La La Land

Thursday’s Blogs from the Bog

David Vitter has a real chance in this race.

David up for a Duke

David Vitter has been nominated for two Golden Dukes, TPM's nod to "the year's best purveyors of public corruption, outlandish behavior and The Crazy." Vitter has some stiff competition in the categories Best Scandal—Sex and Generalized Carnality and Best Scandal—General Interest for his prostitution scandal and the arrest of his private eye for spying. Although he is not the only person up for a multiple, he is the only one from Louisiana with such an honor. Doing us proud, Dave!

Cemetery is Calling

No idea what the point of this is, but here you can leave a button in the Campaign Graveyard for those quitting the presidential race. Just click on the tombstone of your favorite and your tiny button is added to the heap. And, of course, Bobby Jindal has the least buttons. And that is with me clicking on him to see if it worked.

On the Rise!

A couple national rankings about education came out this week and four local schools received high marks in public education. The Early College Academy was the only school in Lafayette Parish to receive a bronze ranking in the U.S. News and World Report's best schools in the nation, while three Vermilion Parish schools - Abbeville High, Erath High and Gueydan High - took the same honor. Also, Louisiana ranked 10th - tied with Oklahoma - in the nation when it came to policies supporting strong charter schools. Louisiana's education doing well leaves me so perplexed, I can't even make a pithy comment about it.

You Call Those Reasons?

From the "Do We Have To?" file: Louisiana hayride gives us four "very interesting" reasons to watch the upcoming race for David Vitter's senate seat. It's mostly about who will run, so it is four reasons that are anything but "very interesting."

Oil is Back, Baby!

If you thought that whole fossil fuels = bad summit in Paris was a death knell for our economy, here's some bright news: Congress may lift the ban on American oil exports, in place since the 1970s. This would - hopefully - offset some of the 100,000 energy sector jobs cut this year and possibly create 5,400 new jobs in Louisiana. This is is great news! Oh, wait ... we lost more than 7,000 ... so ... yayish?