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]

Mid-afternoon briefing

The heat really wears me out. I guess it wears out our elected officials and newsmakers too - not too much craziness to report today. Here's what I've noticed is going on today:

• Katrina nursing home trial to start today in St. Francisville. [SunTimes]

• Even though ALTL and ALTR have already graduated, Tulane is still hot. Roll Wave! [Newsweek]

• Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne still swears he wasn't on his BlackBerry as he goes into surgery. [KTBS]

• Karl Rove will be peacing out soon. [CNN] John Cornyn must be crying. [WAFB]

• Some new laws are going into affect today. Like most laws in this state, no one will pay much notice to these either. [WAFB]