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BATON ROUGE, LA (AP) - A ban on oil and gas drilling near interstate highways in Louisiana will continue for another month, Louisiana Commissioner of Conservation James Welsh decided Thursday.
The drilling restriction within a quarter mile of an interstate was prompted by a November gas well blowout that shut down a 55 mile-stretch of Interstate 10 between Lafayette and Baton Rouge during the busy holiday traffic season.
Welsh extended the drilling ban, which was set to expire at the end of May, for 30 more days while a committee appointed by Welsh to review drilling safety standards continues its study. He said the group soon will make its recommendations on what restrictions should be made to reduce chances of well blowouts.
The blowout near I-10 happened Nov. 15, when workers for Bridas Energy USA Inc. of The Woodlands, Texas, were drilling for a new well, and the pressure blew the line, which later erupted into flames. The well was 277 feet from the roadway near the Iberville Parish town of Ramah. The Louisiana State Police shut down the interstate because of safety concerns.
Workers took weeks to extinguish the fire and recap the well, forcing thousands of drivers to travel on alternate routes and cutting into the income of dozens of businesses that depend on travelers.
A bill that would have made Welsh's drilling ban permanent in state law was rejected by a Senate committee earlier this year, in the face of opposition from the petroleum industry, which argued the ban was too restrictive.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
The change to all-digital television is on the way. Click here to learn more about what that means to you and what changes will happen at KSLA News 12.

ksla.com

Adele Horin, in The Sydney Morning Herald, blames the Liberals, past and present, for our drunken ladette culture
ONLY imbeciles could dispute the dramatic impact of sweet pre-mixed drinks on girls’ alcohol consumption. The marketers knew exactly what they were doing in pitching their potent but bland-tasting products to young women who are now seen all too often vomiting in parks and tumbling inebriated out of pubs.
In light of the disturbing facts about teenage girls’ alcohol consumption, Brendan Nelson’s opposition to the Government’s proposed alcopops tax is a disgrace and the sign of a desperate man. Of all the issues on which he could take a stand, defending cheap grog for girls ranks as one of the worst.
It reveals why the former government did so little to curb binge drinking, allowing a serious health and social problem to grow under its watch (with considerable help from some state governments).
It steadfastly refused to use the tax system to control alcohol consumption, despite the entreaties of the public health lobby and the mountain of evidence showing the market works like a charm in this area, as in most others. If you increase the price of an item, demand for it falls.
Labor has not gone as far as public health experts would like. They have long lobbied for the introduction of a tax on all alcoholic products based on the volume of alcohol. Labor has singled out what it deems to be the biggest culprit: spirit-based drinks.
It is a significant start, and sends a message the alcohol industry should not ignore.
But Rod Liddle, in London’s The Sunday Times, says the feminists are to blame:
WHAT shall we do with our young women, do you suppose? Two surveys out last week suggest they are increasingly prone to acts of criminal violence and, worse, have become among the fattest girls in Europe.

theaustralian.news.com.au

So when she saw Paul Pierce drag LeBron James into the crowd on a drive to the basket, Gloria jumped up to his defense.
Now, she might want to wash LeBron’s mouth out with soap.
As Gloria approached the scuffle, Cleveland’s star forward told his mom to sit down, using language that might have offended a few lipreaders.
“I told her to sit down with some language I shouldn’t have used. Thank God today wasn’t Mother’s Day, it was yesterday,” James said after Monday night’s 88-77 victory.
But James swears he was just looking out for her, trying to make sure she doesn’t miss any games.
“Even though that’s my mother, the commissioner doesn’t care if it’s your mother or your kids or anybody, you can’t allow fans and players to get involved like that. And I can’t afford for my mom not to be at every last one of my games.”
Kevin Garnett, trailing on the play, tried to calm her and Wally Szczerbiak approached her for a high five, but Gloria James was too angry to pay attention to either.
Szczerbiak was impressed. “She was fired up. It was great. She was animated, she was pumped up. She’s LeBron’s mother, she was obviously amped up like the rest of the crowd.”
She returned to her seat shortly after, and the Cavs went on to win Game 4 and even the series against the Celtics at two games apiece.
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Richard Hamilton breaks down the Pistons’ Game 5 victory over the Orlando Magic. The win sends Detroit to the Eastern Conference finals for the sixth straight year.

msn.foxsports.com

One of the great deficiencies of the dead is that they never change their minds. One of their advantages is that there’s very little they can do about it when someone changes it for them. Indeed, they can even be enlisted to back up their own overruling.
When Dmitri Nabokov announced the other day that he planned to publish his father’s final manuscript, in direct contravention of his father’s request that it should be burned, he told the German magazine Der Spiegel: “I’m a loyal son and thought long and seriously about it. Then my father appeared before me and said with an ironic grin: ‘You’re stuck in a right old mess. Just go ahead and publish’”. So, after 30 years of tantalising seclusion in a Swiss bank vault, the extant fragments of The Original of Laura will finally be made public. Mr Nabokov Sr. wasn’t available to confirm the accuracy of his son’s account.
There are Nabokov loyalists who profess to be appalled by this – though I have a suspicion that they will master their affront sufficiently to read the book when it comes out. Personally I think Dmitri has done the right thing – and even if Nabokov’s rough draft would have been a smaller loss than two notorious victims of successful literary incineration – Jane Austen’s letters and Byron’s memoirs – it is better to have it than not. Dmitri’s argument – that his father would probably have thought otherwise had he had enough time to cheer up – might be specious but it will do in the absence of anything better. But all this is too flippant, some will say. If we disregard the wishes of our predecessors then we have no right to expect that our own requests will be honoured. And when it comes to property there’s obviously some weight to that argument. Last wills and testaments matter because their absence would create a wilderness of competing claims.

