Day 505: Remember New Orleans?

As an NFC North girl, I wish the Saints only the best of luck against the twelfth man in Chicago – Bears fans are a mean lot (this is good manners to them). And the blessed, thin-blooded boys won’t know what cold means until they hit Lake Michigan.

While you pray for a good NFC Championship outcome, don’t forget:

1. City Planning Funds

nola.com: Neighborhood plans wind down

Rounding out a process that began in October, participants in six of the city’s 13 planning districts nailed down their recommendations for neighborhood-level recovery projects, such as reopening playgrounds and redeveloping retail corridors, though their work left largely unanswered crucial questions about how such work would be financed and when it might begin.

Although some meeting-weary residents have expressed the desire for a decisive document, planners in recent weeks have intimated that the product of the entire planning process will not offer definitive timetables and schematics.

As for the “areas of greatest need” question:

“If you’re really looking to the neighborhoods and what the people think, this is an extremely important question,” said Musa Eubanks … “Because of the money that’s coming in — aside from housing — this is the most crucial question: Where are the resources going to go for the infrastructure of the city?”

So, how realistic are these projects and will they get funded? Will the various districts’ most important needs rise to the top of “the big, thick document” and be readily apparent? If they get funded, where will the money go? In other words, what was the point of the whole UNOP exercise again? Update: Read The Infrastructure Lottery.

2. Lieberman & Katrina

January 25, 2006 – Lieberman: White House hindering Katrina probe

“My staff believes that DHS has engaged in a conscious strategy of slow-walking our investigation in the hope that we would run out of time to follow the investigation’s natural progression to where it leads,” Lieberman said. “At this point, I cannot disagree.”

January 12, 2007 – Joe Lieberman gives the president a pass on Katrina

Lieberman“s reversal underscores the new role that he is seeking to play in the Senate as the leading apostle of bipartisanship, especially on national-security issues. On Wednesday night, Bush conspicuously cited Lieberman“s advice as being the inspiration for creating a new bipartisan working group on Capitol Hill that he said will help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror.

Mending fences by shoving mistakes and atrocities under the rug is so good for this country, don’t you think? Never mind contacting Joe because “if you are not a Connecticut resident, I encourage you to send a message to the Senators from your state of residence.” So, get in touch with Mary Landrieu, who backed Lieberman’s re-election campaign, and ask her to get on the case. But, before that, send a note to my main man, Henry Waxman, the House’s recently-elected chairman of the committee on oversight and government reform.