11,000 rally in Louisiana today for economic survival

• Obama moratorium affects 100,000 jobs in Louisiana.

7/21/10, "Deepwater drilling moratorium targeted by rally in Lafayette (Louisiana)," AP

• "The offshore petroleum industry and companies that serve it employ about

• 100,000 people in Louisiana,

according to the LSU Center for Energy Studies."

• Update, 7/22: A blog focusing on Louisiana matters writes the following about AP's bias and omissions in the linked article:

"To call this slanted, or at least incomplete, journalism would be charitable. As Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph mentioned in her speech,

• which (AP's) Foster did not quote, by the middle of August those rig operators

will be out of time and decisions will have to be made – and in lots of cases the decision will be to leave the Gulf in search of other opportunities. (AP's) Foster

• acts like the loss of four rigs already isn’t a disaster for Louisiana –

• each rig affects some 1,500 jobs, so the loss of four of them already means 6,000 Louisiana jobs vaporized.

And as Randolph also mentioned, no business can survive a six-month suspension. The rigs are only a small part of the equation. The marine service companies, the caterers, the industrial pipe manufacturers, the marine fabricators and all the countless other businesses which service an exploration rig will have nothing to do for the duration of the moratorium regardless of whether the rig owners manage to stick it out.

• And once those companies go out of business,
• they’re not coming back.

It’s a terrible article, and the Times-Picayune’s readers are very poorly served for the paper having run it." from The Hayride.com, Rally Recollections

• photo of Cajundome rally today by Lafayette Daily Advertiser via AP.

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