That Ted Downing: he can be a little nutty, but I sure am glad he's one of my Representatives for District 28 in the Arizona Legislature. Between him, David Bradley and fellow 40-Under-40'un Gabby Giffords, I feel my interests are well represented in Phoenix.

Anyway, Representative Downing had a message about the hurricane over at Blog for Arizona. He puts some local perspective on the tragedy:

The hurricane that devastated the Gulf Coast knocked out about one third of the US crude oil supply and about 20 percent of our domestic gasoline. Here in Arizona, the damaged area accounts for around 18% of our fuel. It will take 13 days for the strategic petroleum reserve to enter market following the President’s Emergency Order. It will take longer than that to recover the lost refining capacity and re-open the port at Fourchon, Louisiana, which is used to ship a third of the US oil supplies.

One of the things I admire most about Ted is his vast knowledge of facts and figures and knowing how to use them. It accounts for part of his eccentricity, but it also makes him a great friend to a lot of progressive causes.

Ted leads by example:

This Labor Day weekend, my wife and I decided to cancel our planned vacation and donate to a hurricane relief fund. We hope that like-minded Arizonans will dream up creative ways to reduce our energy footprint during this shortage. We have seen a lot of chaos over the past few days, but Americans are good people who are ready and eager to help in a crisis. Show them what Arizona can do.