Memo To Gulf Coast: Heed The Warnings

The latest hurricane in the 2008 season, Hurricane Gustav, is tearing through Haiti and Cuba, but is expected to make landfall somewhere along the Gulf Coast some time next week. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is already warning his residents to be aware and prepared for the possibility of landfall or the need to evacuate.

In a news conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he could declare a state of emergency by Thursday and warned residents to be prepared.

"Be ready, now's the time to review your plans," Jindal said. "This is a serious storm."

Gustav triggered flooding and landslides that killed at least 11 people before weakening to a tropical storm, but forecasters said Wednesday it's still a major threat to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

That means that oil rigs in the Gulf may have to shut down to avoid damage and to evacuate the rigs in advance of the storm. It also means that energy prices will increase as the market takes into account lower supply.

We're about to find out whether the Gulf Coast has learned anything in the three years since Katrina made landfall.

Jindal may miss the GOP Convention if Gustav hits along the Gulf Coast, but that should be the least of his concerns right now. He's got to make sure that state and local officials, including New Orleans Mayor "Whiplash" Ray Nagin, don't replay the absolute disaster of a state and local response that made the situation in Katrina as bad as it was.

For all the talk about how slowly the federal government responded, the problem started first and foremost with a wholly inadequate and feeble state and local response that didn't even bother to utilize resources on hand, such as buses in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool.

That means he's got to be on top of the situation in New Orleans and make sure that they evacuate and have the necessary equipment and personnel in place to respond. It means being proactive instead of reactive, incompetent, and tentative as Gov. Blanco was.

Jammie has more.

UPDATE:
For those following Hurricane Gustav, the GFDL model has it pretty much hitting Louisiana dead on. Most of the other models are also predicting a hit on Louisiana. However, Brendan Loy points out that several meteorologists and models are showing Gustav slowing and/or stalling, which makes predicting landfall more difficult.

UPDATE:
Whiplash Nagin was interviewed by CNN tonight about the preparedness of the city in case Gustav makes landfall in or near NOLA. He says all the right things, but the fact is that this highlights how criminally negligent he was in 2005 when he didn't do anything until it was too late, and even then dawdled while his residents suffered immeasurably from his failings. To this day, I still don't get how and why New Orleans residents ever reelected him.

Extraordinarily Bad Law

This past Friday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) signed into law more than 70 pieces of legislation. None raised more eyebrows than one innocuously entitled the Louisiana Science Education Act. The bill was approved by the legislature by near unanimous consent. The House passed the final version 94-3. The Senate passed this bill 35-0.

With that kind of background, you would think that this law wouldn't be all that controversial. Yet, it opens the door to all manner of chicanery and may actually result in students being misinformed about various concepts than enlighten them.

Jindal signed it into law, despite people having serious concerns about the real purpose of the law. For starters, here's what the law, SB 733, says:

A. The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, upon request of a city, parish, or other local public school board, shall allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.

B. Such assistance shall include support and guidance for teachers regarding effective ways to help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied, including those enumerated in Paragraph (1) of this Subsection.

C. A teacher shall teach the material presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, as permitted by the city, parish, or other local public school board unless otherwise prohibited by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

D. This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.

E. The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and each city, parish, or other local public school board shall adopt and promulgate the rules and regulations necessary to implement the provisions of this Section prior to the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year.

The way it is worded does open up a whole can of worms, but not only on the issue of evolution, but on global warming, or any other issue for that matter. Whether you choose to believe in intelligent design, creationism, or evolution, is entirely up to you, but this law opens up the door to allow any and all materials to be used to supplement existing approved school materials.

It allows junk science to enter the classroom in the name of supplemental materials. Heck, a teacher could argue that The Inconvenient Truth is a useful educational tool to teach about ecology, the environment, and global warming. A geography teacher could bring in a Flat Earther to teach geology. A chemistry or physics teacher could bring in Rosie O'Donnell to talk about how steel can't be melted by fire.

Those may be extreme examples, but this law, as written, opens the door to those kinds of activities.

