Here’s a view of a good portion of the bar snacks on offer at Marigny Brasserie, the restaurant with a new chef that I reviewed recently. These are available only up front at the restaurant’s stylish and spacious bar, and they make great happy hour fare or an interesting alternative to a full-on dinner.
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Hoo boy. From CNN’s special investigations unit, and currently front-paged at CNN.com:

FEMA gave away about $85 million in household goods meant for Hurricane Katrina victims, a CNN investigation has found.

The material — from basic kitchen goods to sleeping necessities — sat in warehouses for two years before the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s giveaway to federal and state agencies this year.

James McIntyre, FEMA’s acting press secretary, told CNN that FEMA was spending more than $1 million a year to store the material and that another agency wanted the warehouses torn down, so “we needed to vacate them.”

“Upon review of our assets and our need to continue to store them, we determined that they were excess to FEMA’s needs; therefore, they are being excessed from FEMA’s inventory,” McIntyre wrote in an e-mail.

He declined a request for an on-camera interview, telling CNN the giveaway was “not news.”

The whole story deserves to be read and discussed (and, once again, several people at FEMA should probably be “excessed” themselves) but this item stood out:

These items also were offered to all states — yet Louisiana, where most of the people displaced by the storm live, passed on taking any of them.

The ’state’ passed?

Who, exactly, would that be? Offices and names?

It’s absolutely pouring here in Mid-City — if the rain keeps up at this pace, streets will be a real mess. Still, we have it better than these people…

MIDWEST FLOODING: Absolute misery:

Rising rivers wiped out an Iowa railroad bridge Tuesday, flooded Illinois farmland and forced residents along the Mississippi River to prepare for what could be the worst flooding in 15 years…

Levee breaks Tuesday in southeastern Illinois flooded 50 to 75 square miles of farmland along the Embarras River, forcing the evacuations homes northeast of Lawrenceville, said Lawrence County Sheriff Russell Adams. He said water was up to the roofs of some rural homes….

We feel your pain…

THE ADORABLE REPORT: Molly the adorable three-legged pony cheers up sick kids at Children’s Hospital, adorably….

CHURCH, STATE, AND TANGIPAHOA: Last week the Tangipahoa School Board decided that distributing Bibles in a public middle school was a violation of the Constitution. Today U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. has indicated he’ll be siding with the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit regarding a prayer at a public high school graduation ceremony….

FOREIGN OWNERS: Looks like Manhattan’s magnificent Chrysler Building may be bought by a company out of Abu Dhabi. Price tag: $800 million….

NAKED GUY: Flashing motorists on Hwy 190.

THE HAPPENING, NOT HAPPENING: Seems that director M. Night Shmayalan may have another stinker on his hands…

STATE SENATORS VOTE TO TRIPLE THEIR SALARIES: SB 672, which passed in the Senate yesterday, recalculates legislator salaries to 30% of what members of the U.S. Congress receive. That triples their take-home pay, and callers to talk radio are losing their religion over it. Noted in the Baton Rouge Advocate’s coverage of the story:

[Gov. Bobby] Jindal’s press secretary, Melissa Sellers, said in an e-mail statement that the governor “strongly disagrees with this pay increase,” but she told The Associated Press that he won’t veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

Flashback to Jindal, May 28:

BATON ROUGE – Today, Governor Bobby Jindal held a press conference to express opposition to creating any new targeted spending mandates or statutorily dedicated funding requirements, which would hinder budgetary flexibility, limit options for spending reductions, and restrict the proper management of the state’s finances during changing economic conditions.

Governor Jindal said, “We must be fiscally responsible with taxpayer money. For too long our state has looked for more and more ways to spend taxpayer money – sometimes before we even had it. Spending taxpayer money in any way possible will never be a way to create a financially sound state that is ready to respond to a changing economy and the true demands and needs of Louisianians.

“We should not be creating any new legislative mandates that lock in state spending for certain projects and in turn lock out choices for budget savings. Any future legislative spending mandate would only further hinder our investments in health care and education during lean budget years when these services are often the first areas targeted for cuts. We must save for the future; we cannot spend our way toward fiscal responsibility or budget savings.”

WE’RE #1! WE’RE #1! Guess whose incarceration rate is the highest in the land?…

THERE’S A JOKE HERE SOMEWHERE: David Vitter wants to require states to collect DNA samples from convicted felons…

GOING ONCE, GOING TWICE: An 800-word “prequel” to the Harry Potter series, written by J.K. Rowling, fetches $48,855 at a London charity auction. That’s $61 per word…

SNAKES ON A CRIB: New York woman discovers foot-long snake cuddled up next to her sleeping infant.

WEDNESDAY AT THE SQUARE: After work today at Lafayette Square: free performances by the Stringbeans and Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue.