That’s exactly what two inmates from the DC jail did yesterday, breaking a glass window in the warden’s office, sliding down a canopy and running off for the Stadium/Armory metro station. There, they boarded a free shuttle to Southeast DC which was running because of this weekend’s track maintenance at Stadium/Armory. Of course, they weren’t the only ones getting the heck out of DC, an arsonist in Church Hill, Maryland also flew the coop from his pre-release center.

DC Police are of course very upset about this, but I think the most telling quote comes from City Councilman Phil Mendelson in the Post today:

“This is very, very troubling,” said D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), who chairs the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the D.C. police and jail. “Nobody should be able to get out of the jail. That’s the whole point. This sounds like it was too easy.”

Yes, Phil, the point of jail is to keep people locked up in side, but they had to get new prison jumpsuits, get out of their cells, assault the warden’s office, break his window, slide down a canopy and escape a pursuing guard patrol. If that sounds easy to you, I think I should buy you a beer to get you to fess up to your own Indiana Jones past.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

On the front page of the Washington Post Website today there’s a killer headline that I’m sure someone over at WPNI is incredibly proud of. It’s not the kind of headline I’d like to see about DC though: “D.C. Drinking Water Meets EPA Standards”

It refers, of course, to this article on DC Drinking Water that says we’re finally free and clear of all the lead problems that the city had back in 2002.

Thanks, Washington Post, for reminding the people who live outside DC that we’re really just a third world city in some regards. That really helps that whole “tourist image.”

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

The summertime in Washington is unfriendly for many temperature-related reasons, but the reason I find least comfortable is Mosquitos. For some reason, I am just incredibly tasty to the bugs, as is my fiancée, and it’s a real tough place to be. I get bitten when I go outside even just to water the garden, which is even more aggravating. Then BoingBoing steps in and show me this wondrous monstrosity. Give it legs and a good battery, and you would have the ideal robot. All for just $200!

Say, we’re getting married next month…perhaps we ought to register for it?

Also, my tomatoes have another bug problem: aphids. Can anyone tell me where I can get ladybugs in this town? I’ve asked a few places, but no one seems to have any…help?

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

and so it begins

I am off on a 24 day odyssey around the Pacific Rim and this is how today’s 18 hours of flights starts.

Say ‘hi’ to the class of Random Junior High, California, who just spent a week in DC.

I have five hours with these hooligans. Wait, make that six. We’ve just been told all flights out of IAD are grounded due to weather.

Oh stewardess, I’ll have a vodka gimlet, please!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Not content to let people comment just on weblogs, the Washington Post will soon be accepting comments on WaPo Articles. Of course, the Post has a real issue, though, as trolls tend to flock to open forums like ants tend to flock on tasty picnic baskets. To this the Post says:

As most of you know, our charge into this interactive world has not been trouble free, and we’ve had to deal with blog commenters who are more interested in personal attacks and/or taunting than in making persuasive arguments and conducting civil conversations. So, we’d like to ask those of you who also find that level of discourse to be an annoyance for help in moderating the new comment threads. If you find a comment to be out of bounds, please report it by clicking the “Request Removal” link that will appear next to every comment.

To be clear, the Request Removal option is not there to allow readers to flag comments that espouse opinions they don’t agree with. Only posts that violate our interactivity policy will be removed. We’ll remove comments that contain profanity, personal attacks or spam, and reserve the right to also remove comments that have nothing to do with the associated article.

Good luck, WaPo, I have a feeling you’re going to have to be sifting out bad comments for some time to come. That should be…a thrilling experience only rivaled by reading the telephone book and tracking obscure bits of legislative agenda. Should be perfect for an intern!

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

This is the first of a new occasional series here on Metroblogging DC called “Essential DC” which will focus on experiences that are unique to DC, be they restaurants, places, events, or people. If you have a suggestion for an Essential DC experience, please suggest it to us! or if you’d like to guest-write an entry on an Essential DC experience, please send email to tom at metroblogging dot com and we’ll be glad to review it for publication!