And it can work on any subject - in any direction. It could bring in supplemental materials you agree with or oppose, but therein lies the problem. How exactly are these materials vetted and what is considered acceptable. The law doesn't exactly spell it out, leaving it up to the school districts to decide.

For example, you might find that intelligent design is perfectly acceptable and should be taught alongside evolution in a biology class, but what about when the same school teacher uses An Inconvenient Truth to teach earth science, a concept that you oppose and consider junk science.

This law means that unless the state is going to entertain a whole new bureaucracy to determine acceptable materials, you're going to end up with a whole bunch of junk in the trunk. And each jurisdiction may come up to completely different results.

This bill opens the door for chicanery from all sides, not just on intelligent design. It opens up the teaching of various subjects to junk science - in the name of providing supplemental materials.

While I understand the general desire by Jindal and the legislature to do something to help Louisiana students learn, this law obfuscates the matter by allowing just about anything to enter the classroom in the name of supplemental materials. Of course, one has to wonder how is that any different than the current mess that Louisiana (or anywhere else) is in as this law may be little more than a codification of already existing practices, in which case the state of education is in worse shape than we can imagine.

The GOP VP Whispering Campaign Names Bobby Jindal

Can you say McCain-Jindal? It doesn't quite roll off the tongue just yet, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal isn't exactly a household name, but he has started to clean up the mess that is Louisiana.

It might be a bit too soon for him, but he's got more accomplished in his short term as governor than either Obama or Clinton - and has leadership as an executive, which neither Democrat can mention.

Jindal won election in largely Democrat controlled Louisiana after Democrat Kathleen Blanco completely botched the preparations for Hurricane Katrina and then screwed Louisianans by wailing that all that went wrong was the fault of others - particularly the feds, when state and local response in Louisiana was pitiful and could be summed up with the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool where New Orleans Mayor Nagin complained that there weren't buses to take New Orleans residents to safety despite the fact that hundreds of buses were found sitting in their depots submerged after the levees broke. Blanco failed to issue necessary warnings to get state and local emergency response systems activated that would trigger federal assistance prior to the hurricane hitting, and the people of Louisiana truly wanted change.

Jindal has come in as a breath of fresh air and sought to clean up the ethical and moral morass of Louisiana politics, which includes graft, corruption, and overlooking basic needs like infrastructure (levees that failed because priorities didn't include ensuring that such facilities were properly constructed or maintained). He's not only the first Indian-American governor, but one of the youngest governors in the country.

It would certainly make an intriguing choice as McCain's vice president, but would it truly provide McCain with someone who provides the geographic assistance or cut into the demographics of his opponents, whether it is Obama or Clinton?

Good Luck Bobby J.

Today is a historic day in Louisiana. Bobby Jindal was sworn in as Governor of Louisiana. He's the first Indian-American governor in the US. He also happens to be a Republican. Pretty impressive stuff for a state that is a bastion for Democrats. And corrupt-a-crats.

He's got a huge task ahead of him. Gargantuan even.

He's got to help the state recover from Hurricane Katrina. It's as much about changing the mindset as hammers and nails and concrete and steel.

Louisiana politics is long known for being a wretched hive of scum and villany (eclipsing even New Jersey). Politicians in Louisiana are corrupt, inept and have done the people of Louisiana wrong for far too long. The mess that was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is living proof of the problems.

Jindal has made changing this his top priority.

"We have the opportunity — born of tragedy but embraced still the same — to make right decades of failure in government," Jindal said.

"In our past, too many politicians looked out for themselves. Too many arms of state and local government did not get results. And the world took note," the new governor said.

Jindal's election puts a new public face on Louisiana politics, often stereotyped as a haven for backslapping good 'ol boys who hold office for decades. The 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, Jindal is the nation's youngest sitting governor, and many of his top administrators are new to the halls of the Louisiana Capitol.

He takes over from Democrat Kathleen Blanco, who had defeated him four years earlier but whose image was battered by the state's response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. She did not seek re-election.

Blanco attended the inaugural ceremonies with three other former Louisiana governors. The state's only other living ex-governor is Edwin Edwards, who could not attend because he is serving a federal prison sentence on corruption charges.

I wish him luck. He's going to need it.