From Bob Novak’s most recent Evans-Novak Political Report (bolds on names are Novak’s; others are mine):

Louisiana: Louisiana Republicans are aggressively working to scare former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) away from making the governor’s race, and with good reason. Breaux would have an excellent chance against the putative Republican candidate, Rep. Bobby Jindal (R), and most of the other potential candidates would not.

Breaux’s problem is the tough five-year state citizenship requirement for gubernatorial candidates. There is now a bipartisan request pending in front of State Atty. Gen. Charles Foti for an opinion on Breaux’s residency.

Breaux, currently a lobbyist, claims residency in Maryland and Washington, D.C., and registered to vote in Maryland. Depending on whether the law is taken seriously or not, Breaux would basically need to receive special treatment to be an eligible candidate in the race. Republicans note that Breaux would not qualify for an in-state hunting license or in-state tuition at LSU. His claim of the D.C. homestead exemption could even pose legal questions aside from the governor’s race.

Republicans are not letting anyone hear the end of this…..

Sounds familiar, eh?

Republicans shouldn’t let anyone hear the end of this. It would appear, based on the details provided, that Breaux has made his bed, and his living (and most likely, very big money– see last item at link) in the Beltway, and therefore has no right to act as if he never left the Bayou State for much greener pastures. Hopefully, unlike someone else (more here and here), Breaux, despite his supposed strength as a candidate, will get a grip on reality and avoid turning the governor’s race into an embarrassing spectacle.

Louisianans should be choosing exclusively between or among candidates who can actually, and legally, call their state home.

I don’t agree with the Times’ concession in its editorial from today that climate change is a serious issue (a previous post shows why I’m just not buying it), but it certainly does a good job of calling out the hysterical opportunists (bolds are mine):

Every group is entitled to lobby hard for its cause. But to jump on a band-wagon and blame everything on climate change is neither good science nor sound lobbying. China’s deserts have been threatening its cities for hundreds of years. Africa cannot be simultaneously threatened by endless droughts and by a rapid increase in malaria. Children are threatened by global warming, but they have also been helped by the economic development that some lobbyists seem to regard as a criminal activity. Tens of millions of children in India and China who would have died 30 years ago are not dying because increased wealth (i.e., capitalism — Ed.) has brought better food, cleaner water and improved access to healthcare.

Companies and individuals have a responsibility to examine their behaviour and reduce their impact on the planet. But that self-examination should be rational and real and not debased by left-leaning fear-mongers, whose social agendas are recipes for impoverishment and hardship.

The real danger of the zealots is that they brook no argument. This does not mean that scientists should take a myopic view of figures that point to danger, such as the rise in carbon dioxide levels to about 380 parts per million, far exceeding the “natural” range for the past 650,000 years. But even to ask what is the natural range is regarded as some sort of heresy, and to ask questions about the precise contribution of anthropogenic influences is to commit a thought crime. There have already been examples of environmental scientists hounded out of their jobs for daring to question the prevailing orthodoxy. The IPCC summary is inevitably a political narrative, one in which each word and phrase will be endlessly and selectively parsed by the likes of Greenpeace and friends.

The planet deserves the benefit of the doubt. Climate change is serious and must be a political priority. But the arguments must be subject to free and rigorous debate and the facts separated from fanciful predictions — the environment is too important to be bequeathed to the hysterical.

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UPDATE, April 8: A little more in the way of sane analysis — at last.

On Easter Weekend, it seems very fitting to link to a two-part series about how two Long Beach, California police officers were heroically, and miraculously, saved last December:

• Officer Down!
• Miracle at Memorial: Medical crews battle the odds to save two wounded cops