Photo by furcafe

Good morning, Washington. Congratulations! You’ve made it through the first 100 days of the Obama administration, the endless media coverage of those same days, and the primetime press conference that marked their occasion. Now that we’re all sufficiently “surprised, enchanted, humbled, and troubled” by what we’ve seen since Jan. 20, we can move on to the phase in our lives when we no longer attempt to measure complex situations by applying arbitrary benchmarks to them. At least for the next few months, anyway.

Oink, Oink, Oink!: The porcine metaphors just won’t quit this week, but this time, we’re not referring to the flu. No, instead, both Nikita Stewart and Mike DeBonis clue us in to some juicy morsels of pork being currently dished out by the D.C. Council’s Committee on Economic Development. It seems the committee took some $10 million from the Neighborhood Investment Fund, which is supposed to go toward programs that work to improve the city’s most neglected neighborhoods, and divvied it up as earmarks for their preferred arts groups and various other nonprofits. Now, many of these groups might have qualified for NIF funds anyway, and Mayor Fenty’s original budget proposal tried to do much the same thing. But Council member Kwame Brown (D-At Large) was the only committee member who seemed to think changing the rules on how NIF monies are distributed wasn’t OK, and ended up being the lone nay vote.

Metro Board Set to Vote on Service Cuts: Metro’s board is expected to make a decision today on whether it will cut 72 bus lines in an effort to make up for an expected budget shortfall. In the Examiner, Kytja Weir covers yesterday’s House Transportation and Infrastructure oversight subcommittee hearing, during which Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) urged Metro officials to avoid service cuts and openly questioned why the $202 million of federal stimulus funding the system is receiving was not enough to save $13.6 million worth of bus service.

Briefly Noted: Man robs armored truck in Silver Spring … Leesburg man kills wife, then self … National Mall to start recycling program with grant from Coca-Cola … Amtrak service between Baltimore and Washington restored.

This Day in DCist: Last year, we told you how failing to mow your lawn could cost you money, and the year before that, the Georgetown Public Library branch went up in smoke.