independent.co.uk

The pizza chain Papa Johns has apologized to LeBron James and the Cavaliers for handing out "Crybaby" T-shirts during the Wizards-Cavaliers Game 6 last Friday.
Cleveland-area customers can get a large pizza for 23 cents on Thursday, and the company is also donating $10,000 to a local charity. The T-shirts may have upset Cleveland fans, but they didn’t bother James, who finished the game with a triple-double. May. 5 - 8:55 am et

rotoworld.com

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journalnow.com

Greetings conversationalists across the fruited plain it is I your personal Harvester of Sorrow Phantom Lord and this is the all mighty and important Rant of the Week. According to the file info this is the 50th Rant since it went into syndication on a fine wrestling news site just like the one you are reading right now. It’s taken me over two and a half years to get to this point so I figure I’ll hit the magical 100 mark sometime in 2012 (it would be funny if it went up right around the time the Mayan calendar ends).
Seriously though it’s been an interesting two and a half years and let’s hope the future is the same.
Originally I was going to post this column on Wrestlemania weekend but then I realized everyone and their mother would be posting Wrestlemania predictions columns so there was no point for me to add my two cents. The show was pretty cookie cutter as it goes with who won and who lost. We all knew Ric Flair would be losing. It was a given The Undertaker was going to win. The only real shock was CM Punk winning the MITB and Randy Orton retaining the WWE Title. There wasn’t anything to surprising or shocking other then that. The only thing a lot of us on the net were disappointed in was the lameness of the Finlay/JBL brawl. You have two of the best brawlers ever and there was no blood at all. It was just another run of the mill WWE softcore match. I don’t think any “hardcore” match will ever top Edge vs. Mick Foley, but JBL and Finlay could have come close if they were allowed to really beat the piss out of each other. But hey we did at least get to see JBL launch a trash can at Hornswoggle like it was a missile so there was that.

wrestling-edge.com

The deadly crash on Route 210 prompted Sen. James C. Rosapepe (D-Prince George’s) to introduce the Safer Roads Act of 2008. It would not apply to the Capital Beltway and Interstate 95. But it would allow cameras on many more roads in Prince George’s compared with a proposal by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) moving through the legislature.
The O’Malley bill would allow police departments to install roadside cameras in work areas, school zones and residential neighborhoods in any jurisdiction that wants them but not on major roads.
"All we’re trying to do is make sure that when you come to our county, you obey the speed limit," Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D), who leads the Prince George’s Senate delegation, said on the Senate floor.
Some of the senators who spoke against the governor’s more limited bill were even more vocal in opposing the Prince George’s proposal.
"There’s no due process," Sen. E.J. Pipkin (R-Queen Anne’s) said. "You’re basically guilty, and you have to prove you’re innocent."
The Senate is scheduled to continue debating the bill Monday. If it passes, it would go to the House of Delegates, which would need to vote on it before the General Assembly’s scheduled adjournment April 7.
A Proposal Much Too Sweet for the House?
Don’t cut the cake just yet.
Supporters who want to make the Smith Island cake Maryland’s official dessert say the confection is in trouble in the legislature. A bill to honor the many-layered cake sailed through the Senate, but it has stalled in the House. Lawmakers adjourn for the year in little more than a week.
Supporters say the cake should be added to the list of 21 state symbols. Lawmakers are hesitant to pass a bill that critics could call trifling.
Supporters say they plan to blitz House members this weekend with pleas to pass the bill before the final gavel falls April 7. Supporters say the designation could draw attention to the unusual dessert and boost business in a community hurt by the decline of fishing and crabbing.

washingtonpost.com

The basics are similar to a point. Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose, each of whom outshines the material, star as sisters Sarah and Coco. However, Sarah (Posey) in addition to being chronologically older, is so much more mature and centered that they might as well be mother and daughter.
DNA is all the estranged sisters have in common. Sarah is career-oriented, Coco is a ne’er-do-well. Sarah is fashion-conscious and fastidious about her home. Coco is oblivious to what she looks like and bounces from place to place, depending on which friend will have her. Then circumstances lead them back into each other’s lives.
The similarities between the two series are by design, according to Sherman-Palladino.
“I like family dynamics because I can’t figure out mine.
Gilmore [Girls] was a mother and daughter but the relationship was very different. That was a relationship about two people who were instantly invested. They were so bonded, they finished each other’s sentences.
“This relationship is a departure because it’s two women who just don’t know each other at all. They’ve never formed any sort of bond. It’s weird because they’re adults but they’re just starting to figure out who they are, how they react, what they like, what they don’t like, how they’re going to make each other crazy, how they’re not going to make each other crazy. It’s just a wonderful dynamic.”

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Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino.
The show’s premise is oddly serious for a sitcom: Posey’s character, Sarah, plans to conceive a child with a sperm donor and her own egg, then have estranged sister Coco move into her Brooklyn loft and carry the baby for her.
Ambrose struggles to imagine being a real-life surrogate mom.
“Well, if the conditions were right,” she said after a moment. “But I’d have to be pretty Zenned-out.”
The actress acknowledges being intense and passionate by nature.
“Sometimes I’m, maybe, too passionate. And then I’m devastated by things and disappointed often.”
Her latest devastation: learning that she is allergic to chocolate.
Ambrose, who was born in Connecticut with the last name D’Ambruoso, grew up in a food-centric household of Italian-Americans. Her father, she said, is a caterer at Amarante’s in New Haven, “a big, Italian, wedding-extravaganza place.”
She looks exactly like her paternal grandmother, a redhead, she said, adding: “There’s red hair on both sides of the family. My mother made me promise to never dye my hair. ‘It’ll never come back,’ she said. I don’t know if I can live up to that — actresses are always asked to do crazy things.”
So far, though, so good.

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