Wednesday January 25, 2012
C'est Bon
The nine local civic groups that came together to bring education talks to the forefront in Lafayette Parish over the last couple of years may soon have an new (and old) member of its team. Lafayette Parish School System Superintendent Dr. Pat Cooper tells The Ind that LPSS rejoining the Lafayette Parish Education Stakeholders Council is a “no brainer.”
Pas Bon
As expected by the state Department of Health and Hospitals, the “Bayou Health” privatized Coordinated Care Network for privatizing Medicaid in Louisiana is off to a rough start.
Couillon
State Rep. Joel Robideaux, R-Lafayette, the recently appointed chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee and senior member of the Lafayette delegation at the Capitol, stunned no small number of local Republicans including, according to sources, several friends over the weekend when he came out in support of Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s long-shot bid to win the GOP presidential nomination.
Wednesday January 18, 2012
C'est Bon
Louisiana Plating and Coatings, a newly formed subsidiary of Houston Plating and Coatings, is building a $9 million oil and gas manufacturing facility in Scott slated to open later this year.
Pas Bon
Saturday’s NFC divisional round playoff game between the Saints and the 49ers in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park will go down in the annals of pro football history as one of the greatest playoff games ever. For 9ers fans.
Couillon
If you’ve ever seen the website People of Walmart, you know pajamas are perfectly acceptable attire for shopping at the mega-chain. Shreveport politician Michael Williams didn’t get the memo.
Wednesday January 11, 2012
C'est Bon
Lafayette Parish School System Superintendent Pat Cooper noticed something was missing as he reviewed the agenda and related documents for his first board meeting on Jan. 4: Included in the personnel reports was a list of administrative contracts up for renewal by the board — with no performance evaluations attached.
Pas Bon
By today — Wednesday, Jan. 11 — former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer is probably figuring out his exit strategy from the field for the Republican presidential nomination, if he hasn’t already announced his departure.
Couillon
There are still prime fishing areas closed due to oil contamination.
Wednesday January 4, 2012
C'est Bon
Lafayette Parish Clerk of Court Louis Perret is questionable for Saturday night’s Saints-Lions game with a strained hamstring.
Pas Bon
If possible air pollution and groundwater contamination weren’t enough to red-flag fracking, now come earthquakes rumbling into the picture.
Couillon
When Professor John Oller filed suit against UL recently we got a look at the dark side of university tenure: keeping nutty professors on staff despite the adverse effect they can have on impressionable students.
Wednesday December 21, 2011
C'est Bon
Records, like rules, are made to be broken, and the Ragin’ Cajuns minced several UL and New Orleans Bowl records on their way to Saturday’s epic, come-from-behind win over San Diego State.
Pas Bon
Lafayette Parish School Board member Rae Trahan’s indifference toward the superintendent search was duly noted in November when she failed to attend a single interview of the top 10 candidates for LPSS superintendent.
Couillon
The idea behind smart meters — electric and water meters that allow the utility company to remotely read residential and commercial usage — is two-fold: make the utility company more efficient and allow utility customers to keep better tabs on their usage.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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