thing worse than a second sub-sea oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico would be the Obama Administration's response to it.

Exit question, good NANESB! readers- and I've asked myself this a number of times on a number of ancillary issues, but nowhere have I seen it more evident than the Gulf Coast response. If Obama had set out to singlehandedly destroy the economies of the Gulf-coast states, what would he do differently?

Engineers are working on replacing the old cap on the gushing undersea well at the Deepwater Horizon site that was thought to be containing less than half the oil coming out. The new system, along with the use of a containment vessel on the surface will capture an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 barrels per day- as much as twice what the old cap was capturing. The newer system was designed so that it could be assembled and disassembled more quickly in the event of a hurricane or stormy seas. However, the oil will gush unabated in the time it takes between removing the old cap and placing the new cap on.

*The Sea of Syrah is reporting that thanks to the ongoing moratorium, a number of rigs are starting to depart the Gulf of Mexico for elsewhere. Diamond Offshore Drilling [NYSE: DO] announced that their Ocean Endeavor rig will be leaving the Gulf of Mexico and heading for Egyptian waters effective immediately. Some of these rigs might wind up heading off the Brazilian shore, where Petrobras is looking to drill in the offshore Campos Basin. Interestingly, one of President Obama's wealthiest backers during the 2008 Presidential campaign, none other than George Soros himself, is heavily invested in PetroBras as well.

There's also the theory that President Obama is doing what he can to undercut offshore drilling in America in an attempt to have cap and trade passed and increase government subsidies for 'green' energy, part of his pet legislative agenda. Seriously...every time I hear about him touring a factory, it's for electric cars, solar panels or somebody who makes batteries for hybrids.

*The Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi saw an influx of Vietnamese immigrants after the fall of Saigon- many of them staying on to work as fishermen. Today, there's a community of about 40,000 Vietnamese living along the Gulf Coast- many of them having already worked as fishermen in Vietnam continuing to do so in America.

Almost all of them are out of a job now.

Tom Huynh arrived as a war refugee. Eventually, he found his niche in tuna and escolar fishing, earning enough money to buy a house, help three brothers and sisters through college and become a mini-employment agency for the men of his hometown of Phan Thiet — his five deck hands are from there, and they cut a colorful swath on the water, decked out in matching purple Louisiana State University T-shirts.

Huynh has little to do these days so he drives two hours every few days to maintain Morning Glory, his 75-foot vessel. “Some days I wake up and I think I’m still on the boat,” he says through an interpreter. “I miss what I do. That’s all.”

Similar problems have surfaced in Mississippi, where a coalition has been formed to help nearly 5,000 Vietnamese-Americans, only about 10 percent are now believed to be working. One of the group’s goals is to get financial institutions to defer bank notes and mortgages

Some are hoping that BP will hire them to aid in the cleanup, but others have fallen prey to ambulance chasers who have signed off on paying 50% of any settlements received to attorneys. There are also those newly arrived from Vietnam who are having a difficult time navigating the claims process because of the language barrier.

There can be only one possible explanation for this: President Obama hates Asians, apparently.

Obama Administration Offshore Moratorium Struck Down AGAIN; Taiwanese Super-Skimmer 'A Whale' Begins Testing

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected the federal government's request to reinstate a moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday afternoon. The three judge panel voted 2-1 against the moratorium, stating that Interior Secretary head Ken Salazar failed to make the case that his original stay was necessary.

"The secretary has failed to demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable injury if the stay is not granted; he has made no showing that there is any likelihood that drilling activities will be resumed pending appeal," the decision read

This may actually be a moot point, since the Interior Department or another agency can issue another moratorium or injunction- or tie up the permit and renewal process with so much red tape that one might as well be in effect. I'm sure the two judges that voted will have their financial records scrutinized like Martin Feldman's were when he issued the original injunction a few weeks ago. Again, I cordially invite these same dedicated internet sleuths to let me know when they devote their energies to finding the 'jobs created or saved' thanks to Obama's stimulus....or whether or not the dissenting judge was heavily invested in carbon offset schemes.



The first round of tests were deemed 'inconclusive' thanks to rough waters over the Independence Day weekend, but the Taiwanese bulk-freighter-turned-superskimmer A Whale is slated to undergo another week of testing around the Deepwater Horizon site. Taiwanese Maritime Transport owner Nobu Su announced that if successful, he's prepared to retrofit a second freighter dubbed the B Whale to assist in the cleanup efforts. Su and TMT (which apparently is in the middle of re-branding itself as Today Makes Tomorrow) are still awaiting approval from the US Coast Guard and EPA- if they decline Su's offer, he won't get compensated for the retrofit and voyage to the Gulf of Mexico [Personally, besides not wanting to see all those roughnecks and rig workers out of a job, I hope the A Whale proves effective- NANESB!].

The vessel was rebuilt in Portugal after the BP Deepwater Horizon sinking and first arrived in Norfolk VA.

Crazy Wingnut Extremist Tea Baggers: "Feds Put Southern Louisiana Out of Work" and "People Are Dying Down Here!"

And by 'right wing extremist Tea Baggers', I mean former Clinton political strategist James Carville.

Not to be out done in the crazy wingnut department is Ravi Sangisetty, a Congressional candidate for Louisiana's third district with a scathing rebuke of the Obama administration's moratorium on offshore drilling.

HOUMA, La. — Ravi Sangisetty, candidate for U.S. Congress in the Louisiana Third District, said the federal government has issued a death sentence to South Louisiana’s economy.

“Last night the President went on TV and said, ‘If something isn’t working, we want to hear about it,’” Sangisetty said. “Well, because of the federal government and BP, the list of things that aren’t working is pretty long. The federal government’s moratorium means the oil rigs aren’t working; failure to regulate BP means now the Gulf is full of oil; the oil means the fishermen aren’t working; that means our restaurants and tourism industries aren’t working. Mr. President, the federal government stopped South Louisiana from working.”

Sangisetty said that safety must be ensured on the deepwater rigs in a matter of days, not months. He also said that domestic oil is key to our national economy and security.

“The President chastised America for sending a billion dollars a day to foreign countries for their oil,” Sangisetty said. “Domestic oil is a perfect way to counter that, however our ability to drill our own oil has been crippled because Washington is broken. We have a serious problem down here. We need a solution for coastal economy that puts South Louisiana back to work now.”

Did I mention that Sangisetty is a Democrat? And that I agree with him? For some reason, Sangisetty is not running on the 'Obama-is-responding-to-the-BP-oil-spill-just-fine-you-stupid-coonasses' platform in 2010 like I suspect the DNC would like him to.

Meanwhile, in West Virginia's long-serving and ethically challenged congressman Alan Mollohan lost a challenge in West Virginia's 1st congressional district primary race to Mike Oliverio back in May. Oliverio- like anybody with some functioning synapses- claims he is against Obamacare, Cap & Trade and the increase of government spending and is none too fond of Nancy Pelosi either.

Oh yes- did I mention he's a democrat, too?

Besides Republican challenger David McKinley, Oliverio faces opposition from 94 year old Ken Hechler, an influential Mountaineer state Democrat who vowed to establish a Political Action Committee with the sole purpose of defeating Oliverio [because nothing says 'bold and refreshing and ready for change' like another 90-something West Virginia democrat!- NANESB!].

West Virginia's 1st district includes Wheeling and the Northern panhandle along with Morgantown and the university of West Virginia- which is coal country and also sits atop the Marcellus Shale natural gas deposits.

Somehow I get the feeling that neither Sangisetty or Oliverio (or their respective districts) would fully embrace a campaign appearance by Obama or Pelosi.

A Whale of A Gulf Coast Update- Massive Skimmer Moves from Virginia to Gulf; Alex Playing Havoc With Cleanup; What's in a Name?

[AP/Patrick Semansky]

The newest weapon being deployed against the Deepwater Horizon oil spill dropped anchor in Boothville, LA on Wednesday. A massive Taiwanese owned, Liberian-flagged vessel arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi River earlier today that could remove as much as 500,000 barrels of oil per day from the Gulf of Mexico. TMT's A-Whale, which was built in South Korea as an oil tanker and refitted as a skimmer in Portugal earlier this month, was in Norfolk, VA last weekend where it underwent cursory examination by Coast Guard officials and the EPA.

Edward Overton, a professor emeritus from Louisiana State University, was among the visitors at the port where the A Whale was berthed. He called the current cleanup inadequate.

"It is absolutely gigantic. It's unbelievable. We need this ship,” he told TMT executives in Norfolk. “That oil is already contaminating our shoreline.”

The contaminated water is brought in through a dozen slits on the bow, where the oil and contaminants are separated and the cleaner water is discharged back out into the Gulf. However, the EPA has taken issue with the fact that the discharged water won't be 100% clean and needs to sign off on the quality of the treated water going back.

