Day: May 28, 2010

Commissioner of Public Safety goes mute!

While the Lt. Governor speaks with a silver boot in his mouth, Mississippi’s Commissioner of Public Safety has gone mute – or, as the Sun Herald speculated in yesterday’s editorial “Where, oh, where is Stephen Simpson, Commissioner Simpson’s “gone missing”.

Has anyone seen Stephen Simpson lately? He’s commissioner of public safety for the state of Mississippi.

He was going to come by the Sun Herald on Tuesday. He said he wanted to meet with us and view the video of Sun Herald photographer John Fitzhugh taken last week at Mary Mahoney’s restaurant.

Fitzhugh was forced out of Mahoney’s courtyard and then ordered off a public sidewalk by some of Simpson’s employees at the direction of the governor’s press secretary. Part of that activity was caught on camera.

Maybe the state police should form a posse to go out looking for their boss.

So if you spot the commissioner, tell him we’re still here, the more than half-dozen of us who waited around for him for more than an hour, wondering what misfortune might have delayed or incapacitated him. Continue reading “Commissioner of Public Safety goes mute!”

Poor Phil – Lt. Governor has silver boot in his mouth

Mississippi’s lawn mower sniffing Lt. Governor, Phil Bryant, continues to make news with a silver boot in his mouth:

Phil Bryant Thinks BP is “doing a good job…a remarkable job.”

“We know BP is hard at work. We know they’ve spent over I think $300 million; there are ten thousand people involved in it; nearly 300 thousand vessels. I think they’re doing a good job…. We’ve done a marvelous job; BP has done a remarkable job at dispersing it.”

Phil Bryant says don’t “over react…its not toxic”!

“So I don’t think you over react…The material that you see now, the rust colored material that is somewhere between 50 and 60 miles out, but if you take a sample of that I am told there are no hydrocarbons in that product so its not toxic.”

Obviously, that silver boot is cutting off oxygen getting to the lite governor’s brain.  Ironically, he made this dumb statement at a Smart Growth conference:

“This is Louisiana sweet crude. And oh, by the way, it’s still 60 miles off our shore. Thus far, we’ve seen nothing….as the product is skimmed off the surface, the closest to shore there is no hydro carbons in it. So, it’s not toxic….There’s no need for panic. It is not the natural disaster, the national disaster that many in the media have led you to believe.”

It’s not just oil that Bryant talks with a silver boot in his mouth.  He recently made room for a few words about the Mississippi’s need for an Arizona-like law on immigration!  Continue reading “Poor Phil – Lt. Governor has silver boot in his mouth”

Slicked and SLABBED – and just flat overwhelmed

Nowadays, the process of selecting a post topic is akin to a game of disaster roulette.  As a result, I was “slicked and slabbed” by “writer’s block” – the chief symptom of same, a growing file of drafts but no post.  Fortunately,  “writer’s block” is not contagious nor does it limit reading.  Thus, I begin my recovery with an update on issues I’ve been following:

Ivor van Heerden lost the second round of his fight to regain his position with LSU:

A federal judge scolded LSU late Thursday for not being “much more professional’’ in parting ways with Ivor van Heerden, but said the respected coastal researcher failed to show that LSU retaliated against him for openly blaming the U.S. government for the levee failures in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. District Judge James Brady’s refusal to issue a preliminary injunction in van Heerden’s lawsuit against LSU means van Heerden, who has worked at the school for more than 15 years, must clean out his office.

Van Heerden’s attorney, Jill Craft, had asked Brady to “require LSU to keep his position on the books.’’

Craft said she now will move for an expedited jury trial of van Heerden’s suit. Brady said he would entertain such a request. h/t New Orleans News Ladder

Chip Merlin’s Back on the Texas Ranch-Hurricane Litigation and Settlement Discussions are Raging brings us up to date on litigation following Hurricanes Dolly and Ike with news that “TWIA is in trouble”: Continue reading “Slicked and SLABBED – and just flat overwhelmed”