Day: May 25, 2016

Some things may never change….

FEMA still bites as do the insurance companies that adjust NFIP claims that take 33 cents on the dollar of the premiums doing so.

Business Of Disaster: Insurance Firms Profited $400 Million After Sandy ~ Laura Sullivan

Or you can listen to the 20 minute plus segment from NPR’s All Things Considered embedded below.

Meantime here on the coast where the false claims act suit against State Farm over dumping its winds claims on the NFIP is raging on for the 10th year, Delay, Deny Defend is still the strategy du jour as this order from Magistrate Walker earlier this month illustrates.

We have a final!

By now everyone should know the drill, some Hollywood celebrity flies into the area to pick up a taxpayer funded welfare check, films a few scenes and immediately flies the heck out (Mississippi / State of Louisiana in general) or sticks around and goes on a bender in the French Quarter (New Orleans). Either way when word gets out that a celeb. is in town to pick up their welfare check the local media is quick to fawn.  It is against that backdrop that when a heavyweight reporter like Karen Nelson is assigned to write a story about Hugh Jackman filming a few taxpayer funded movie scenes at Michoud, something snapped inside and a twitter poll was born:

Frankly the poll results, nonscientific as they are warmed the cockles of my heart.  Had I been able to vote in the Slabbed poll I would have gone second option but what is clear is the majority of you that took time to vote know exactly what the score is: Continue reading “We have a final!”

Comment bumps: DMR Oyster Farm a Political Boondoggle for the Gov’s $$$$$ Supporters?

What I think is interesting is how the DMR is trying to present the narrative by comparing what they propose to do to a private company in Grand Isle that obtained its own aquaculture lease. That is not really a good apples to apples comparison to the state sponsored collective farm Comrade Miller is proposing to fund with your tax money. Some of the families being mentioned own copious amounts of marshland where aquaculture would only interfere with recreational fishing, which likely explains the water bottom grab off Henderson Point.

It is at this point I’ll add that about a year ago a source familiar with the operations of state government indicated to me that the entire DMR Oyster Council was a boondoggle. If the plan is to use tax money to grease the skids so some of Phil Bryant’s supporters can profit truer words were never spoken to Slabbed on that topic. In any event the comments from long time commenter Point Park and others begins here.

I have a bump of paying work to do before I can shake this tree but I will say the Harrison Sups resolution against the Bay St Louis site truly reflected the will of the local people that will be impacted. Also worth noting is the fact that a certain supervisor tried playing both sides of the issue thus the framing of the Sun Herald story of the local residents being NIMBY refusnicks to the idea of aquaculture overall when it is pretty clear that is not exactly the case.

Speaking of aquaculture, I happen to know a bit on the overall topic and it is not necessarily a panacea to all that ails the Mississippi Oyster Industry, which was virtually wiped out by the dual blows dealt by Hurricane Katrina and the Macondo well blowout. The first link contains some of the very latest information:

Infectious diseases in oyster aquaculture require a new integrated approach ~ Fabrice Pernet, Coralie Lupo, Cédric Bacher & Richard Whittington

Disease Management Strategies for Shellfish Aquaculture: The important role of hatcheries ~ Milford Aquaculture Seminar Slides 2014, Rhode Island University

Slabbed intends to monitor this matter.