Editor can't fix problem unless acknowledging it

Last week, in a futile gesture, the New Orleans Times-Picayune (or NOLA.com, or whatever Advance Digital calls the outlet now) suffered a defensive wound regarding the publication’s ideological leanings.

Its editor Mark Lorando had written a column inviting reader comment about the newspaper’s performance. He followed it up with one addressing the comment, by far, most commonly made: that the paper has a liberal bias. Predictably, the headline read “Yes, we have an agenda. But it's not a liberal one.”

It’s always humorous to see newspapers try to deny the elephant in the room for most of them. A few actually have some balance, and a few others such as the New York Times admit they come off, if not actually, having a liberal bias to them. But the vast majority like Lorando insist over and over that they don’t – even when it’s painfully obvious that they do.

Bradberry letter adds to troubling report questions

If belatedly, the biggest scalded dog of them all, Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Johnny Bradberry, wrote a letter to the editor regarding my Jan. 29 column in the Baton Rouge Advocate that noted apparently politicized decision-making in constructing scenarios for the agency’s draft 2017 Coastal Master Plan. Rather than refute the column, it only raises more troubling questions about the quality of the decision-making process.

Bradberry’s letter largely stayed away from the inadequate argumentation, as already noted, made by previous letter writers defending the change in scenarios regarding sea level rise (SLR). In 2012, the team responsible for calculating SLR came up with essentially the 2017 range (31 to 198 cm), yet the CPRA postulated scenarios (100, 150, and 200 cm) where the highest SLR level of 2012 (100 cm) became the lowest of 2017 and the highest of 2017 doubled the highest of 2012. The science (as unreliable as SLR calculations are historically) had not changed, yet the CPRA chose dramatically higher SLR assumptions, which would indicate politics interceded to explain the change.

Instead, Bradberry’s effort started off with a straw man, incorrectly claiming the column said that “increased sea-level rise predictions for Louisiana’s coast are somehow motivated by election of Gov. John Bel Edwards and not by science.” He either needs to work on his reading comprehension or take off his partisan blinders: the column only stated that the Edwards Administration brought an ethos more supportive of big government that would lend itself to a more alarmist view on significant anthropogenic climate change and that Edwards had appointed the majority of members to the CPRA (among them Bradberry). It never stated that SLR forecasts used did not have a basis in science, as unreliable as those have been.

LA religious leaders opine unwisely on order

Religious leaders face a central challenge in converting articles of faith to everyday practice in politics. Unfortunately, some of these individuals in Louisiana recently flunked that test in evaluating travel restrictions ordered by Pres. Donald Trump.

The executive order temporarily halts refugee admissions for 120 days to improve the vetting process, then caps refugee admissions at 50,000 per year; imposes a temporary, 90-day ban on people entering the U.S. from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen – “countries of concern” identified by the former Pres. Barack Obama Administration as threats to attempt to export terrorism to the U.S.; and puts an indefinite hold on admitting Syrian refugees to the United States until the Trump Administration confirms that refugee admission procedures do not threaten U.S. security. It applies no religious test and allows significant exceptions for individuals from religious sects undergoing persecution and for individuals who entry would serve the national interest.

In substance, even as in details some significant differences exist, policy promulgated by the order differs little from Obama Administration policy until two years ago. Before 2015, almost no Syrian refugees came into the U.S. annually, large numbers of refugees did not attempt to come to the U.S. after spending extended periods in countries with jihadist conflict zones, and the number of refugees admitted per year was around the 50,000 level. In 2016, enhanced vetting began regarding the seven countries.

Critics fail to exonerate report from politicization

Stuck pigs squeal, scalded dogs yelp, or insert another folksy phrase to describe the reaction to my Jan. 29 column in the Baton Rouge Advocate, with arguments made from the unconvincing to the incomprehensible.

The column took issue with the validity and reliability of the science behind some estimates used of sea level rise (SLR), which actually served as ancillary to the larger point – despite very similar forecasts in the 2012 and 2017 versions of its Coastal Master Plan, Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority accepted drastically higher levels of SLR in the report’s formulation. The piece briefly noted problems in some of the studies used to assume those levels that would occur by 2100. Notably, it pointed out that the panel’s composition has changed dramatically in the interim, with Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards appointing a majority of its members.

This piqued the interest of the lead author, outgoing head of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Donald Boesch, of one of the studies used. In a letter to the editor, he agreed that the 198 cm SLR maximum in the report was “unlikely, at least during this century, based on my appraisal of the latest science,” although opining that lower estimates on which the report based conclusions seemed serious enough.

