>The judge who overturned the Obama Administration’s six-month deepwater drilling moratorium which affects just 33 rigs in the Gulf of Mexico should have recused himself from the case:
According to Feldman’s 2008 financial disclosure form, posted online by Judicial Watch [pdf], the judge owned stock in Transocean, as well as five other companies that are either directly or indirectly involved in the offshore drilling business.
It’s not surprising that Feldman, who is a judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana, has invested in the offshore drilling business—an AP investigation found earlier this month that more than half the federal judges in the districts affected by the BP spill have financial ties to the oil and gas industry.
Doesn’t bode well for any future lawsuits on this.
Remember people: the moratorium affects just 33 rigs. Hundreds are still operating in the Gulf of Mexico. The industry has not come to a grinding halt, fearmongering about economic destruction and job loss and all the rest are completely overplayed. It’s the oil barons trying to show their muscle.
Thirty-three rigs, people. All of this fearmongering and lawsuits are over 33 rigs.
Southern Beale 
>For me, Louisianas official reaction to this oil disaster is the same as if somebody found their beloved mother dead of an overdose of heroin, lying on the living room floor with a needle in her arm and all I could think about was getting around her stiffening body to get back on the street to score some more heroin. As a culture, our values are down there around our ankles somewhere.
>Workaround for tech problem with visual verification:Is anyone else having difficulty seeing the word verification? This was happening to me on another blog as well. You get a little box in the corner of the box with a red x. You can't bring it up with right or left click. Nada.Just go ahead and send a preview without word verification. The silly word will come up in your error message, thereby allowing you to comment!