I was sitting in class last night, wondering why it was that Amazon.com had so thoroughly shunned my attempts to purchase Stephen Hicks’ Explaining Postmodernism, when I realized that while I had checked all the county and city libraries within the beltway for the book, I had not checked the mother of them all, The Library of Congress. The Library of Congress has pretty much every book put out by an American Publisher in the last few centuries, so I figured it might be worth a venture. I began to seek entry into the Library itself, finding out that it is a closed Library, available to only those supplicants who present themselves to the Library in pursuit of Reason, Truth and Knowledge (or a reasonable facsimile thereof.)

Commissioned in 1800 and encompassed by the Capitol, its books were used for kindling by the invading British when they burned DC in the war of 1812. Rebuilt upon Thomas Jefferson’s personal collection at Monticello, the Library of Congress was reborn with 6,500 volumes after the war. The Library then began to grow prodigiously in size as the Copyright Law of 1870 required that two copies of any book submitted for copyright protection be submitted to the Library of Congress. The Jefferson Building was built in 1897, the Adams Building in 1939, and the most recent, the Madison Building was finished in 1980.

Its Main Reading Room on Pennsylvania Avenue is accessible only to those who apply for a Reader and Research card. Essentially, it is the Ultimate Library Card, and the key to knowledge arcane and obscure, poetic and philosophic, prose and biography.

The main reading room is the high temple to Knowledge universalis, and an architectural wonder. In its cupola dome are inscribed the gifts of Knowledge and who brought them to the forefront; from Greece and her Philosophy to America and her Science to Spain and her Discovery and Islam and her Physics, the contributions of the world are inscribed in the very firmament of the place. Below the dome stand the Disciplines: Science, Law, Poetry, Philosophy, Art, History, Commerce and Religion, accompanied by paired statues of the giants of those spheres. Newton and Henry representing Science, Solon and Kent representing Law, Moses and St. Paul representing Religion. Watched over by these sentinels, the readers sit in concentric circles of wooden desks, numbered so that your books may be delivered unto you by the acolytes of Knowledge.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs Continue reading →

Take a wild-assed guess which bar the June Esquire picks as Washington DC’s best inebriation institution in the “Best Bars in America” article.

I’ll give you a hint: its not on the DC Metblogs Definitive Patio Bar List.

Of all the cool bars, dive or not in DC, Esquire picked The Tune Inn. The Tune Inn. Huh… And what the hell is that? I’ve never even heard of the Tune Inn. Have you? Have you actually been there? Are you willing to admit to it in the comments section? Would you ever go back?

Esquire, who anointed this random crap bar the “Best in DC” over stalwarts like Fox and Hounds or newcomers like Tonic, which cures what ails ya, doesn’t sell me on the Tune Inn’s worthiness either.

Your Having: A ten dollar pitcher of Miller with a burger. The mounted deer heads on the wall make this dive interesting. The deer asses make it great. (331 1/2 Pennsylvania Avenue SE; 202-543-2725)

Amazing. I say that the only great ass is Esquire in picking the place. Oh and if you agree with me, don’t be shy, get all up in Esquire’s face – they’re taking America’s Best Bar submissions now.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Every once in a while, one of our readers will ask a question that’s worth its own posts, and one of you have done just that. Our reader writers:

While out at a bar Saturday night, my girlfriend commented that there are a lot of short men in DC. Are there a lot of short men in DC? I asked her what constituted “short”? Our consensus was that anyone under 5’10” was short. She preferred her men to be 6′ – 6’2″, though she did say that sometimes height did not factor into her decision on whether to go out with a height-challenged guy if he made her laugh and seemed smarter than the average doorknob. Are there any official stats on the average height in men who live in the DC metro area? Just today, out of 4 men in the elevator, 2 guys were definitely about my height (I’m 5’6″), one was 6’+ and the other was in between my height and the tallest guy. What do you guys think?

What is short, exactly, DC? Does DC have a preponderance of short guys? Better still, If so, do they flock to DC as part of some Napoleonic Complex to gather power to make up for their stature? Metblogs is a fairly tall crowd, with most of us coming in over the 5’10” line. Want to judge for yourself? We’ll be at Bar Pilar after work Friday, drinking mojitos, and mining for weekend blog product, and you’re welcome to scope us out for yourselves! Make sure to introduce yourself, I’ll be at the bar.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs