Elitist!

What sort of rarefied out of touch representative of the analyst class stores his Whup-Ass in bottles anyway?

Even while they acknowledge that they planned to roll out the Bain angle later for a reason, they find it pretty hard to contain their grins overall.

“I would have preferred to wait, yes, to keep the bottle of whup-ass fresher,” one Obama campaign strategist told TPM. “At the same time — and this is important to note — having the Republicans eat their own actually makes the Bain story more potent than we ever could because it instantly validates it as a line of attack and falls on independent ears as a matter of legitimate debate, not as a partisan line of attack.”

The consultancy economy

It isn't that I think the advice given out by consultants and headhunting firms should actually be heeded. It's just that I imagine one could spend a lot less than $42,000 for the privilege of ignoring whatever crap they say.

Over the objections of the search firm, DHR International, the commission decided that the successful candidate does not have to have a college degree, according to minutes from the commission’s October meeting. That move was pushed by Andy Kopplin, Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s chief administrative officer and a member of the commission.

That change favors Richard, who was chosen by the Landrieu administration as the temporary NORD director; he is one of two finalists without a college degree. Further, the administration has said it’s happy with Richard’s performance.

Why should the NORD director be required to have a college degree? I have no idea. But I do know someone has been paid well to tell us that. And that it doesn't matter. Trading in bullshit is excellent excellent work, though, if you can get it.

And now, the unravelling

Miles' recruits already jumping ship.

The day we learned Bobby Hebert is more of a journalist than the editors of the NYT

I'm sure this is being passed around all over today but I can't imagine a more perfect example of mission failure than journalists straining to decide whether they should... you know...endeavor to question authority and report the truth.

Naming rights proposal

Once upon a time we used to name public buildings after prominent citizens we, for whatever reason, felt deserved that particular remembrance. Sometimes the applied names are even related to the facility's intended function. The Mahalia Jackson Theater For The Performing Arts seems like a natural fit, for example. Louis Armstrong International Airport, much less so.

The Louisiana Legislature tried and failed to rename the Superdome after former Governor John McKeithen, the man most responsible for its construction. Sometimes the politician most responsible for a monument's coming into being goes right ahead and names it himself. Huey Long named a bridge after himself. Marc Morial did the same for a bunch of trash cans.

But lately we tend to hold our public facilities nameless until they can be sold as billboards for whatever faceless corporate entity happens to have enough cash to blow from its advertising budget. So where once we dedicated these monuments to the memory of cultural icons or at least notable public servants we devote them now to the celebration of crass commercial corruption.

But I'm not writing this to whine about the devolution of old practices. Instead I'd like to propose we move forward by cleverly combining the old concept of naming things after prominent persons with the new one of celebrating hollow opportunism. One excellent way to do this might be... say naming the New Orleans Arena after Sidney Barthelemey.

At least it wasn't pepper spray

Video of Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters condemned by President Karzai

We'll never see it shine*

"I like being able to fire people" --Mitt Romney

It's time to fire Les Miles. I know, I know, I'm fully aware of all that nice stuff I just said about him this year. I stand by that today but it doesn't change things. I've come around to believing that Les is a heck of a guy and, by all accounts, a better person than Nick Saban. He's humble and has a sense of humor. He treats his players with genuine respect, forgives their indiscretions and even turns them into positives. I can see why he's been such a great recruiter. Here's Les Miles' finest hour this season when he welcomed suspended quarterback Jordan Jefferson back onto the team.

"I don't think there's any question that our guys are looking forward to the return of Jefferson as a teammate, friend, skill set, what he adds to our team," Miles said.

If I'm a high school athlete worried about getting chewed up by the grinding experience of high-profile college football, I want to play for that guy. I've come to admire Miles for the way he conducts 90% of his business of being a head football coach. I also think he's incompetent.

And sometimes even that can be funny. I, like a lot of LSU fans, had certainly resigned myself to that fact over the course of these past few seasons. But this moment is different. This was a singular opportunity to crown what we should have remembered as the greatest team in the history of college football. Les not only blew that opportunity, he utterly, inexplicably, spaced out on it. Even before the loss, the fact is we've now seen Les Miles take the LSU program as far as he'll ever take it. Had LSU won, he'd have been able to coast on that forever but the coast would have been undoubtedly downhill. With the loss, he drops off a cliff. There's no getting back up the hill either way.

I appreciated Mark Moseley's Lens column on the matter. It's about as close to an attempt at consolation we're likely to receive from a non-LSU, and in fact, non-SEC fan. At the same time it comes with a few subtle implications which badly obscure the truth of the moment and so need to be countered in order for us to fully understand why it's time for Miles to go.

First of all, Moseley seems to be telling us that LSU would have been better served by playing this game against a team less capable of beating them.

I cannot stress that enough, and it’s part of why I feel LSU got a raw deal with their BCS-designated opponent. LSU already beat Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, yet their victory was discounted as a “pseudo win” because it occurred in overtime. (Miles is familiar with this shoddy argument.) That’s one of the reasons the Tide didn’t fall far in the polls and was able to creep back into the title game. LSU went 13-0, beat eight ranked teams and won the strongest division in the strongest conference in football. They deserved a title romp against a team like Oklahoma State. Instead, they drew the scariest championship opponent imaginable: a rematch with a Tide squad thirsting for revenge, guided by a genius coach with quasar-like intensity.

While it may be technically true that the Tigers would have pummeled a pretender like Oklahoma State, it wouldn't say much for the legitimacy of the title such a game would produce. A common complaint lodged against the end of many college football seasons is that the given year's so-called champion attained such status through some sneaky political dodge of a more qualified contender. When he writes that LSU "deserved a title romp against a team like Oklahoma State" Moseley appears to be arguing in favor of just such a sham match-up.

I take Les at his word when he says, “It would be an honor to play that team again," just as I thoroughly believe him when he tells us he personally was utterly unprepared for what that meant. But Moseley's suggestion that this means the Alabama players were somewhat "more determined" than the LSU players is, in the immortal words of Bobby Hebert, just ridiculous.

The cro-magnonesque argument that one sports team defeated another because it "wanted it more" is rarely true outside of Hollywood and inconceivable during a championship contest. I reject any attempt to blame the debacle on such immeasurable fluff as the "heart" or determination of the teenagers and young adults wearing the LSU colors.

Similarly, I am aware of the personal venom directed at the young man Les left in at QB all night which I also find distasteful. No, there's only one man being paid millions of dollars to stand out there and take blame and that man is Les Miles. To his great credit, Les understands his responsibility well.

I told my team I did not see it coming. And that's my fault. I wish I could have done something to help them. But for my players that worked their tails off, they started in their career to put themselves in position to win a game like that. To them I owe a lot.

The fact that now must be confronted is that what Les owes those players, he can never give them. He utterly failed them and they are frustrated by that. As are any of us who watched this team play this season.

What clearly set LSU and Alabama apart from the rest of the country by a great distance this season was their similar commitments to real, old school, grinding, physically dominating football. After a decade and a half of the prevalence of Steve Spurrier - Urban Meyer style gimmickry, seeing Alabama and LSU destroy people by playing real football again was not merely refreshing. It was an affirmation of the value of doing things the right way... of legitimately beating people at football rather than squirrelishly, cowardly skating about the outer limits of its rules like some CIA drone pilot dropping bombs on Afghans from a bunker in Nebraska.

This LSU team was chewing up America on the strength of its having restored some semblance of honor to football strategy as well as some semblance of humanity to the position of head football coach. This wasn't just a college football campaign it was a righteous crusade to stomp out evil.... sometimes, of course, by kicking it in the face.

But somehow... incredibly.. unbelievably at the very moment of reckoning, Les Miles decided, "Nope! Let's see if we can't just suddenly try and run Oregon's offense for the hell of it!" For more on this bewildering strategic departure, I suggest this critique by Deadspin's Tom Scocca.

LSU's advantage all season long was that it had waves of skilled players. On offense, the Tigers attacked with a platoon of powerful running backs, infrequently but devastatingly turning to a dangerous receiving corps, with Jefferson as a scrambling/option-pitching/throwing triple threat. When Jefferson was unavailable early in the season, second-string QB Jarrett Lee had shown the ability to run an orthodox passing game.

But given more than five weeks to draw up schemes for attacking Alabama's defense—a defense that had held LSU to two field goals in regulation the first time they met—Miles came up with nothing. Or if he did come up with something, he panicked and forgot it. His lone idea was Jefferson. Specifically, it was to try to have Jefferson attack the edges of the Alabama defense.

The trouble was, there was no edge. LSU's players couldn't outrun the Alabama defense side to side, and Jefferson's option pitches and passes to the flat weren't crisp enough to beat the defenders outside, either. By the second quarter, this was obvious. By the third quarter, it was baffling.

Not only was it baffling, it was the baffle of all baffles forever pissing away an unrecoverable moment in history. And this is the point on which I most differ with Moseley who ends his column on what looks at first like a hopeful note.

Tiger fans are profoundly disappointed with their team’s performance last night. (Trust me, I can sympathize with that feeling.) But it’s those same maddening vicissitudes that make college football so great. This season’s bitter disappointment makes for next season’s redemption: and perhaps that redemption will come during Alabama’s next visit to Baton Rouge.

And, hey, that sounds great. Nine times out of ten I'd hold that sort of counsel up in front of the whole class of whining despondent fans and say, SEE THIS, PLEASE! But not in this particular case. In fact, making such an argument here belittles and misapprehends the cosmic scale of the event. Miles could coach another 50 years and not meet with a chance to wipe away the fullness of that failure. It's insurmountable. Career defining. It will change LSU football for decades to come.

And this, more than anything, is why Les Miles should be fired. It's not that he isn't a nice guy. It's not even that, if we consider the entire package he brings as a program administrator, mentor, and leader of men, he's all that bad of a person to have running the program. It's just that there's nothing left here for him to do besides wallow in the aftermath of this disaster. LSU and Les Miles will spend the rest of their lives mourning the incalculable failure of Monday night's BCS game. It's best they part ways now and get on with the business of doing that.

Because I feel obligated to take a guess at this

The big shocking revelation I just made up would be I think Huntsman will overtake Paul tonight in New Hampshire. Other than that, I got nothing.

Mitt: 32%

Huntsman: 22%

Paul: 20%

Santorum: 12%

Newt: 10%

Perry: Hello, I'm actually on this ballot too, I think.


Update: Looks like I may have overestimated the Huntsmania.

Think I'm going to enjoy this series better than the Roast Beef one

Although I will differ a bit and say my most recent visit to Casamento's was, in fact, not worth it at all.

Bonus Quote of the Day

"The thing that I remind myself in politics and in sporting events," he says, "there are valleys and mountains. Sometimes things are going well, as they are now, and sometimes you have a high mountain to climb."

Edwin Edwards

Quote of the Day

"Do you have a question?"


BCS post game press conference moderator to a deranged and angry Bobby Hebert

Third world justice before third world justice was cool

Harry Connick's evidence suppressing DA's office still scoring big time all these years later.

Just in case you weren't in a foul enough mood this morning

May we humbly refer you to the worst Jarvis DeBerry Column ever. I know DeBerry likes to insert imaginary characters into some of his writing for the sake of amusing himself and, presumably, his readers. But "Crisis Bobby" and "Br'er Nagin" are two imaginary characters who never should have seen the light of day.

Read this Les Miles story

After 4 or 5 days of sitting on the pilot's lap while pretending to fly the Direct TV blimp over New Orleans, today is the day Les is expected to come back down and coach the football team. I know I've already said this earlier in the season but I've come the full 180 degrees with regard to Miles as we've gotten to know him better over the years. I'd even go so far as to say the guy is my favorite football coach of all time. (I still like Bum Phillips a lot, though.) Of course most of you realize that isn't saying a whole hell of a lot given the low esteem with which I regard football coaches in general but, still, it's the thought that counts. Or actually it's shit like this.

Inside a metallic practice bubble that late-summer day, sweaty young men listen to red-faced coaches bark orders and demands. Even praise comes at excessive decibels. Miles, 58, is dressed in a gray shirt, purple shorts and his standard-issue white hat. He bears an eerie resemblance to Kurt Russell. Miles doesn't yell. He doesn't say much. He's most concerned with the ice cream man.

Or this

The seamlessness with which Miles transitioned the program from the no-nonsense, bordering-on-miserable atmosphere Saban bred to the loose, happy air that permeates LSU today is among his greatest successes. There have been setbacks. Before the Tigers' first game, nearly half the team broke curfew, including quarterback Jordan Jefferson, who police charged with felony battery for allegedly kicking a Marine in the head during a brawl. In the middle of the season, Miles suspended three more players, including Heisman Trophy candidate Tyrann Mathieu, when synthetic marijuana showed up in their urine.

"Those were things this team needed," Miles says. "It's a distraction. You can call it what you want. And it was. But there were direct, correctable steps, and they made 'em. And it was wonderful. It was fun to work with. It's been a fun year."

Only Miles can turn a bar fight into a fun time and still manage to sound sincere.

There's a lot more to that article. Elevated presentation of tear-jerky stuff and whatnot. But the main point is this. What makes Les Miles successful is the fact that he specifically lacks that quality of ego-maniacal fastidiousness so many insufferable football coaches believe they are required to possess. Football is a chaotic and often absurd activity. The conventional approach to managing it is based on beating the chaos into submission through the iron force of one's own red-faced screaming micromanaging obsessive compulsive assholery. Most coaches do it this way. Some (Nick Saban, Tom Coughlin, Bear Bryant, etc) do so with some measure of success. Others (Bobby Petrino, Jim Mora, Curley Hallman) not so much. But win or lose these coaches are undeniably major assholes. Les Miles does something different. He doesn't try to beat down the wackiness he embraces it, celebrates it even, and finds the way through it smilingly. Win or lose, this is certainly the more honest way to apprehend and react to one's environment. Here... go read the article. It's all in there.

Miles ached for football. He would talk about it, Bubba would listen. It took a few years for Miles to convince himself. By then, Bubba's look had softened. Miles knew he should go, though not before a warning from Bubba: The inertia of this coaching life -- this mad concoction of perfectionism, testosterone, moral compromise and the potent drug of triumph -- can eat your soul. Don't let it.

I love that Les Miles has proven that you can do this.. that you don't have to sell your soul out and be an insufferable asshole.. in order to win football games. And so win or lose tonight, we can say that Les Miles is not at an asshole.

The Tigers will win anyway. Based only on a hunch I think it's advisable to take the over in this game. Something like LSU Alabama 27 maybe.

And another one gone

FDL: Santorum about to crash now in New Hampshire.

I know we're all supposed to be watching South Carolina more closely anyway, and that we're supposed to be talking about the latest week's happenings at the circus and all but this still is looking like Mitt is going to take the nomination no matter what.

Rearranging the deck chairs dickheads

JP Morgan bankster Bill Daley is (finally) out as Obama's Chief of Staff. There is much rejoicing. Expected to be replaced by Citigroup bankster Jacob Lew.

Carry on.

Fantasy Creeps

BP Ad Campaign Following Gulf Oil Spill Deemed 'Propaganda' By Some

NEW ORLEANS -- Nearly 20 months after its massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill – and just as the nation focuses on New Orleans, host of the BCS title game – BP is pushing a slick nationwide public relations campaign to persuade Americans that the Gulf region has recovered.

BP PLC's rosy picture of the Gulf, complete with sparkling beaches, booming businesses, smiling fishermen and waters bursting with seafood, seems a bit too rosy to many people who live there. Even if the British oil giant's campaign helps promote the Gulf as a place where Americans should have no fear to visit and spend their money, some dismiss it as "BP propaganda."

It is crucial to keep in mind just how strongly Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the plutocrats who run the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau have encouraged BP to engage in this deceitful propaganda campaign solely for the short sighted short term benefit of their tourism-dependent business interests.

But the ad campaign rings hollow to many folks here.

"They talk about areas being all open. There are areas that are still closed," said A.C. Cooper, a shrimp fisherman in Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana. He listed some bays and fishing spots that he says the state still has closed due to oil contamination. "It's bogus, it's not the truth."

He added that last fall's shrimp harvest was dismal. "The numbers on our shrimp are way down," he said. "They (BP) make it sound like they're doing a lot, but they're not doing much to help the fishermen out ... I got good fishermen struggling to pay their bills right now."

The head of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, a commercial shrimpers group, called it "BP propaganda."

"When you have a lot of money, you can pretty much get any point across," Clint Guidry complained. "It's kind of like indoctrination."

Instead of demanding that BP be held accountable for and made to pay for what will be decades of mitigation of the full extent of the damage it has done, our elected representatives and unelected business leaders have settled for this series of bribes and lies in order that they may reap the short term benefit of a phony recovery.

But then, as Ray Nagin once told us, even during phony recoveries, there is money to be made so long as you know who to ask.

The company is paying chefs Emeril Lagasse and John Besh to promote Gulf seafood.

It's what we call bucking the trend.

Irrelevant football fact of the day

The New Orleans Saints once drafted a man named "Saints"... or more accurately, they drafted former San Diego State QB Todd Santos. Despite the obvious good omen in play, Santos was cut in training camp due to what then Saints general manager Jim Finks called a "lazy arm." It was the first time I had encountered such a term although later I came to understand the conventional wisdom which holds that the success or failure of a professional quarterback is supremely dependent upon the quickness of his delivery. (This was, of course, the pre-Tebow era and therefore a much more gentle and rational time.) After his release, Santos was briefly picked up by San Francisco (which is where the actual Los Santos will be headed this weekend) before dropping out of football altogether.

Anyway the only reason any of this came to mind at all this week is that just prior to the Saints-Lions game, Menckles was walking around saying, "Quien? Quien? Quien dicen que derrotaran a los Santos?" So use these facts in whatever way you please.

Also, you're welcome.

NOLA City Council considers extending French Quarter curfew to Chattanooga, TN

Daddy Mitch is very disappointed in the behavior here.

New Orleans Saints' victory leads to stabbing at local bar CHATTANOOGA (WRCB)— Police say a football fan was stabbed Saturday night at an area bar when another fan took offense to his celebration.

Police Sergeant Jerri Weary tells Channel 3, 56-year-old Thomas Gulrtin was stabbed in the arm at Fanatics Sports Bar on Brainerd Road while celebrating a victory by New Orleans Saints.

She says 28-year-old Darius Edward Arabghani was offended by the victim's gloating and stabbed him with a pocket knife when he placed his arm around him.

Gulrtin was treated for the non-life threatening stab wound.

Weary says Arabghani was arrested for aggravated assault.

At least no one was kicked in the face.

Digging around on the YouTubes Sunday

With the Saints in a playoff game last night and an old hated rival next on the schedule the talk last night turned to 1987. But not all of us were old enough or New Orleanians long enough to remember just what others of us were screaming about. So I went and found these videos. Archie looks like he could still play in these.













Seriously. Watch this insane TV special. It goes on for about an hour and features cheezy graphics, some embarrassing interviews with failed Saints coaches of the past, unnecessary "recipe" segments with Frank Davis, Johnnie Poe at home, Saints fans wearing very very 80s sports paraphernalia, and a darkened set inside the Superdome where Jim Henderson and Archie Manning sip bloody marys and talk. In short, if you think the football craziness in this city is strictly a post-Katrina phenomenon, you either aren't from here or you just haven't been paying attention.

"United In Times Of Challenge"

Mayor of New Orleans excludes (admittedly screwy) local chapter of NAACP from MLK Day celebration because of petty political grudge then adorns said celebration with oddly Orwellian theme.

Stink tanking Vitty style

River Birch Landfill's clout seen in federal legislation

Vitter once urged President George W. Bush to appoint Heebe as U.S. attorney in New Orleans, a post that eventually went to Jim Letten, who is leading the probe of Heebe and his River Birch Co. But after Heebe withdrew his name following allegations of domestic abuse, Vitter strongly backed Letten, even threatening to hold up President Barack Obama's judicial nominees unless Letten was reappointed.

Vitter received two $10,000 contributions from Heebe and his wife, Jennifer Sneed, to help pay legal expenses that arose after disclosure that his name appeared on the phone list of a Washington escort service.

Heebe donated $13,500 to Vitter campaigns from 2000 to 2008. Inhofe's campaign received a $2,000 contribution from Heebe in 2008.

Sister cities

Bob Marshall:

Hey, Detroit: New Orleans knows why you love your Lions. It's not just the winning record. Not just Matthew Stafford's 5,000 yards, the amazing athleticism of Calvin Johnson or the Superman strength of Ndamukong Suh.

It's everything that's been thrown at your town for the past decade. It's what the rest of the nation has been thinking and saying about you and your town. The way "Detroit" has become a slur, an insult, the lowest place you could accuse someone of being from. The "Why would you live there?" look. The sneer.

Tonight's game won't be so much like kissing your sister as it will be like beating her upside the head with a board full of rusty nails. Which is a lot of fun, actually. Try it sometime.

Don't Stop Now

In advance of tomorrow's wildcard round (wildcard round!) playoff game between the 13-3 (13 and 3! in the wildcard round!) Saints and the 10-6 Detroit Lions, I decided to dig up some of the notes I took after the last Saints-Lions game which, for various reasons, I never had the time to work into a full-blown re-cap post.

My overall impression of what happened that night was Detroit played exceptionally stupid and undisciplined football. They dropped passes, they committed three offensive pass interference penalties and, living up to their well deserved reputation for "dirty" play, committed several unnecessary roughness fouls hurting themselves even further. Yet despite all of this, and despite the fact that Lions all-world receiver Calvin Johnson did basically nothing all night, the Saints still had trouble getting away from the Lions. Here's what I wrote the next day.

Not putting it away. The Saints had a chance to put the game away before halftime but let Detroit drive 80 yards and score to stay in the game. This was the first time in 4 games the Saints' defense allowed a touchdown in the first half. Although the Saints answered with a quick 80 yard drive of their own, they would only score once more for the rest of the game which got pretty ugly as the Lions continued to hang around and mostly beat themselves before time ran out.

One optimistic note I can add here is that the Saints make a regular habit of stealing that one extra score just before the half which ends up being the turning point in a lot of these games. They did it just last week against Carolina, for example. And when they do that, they can usually outscore their opponent the rest of the way. Against Detroit, though, they almost didn't get away with that. The Lions owned the third quarter and pulled to within a touchdown thanks to some uncharacteristically poor play by Jabari Greer. I had notes on that too.

Jabari Greer almost lost this game singlehandedly. Detroit managed to pull within a touchdown of the Saints during the 3rd quarter when Jabari Greer let Detroit out of a 3rd and 14 situation by committing an "illegal contact" foul which sounds like something Jerry Sandusky might be accused of, but in this situation, was actually far worse. Two plays later Jabari Greer badly mistimed what should have been an easy pass deflection (we've long given up expecting "easy" interceptions from these no-catching motherfuckers) and allowed Tony Scheffler to steal a 36 yard pass from Stafford setting the Lions up at the Saints' 9. Maruice Morris would score on the next play and all of a sudden the game was in danger of going completely to crap.

But the Saints did get away with it because the Lions continued to make embarrassing mistakes and, in truly mystifying fashion, not cover Jimmy Graham.

How this game was eventually won. Did we mention that the Lions are terrible? Here's how terrible they are. Following a missed 55 yard field goal by Detroit kicker Jason Hanson, the Saints, set up on the 45 yard line with a 7 point lead were primed to put the game away. Here's how they managed to do that. Detroit's defense got together in the huddle and agreed among themselves that right then would be an excellent time for nobody to cover Jimmy Graham. This resulted in the following sequence.

1st and 10 Saints 45 Brees incomplete to Colston

2nd and 10 Saints 45 Brees to Graham 3 yards

3rd and 7 Saints 48 Brees to Graham 16 yards

1st and 10 Lions 36 Brees to Graham 14 yards

1st and 10 Lions 22 Ingram runs for 3 yards

2nd and 7 Lions 19 Brees to Graham 13 yards

1st and Goal Lions 6 Brees to Sproles Touchdown

That's a 55 yard scoring drive all but 9 yards of which involved the Lions not covering the Saints' leading receiver for some reason.

Are the Lions really that terrible? They somehow managed to win 10 games this year which leads me to suspect they don't always turn in the sort of shitburger they brought to the Dome last time. But even if they do play a less ridiculous game, it's hard to imagine this record-breaking, steadily improving, and mostly healthy Saints team bowing out of the playoffs this quickly. Most Saints fans think this team deserves a second shot at Green Bay and not getting there would certainly qualify as a disappointment.

But even if that does happen, let's make sure we don't call it a failure. Another note I found sitting in the draft folder for the unfinished Lions post read, "Enjoy that 9th win, you ungrateful fucks!" I know I'm getting pretty old but I'm sure the majority of Saints fans paying attention are, like me, able to remember that it took 21 years for any Saints team to even win that many. And here we are at the end of what has arguably been the best regular season put together by any Saints team ready to yawn if something happens to go a bit wrong tomorrow. I don't expect it will but consider this a preemptive reminder for everyone to keep their heads up if it does.

In the meantime, enjoy your Twelfth Night. Enjoy your weekend. And if you run into any Bama fans, remember the Mayor urges you not to kick any of them in the face.

(*)

If you've got a few hours to kill this afternnon

You could do a lot worse than watching this BookTV In Depth with Chis Hedges.

And a great sadness descends upon the Gulf South media market

WWL radio's Bob DelGiorno Retires

WWL AM-870 and FM-105.3 morning man Bob DelGiorno announced his retirement from the station today after 34 years on the New Orleans radio airwaves. He will be replaced by frequent morning-show fill-in Tommy Tucker, who has hosted the 8 p.m.-to-midnight shift when not subbing for DelGiorno during morning drive.

(Ha! And I bet you thought this was going to be a post about Jim Henderson!)


On the one hand, it's reassuring to know that, in Tucker, WWL has filled the slot with the one radio personality mean and blockheaded enough to actually make the show less informative, if such a thing is even possible. On the other hand, nobody stupids up the morning news like DelGiorno.

I realize it's the general fashion in any corporate news setting to pretend the incomplete or skewed information being presented is actually unbiased, "balanced" reporting but most long time professionals are much smoother at pulling off this act than Bob ever was. If we were ever to see Paul Krugman's famous "Views differ on shape of Earth" caricature frame come to life, Bob would be the man to deliver it. Probably while shouting the words "I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW IF ANYBODY KNOWS!" over the protestations of his guest or caller. It was a lot like listening to an argument where one party would plug his ears and say "Lalalalalala" until the other stopped talking. Here's a perfect example of that from back during the Wisconsin labor protests last year.

But I think my favorite Bob moment was this bizarre conversation he had with Charlie Melancon during the Health Care debate. Bob continued to insist that the bill was unavailable for him to read while ignoring Melancon's continued attempts to explain (very very poorly) that it was in fact available on the internet... which neither man appeared to know how to use very well. But Melancon could have been Tim Berners-Lee up there and it wouldn't have mattered. There is not a single set of facts that Bob DelGiorno could not nullify through the sheer force of his aggressive willful ignorance. He will be sorely missed.

Roast Beef Recon

I've been wondering if Brett Anderson's Roast Beef Po-Boy series in the T-P had been boosting sales at local sandwich shops. While I know it's probably had me thinking about roast beef po-boys more regularly lately, I can't say I've been inspired to do any first-hand fact checking just yet.

Which is where Dingler comes in. In this Humid City post he, along with the help of a man named Pooky, perform their own test following Anderson's comparison between Parasol's and Tracey's but reach a very different verdict.

Also there's this which should make us all feel a bit better about the world.

What began as online blabbering turned into me ordering two roast beef po-boys within minutes of each other…one from Tracey’s and the other from Parasol’s. I called Parasol’s first at 9:11 p.m., only to be told their kitchen had closed. Admittedly, I hadn’t checked the kitchen hours of either establishment trusting that late-night leniency we have with time. Despite the hour, they agreed to make a sandwich for me, which may have single-handedly save the taste test. I phone ahead to Tracey’s to avoid another possible mishap. “Oh, don’t worry,” the voice on the phone said, “we’ll be around until 10-ish.” If nothing else, my faith in New Orleanians sense of time has been maintained.

Quote of the Day

Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams who was once famously recorded shouting from the sideline that safety Malcolm Jenkins is a "No catching motherfucker" updates us on the manual dexterity of his charges.

"I've got guys who couldn't catch a cold butt-naked in a rain storm right now."

Kristen Gisleson Palmer's FQ curfew extension just passed

The racketeers who run the tourism industry down there are no doubt pleased. If the Twitters are any indication (and when are they not?) the council meeting where the ordinance was discussed was a classic exercise in NOLA political farce. We eagerly await the final reports of the scribes if for no other reason than proper documentation of Jackie Clarkson's latest stand-up material.

The main point of opposition arose from the (basically correct) impression that the law was singling out black youths for being in the wrong neighborhood, so to speak. But since Chief Serpas already operates traffic checkpoints which effectively restrict the movement of citizens across town during the evening hours, such a measure is pretty much a redundancy.

And so, rather than argue against the curfew altogether, many of the assembled activists argued that it be extended citywide so that all of us can come together as "one city, one voice" or whatever and share in the misery. And this is what Council agreed to consider doing at some future date.

Meanwhile, if you're bringing your teenage football fans to New Orleans for this weekend's games, please don't let them go into the Quarter unleashed after 8 PM.

Just because we haven't reviewed a book here in a while

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom
Slavomir Rawicz

Rawicz was a Polish ex-pat living in Britain when he dictated this questionable story to a ghost writer about his escape along with 7 other prisoners from a Soviet gulag in 1941 and their subsequent thousands mile journey out of Siberia, through the Gobi Desert, and over the Himalayas into India... on foot. Subsequent evidence has surfaced which suggests that though Rawicz was captured by the Soviets he probably never actually escaped from a Siberian work camp. The story he tells might make a serviceable TV serial (it was, in fact, made into a not so successful movie recently). But since it's most likely bullshit, it's useless to read as non-fiction. And since the writing isn't very impressive while the story just kind of plods along, it's not the greatest novel. Still, as a weird tall tale, it's compelling enough to read all the way through. Just don't expect to gain anything by that other than a slight diversion.

I think I probably stuck with it just for the sake of the walking tour of central Asia. But you don't have to waste your time for that. Instead try Ted Conover's The Routes Of Man which contains a factual telling of a journey through the Himalayas.

Creeping Santorumism

Ultra-conservative kook Rick Santorum finishes second in the Iowa Caucus on Tuesday night and the next day we've got New Orleans City Council members making Santorum-like bullshit statements to justify their hyper-restrictive curfew proposal.

Gisleson Palmer justified the plan by saying that the French Quarter and Frenchman Street “are extreme areas of permissiveness, which I think we need to keep our minors safe from.”

Really? Palmer would have us believe she's protecting children from "extreme permissiveness" For one thing, I thought that was Grant Storms' job. For another, this curfew measure, Palmer wants all minors out of the Quarter after 8PM, is actually a direct response to fears that the perception of rampant crime in the city might harm the tourist industry. See the below post for more on how our city leaders see our dignity as subservient to the needs of their wealthy friends' businesses. But at least there Nagin and Landrieu and Serpas have the courtesy not to lie to us about just who they're trying to "keep safe" in most circumstances.

God keeps his famous children---be respectable

James Gill on Police Chief Serpas' obscene policy of informing the public after each murder that the victim "had it coming" in one way or another:

Serpas' policy for the last year has been to issue a press release detailing the rap sheet of any homicide victim who had one. The aim, Serpas says, is to give the public "a broader perspective of events."

A broader perspective means understanding that it's your own damn fault if you get shot around here. Respectable citizens run little risk of a violent end.

It is true that the chances of dying in a hail of bullets are somewhat higher for a Ninth Ward drug dealer than, say, for a CPA in Lakeview. And it turns out that 64 percent of victims do have a record. This is evidently supposed to reassure honest burghers, who can attend to their business while young black men are gunning one another down out of earshot.

It would take a callous spirit, however, to blow off the dire stats because the underclass bears the brunt. And to imply that a victim had it coming, as Serpas' policy appears to do, is a sentiment more appropriate to a mafia don than a police chief.

Serpas' (and also Landrieu's) increasingly callous PR strategy of slandering victims and going on TV to pretend a street thug they've arrested is the equivalent of some sort of evil genius would be no less insulting to basic human dignity even if it were at all effective in reducing the still skyrocketing murder rate.

But it's also worth noting that such buffoonery is not anything new. Gill's column reminded me that Serpas isn't the first public hero to try and tell us that bad things only happen to bad people. In 2007 Ray Nagin told a meeting of cruise ship executive much the same thing.

Echoing Letten's comments, Nagin described the city's violent crime as concentrated and unlikely to affect visitors who frequent tourist destinations.

"You don't have anything to worry about," Nagin said. "I'm looking at this audience and you all don't look like young African-American males who are involved in drug activity."

There were 199 murders in the City of New Orleans in 2011. What your leaders want you to know about that, though, is as long as your little head is pretty enough, you shouldn't have to worry it too much about that.

Maybe the location really is cursed

The building that currently houses Tracey's has been home to so many failed businesses over the past 5- 10 years that I'm not sure I can list them all. There was the Latin American Restaurant, Alexander's, the Irish Garden Club, at least two others that I can't think of right now. But when the former operators of nearby Parasol's second-lined over there to open the new place, I was sure they had broken whatever hex had been hanging over the property. They even brought in a priest to perform the blessing.



And for the most part, the endeavor has been a success. Tracey's is already the best sports bar Uptown. When it isn't impossibly crowded, there's no better place to watch a Saints game. It's a friendlier looking place than it's ever been especially when the weather is nice and all the doors and windows can open up onto what, curse notwithstanding, should be a prime location for a neighborhood bar. Also, as far as I know, they do not as yet serve any King Cake flavored vodka.

The food, though, can be hit-or-miss.

When the kitchen is running smoothly and everything on the menu is available, the fare... particularly the shrimp po-boys, fried boudin, and chicken wings... is more than agreeable, as bar food goes. But Tracey's promotes its roast beef po-boy above all else. And that, as Brett Anderson correctly points out in today's article, has only been ordinary, if not a little disappointing, ever since the move. Meanwhile Parasol's.. the new Parsol's continues to receive accolades for theirs.

So now I'm tempted to wonder again if there isn't just something about that location.

Iowa Post-Mortem

I stayed up just late enough last night to watch a furnance-faced Mitt Romney speed read through a speech like a coked up version of the guy who recites the legalese at the end of a 30 second radio ad for a car dealership. Except, unlike the ad guy, Mitt was really bad at it. At one point he attempted, for whatever reason, to add in a few lines from America The Beautiful but ended up slurring something about "amber waves of rain" before getting on to the MSRP part.

Mitt's a pretty wooden actor so it's difficult to know if he was exultant or just pissed but there can be little doubt he wanted the room to know he was excited. And why shouldn't he be? Here's Mitt leaving Iowa with an ever-so-slight 8 vote win over Crazy Hopeless Alternative Candidate Of The Week Rick Santorum which entitled him to.. well actually just 13 of 25 delegates.

But, on the other hand, Iowa was supposed to be the phase of the primary where the turbulent anti-Mitt imperative coalesced around a spokesperson with a legitimate chance at denying him the nomination. Instead it flirted with a series of laughably non-viable alternatives in a desperate game of spin-the-bottle which happened to be pointing at Santorum on the day the caucus was held.

Don't worry. It won't stay there long. Santorum's "victory" speech was maybe even funnier than Romney's. Not only did he have to suddenly pretend that he had been doing and saying things in Iowa all this time that anyone had paid any attention to, but he had to do it with that icky smirk on his face. You know the one that says to the world this is a man deeply conflicted over whether to be a corrupt douche or a sanctimonious weirdo from one minute to the next? Yeah that one. Expect to hear a lot more about that between now and the time Santorum becomes completely irrelevant again. Probably Saturday.

Meanwhile former Crazy Hopeless Alternative Candidate Of The Week Michele Bachmann is finally out. For a while last night it wasn't clear what she was going to do. At one point she said "I am not a politician" and then moments later insisted to supporters that she was not dropping out of the political campaign she had been engaged in since last summer. And then today she's gone.

But if last night's results are any indication no one will notice. Bachmann's poor performance, most perturbingly, screwed up my projected numbers. Because Bachmann, Roemer, Huntsman, and the remnants of Herman Cain couldn't combine for more than 5% of the total, there was far more Crazy vote out there to spread between Santorum and Paul than I expected. Also note that even though 123,000 Iowa Republicans is a ridiculously small number of voters for us to be giving all this attention to, it is also a record high turnout for a GOP caucus. More highly motivated Crazy Caucus Goers than at any time in history were on hand last night, they were less divided than they could have been if Bachmann still pulled any interest at all, and, even still, Mitt finished first.

So Bachmann's departure shouldn't affect Mitt's ability to fend off the Crazy vote in future primaries. And now that Rick Perry has apparently decided not to go back to Texas and secede from the race, the Slightly Less Crazy Anti-Mitt vote he split with Newt in Iowa will probably split again in South Carolina.

Restless GOP voters may not have much confidence in Mitt but the rest of their field is a mess. And now, because of the long experience in Iowa, they know it. I'm sure there's still some time left for one half-hearted feint at a stand in South Carolina but after that, don't expect there to be much sport left in this race.

Is there still time for a late T-Paw surge?

Tonight the eyes of the nation will be mostly glued elsewhere... possibly the Sugar Bowl.. when probably fewer than 200,000 Republicans in Iowa gather in their local school cafeterias, Elks lodges, and that one building in the strip mall that used to be a Laser Tag before it became a nondenominational Christian church and self-help book store for a little while but now nobody goes there much at all except for stuff like this to decide which crazy candidate will (probably) receive only 25 of the possible 2,286 delegates to the Republican National Convention this year.

In other words, it will be a major coup for the leading vote getter America's political pundits who have been craving for some actual horse race numbers to bat around no matter how insignificant those numbers might actually be. Unless Ron Paul wins, in which case, the whole thing will be written off altogether as the overblown joke that it actually is and nobody wants that to happen.

Anyway here's my card going in. If you like you can reverse Paul's and Santorum's or Perry's and Newt's positions but whatever way you like it I'm thinking we get 25 for Mitt followed by a plurality of voters who can't decide between Crazy A and Crazy B. After that there's probably still another 20 percent or so who can't decide between NotMitt A and NotMitt B and the rest is just wasted troll votes.

Mitt: 25%

Santorum 19%

Paul: 17%

Newt: 12%

Perry: 10%

Aaron Rodgers: 9%

Oklahoma State: 7%

The real winners in our political system anyway: The 1%

Time for one last look back at 2011

What with all the to-do and hoo-hah and such I neglected to read Drew Magary's brief "Year of the Troll" Deadspin column. Which is notable for among other things this bit.

Occupy Wall Street takes what is a perfectly noble cause—demanding that corporate interests not be allowed to overwhelm the democratic process—and then ruins all that goodwill by fulfilling every possible stereotype that people have about dipshit liberal protesters, including having rules in place to ensure that the movement remains completely rudderless.

Okay quit piling on Fitz for a second

I disagree with him regarding the specific restaurants he calls out (but oddly doesn't name.) I very much enjoyed Ancora, for example. But a warning that New Orleans is becoming perhaps a little too susceptible to empty trends that can make it less distinguishable from any other city in America is a criticism worth paying attention to.

Now you're more than welcome to levy your multiple legitimate other complaints about Fitzmorris. I've read elsewhere that he isn't necessarily the person doing the dining he writes about in his restaurant reviews these days. And it's my impression that his on air opinions are mostly driven by his advertising revenues. Plus, as I say above, I think he's flat out wrong about the actual quality of these unnamed restaurants he's swiping at in his column. But he's not wrong to express suspicion of trendiness even if he is imprecise in his application of that suspicion.

Failed "Alternative"

The New Orleans plutocrat consensus already has several media outlets which present us with its point of view. The Times-Picayune editorial page, WWL radio, New Orleans Magazine, everything and everyone in local TV news... I could go on. Suffice to say that the wealthy establishment or at least those who buy into the party line of the wealthy establishment of this city have ample airtime and print space with which to celebrate themselves and their agendas in this town. One would think the supposedly "alternative" weekly would endeavor to offer some semblance of counterpoint to all of that but one would be mistaken.

And all this time we'd been subsisting on walking tacos

Gambit's Ian McNulty finds a roast beef po boy vendor in the Superdome terrace. Sight never seen in our section. Oh well.

On the other hand, we did catch a few seconds of video of Saints and Panthers fans dancing together after a Saints touchdown during the second quarter Sunday.



8-0 at home is certainly something to dance about. While it's a shame that this 13-3 record setting football team is stuck playing in the wild card round of the playoffs, Saints fans (who set an attendance record themselves this year) deserve an encore home performance.

Meanwhile I'm hoping someone can tell me where I can order my souvenir copy of the NFL record book with all the fancy calligraphy and gold plating and pop-up illustrations and shit.

2011, GTFO

There are about 12 hours left in what's been a truly awful calendar year mitigated a little bit, perhaps, by the not at all classless football season we've been treated to. Although I'd like to qualify that a bit by pointing out that football actually began after what I've come to call the NOLA New Year of August 29 so it's probably affected by a new set of looney lunar phases or something like that.

Excluding that, though, 2011 has been nothing short of putrid. But before we start drinking to forget, let's take a look back at a few of those forgettable moments now.



2011: Technically, it was the year during which this happened.



2011: The year anti-gay crusading preacher Grant Storms was arrested for doing something perverted in public surprising exactly no one.

2011: The year NOPD decided it was okay to pepper spray a Mardi Gras parade but later on became pretty much the only police force to not pepper spray any Occupy protesters.

2011: Also the year the city once again took no action against (although they sent a strongly worded email to) the scofflaws who hog public neutral grounds and obstruct others' enjoyment of Carnival but later decided camping in Duncan Plaza in order to engage in constitutionally protected political speech was a threat to public health.

2011: The year Sean Payton moved his family to Dallas causing civilization as we know it to come to an abrupt end.

2011: The year Ray Nagin and Thomas Morstead became Twitter personalities thus restoring the splendor to our lost civilization.

2011: The year we learned to accept that massive nuclear meltdowns are just going to happen and there's nothing anyone is really going to do about that.

2011: The year the Department of Justice publicly bitch slapped the NOPD. At a subsequent City Council meeting Jackie Clarkson congratulated Chief Serpas on the wonderful job he does.

2011: The year New Orleanians marched in the streets demanding to have their children beaten with paddles.

2011: The year we decided 9-10% unemployment was pretty much a new "structural" normal.

2011: The year BP started getting serious about telling LA fisher and oystermen to drop dead. Of course the advertising money just kept right on coming. Go check WWLTV.com right now and see how fast you can find one of these.



2011: The year Jackie Clarkson threatened to sink runaway barges in the Mississippi River presumably by firing a canon at them or something.

2011: The year Ron Paul told Mississippi River flood victims to suck it.



Also regarding this year's river flooding. Our favorite NOLA.com moment.



2011: The year of the St.Pierre trial. Too much for one line. Just go read Dambala.

2011: The year we almost replaced football season with a series of boring raffles.

2011: Who could forget the Royal Wedding?



Wait... is that the one?

2011: The year of the Seventh Ward Rooster and the Uptown Coyote and all other manner of creatures both real and imagined who we all hope eventually died in a marsh fire.



2011: The year a hurricane stuck the east coast and caused massive loss of life and property in New England prompting Republican congressmen to demand that we think twice before helping them.

Meanwhile one tropical storm struck Louisiana toppling this barricade which warned motorists of a by then year old pothole.



As of this writing, the barricade has not been righted or removed. Nor has the pothole been filled.

2011 in books: Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and former FEMA director Michael Brown took their talents to the publishing world in 2011.



Nagin's title was the source of a great deal of parlor humor as this review by Gambit's Kevin Allman indicates.

Brown promoted his book in New Orleans during the American Library Association conference. I caught up with him at the Garden District Bookshop and secured his autograph.

2011 in music: Well the tragic thing is the big GBV reunion tour skipped over New Orleans altogether causing much consternation. The good news is the new record is out, is really pretty great, and features a song about Fats Domino.



2011 was also the year of this massive summertime hit.



Also released in 2011, this memorable record.

2011: The year Kermit Ruffins decided to go to bed early.

2011: The year Edwin Edwards became the most celebrated man released from prison since Nelson Mandela.

2011: The year of much nonsense about #standing



2011: The year that Jackie Clarkson ordered a helicopter attack on a marsh fire because Ray Nagin tweeted that she should.



2011: The year that Jackie also kind of wished was actually 1950.

2011: The year we sold the name of the city's most beloved public building to a foreign corporate sponsor.

2011: The year of the #notintendedtobeafactualstatement

2011 in food products:





And.. as the second photo indicates, 2011 was the year we learned the secrets of Beefy Mac

2011: The year we learned the Rex organization will sue the fuck out of your minor neighborhood Carnival celebration.

2011: The year we learned the importance of not kicking anybody in the face.

2011: The year some house cat was as much a threat to the incumbent governor as anyone else in the race.

2011: The year this happened


2011: The year we learned the difference between journalism and "lobbying".. or rather we didn't learn that.