There is also the matter of the Jones Act, which has proven to be a major obstacle for foreign offers of assistance since the Deepwater Horizon sunk, is still in full effect. US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen insisted that the Jones Act wasn't that big an obstacle, since it didn't hinder vessels operating three miles or more offshore. While this is true, this would hinder the foreign-flagged vessel's ability to resupply and return to shore during the cleanup unless there was an explicit waiver of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (the original name of the Jones Act).

[By the way, did you know that the A Whale, the Jones Act and the 80,000 or so feet of containment boom from a Maine company are "talking points" of the vast right-wing conspiracy? You see- the president of the Maine company sent Scott Brown a $500 donation back in January, so he's obviously in on it. Oh...and some commentor on a liberal blog says LaPointe's mom gave a few hundred dollars to ultra-right wing zealot Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe over the last decade, so they're in on it. And while Mother Jones concedes that President Bush quickly lifted the Jones act in the wake of Katrina, it was only to help his Big Oil buddies move product out of damaged refineries in Southern Louisiana. Because removing a bunch of volatile and unstable chemicals and materials from industrial facilites damaged by hurricanes benefits nobody but Republicans and oil companies, apparently -NANESB!]

Elsewhere, cleanup efforts were halted because of the approach of Hurricane Alex. While the center of the storm made landfall in Northern Mexico, the outer reaches of the storm were expected to whip through the Deepwater Horizon site along with some of the coastline where cleanup efforts were under way. There was also the chance that Alex could've changed direction and moved closer towards the affected areas of Louisiana, Alabama or Mississippi. Hurricane Alex briefly gained in strength to a Category 2 storm when making landfall in a relatively sparsely area of Tamaulipas state in Northern Mexico, some 130 miles south of Brownsville, TX.

The aftermath of the oil spill took a more partisan turn when House Democrats nixed Republican Congressman Steve Scalise's (LA-1) proposed trip to fly 10 lawmakers down to the Gulf Coast to see the damaged coastal areas firsthand. The Republican Congressmen invited by Scalise wanted to use their office's spending allowance, but Democrats claim that the ever-so-effective Department of Homeland Security would not approve official visits to disaster areas (which constitute much of the Gulf Coast) and ask that trips be organized through jurisdictional committees in order to avoid having to cater to 'a ton of individual lawmakers'. Interesting how the House Democrats have magically discovered fiscal responsibility now instead of when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was using the US Military to chauffeur around her family and running up a $101,000 bar tab. All of Louisiana's coastal Parishes are represented in Congress by Republicans.

Shortly after Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal ordered the National Guard to begin construction on some artificial barrier islands to prevent to oil from reaching further inland, the Governor's efforts at oil abatement were thwarted by the Coast Guard themselves when they ordered the shutdown of oil vacuuming barges while they were inspected for fire-extinguishers and life vests. A few days later, the dredging effort was ordered halted by the Interior Department saying that the rock, dirt and ballast for the artificial barriers were being dredged up in an environmentally sensitive area. A state official stressed that the dredging had been taking place within the original federal permit area at the north end of the Chandaleurs all month.

Another measure the Interior Department has taken in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is to change the name of the Mineral Management Services.

Yes. Really....

The agency formerly known as the Mineral Management Services will now be referred to as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOMRE). The name change was effective June 18, 2010.

Not Another Gulf Coast Update: New Orleans Judge Strikes Down Moratorium.

President Obama's brilliant stratagem of screwing the pooch on Afghanistan and McChrystal to distract from his screwing the pooch on the Federal response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has worked for all of one day.

A New Orleans federal judge struck down President Obama's 6-month moratorium on offshore drilling on Tuesday. Almost immediately, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said he would issue a new ban on offshore drilling, claiming the new moratorium would be more detailed and justify the White House's original moratorium.

Almost as soon as the ruling was issued, some intrepid Internet gumshoes discovered the New Orleans judge who overturned the moratorium owned some $15,000 worth of shares in Transocean, LTD [NYSE: RIG] and another $15,000 in shares and notes from Hercules Offshore, Inc [NASDAQ: HERO], ATP Oil & Gas [NASDAQ: ATPG] and Parker Dilling [NYSE: PKD]. I guess this is supposed to get me worked up into some sort of spittle flecked self-righteous outrage, but if you stop and think about it, just about anybody who's invested in most 401(k), IRAs or mutual funds is invested to some degree with 'big oil'. I'd be interested in seeing the same online sleuths track down where that $787 billion in stimulus spending all went.

