Louisiana Election Results

Jalila Jefferson-Bullock lost the election. Could it be that her father's misdeeds played a factor in the voters' decision? Una Anderson lost to Walker Hines. I would hate to hear that voters were swayed by anything convicted felon Stan "Pampy" Barre had to say.

Another Report of a Noose Incident

Thousands of black Americans marched around the U.S. Justice Department on Friday to protest what they described as heavy-handed law enforcement and a reluctance to prosecute racially motivated crimes.

Chants of "no justice, no peace" and "fired up, can't take it no more" echoed off the monumental government buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue as an overwhelmingly black crowd of about 10,000 circled the department's Washington headquarters.

Civil rights leaders organized the march after a spate of incidents in which blacks have been harassed with nooses, a symbol of racist lynchings.


Meanwhile, a Slidell city employee is under investigation by city officials and the FBI after he apparently hung a paper figure from a crudely constructed noose on city property following a disagreement with his African-American supervisor.

The employee evidently created the makeshift noose -- fashioned from electrical wire hanging in an old work barn on Bayou Lane -- before the hearing took place, Morris said. He used white paper to make a paper doll to hang from the noose, Morris said.

The FBI visited the barn Thursday morning and interviewed several employees, said Morris, who met with investigators. Sheila Thorn, a special agent in the agency's New Orleans office, confirmed Friday that the FBI is looking into "an incident involving a noose" to determine whether it warrants further federal investigation.

National League of Cities Held In New Orleans

The National League of Cities' conference began yesterday, in the City of New Orleans. President Bart Peterson, the mayor of Indianapolis, opened the conference by "saying local governments emerged as the nation's pre-eminent policy incubators starting in the 1990s: the era when a standoff between President Clinton and a Republican Congress resulted in a government shutdown."

More than 3,500 mayors, city managers and council members from around the country arrived in New Orleans this week to swap ideas about common interests, from highway congestion to aging public infrastructure to the recent slump in the housing market.

Through a series of neighborhood workshops and bus tours, they also tried to soak up lessons from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and other city leaders on how to plan for and recover from disasters.

Visiting leaders were attuned to the disasters that can erupt when government fails to maintain its infrastructure: not only roads and highways but also the levees that failed in New Orleans and the interstate highway bridge that collapsed this past summer in Minnesota.

The conference continues today with appearances from high-profile speakers such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former chairmen of the Republican and Democratic national committees. Donald Powell, the president's Gulf Coast recovery czar, will speak Saturday.

Who Owns The City's Landfills?

Something smelly is going on again concerning contracts signed in the waning period of Marc Morial's administration. It appears that private owners bought some of the land, however, the City of New Orleans, under Morial's administration trumped their ownership that has now resulted in a civil lawsuit. According to the Times Picayune:

The current landfill's origins date to 2001, when a nearby construction dump -- the AMID Landfill, also operated by Stumpf -- was nearing capacity.

Saying New Orleans needed a facility that could accept construction debris, officials in Mayor Marc Morial's administration proposed opening a new landfill partly atop a city dump that had closed nearly two decades before.

At the time, City Hall claimed to own the land in question. When the city sought a state permit for the landfill in 2002, City Hall officials attested to the city's ownership.

In 2001, Stumpf and Woods formed a joint venture and submitted the only proposal to operate the new facility. In the final days of the Morial administration in early 2002, they signed a deal under which -- provided the landfill received a state permit -- they would keep 97 percent of the proceeds, with the city getting the other 3 percent.

It would be more than three years before the facility opened, shortly after Hurricane Katrina, when officials from the state Department of Environmental Quality gave it emergency authorization to begin accepting debris. It soon became the busiest debris depot in the state, taking in as much as 100,000 cubic yards of construction waste on some days.

Let's see how this play out. Will it result in possible other revelations about Morial's cronies dipping their hands in the city's coffers? I do smell scandal.

Prosecutors Ask Court To Uphold Skilling's Conviction

Prosecutors want to keep former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling behind bars, without retrying any part of his case, and did not give an inch in the reply they filed to Skilling's appeal today.

The Department of Justice filed a 218-page reply to the appeal of Skilling, who is serving a 24-year prison sentence in Minnesota on 19 convictions of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors at Enron.

Skilling was found guilty by a Houston jury in 2006 and appealed his conviction to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September. He argued that prosecutors sought to criminalize normal business practices and overreached in prosecutions relating to the fall of Enron.

Skilling's multi-faceted appeal included arguments that the government had a faulty theory in claiming Skilling denied Enron his "honest services," that the judge gave improper jury instructions, that the sentence is excessive and that the case should not have been tried in Houston, where the company imploded.

The Justice Department's fraud section disagreed with all those contentions in its response today, written by San Francisco-based prosecutor Douglas Wilson. The government argued that a court decision on "honest services" in another case does not mean Skilling's convictions should be reversed.

