By Kirk
Today is the day that many gay couples in the District have been waiting for: wedding day. DC has processed the first batch of marriage license applications that were filed last week and will begin issuing said licenses today. Around 150 couples should have the document in hand by this evening, allowing them to marry when they see fit. A few couples have opted to make today the day they and are tying the knot at various institutions around the city.
By Tom Bridge
‘Cliff Pennington’
courtesy of ‘k/mc’
What are you doing for lunch tomorrow? Strike that. What were you doing for lunch tomorrow? Instead, around 12:30, you are going to pack up a small AM radio, and head on down to the nearest hot dog cart, and you’re going to get two with extra relish, and you’re heading to the nearest green space. Grab a bit of park bench, pump up WFED 1500 AM, and sure enough, you’ll have Charlie Slowes along side Dave Jageler in the broadcast booth telling you about the balls and strikes. Better still? Tomorrow is Stephen Strasburg’s very first start in a Nats uniform, so lie back, and dream it’s the playoffs.
See you at the park.
By Kirk
‘coming soon…’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’
We’re one week away from springing forward, three weeks away from cherry blossoms, the temperature is above 50 and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some flowers poking up from the ground. I think that it’s almost safe to call it: spring has arrived. What’s more is that mild temperatures will prevail for the rest of the week. It looks like the sun will give way to rain in the coming days, but hopefully that will melt the brown snow in my yard. Even if winter rears its ugly head once more (God forbid) I’m still going to enjoy what we’ve got going. So, I’m off to lunch outside, suckas.
‘Fix it’
courtesy of ‘Deborah Fitchett’
Potholepalooza is back for round two. Go and honor thy neighbor (and your car) by turning those puppies into DDOT.
Last year, the District mended over 6,000 potholes in the area. This year, they’re hoping to do accomplish the same, if not more. But the end result is up to you.
The goal is simple — fix the potholes within 48 hours of being notified. You can report all potholes via phone (via the Mayor’s Call Center at 311), online report, Twitter, or e-mail.
DDOT requests that all pothole reports require location (including the quadrant in which it lies) and as much detail as possible (size/depth).
Remember: Potholepalooza is a one-month program. So if you see a pothole that needs fixing, don’t wait to make your call.
By Kirk
‘IMG_2384’
courtesy of ‘AJ Ashton’
It appears that in the MPD, pulling your gun on innocent citizens isn’t a fireable offense. This is lucky for Detective Mike Baylor, who, you’ll remember, didn’t take kindly to his hummer being hit by snowballs and waved his gun at some people involved in a U St. snowball fight. A few months have passed, and after some measure of deliberation, MPD decided Baylor could keep his badge. DC Police Chief Lanier stated that Baylor did violate department protocol but that his offense didn’t merit termination. So, be wary of red hummers and keep your snowballs hidden away. You never know when Baylor might roll up to inflict some justice on your ass.
By Tom Bridge
‘Georgetown University’
courtesy of ‘Kevin H.’
The rumor mill is a dangerous thing. While we don’t require multi-sourcing for this site, we tend to require some demonstration of validity. Yesterday, a Georgetown professor in his 1L class told students shortly after the start of the class that he knew that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was retiring for health reasons. You can guess what happened next.
At least one media outlet ran with it without verifying the statement, and things snowballed from there. Not long after, it was on Drudge, then Fox News, and suddenly conservatives everywhere were having heart attacks at the thought of President Obama replacing the Chief Justice.
Professor Tague was making a point about trust and unverified: do you trust the news right now? Why?
Folks, the world is changing fast. The barriers to entry in news have been drastically lowered, and as a result, we get some scrambling moments like these. Journalists will use this as ammunition against bloggers like us, who they feel threatened by. “These kids today,” they say, “they’ll run with anything!” Yes, some people will run with stuff like that. They’re revealed to be unreliable by the coverage they produce. Good sites have reputations to protect, and will do what they need to do in order to protect theirs, including handle a level of fact-checking that some sites chose to avoid yesterday.