Meanwhile, the roughnecks and rig workers who are now out of work thanks to the moratorium are trying to find employment elsewhere. Many of the tens of thousands of idle rig workers are heading to Grand Isle and Venice, LA as part of the cleanup effort. The securities firm Raymond James estimates that as many as 50,000 jobs associated with Gulf Coast drilling and that the moratorium could last ell into 2011.

The cap capturing some of the oil gushing from the ruptured pipeline was accidentally bumped by a deep sea submersible the other day. Crews operating the submersible by remote control were able to put another cap on after 10 hours of work.

1600 Pennsylvania Ave- Stuck on Stupid For Awhile Now

Lieutenant General Russel Honore- Where Are You?

Anybody else remember this guy berating reporters in New Orleans at a press conference shortly after Hurricane Katrina? The briefing was supposed to be about the approaching Hurricane Rita, but the press kept tossing the General questions about the government's response to Katrina.



I won't even pretend to be an informed expert on the caustic layer-cake of issues facing the Gulf Coast region thanks to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill right now, and to be honest, I think that the now-retired Lieutenant General Russel Honore would be the first to tell us he doesn't know that much about subaquatic drilling and extraction. If the President was even halfway serious about wanting to know "whose asses to kick", he should've picked up the phone and given Gen. Honore a call to co-ordinate containment and recovery planning between BP and the feds.

Where is Gen. Honore these days, anyway? Besides the occasional speaking engagement these days, I wonder what he's up to?

Oh look! I found him....wow...that took me all of 20 seconds.

Having said that, I think the cleanup effort could really use somebody with the Lt. General's leadership acumen calling the shots. This is somebody who doesn't have to jet off to attend a concert by Paul McCartney, go to a Barbara Boxer fundraiser or hit the links with Joe Biden [although he could if he wanted to, since Gen. Honore is now retired- NANESB!].

Two months of platitudes, concerts, obfuscation, finger-pointing, solicitation, speeches, mea culpas, photo ops, spin, Potemkin cleanup, golfing, grandstanding, fundraising, bungling, subpoenas, moratoriums, litigation, yachting, press conferences, indecision and feeble attempts to change the subject still hasn't 'plugged the damn hole'. And you know it's bad for the Obama administration when their most loyal and unthinking cheerleaders start ripping him apart for his tepid address from the Oval Office.

As badly botched as the initial response to Katrina was, the public seemed to rally around Gen Honore. He spoke his mind to New Orleans officials, a glib media and even his own men, caring more about outcome than opinion.

Sadly- almost 5 years later, there is no Gen. Honore on the Horizon so far.

Obama's Unilateral Cowboy Diplomacy and Go-It-Alone Approach in the Gulf of Mexico

Hmm.... isn't this the exact sort of thing he campaigned against?

WASHINGTON (AFP)— More than 20 countries, from Canada to Japan, have offered assistance to the United States over the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, very little of which has been accepted, the State Department has said

Among the 22 nations offering assistance include the Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Qatar, Ireland, Japan, Croatia, Mexico, South Korea, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Spain, the UK and China. Many of these offers were through the United Nations' International Maritime Organization, which has sent out bulletins to all 169 member nations regarding the spill.

While few offers have been outright rejected, most offers from foreign nations and companies are reportedly "still under consideration" by the State Department.

So far more than 13,500 feet of boom from Mexico, 10,000 feet (2 miles) of boom from Canada, skimmers and a trio of sweeping arm systems from Holland and 8 skimmers as well as more boom from Norway have been accepted.

Don't think it's just foreign outfits that have been rebuffed by the State Department, tho'. An Auburn, ME packaging company that has already manufactured some 80,000 feet of containment boom over the last month was also initally rebuffed by BP and the Feds.

As badly as the Bush Administration bungled the immediate post-Katrina response, he did temporarily waive the Jones Act that placed restrictions on shipping along the US coast for foreign-flagged vessels (also known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920). It has taken the Obama Administration more than 7 weeks to announce any sort of waiver or easement of the Merchant Marine Act.

Economic Recovery, Obama Style!

I have to say that in my experience so far, part of the 'Obama Economy' apparently involves my making the acquaintance of some 'Help Wanted' ads and job opening posted online- at least when I'm not bouncing from temp job to temp job.

While some folks have me pegged as an anti-government extremist (I was in the same ZIP code as a Tea Party, after all), as a veteran of the United States Army, it's not completely unheard of for me to draw a paycheck from Uncle Sam.

