Hastert Tries Damage Control After Remarks Hit a Nerve:

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert began his day yesterday explaining that he really does not want to see New Orleans bulldozed, and he ended it defending his absence from the Capitol when Congress approved a $10.5 billion hurricane aid package.

In Syracuse, N.Y., former president Bill Clinton was discussing New Orleans’s dilemma when someone described the speaker’s comments. Had they been in the same place when the remarks were made, Clinton said, “I’m afraid I would have assaulted him.”

Why Californians can’t afford to buy houses:

Most of the most overvalued markets, according to DeKaser, are in California and Florida. Number one is Santa Barbara, where home prices, at a median of $564,100, are 69 percent higher than they should be.

Close behind is another Golden State city, Salinas, where home prices, at $515,231, are overvalued by 67 percent. Naples, Fla., came in third at $276,827, 62 percent higher.

The only town to crack the top 15 from outside Florida or California was Medford, Ore. The median home price there was $228,201, overvalued by 55 percent.

Of cities with populations of more than one million, San Diego was judged the most overvalued. Homes there average $443,445, according to the report, and are 53 percent higher than they should be. Los Angeles was 48 percent higher, with a median price of $405,668.

blog of a guy helping to restore data service to new orleans.

Budget cuts delayed New Orleans flood control work:

“It’s clear that we didn’t do everything we could to safeguard ourselves from this hurricane or from a natural disaster such as Katrina but hopefully we will learn and be more prepared next time,” said Landrieu spokesman Brian Richardson. The levee defenses had been designed to withstand a milder Category Three hurricane and simply were overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina, said senior project manager Al Naomi. “The design was not adequate to protect against a storm of this nature because we were not authorized to provide a Category Four or Five protection design,” he said. A study examining a possible upgrade is under way, he said.

The official version; then there’s the in-the-trenches version:

Uncollected corpses

Brown: That’s not been reported to me, so I’m not going to comment. Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies located here or there," I’m just not going to speculate.

Segal: We saw one body. A person is in a wheelchair and someone had pushed (her) off to the side and draped just like a blanket over this person in the wheelchair. And then there is another body next to that. There were others they were willing to show us.

Evacuee Cooper: They had a couple of policemen out here, sir, about six or seven policemen told me directly, when I went to tell them, hey, man, you got bodies in there. You got two old ladies that just passed, just had died, people dragging the bodies into little corners. One guy — that’s how I found out. The guy had actually, hey, man, anybody sleeping over here? I’m like, no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now you just — I just found out there was a lady and an old man, the lady went to nudge him. He’s dead.