My boss is in court this AM...

...so blog away! Here are some breaking tidbits for you this morning:

• ALTL is dead. J/K. But for real, she's been MIA for over a week. ALTR talked to her last night while painting my living room, so I know she's alive. Email that ho and tell her to start getting her blog on again: alittle2theleft@gmail.com

• Veto-Free Pork, not to be confused with Fat-Free Pork: Pork and all, the Senate passed the Water Resources Bill to go to President Bush for signing. This bill includes $3.6 billon in Louisiana projects and reinforces what so many plaintiff's firms in the city who are processing claims against the Corps of Engineers have been saying for awhile: "MR-GO has gots to go." [Times-Picayune]

• Nursing homes - the bad boys of hurricane season: The Houston nursing home whose evacuation bus exploded in Texas during Hurricane Rita settled with victims' families. Don't be confused by seeing the name "Rita" - this is not the same as the St. Rita's nursing home of Krazy Kathy Blanco-forced to testify fame. That was about a whole other hurricane. But this is Louisiana, so you can be sure that all our plaintiff's lawyers (see MR-GO above) are all up in our civil courts over that St. Rita's stuff too.[WAFB]

• You won't see any nerds out in public for the next 2+ weeks: Halo 3 is out! I'm not even sure what Halo is, but apparently this is a big deal - CNN was all about it this morning. So maybe that's where ALTL has been? Waiting in line at the Best Buy on the West Bank? [WAFB]

Oh how many assless chaps will be seen...

The Head Pelican girls will both be in the Lone Star State this Labor Day weekend. Not that either of us (yes that's right, the Republican too) have anything against the thousands of Lonnies who will descend upon the Crescent City this weekend.

This is an event this hag is sad to miss, but family business calls back at the mothership for ALTR. The Head Pelican girls will be soaking up some sun on the famous Texas cancer beaches and shopping at the Galleria. Also perhaps trying a pub crawl in Houston - sadly ALTR has been to all of 3 bars in H-town since turning 21 not all that long ago. And 2 of them were gay bars. ALTR suspects the Houston gay bars will be all but empty this weekend. Happy Decadence!!

A hot mess of a Friday

Here's what's up this morning:

* Bribery charge in connection with Corps of Engineers levee rebuilding project. Why'd it have to be a Houstonian? As the bumper stickers say, "Thanks Houston" [PRNewswire]

* Dan Frazier has done an excellent job hammering out some of our questions and concerns regarding the new flood maps. [MetroBlogging New Orleans]



* A witty panelist at Politics with a Punch on Wednesday night described New Orleans as being like the "Lindsey Lohan" of cities. One drunk big hot mess. Here's a good bit on Lohan's legal drama. [EOnline]



* I hate to tap Hollywood twice for your AM briefing, but this is all I've got so far. The Smoking Gun reports that Nicole Richie spent 82 minutes in jail yesterday and all she got was this lousy mug shot. [The Smoking Gun]