Good morning Washington. With all the Supreme Court news this morning (no, Rehnquist hasn’t announced his retirement yet, but here’s Linda Greenhouse’s piece in the NYT about the Ten Commandments ruling and Carol D. Leonnig’s piece in the Post about what the next step is for Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper since the high court refused to intervene in their cases) we thought it fitting to feature Olivia Leigh’s photo of the Supreme Court she posted in DCist Photos. She says that “[b]aby statues creep me out more than just about anything.”

GAO Says Threat Ratings to Monuments Be Used to Allocate Security Dollars: This seems like a no-brainer, but the Government Accountability Office has issued a report saying that the Interior Department — the steward of our national monuments — should use its terrorism threat assessment for each site in order to determine the amount of dollars spent on security upgrades, the Post reports.

>> DCist on being turned away by security from the Jefferson Memorial during a snowstorm, having to settle on visiting the George Mason Memorial.

Man Who Beat Octogenarian Gets Beat Up in Jail: Remember the guy who attacked the 83-year-old trinket saleswoman in Foggy Bottom? According to the AP, via W.Times, his public defender says that he’s being beat up in jail and is requesting a transfer.

Sewage Smells: Any regular user of the C&O Canal or the Capital Crescent Trail knows about malodorous air that can waft up from mysterious places. It’s not the canal water, nor the Potomac. It’s raw sewage from upriver, WTOP reports. While this isn’t really new news, it’s a good reminder that there’s a big sewage pipe under the C&O National Park that sends smelly waste from the suburbs to D.C.’s treatment plants.

And in a related note, one guy who may have known the smell all too well was the late Jack Baxter, the man behind Jack’s Boathouse at the end of Water Street in Georgetown. Duncan Spencer of The Hill, writes a feature for the Examiner on Jack’s Boathouse.

Briefly Noted: Gothamist interviews Jessica Cutler … Avoid I-95 traffic on VRE … Ramsey vows to investigate club shooting

Filed Under: Briefly Noted, capital crescent trail, court, dcist, DCist Photos, foggy bottom, george mason, georgetown, gothamist, government, Government Accountability Office, jefferson memorial, Jessica Cutler, jessicacutler, Judith Miller, monuments, news, O Canal, ocanal, office, Olivia Leigh, photos, politics, shooting, smell, suburbs, supreme court, ten commandments, the hill, the smell, traffic, washington, Water Street,