The Advocate column, Feb. 5, 2016

Lawmakers have good bargaining hand
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_dabd442a-e977-11e6-a4cb-d3c48d397b1e.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_947d20bc-324c-5d7b-abe7-0317a1f440b3.html
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/06/louisiana_budget_fallout.html
http://gov.la.gov/news/gov-edwards-special-address-to-the-state
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=997207
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=992327

New LA political party faces same old irrelevance

The nature of American politics is such that, despite history indicating otherwise, occasionally people think a meaningful party other that the two major parties will come along. The delusion continues in Louisiana, where some activists imagine they can create a significant third force.

Until a couple of years ago, state law prohibited any recognized political party with the name “Independent,” even as people registering to vote could put down that label for a party affiliation. When state law changed to lift that ban, over 50,000 registrants existed under that moniker (reflected in their registrations as “other”), but had no party to call home.

Now they do, sort of. A pair of individuals claiming refugee status from the major parties have petitioned for recognition of a new party under Louisiana law, termed “Independent.” Being as it takes only a thousand registrants under that label and $1,000 filing fee, its joining the two major parties and three minor parties as official seems inevitable, even as the founders disclaim they have formed a political party, preferring to call themselves “anti-party.”

LA should not enable EBRPSS special snowflakes

Looks like a blizzard has hit the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, as educators complain about heavy rain nearly six months ago making it too hard to do their jobs.

Some personnel from displaced schools as a result of record August flooding allege that their elementary school pupils remain traumatized long after the fact, freaking out whenever it rains. So scarred, in fact, that they deserve a pass from the state in taking online standardized tests. They also argue that less ability to get students familiar with the online format also contributes to the necessity of cancelling the testing.

Boo-hoo. In 1979, less than a month before classes began, my hometown Alvin, TX, suffered the greatest one-day rainfall amount in North American history, 43 inches in one part of town (it probably was only about 40 where we lived). Water reached 18 inches in my family's house, but we knew people whose houses went completely underwater.

Caddo Parish policy wins some, loses some

While one local media outlet rated Caddo Parish’s buyback of guns a “success,” by definition this effort failed for taxpayers.

Recently, the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s office, the Caddo Parish Commission and the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s office jointly sponsored such an event, which offered as much as $300 for the most lethal weapons and collected 41 weapons, consequently handing out 61 gift cards worth $3,050 in exchange. The no-questions-asked policy permits anonymous donations of firearms in an effort to get illegal guns off the streets, and the parish promises more of this to come.

Instead, authorities should drop the whole feel-good idea and save taxpayer dollars. For more than three decades, various jurisdictions have sponsored such events, allowing for numerous opportunities to evaluate this policy’s effectiveness. And the data conclude it does next-to-nothing to create positive critical outcomes.

Reaction to silly Edwards rumor provides real story

A recent non-story shed some light onto the growing bunker mentality of the Gov. John Bel Edwards Administration.

My colleagues at The Advocate took the bait when they witnessed exchanges between Richard Carbo, the Democrat governor’s spokesman, and the state’s Republican Party, over a rumor floated by a tabloid web site that attempts to cover Louisiana politics. The original “story” they referenced alleged that Edwards had put out feelers to switch to the GOP.

Republican state Chairman Roger Villere subsequently put out a statement eschewing any desire to have Edwards join the party. That went without saying: there’s no Republican politician in America, governor or otherwise, who has beat the drum consistently for bigger government, higher taxes, raising the minimum wage, and following the myth of pay disparity down the rabbit hole, among other things. It makes no sense why he would want to consort with people believing the opposite of these.

The Advocate column, Jan. 29, 2017

Cull questionable science from Coastal Master Plan, or reject it
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/jeff_sadow/article_858332fc-e3d8-11e6-a910-9b774e3d973f.html

Links:
http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/environment/article_78a423b2-de9b-11e6-a3f6-7bfd5d252633.html
http://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=672071
http://coastal.la.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/2017-MP-Book_2-page-spread_Combined_01.05.2017.pdf
http://jeffsadow.blogspot.com/2017/01/wacko-alarmists-miss-real-la-cpra.html
http://coastal.la.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Attachment_C2-1.pdf
https://wwwcfprd.doa.louisiana.gov/boardsandcommissions/viewMembers.cfm?board=432
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_8039e0da-7f91-11e6-879d-d3fd06250739.html
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/09-25-2013_-CCR-II-Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
http://coastal.la.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/DRAFT-FY-2018-Annual-Plan.pdf