World record king cake circles Superdome twice, 100 babies!
~The official slicing begins on @ 12:00 pm.
King Cake slice pickup is available from 12:00pm to 3:00pm.
To benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer research.
Free water, milk, coffee, t'shirts and prizes galore from Our New Orleans Saints!

The Saints are alright
~Library Chronicles

Old or new, oil will be here for a while
~Bob Marshall~The guy from BP had called to sternly object to the note I ran in Sept. 11's newspaper under the headline "More oil comes ashore." The lead sentence read, "A new wave of black oil came ashore west of the Mississippi River on Friday and Saturday, coating beaches and fouling interior marshes, according to anglers' reports."
However, that small story apparently created a big buzz with the officials involved in BP's response efforts. It all came down to the word "new." I was driving at the time and pulled over to take the call from a BP rep.
The conversation went something like this:
BP man: "There is no new oil coming ashore. There hasn't been any for weeks. There is none out there. Whoever told you that was wrong."
Me: "Well, Ryan Lambert is out there every day. He saw no oil on those beaches for weeks, then on Friday he saw new oil."
BP man: "That wasn't new oil. It might have been old that reappeared, but it wasn't new oil."
Me: "It was new to Ryan, because he had never seen it before. He said it was new. He said it was new and black."
BP man: "He was wrong because there is no new oil."
Me: "So if I see oil for the first time in a place where there has been no oil, that isn't new oil?"
BP man: "Almost certainly not. It's old oil that has reappeared."
Me: "Do the fish, birds, crabs, shrimp and benthic organisms realize this is old oil?"
BP man: "That's not the point."

Oldly Oiled~Horatio Algeranon

Cleaned of oil, birds return to Terrebonne ~Nikki Buskey
~Charlie Hebert (from left), with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bert Littlefield, with BP, release a brown pelican back on Raccoon Island Tuesday while Rhonda Murgatroyd, with Wildlife Response Services, watches.

EXPLICIT: Well-known fisherman threatened with arrest --“Communism? You’re in it as far as I know.” (VIDEO) ~Florida Oil Spill Law
~Interview with C.J. (Mississippi fisherman), Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana Radio with Kindra Arnesen, September 21

An Audition: British Petroleum’s Public Relations Department
~Disenfranchised Citizen

Experts craft study of BP oil spill health effects~Tamara Lush

The health of the ocean:
What's at stake?, Sylvia Earle
~Fred Cochran

"Big Uneasy" over NPR's response to Shearer film~Current: Public Media
~“The thing about New Orleans is that it’s been around for nearly 300 years. And in that time it has faced a lot of shit,” says Shearer. “There is a philosophy of ‘this could all be over so enjoy it today,’ which sort of colours the whole attitude of the place. As a city, the rules are exactly the opposite of New York City; you say hello to people in the street, you enjoy conversations with your neighbours. But each conversation is filled with the kind of mordant humor of the place. And with each person you talk to, you don’t know if playing in their head is a tape of their mom or dad drowning in the attic.”

Tax bond needed for levee work
~Tri-Parish Times

NOPD: Bicycle-bound violence suggests need for registration
~Uptown Messenger

Igor delivers punishing blow to Newfoundland; 95L growing more organized ~Wunderblog

LibraryThing: State of the Thing

Grilling: Breakfast Sausage
~Serious Eats

Happy Equinox, one and all! How's that DADT thingy workin'fo'ya?

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