Whether it will be more Hatfields & McCoys or Usual Suspects remains to be seen, but the movie actors Kevin Costner and Stephen Baldwin are set to step into a New Orleans court this week. At the root of their dispute is those Waterworld gizmos Costner was showing off in 2010 that were supposed to clean up the Big Oozy.

BP might've thought they covered everything in the proposed settlement with the people of the Gulf Coast. But it turns out they might've missed somebody. A group that represents shrimp processors is in court today asking Judge Carl Barbier to delay his blessing of the settlement because key groups in the seafood industry are being left out of the settlement. Specifically, docks, processors, distributors, and packaging supply businesses were left out of the $2.3 billion agreement, the processors group says.

Remember that little rainbow-y oil puddle that Shell spotted out in the Gulf earlier in the week? Well, turns out it was just a little seepage. According to the feds, oil and natural gas from below the seafloor was bubbling up to the surface, causing the 10-mile wide sheen. By the end of the week, the slick was down to about 6 miles. According to the latest reading from the universal rubric by which all Sheens are mesaured - commonly known as the #winning scale - Shell isn't having their best week despite the good deed. Even though the oil seems like it doesn't belong to the oil giant, their stock plummeted to its lowest price in eight months.

It's mid-April, and there's been a lot of oil reported about 50 miles offshore in the Gulf. A giant oil company quickly dispatched an underwater robot to look for a possible source. The more things change...This year's Spring Scourge was brought to us by Shell, who reported seeing a sheen but says it isn't from their wells. The slick is ten miles long by 1 mi. wide. The company estimates about 252 gallons of oil, or 6 barrels, leaked so far, and the Coast Guard says there's no word on environmental damage yet. But don't worry, they're sending a big boat. And after all, if you look close enough, all you can se are rraaiinnbows.

The Gulf Coast officially waves goodbye to Ken Feinberg today, as the claims operation he ran in the wake of the Big Oozy is being shut down due to the settlement agreement BP reached Friday with residents and businesses who were trying to sue them. Since 2010, the Obama-appointed Claims Czar  took more than a few verbal lashings from fishermen and other Gulf Coast residents and handed out $5.9 billion in quick payments and claims. Now, he'll sail off into the sunset, and let the court handle the rest of the damage claims, as well as the as-yet unpaid property and health-related payments claims.

BP once again postponed their day in court Friday night. With a trial once again looming, the giant British oil company announced a settlement Friday night with the many individual plaintiffs that were seeking damages from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster off the coast of Louisiana. While the settlement appears designed to pay claims to individuals, a court date with the federal government and state and local governments appears to remain on the horizon. The start of that trial is now unkonwn, as Judge Carl Barbier postponed the start of the session on Poydras without a date attached. 

Reliable hearsay had it that BP, the feds and other private persons and corporations involved in the Big Oozy were hunkered down trying to get a settlement done before the start of their massive trial. But, until now, there wasn't any official confirmation that blame for the Deepwater Horizon disaster would be divvied up out of court. This afternoon, the parties to the trial announced they were pushing back the start date from tomorrow to Mon., March 5.  In a statement, the parties said they were trying to hammer out a settlement.

Unless there's an eleventh hour settlement, it's time once again on Monday for the BP and the Big Oozy to invade our news cycle. A huge liability trial that could last into early part of 2013 is set to kick off at the federal courthouse down on Poydras. The jury-less trial essentially seeks to dole out proportions of blame for the April 20 catastrophe in the Gulf. As is typical around the streets of New Orleans, expect to hear a lot of "It Ain't My Fault." Preview coverage here, here and here.

In case you missed it, Barack Obama's State of the Union address did include the reference to the BP oil disaster that Gulf Coast Congresspeople were hoping for. Well, okay, maybe it wasn't exactly what they were hoping for. The reference came at the nexus of the speech's "Spilled Milk" and Tom Petty-influenced "Won't Back Down" sections. Click through to read the whole thing again, like it was the first time!

The State of the Union may last more than an hour, but in terms of politics, every line is precious. As the nation gears up for tonight's speech, Louisiana is watching to see if President Barack Obama will utter even a single phrase about that little oil puddle we had right down over here last year. So what do our reps think? Well let's take a look see and find out, shall we?