So mostly out of curiosity, I was going through the USA Jobs website to see what kind of openings they had- in alot of places, the government seems to be the only place that's hiring. It seems there are a number of openings that were posted this month with the Department of the Interior's Mineral Management Service- the agency that's (theoretically) responsible for inspecting offshore oil rigs.

As it turns out, there were a number of openings with the MMS. The job? Offshore Operations and Safety Inspector. The listing is pretty ambiguous on how many positions are available, but there's this quote from the USA Jobs page:

Multiple Vacancies in various District Office Locations: Jefferson, LA, Houma, LA, Lake Charles, LA, Lafayette, LA, Clute, TX.

Yes....all these openings seem to be along the Gulf of Mexico for some reason. Go figure. This must be those 'Jobs saved or created' that Obama was talking about in his State of the Union address.

Gulf Coast Update- Obama Speechifies (Vuvuzelas Nowhere Around When You Need Them); Moratorium Questioned; Jindal Orders Offshore Barriers Set Up

New Barak Petrolium BP Logo.

I came in towards the end of the President's platitude-laden address to the nation earlier tonight, which in a nutshell came off as a sales pitch for Cap & Trade and the ever-elusive (and I suspect heavily subsidized) 'Green Jobs'. This was one of the least convincing sales pitches for that particular steaming turd, I might add. And if you think I'm being harsh on the President, you should probably listen to some of his loudest cheerleaders in the Mainstream Media [about the only time I'd advocate intentionally being within earshot of the voice of Chris Matthews or Keith Olberman- NANESB!].

So....if I'm getting this straight, some 60 days later the President's solution to solve the problem of all that oil that's still gushing out of that ruptured well some 5000 feet undersea is to further burden already struggling American businesses, consumers and households with across-the-board energy price increases and just kind of hope that these 'Green Jobs' and alternate forms of energy will magically appear. I guess more government regulators are needed to accept gifts from oil companies, watch porn while on the clock or show up under the influence of methamphetamines.

The Gulf Coast economy received another blow when Obama ordered a 6-month moratorium on offshore drilling. Besides the already-devastated fishing industry along Louisiana the moratorium has closed down the other offshore rigs and platforms along with some of the small businesses that specialize in running supplies and personnel out to them. Earlier this week, Gulf Coast lawmakers asked for an end to the moratorium only to be rebuffed by the Administration.

In Louisiana, Gov. Jindal ordered the National Guard to begin constructing offshore barrier walls to prevent even more oil from reaching further inland, The walls will be constructed to fill in gaps between the barrier islands an estimated 9 miles off the coast.

Oil Containment operations resumed at the Deepwater Horizon site after one of the ships was struck by lightning. The strike ignited a fire on the Discoverer Enterprise drillship owned by Transocean, although operations were able to resume after about 5 hours.

Meth, Porn Use, Cronyism Alleged in Interior Dept. Report of Offshore Drilling Regulators- Memorial Held for 11 Rig Workers Lost at Sea

Remember that explosion that resulted in the collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, along with the deaths of at least 11 rig workers? Well....the oil is still gushing out, Obama administration officials are holding press conferences for the purpose of reminding everybody that BP is culpable while we're finding out about things like this in the dysfunctional Minerals Management Services.

WASHINGTON -- Staff members at an agency that oversees offshore drilling accepted tickets to sports events, lunches and other gifts from oil and gas companies and used government computers to view pornography, according to an Interior Department report alleging a culture of cronyism between regulators and the industry.

In at least one case, an inspector for the Minerals Management Service admitted using crystal methamphetamine and said he might have been under the influence of the drug the next day at work, according to the report by the acting inspector general of the Interior Department.

The report cites a variety of violations of federal regulations and ethics rules at the agency's Louisiana office. Previous inspector general investigations have focused on inappropriate behavior by the royalty-collection staff in the agency's Denver office.

I'm guessing the Obama Administration's answer to this will be to hire more inspectors to look at porn, accept gifts from the people they're supposed to regulate and report for work high on methamphetamines. Somehow more government always seems to be the answer.

Elsewhere, a memorial for the 11 Deepwater Horizon workers killed was held in Jackson, MS earlier today. At the end of the ceremony, a ship bell chimed 11 times and the families were given 11 symbolic hard hats. Transocean has set up a condolences page for visitors to leave a message. The missing and presumed dead include:
Roy Wyatt Kemp, Blair Manuel, Dewey Revette, Shane Roshto, Jason Anderson, Aaron Dale Burkeen, Donald Clark, Stephen Curtis, Karl Kleppinger, Adam Weise and Gordon Jones.

[hat tip: Eat it or Wear it]