In the article offshore drilling is described as "happily prohibited and not worth much".

While offshore activity is prohibited for most of the US coastline, it is a huge industry along the US Gulf Coast from Texas to Alabama, operating there for 50+ years.

Re. "not worth much"; offshore oil production from the federal OCS (outer continental shelf) was ~492,000 bbls in 2007. At today's price of ~$140/bbl, this annual oil production would bring nearly 70 billion dollars. This is not including production from the state-controlled near-offshore waters -- the OCS generally begins ~ 3 miles from the shore.

As with any industrial activity there are risks associated with offshore oil developments, but recent performance in the offshore GOM has been good.

By the way, I agree with all of those screeching that "we can't drill our way out of this problem". But I am very pessimistic that we will solve it by conservation either. Or by solar, or wind, or nuclear, etc... The problem of meeting the world's energy demand over the next decades without disasterous environmental consequences is so difficult that every possible avenue needs to be seriously considered.

It seems to me that Governor Jindal is doing a much better job with Gustav than then-Governor Blanco did with Katrina. Of course Jindal has had the advantage of learning from a text-book case of what not to do.

On the other hand, yesterday I saw John McCain's statement about the hurricane and it seemed weak. His remarks weren't controversial, but he spoke in a near-mumble and kept repeating himself. He was more rambling than inspirational.

Should the news about Bristol Palin really be mentioned at the the same level as Gustav?

This is an insult to the two million of us who have been enduring hardship over the last few days as we deal with the hurricane.

Daunte Culpepper to be picked up by the Pats, reuniting him with Randy Moss????

Hoping against hope that my alma mater, NDSU, can pull off the upset vs. Kansas.

NDSU is actually a good place to get a reasonably priced college education in a nice town (Fargo). You just have to accept some -20F days in December, January, February, and sometimes March.

Only 3 pts down with 11 minutes to go!

Please note that this ridiculous suit was brought by Mississippi Gulf Coast landowners -- a different group than "New Orleans losers", or poor blacks in the ninth ward.

Seems like several here are guilty of disregarding this fact in their haste to abuse New Orleans.

I can't understand the current fashion of having always-on flat-screen TV's scattered throughout office building hallways, airports, malls, etc. Usually they are tuned to CNN or Fox, and rarely is anyone actually watching them.

Could someone explain? To me this is mystifyingly wasteful.