Congratulations Mitch Landrieu 70th Mayor of New Orleans!
~Moon Landrieu is slated to administer his son's oath of office jointly with former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Pascal Calogero and state Appeal Court Judge Edwin Lombard during a 10 a.m. ceremony at Gallier Hall. Geaux Mitch'Mo!

Mitch Landrieu and Levees.org
~Editilla Crowtellas~Makes sense to me, considering Mitch'mo was quick enough on the uptake to staff his Flood Safety and Coastal Restoration Task Force with 3 of them!

BP voids fishermen's cleanup contracts in La., cites legal mix-up~Humid Beings
~David Kinnaird, BP’s liaison to Plaquemines Parish, spent Saturday night ripping up the contracts that hundreds of local commercial fishermen had signed to work for BP cleaning up the slick that could wipe out the local seafood industry.
It’s not that BP didn’t want to hire them. And there is nothing these fishermen would hesitate to do to save the bayous, canals and rivers where they and their families have made a living for generations – except this: Sign a contract with BP saying they will “hold harmless and indemnify … release, waive and forever discharge the BP Exploration and Production, Inc., its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, regular employees, and independent contractors … from all claims and damages” arising from helping to clean up the mess that BP has made.

Gulf fishermen win legal battle against unfair BP confidentiality agreements~Facing South

MS Gov. Haley Babar says Coast may be spared!
~That’s right: more than 6 million gallons spilled into the Gulf of Mexico so far. This, and other radar images that SkyTruth is getting, confirm what they’ve seen on the NASA/MODIS images so far, and support their conservative calculations showing that in the first week of this spill at least 6 million gallons have entered the Gulf. That’s a spill rate of at least 850,000 gallons (20,000 barrels) per day.
~Governor Babar issued this statement at a press conference yesterday: "Well I stand up next to a mountain, I chop it down with the edge of my hand. Well I stand next to a mountain, I chop it down with the edge of my hand. I pick up all the tiny pieces and make an island, might even raise just a little sand.
Yeah 'Cos I'm a Voodoo Child! God knows I'm a Voodoo Child!"

Gulf Coast town has little to do but wait for BP Oil Disaster
~Gus Holliman has spent the last two days riding the beaches in Pass Christian, hoping not to find dead animals in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
On Saturday the sea turtles started washing up on shore. On Sunday, the turtles were joined by dead catfish, horseshoe crabs, and birds: a duck, a pelican and a seagull.
~Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security

~MS Scientists, volunteers prepare for marine animal rescue effort in BP Oil Disaster
~Oil predicted to hit Florida shores by midweek
~some residents helped clean up, while others fished, surfed or indulged in seafood uncertain when they would able to again.

P&G's Dawn to help fight oil spill

Loop Current and winds
~Bobby Deskins

Gulf oil spill: Alabama governor calls in National Guard
~American Bird Conservancy maps the risk areas

At Fourchon, BP builds contain- ment boxes to place over spill

Relief Well Was Used to Halt Australian Spill
~The Australian accident, known as the Montara spill, began Aug. 21 with a blowout of high-pressure oil similar to the one in the gulf. With the well spewing 17,000 to 85,000 gallons per day, precious weeks passed before the relief wells were started.
When efforts got under way, the first four relief wells — drilled on Oct. 6, 13, 17 and 24 — missed the original well. A fifth well finally intersected the original on Nov. 1, and about 3,400 barrels of heavy mud were pumped into the base of the original well. The spewing oil finally stopped Nov. 3 — more than 10 weeks after the original explosion.

BP Disaster Threatens Gulf of Mexico Oil, Gas Operations ~Bloomberg~The growing oil slick fed by an underwater leak in a BP Plc well in the Gulf of Mexico may threaten production, shipping and refining of oil and natural gas in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.

U.S. Gulf Coast refining not disrupted by BP Oil Disaster

Was the Gulf Oil Spill an Act of War? You Betcha
~Randall Amster~Finally, we come to the most likely culprit in all of this, and a sure sign that indeed this is an act of war. Wherever Halliburton goes, so goes the war machine, and vice versa. From no-bid and no-account contracts in Iraq (and post-Katrina New Orleans, by the way) to a massive corporate presence in the Gulf region, these folks seem to have an acute capacity for making a buck on cataclysms of all sorts. Perhaps more to the point, they appear to be at the nexus of most disaster zones, including the erstwhile Bush Presidency and now the BP Oil Disaster.

Record-breaking Nashville flood displaces thousands
~Mayor declares state of emergency; levee begins leaking