Round Robineer

Bush annoints 50-year-old youngin John Roberts to the Supreme Court. His politics tells you where he stands on most issues. The only question I have is where does he come down on "enemy combatants" being held down in Gitmo? Security in the face of terrorism will be the most significant issue in the next 25 years. It all comes down to private rights vs. public rights. That's the only questions Democrats might be able to fight this appointment on since Senate Republicans have a majority of votes.

Across the country and right here in Looweezieanna, polticians and their co-horts took a hint from the negative newspaper articles about National Whatever Conference in Hawaii: Don't go. It's a waste of taxpayer dollars. Even corrupt New Olreans had sense enough to only send one person. 21 St. Charles Parish officials, however, must not have read the paper this year. Everybody in government went, it seems. Even the parish Director of the Retired Services Volunteer Program went. Which brings up another question. Why is there a director for this program? Shouldn't it be a volunteer by definition?

I see the Queen Bee vetoed several spending bills, such as a $60,000 per year Oil City museum director's job. Only the vetos didn't go far enough. What about the health care payments to legislators like Joe McPhearson and Mike Michot, who both own health-care related companies. Chew the fat governor, then spit it out.

You gotta love animated Weather Channel anchor/meterologist Stephanie Abrams, waving her hands and giving War-like commentary about Hurricane Dennis. "Someone is going to take it on the chin" and "Someone is going to get nailed" she says just before going to commercials. Of course, Hurricane Dennis is serious. Two people in Pensacola have already been killed. One woman had a heart attack in a shelter and a boy was killed in a car accident as his family was evacuating, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

On Friday, as Hurricane Dennis struck Cuba, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard wrongly called for an evacuation of the WHOLE parish. Why not just the lower part of the parish, i.e., Grand Isle and Lafitte. No wonder people don't know who to listen to prior to a major hurricane coming. Rightly, people go with their gut feelings on these things, and not officials. The prediction is when the next big one comes and Aaron calls for an evacuation, people won't bother to listen to him. He says he wanted the hords of people to avoid traffic nightmares of Hurricane Ivan last year. He might have been a bit gun shy given the mess created by state police for Ivan. Of course, most people listened to Jim Cantori predict correctly that Dennis was headed to the Florida Panhandle.

Here's an e-mail floating around the Internet that made it into my in-box. I don't know who the author is. Do we ever know who the author is of these kinds of e-mails. Sounds like a good idea, though.

"SOCIAL SECURITY:
(This is worth reading. It is short and to the point.)

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.
Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.
You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.
In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.
For all practical purposes their plan works like this:
When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.
Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments..
This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries. For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives.
Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.
Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA....ZILCH....
This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds;
"OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK"!
From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into,-every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer)-we can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement.
Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator! Bill Bradley's benefits!
Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.
That change would be to:
Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us.
then sit back.....
and watch how fast they would fix it."

The Senate approved CAFTA, which benefits rice farmers in Louweezieanna because our friends south of the border don't grow rice, but hurts the many family run sugar cane farms because there's a lot of sweet gold in Central America. Both Landrieu and Vitter voted against CAFTA. Now it goes to the House in August, where our Reps will vote against it also, and where it has a slim chance of getting defeated. But in the end, cheaper imports ultimately means better prices for consumers, but the eventual loss of family farms in the Pelican State. Seems like the sugar lobby ain't what it use to be. Maybe we should put tolls up in Lake Charles to collect a fee on all of the imports that will be flowing east on I-10 to Yankee land.

Ok, President Bush, we know we're making progress in building schools, health clinics, supplying water and electricity to homes and all of the other infrastructure things that can happen if taxpayer money is poured onto a dirt road. The troops coming home tell us this is happening.
But if we are making progress in stopping the insurgency, which is what you implied over and over again in your speech tonight, stop lying. As of this moment in history, the insurgency is killing more people than ever, though not Americans but Iraqis.
We (Americans) believe in your call for freedom for Iraqis, Mr. President, but don't lie to us. That's how we got into this in the first place. Because the lies are building up, the trust by Americans in your call to action is falling.

Where are these bombs coming from that the terrorist use in Iraq and Afganistan? Seems to me that we are trying to fight individual insurgents instead of the source of the insurgency, which is the maker and suppliers of the bombs. Are these bombs from Syria, Iran, Palestine? And who is getting rich from making these bomb parts. American forces, in our declaration of war against terrorism anywhere in the world, should follow the money and go after the makers of the bombs.

In Jefferson Davis Parish, a second woman has been found dead in or near a body of water south of Jennings in the past month, the Lake Charles American Press reports. The first woman, Lynn Chaisson Lewis, 29, of Jennings, was found May 20. There are no suggestions of physical injuries to her. But the second woman, found partially nude early Saturday morning, had obvious physical injuries, Sheriff Ricky Edwards said. This is interesting, but if I had family and friends in Jennings, I wouldn't be worried just yet. Now, if a third body is found in the next month or two without any clues, I'm gonna start to worry.

Both the Advocate and the Times-Pic report on the new hurricane evaucation plan with a new map available. The new plan, I'm sure is good, but I don't think the plan, or lack of one, during Hurricane Ivan was the problem. Everybody knows you've got to get people out of the saucer cup of New Orleans by opening all lanes of traffic to flow out, not into the city. For Hurricane Ivan, N.O. area officials begged state police to start the contraflow plan, but state police waited and waited to make the call, then had to play catch up in getting troopers in position. The plan was not the problem, it was the execution. Sort of like the Saints for most of the past 39 years. It was the small problems that made the plan worse. Red lights were turned green up and down Highway 90, but small town cops along the way gave tickets to people trying to get out of town. Then once people were on the highway, there was no place to go, except the parking lot of Wal-Marts along the way.
In the Advocate article, officials lay blame on the people getting out of town for slow traffic: "Problems that slowed traffic during Ivan included breakdowns and signs that were too hard to read, forcing drivers to slow excessively" The solution: Put tow trucks on the highways to drag people's cars away. Give me a break.
Fine, you have a new map, a new plan. Now execute the darn thing state police.
Go to the Times-Pic Web site to find out where to get the map and plan: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1119076097174710.xml

This would have never happened back in the day. The Daily Advertiser reports that Candy Edwards, former wife of former Gov. Edwin Edwards, was pulled over in Port Barre Friday night for speeding and driving with a suspended license. She was arrested and booked into jail after telling the officer she would not be arrested, that she would have the officer's job, walking away from the officer while being handcuffed, and trying to make a call on a cell phone while in the back seat of the cruiser, though the article doesn't exactly explain how that was attempted. Driving on Highway 190 west through the speed traps of Port Barre, she had to be headed to visit Mr. Innocence himself in the federal pen in Oakdale, less than an hour up the same highway.
The Port Barre police chief threw down the gauntlet, but saying he is going to back his officer on this arrest.
We'll find out now how much stroke the ex-governor still has left in him after he finds out about this. I'm sure Edwins friend, attorney Mike Fawer will come to her aide. But at some point, you gotta believe a legislator, a councilman or some state bureaucrat is going to try to withhold funding from the police department, or misplace a grant application. The officer might not get fired, but remember this is Louisiana, the town police department is going to suffer somehow.
Look for the Free Candy bumper stickers now alongside the Free Edwin stickers.