2011: Also the year of the #spon-sored tweet.

2011: The year Herman Cain was on TV a lot for some reason.

2011: Something about obscure wildlife, a YouTube meme and a football player or something..



2011: The year they flagged the goddamned punter for taunting.

2011: The year this happened



2011: The year we decided the President of the United States can indefinitely detain American citizens as well as summarily execute anyone in the world whenever he feels like it using a flying robot.

2011: The year we made a turducken gumbo

2011: The year we all agreed to stop calling it "Kennah" and instead just call it "where that idiot is the mayor"



And of course other things happened too. There's no mention in here of the Gusman follies, the city budget wars, the federal government default brinksmanship, the $7.7 trillion in secret Fed bank bailouts, something else insane Jackie Clarkson and/or Gregg Williams said at some point... I could go on.

But it's getting a bit late in the day now which means it's time to stop documenting this year's atrocities and move on to 2012. That is if our proposal to exchange this calendar for the next isn't rejected by David Stern for basketball reasons. Stay tuned.

Happy New Year

Bordering on fraud

Four lane divided street with a 25 mph speed limit may seem a minor inconvenience for some, for others it's a revenue opportunity.

The largest number of citations in New Orleans -- a whopping 38,805 so far this year -- were issued to cars at Henry Clay Avenue and Coliseum Street. That intersection has become notorious with motorists, and no wonder since most streets of its size have a 30-mph speed limit, not a 25-mph limit.

Jackson Avenue at Chestnut Street, which has the second highest number of citations at 24,818, also has a 25 mph speed limit, although the speed limit on most large divided streets is 35 mph.

Internet blackout day

Maybe a gesture like this will finally get people's attention although I rather doubt it.

One major tactic that might truly derail the bill would be if the biggest websites in the country were to temporarily shut down their services and instead inform visitors of the dangers of SOPA. Remarkably, it now appears as though a coalition made up of fifteen online titans is seriously considering doing exactly that.

And hey good luck with that. But these major internet companies along with free speech advocates of all stripes have been talking about the dangers of SOPA for months and months now and have gotten little to no traction. This tells me the time has finally arrived for the internet to do what was always going to do and become more of a one way medium for mega-media conglomerates to blast content at consumers just the way they do with radio and television.

Source: Frugal dad

Even if SOPA goes down... which is looking unlikely right now... something like it is pretty much inevitable. The infrastructure is just now coming online that will finally make the internet more like the entertainment delivery systems that preceded it. Smart phones and tablets are making computers more like TVs and legislation like this will make the internet more and more like a cable subscription where distribution and prioritization of content is controlled by a very few companies and everything else is shunted off to the side or shut down completely.

The fact that this very real and imminent threat to a form of free and open speech we've come to take for granted has generated little more than a yawn from the public tells me all I need to know about the prospects for stopping it.

I'm still working on a unified theory of national press generated Saints hate

There's that "classless" complaint about Brees breaking the passing yardage record Monday. There's the weird "dirty play" meme I've been tracking. There's that weird use of the memory of the Federal Flood as either a... um ... classless insult or as a perhaps even more belittling frame for increasingly contrived and saccharine side segments during nationally broadcast games.

There are other examples but, for whatever reason, someone is always at the ready with an excuse to belittle or ignore whatever the Saints happen to accomplish. No idea what that reason is but I'm working on it.

Meanwhile, please enjoy that Wang has crafted an appropriate response.

Proxy campaigning is back

Yesterday we touched on the fact that Ron Paul is plenty nutty enough on his own accord that there should be no need to attack him through the utterances of those who speak either in favor of or near his campaign. But one can always tell that the campaign season is shifting into a higher gear when the proxy wars start heating up.

I've never been a fan of this although there are circumstances under which the attention it draws is valid.

One example. In 2008 candidate Obama was made to answer for remarks made by his campaign's foreign policy adviser Samantha Power in which Power referred to then rival candidate Hillary Clinton as "a monster". The episode was exceedingly silly because the comment, regardless of its accuracy, was rhetorically the sort of thing that our absurd "decorum" obsessed, fainting couch occupying establishment press considers so out of bounds as to demand the rolling of heads... or at least the symbolic rolling of those heads. Power was forced to resign her unpaid advisory position with the campaign and hang her (still attached) head in shame... for a few months anyway. Later she was hired by the Obama Administration to work in Hillary's monstrous State Department where she cheerfully contributed to such monstrous initiatives as the bombing and killing of people in Libya. But at least she didn't call anyone an ugly name.

Anyway the point is, in the case of Power, her comments about Hillary could have raised significant questions about just what kind of people were advising candidate Obama on key issues like the importance of bombing and killing people in the name of freedom. And it almost did that.. at least for those of us who were paying attention at the time although with minimal help from the decorum gatekeepers who manage our daily discourse.

But this is an unusual incident. Most of the time, attacking a candidate through proxy connections is a pointless parlor game for the bored and stupid campaign press. Examples of this abound from the obsession with Obama's pastor Rev. Wright in 2008 to this gay-hating preacher who endorsed Ron Paul. Paul is plenty homophobic on his own, thank you very much. No need to go looking for other loonies to throw in his face.

On the other hand, it's difficult to ignore Paul's latest monstrous endorsement... but we'll try. Oh how we'll try.

Passions and enthusiasms?

Robert Reich actually wrote those words in association with the idea of putting Hillary on the ticket.

We are so screwed.

Serpas Signal

Haven't had one of these in ages. Was beginning to think Serpas had forgotten us.. what with all the murders and stuff.

New Orleans Police Department Public Information Office

Announcement of Sobriety Check Point Tomorrow

The New Orleans Police Department will establish a Sobriety Check Point on Thursday, December 29, 2011 in the Downtown area. The checkpoint will operate between the hours of 9pm to 5am.

"Bold changes"

I'm about to give up on this shit. If the press is going to append the descriptive headline "bold changes" to every Jindal scheme, there's really not much that can be done about it.

Well this is familiar

Nigeria's Worst Offshore Spill in a Decade Expands While Shell Says Spill Is Contained

The dominant industry

In perhaps his most unintentionally astute act of introspection Ray Nagin once told us this,

"Politics in New Orleans is the dominant industry, so I decided to get in," he said. "Besides tourism, politics dominates everything. I just think it's part of our legacy and our history. Politics is definitely a sport and something that the citizens pay attention to."

I enjoy this quote for numerous reasons. Nagin, in fact, is quite right that by the time he got into politics, that and tourism were just about the only two rackets industries left by which an ambitious person could enrich himself. And so Ray Nagin went into politics.

I also like that Nagin describes politics in New Orleans as "a sport and something that the citizens pay attention to" although I suspect that is less so in recent years. Anyway as someone who follows both politics and sports in New Orleans this Nagin quote, though not terribly original, is very dear to me. And so that is why I fully endorse this candidacy.

Enter comedian Chris Trew of the New Movement. Trew, a NOLA native and lifelong Hornets fan, is running for owner of the team. His primary weapon is a series of viral videos causing a stir on YouTube.

Says Trew, "I have a strong feeling that (NBA Commissioner) David Stern watches these videos. I have a stronger feeling that I could great things for this team and this city. I have the strongest feeling that I am the man who will one day become owner of the New Orleans Hornets (I just need someone to spot me $350 million)."

I'm not so sure about that "lifelong Hornets fan" bit. It's difficult to tell how old Trew is but the Hornets only arrived in New Orleans in 2003 and I'm guessing this dude has been around longer than that. In fact, the Charlotte Hornets only came into existence in 1988 which I'm willing to bet still makes them younger than Trew. Of course 1988 still seems like yesterday to an old guy like me so I could be wrong there but not by much.

Anyway because so much of our public treasure and facilities are poured into the maintenance of our professional sports teams, I fully support opening up as many of their related decision-making offices accountable to the public.

Why would anybody toast Leidenheimer bread?

I thought the whole point was that it was just crispy enough the way it was. I know Brett Anderson's roast beef po-boy series is a bit of a gimmick but I'm not going to say I haven't enjoyed reading it. Today, he's at Johnny's where he spends an inordinate amount of time going into this toasted bread issue. Apparently he likes his bread toasted because he says it keeps the gravy from making too much of a mess. But I think we've already established that he doesn't really get that that's the whole point of the thing.

Going Galt to Mexico

Good catch by Josh Marshall here. The crazy stuff Ron Paul says with his own mouth this year is every bit as nutty as the stuff his newsletter staff wrote years ago.

Update: James Gill's column opens today like this.

Ron Paul, who is expected to fare well in next week's Iowa caucuses, is also attracting passionate support in various other states, including Louisiana. Nobody gives him any chance of winning the GOP nomination, however. He wants, for instance to repeal the Patriot Act, so named, in the spirit of Orwell, because it betrays the principles that made America a beacon for the free world.

In these skittish times only the nutty fringe would advocate a return to the rule of law.

Ron Paul is undoubtedly the nutty fringe. The fact that he is also the only candidate who talks with any conviction at all about just how un-free we've made ourselves is a sad indicator of how far from the agenda this fundamental problem has been shoved.

Upperdate: Corrected the title misspelling. Originally I had it Gault... like Willie. Because I am more of a football fan than a libertarian.

Back in 5 days

Meanwhile try to make the most of the holiday. Try not to kick anybody in the face.



I'll leave you with these

Salon's Justin Elliot:
No, the U.S. is not leaving Iraq

Do you think we’re going to see spasms of violence between Americans and Iraqis post-Dec. 31?

I think it’s inevitable. Look at it from the perspective of an Iranian Quds Force operative. You know you want to frustrate the U.S. in Iraq; and you know that Iraqis are burning U.S. flags in celebration of the withdrawal. That’s a tremendous opportunity for Iran right there. Because if you also know that there are these armed contractors helping diplomats get from point A to point B, you win if you provoke them into violence. And it’s really easy to place an IED on a road or to open fire on a convoy. Then if there are Americans in Iraq opening fire on Iraqis — after the Iraqi leaders have said Americans are gone — that’s a major propaganda win for Iran. This is a really foreseeable disaster.

Another thing worth pointing out is that Leon Panetta has been saying recently that there are 1,000 Iraqis who are al-Qaida loyalists. If that’s true, Iraq is by far host to the largest al-Qaida presence in the world. It’s really hard to believe the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command won’t find a way to go after those people. And remember, as Mary Wheeler has pointed out, Congress has not rescinded the authorization for military force in Iraq.

US military 'ready to engage in a conflict with Iran'

Leon Panetta, the secretary of defence, said this week that the US was prepared to step in to prevent Tehran realising its nuclear ambitions. He estimated that the country was only a year away from reaching its goal.

"The United States does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon," he said. "That is a red line for us and that is a red line for the Israelis. If we have to do it we will do it. If they proceed and we get intelligence that they are proceeding in developing a nuclear weapon then we will take whatever steps necessary to stop them. There are no options that are off the table."

Quote of the day

"Feinberg has welcomed the independent evaluation and already agreed to pay for it."

Geeze, I hope we're not boring Wang

I mean, I don't really think we're doing that but I couldn't help but wonder just a little when I read this post where he says 1) the Saints are the best damn team in the NFL right now and 2) the magic is missing somehow. On the other hand, he does say he intends to snap out of it.

So I'm making an early New Year's resolution. It's time to wake up and quit taking all this for granted. Just in the nick of time too, because shit's about to get real fun.

I'm also resolving to quit reflexively comparing everything to 2009, whether I want to or not. I think that's part of the problem too. It's not fair, because 2009 was magic. Oh, they were a damn strong football team too, don't get me wrong. And they earned everything they got that season. But those 39 takeaways were magic. Brett Favre's and Peyton Manning's brainfarts falling into the hands of Tracy Porter was magic. The ball bouncing the Saints' way all damn year was magic. And magic gives you that… well, magical feeling.

This? This ain't magic. This is just the Saints doing what they do.

To that I'll add that just the word "magic" in relation to football automatically makes me think of the publicity campaign in support of the Gerry Dinardo LSU regime so I've had quite enough of that, thank you.

Also this week Wang writing at NOLA Def wonders if it's really appropriate for Saints fans to "hate" the Atlanta Falcons.

So, yes, I can definitely see how the Falcons are pretty easy to "hate." And I guess I don't blame you if you do. After all, there's not a whole lot to like there. There never really has been, and they've always been pretty loathsome. And basking in their misfortune is always good for a chuckle. So we've got that going for us.

Another thing we have going for us is a 9-2 record against them since Sept 25, 2006. Oh, and a Lombardi Trophy. (High five!)

So, you know, screw them. I'm just not sure that hatred is the most effective use of one's emotional resources when it comes to the Falcons. I'm not sure they deserve it. Not lately, anyway.

Now I think this is maybe a little dismissive so I'm going to hopefully conclude that when Wang looks at the most competitive period in the history of the long standing Saints-Falcons rivalry and says, essentially, "eh, we own these bitches," he's actually just talking a little smack.

The 11-3 Saints are doing that "peaking at the right time" thing down the stretch of their 3rd consecutive 10+ win season. Their quarterback is set to break a major passing record during a Monday Night match-up with their most serious rival in a game that basically will make all the difference in the season. Doesn't Wang know Christopher Hitchens died last week? This is no time to be contrary.

Besides, I already answered this "hate or no-hate" question a few years back in this post. But since I'm going out of town tomorrow and I wanted to have something up before this Falcon Week to end all Falcon Weeks I'll recycle that bit here.

The Saints and the Falcons arrived in the NFL at roughly the same time in the mid-sixties and the teams, like the Southern cities they represent, became fast rivals. Like a lot of sports rivalries, the Saints and Falcons always play each other close, tend to be in each others' way at exactly the right times, and unusual things happen when they play each other. But unlike a lot of typical rivalries, it would be inaccurate to say that the teams and their fan bases hate each other. In fact, Saints-Falcons is best described as sibling rivalry.

Historically, the South's two best known cities have often compared themselves with one another each proud of the ways in which it isn't like the other. Atlanta is more prosperous. New Orleans is more fun. But also each is a little jealous of the things its rival has that it doesn't. But where there is jealousy there isn't much hostility. Saints fans don't really hate the Falcons, they just really really want to beat them.

Furthermore, a lot of New Orleanians have family who live in Atlanta. That was true before the Federal Flood, but after that event lot of New Orleanians ended up in Atlanta. Many are still there now. This commerce between the two cities only strengthens the familial relationship. For a time during the early 2000s, the teams' respective starting quarterbacks were cousins. Most fans thought this only natural.

The two annual games between these teams typically carry the strongest numbers of fans traveling with the team to each of the cities. Saints fans and Falcons fans know each other. Visiting Falcons fans hanging out in and around the Superdome are typically good humored, and fun to tease and tailgate with. Saints fans visiting the Georgia Dome, well, they know how to put on a show too.

Most people across the country don't know it but Saints-Falcons is one of the NFL's best rivalries. Not because of the win-loss records of the mostly mediocre teams involved, but because the fans know how to make it fun. Simply put, Saints and Falcons fans do things right. Don't get me wrong, though. We always want to beat those people. But we don't hate them like we do, say, Bucs fans. And Atlanta, for all its faults, still isn't Dallas.

Update: Looks like that Gambit link no longer has the correct video. Here's what was there originally.