Skilling was tried with former Enron Chairman Ken Lay in part because they shared the conspiracy charge. Lay died six weeks after their four-month trial ended in convictions for both of them. Lay's record was later wiped clean.

Houston Police Are Looking For A Serial Kller

There is a serial killer, on the loose, here in Houston. Several nude victims have been discovered over the past 22 months. Most of the victims' bodies were found dumped near churches, in Acres Homes.

The slayings have spurred one of the most intensive homicide investigations in Houston history, filling seven 4-inch-thick binders and yielding a 695-page report. But investigators say the hunt has become a roller coaster ride of frustration and 18-hour work days.

The women lived in a shadowy, secretive world, where their final movements are extremely difficult to trace and witnesses reluctant to step forward.

Cactus Records Reopens In Houston

A longtime hotspot for Texas and regional musicians -- and a beacon for their fans -- has reopened with some of the same faces.

Except for ownership and location, little has changed at Cactus Records, which reopened Saturday. Quinn Bishop, who managed the old store, is an owner of the new.

The independent music boutique sells all types of music, but it specializes in Texas music and focuses on providing a venue for local and regional musicians. The 6,000-square-foot shop sits in a shopping strip just a few blocks from the original.

After owners of the original store, Bud and Don Daily, retired and shut down the business in March 2006, they gave the naming rights to Bishop, who had worked at the store for 20 years.

He is now one of four owners. In addition, most of the old staff has returned.

Judge Harassed Woman For Years

Here in Houston, it was reported recently how a district judge had been sexually harassing a woman for years:

Family and friends of a federal court employee whose sexual misconduct complaint led to the suspension of U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent told a newspaper that Kent repeatedly harassed the woman over four years, including allegations of improper touching.

Those include the alleged assault in March that began an investigation ending with the September reprimand against Kent by a federal panel, a rare disciplinary action against a federal judge.

The reprimand by the Judicial Council of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals includes no details of the complaint. But in a story published Sunday by the Houston Chronicle, people close to the alleged victim described in detail the alleged groping in an office room.

It probably took her a long time to convince someone that this was happening. People tend to look at a person's position and then reaching an erroneous conclusion that since that person holds a certain position, they could not possibly be guilty of what they have been accused of.

Looking back on Huey Long

With everything that has been in the news lately concerning politics in Louisiana, I decided to step back in time. I found this excerpt in Times. It sort of reminded me of the charges of today. Enjoy!!!

Days passed and Louisianans waited —waited for their Governor Huey P. Long to deny charges leveled at him publicly in the papers of Col. Robert Ewing, Democratic National Committeeman from Louisiana. The charges which Governor Long was challenged to deny read:

"First—That Governor Long frequently appears in New Orleans in public resorts and engages in drunken debauches.

"Second—That Governor Long is a visitor to the so-called studios of New Orleans.

"Third—That Governor Long plays the role of the singing fool in cabarets and other places.

"Fourth—That Governor Long's bedfellow and inseparable companion is Mr. James Brocato, alias 'Jimmie' Moran, keeper of notorious speakeasies, pal of gamblers and convicted lawbreaker."

All last week Louisianans waited in vain.

"The Big Easy"

visit videodetective.com for more info

The Big Easy is an American neo-noir film released in 1987, directed by Jim McBride and written by Daniel Petrie Jr. It was later a television series for two seasons on the USA Network (1996-1997).

The picture was executive produced by Mort Engelberg and the cinematographer was done by Affonso Beato.

The film stars Dennis Quaid, Ellen Barkin, John Goodman, and Ned Beatty.

It tells the story of how New Orleans detective Remy McSwain (Quaid) and Louisiana district attorney Anne Osborne (Barkin) investigate mob violence, possible police corruption, and in the process learn to deal with their very different personalities.

The action takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana and was shot on location.

World's Most Expensive Dessert Unveiled

I know I have told all of you about Dina K. who spends a fortune on paid chat lines trying to find her prince. What she found, however, was GPAMP, the convicted burglar for whom she paid his bail. There are rumors that she view herself as a fine piece of white chocolate, although she is one big glob of fat. She brags about loving chocolate. Her pseudonym is 'Dina K. does chocolate'. She dreams of owning the most expensive piece. Well, here it is Dina K. Do you think you can afford it?




World's most expensive dessert unveiled in New York goes straight into the Guinness Book of Records.

The $25,000 "Frrrozen Haute Chocolate" has officially become the most expensive dessert on the planet.

The indulgent delicacy is being offered at Serendipity 3 Restaurant in New York City's Upper East Side.

The dessert is made with a blend of 28 rare and exotic cocoas from around the world, whipped cream, black truffle shavings, and 23 karat edible gold.