Morning Buzz: Tuesday 7.31.07

Will the big fake-home-in-the-district scam end for L.A. politicians? LAT

"We are seriously underestimating the cumulative impact of the growth in a community," L.A. city planner Gail Goldberg said, urging the city adopt a new method of counting traffic. LAT, DN

Dakota Communications' Saturday cease-and-desist letter over that Rick Taylor political theater memo also went to the editor and publisher of The Foothills Paper. "We're all laughing at it," says Doc DeMulle. "We're going to do a write-up on how silly can these people be." He has posted the letter and plans to print Taylor's memo in the paper. DN

San Francisco physician Dr. Hootan Roozrokh was charged in San Luis Obispo County with giving drugs to make a dying man expire faster so his organs could be harvested. His lawyer called the charges unfounded. LAT

Negotiations resume days before Italy was threatening to declare a general cultural boycott. LAT

Hand-helds are unreliable and function on cannibalized parts, the department says. LAT, DN

Ruben B. Whittington, 62, was shot Sunday night in Walnut [not Whittier] after calling AAA about a flat tire. He was the author of Soldier: Behind the Badge, a novel. LAT

"6 feet, 4 inches of oracular jocularity," Robert Lloyd writes of the news anchor and talk show host. "So distinct was the mark he made here that I can only ever regard quasi-look-alike Paul Moyer as his less-resonant echo."

Steve Barr's profile on the rise. WitnessLA

Ken Howe is moving to Hong Kong to cover China. Romenesko

Martin, 61, wed former New Yorker staffer Anne Stringfield, 35, here in Los Angeles at a Saturday night party, says Marc Malkin of E!.

The master Italian director of such films as L'Avventura, La Notte and Blowup has died. LAT