Definitely a cautionary tale.
By Tom Bridge
‘Butternut #3’
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’
The Pentagon Metro Station and Transit Center is now closed for the evening, while law enforcement works on the crime scene. In addition, both stations will be closed during the morning rush tomorrow, and all buses that were bound for the Pentagon will now head to Pentagon City Mall. It’s not clear when the FBI, who have taken over the investigation at the site, will issue a reopen command for those areas.
You will need to add twenty to thirty minutes to your morning commute time if you’re passing through that area, as things are probably going to be a little hectic in the morning, plus the additional time to deal with the increased walking time.
We are pleased to report that the two officers who were shot by the suspect are expected to recover from their injuries.
By Tom Bridge
‘little linc’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’
President Obama today ordered FEMA to consider DC’s first snowpocalypse this winter as a true disaster, opening the floodgates for funding to the area for snow removal and snow-related damages. It’s not clear yet if the region’s second snowpocalypse will get the same qualification, but that could alleviate the impending budget disaster related to the massive snow totals. Much depends, here, on the determination that this was a “record” storm, which is in turn reliant on the weather station readings for DC. Slight problem: DC’s weather station is officially at National Airport, which sits at sea level, right on the temperature-moderating Potomac, and significantly removed from the parts of DC that got a significantly larger amount of snow. We’ll see if it makes a difference.
By Tom Bridge
‘George Gordon Meade’
courtesy of ‘NCinDC’
There’s no question that Marion Barry has dodged more jail time than pretty much any other sitting politician. It appears that the kickbacks scandal for which he was censured by the City Council and stripped of his committee chair will be no exception to that. Michael Neibauer took a dive into the prosecutor’s office to find out what the options for Barry are. It appears the Feds have some concern about Donna Watts-Brighthaupt’s reliability for testimony, and her public statements suggest that she may not be a good option for the stand. It’s entirely possible that Hizzoner could walk again. Doesn’t that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?
By Tom Bridge
Maryland fans storm the court from Wash Post Sports on Vimeo.
This video comes to us from the great Dan Steinberg, from the floor of the Comcast Center in College Park as Duke (4) is vanquished by the Terps. Maryland (22) is now tied for first in the ACC with 12 wins, and could win the ACC were Duke to lose on Saturday. There are some great shots at the DC Sports Bog, which include some of the fires set by students at University of Maryland last night, and the large police presence on campus after the game.
Congrats to Maryland for beating the Dookies, but did ya’ll really need to light things on fire?
By Kirk
Today was a big day for the gay community in DC and WLDC Flickr Pool contributor Erin M. was there to capture the moment. I’m happy for the couples and realize that they’re the point of this whole business, but I find the counter protesters facing off against Westboro Baptist Church to be particularly hilarious. I’m of two minds on this: I feel that counter protesting gives Westboro exactly the attention that they want. On the other hand, I love when people stand up to hate groups. Either way, I really enjoy some of the counter-protest signs. See them in the slide show after the break. Continue reading
By Tom Bridge
‘Misc – Post Partisan Apology – 10-11-08’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’
Count this one as a victory for civilization. Councilman Marion Barry today was unanimously censured by the City Council for his role in a kickbacks scandal, unanimously referred to prosecutors for misconduct related to the kickbacks scandal, and unanimously removed as chair of the housing committee.
Councilman Barry was loathe to admit his own responsibility in these matters, instead pushing off blame on the Council for the Bennett Report, on Bennett and his staff, and on Council Chair Vince Gray. Barry was looking for someone, anyone, to drag down with him, trying to drag Councilman Jack Evans and Jim Graham and Council Chair Gray down for what Barry felt were similar ethical lapses, no matter what the reality of the situation was.
As Geoffrey Hatchard pointed out on twitter, it was if Barry was saying “you do this, and you try to run for mayor, i’ll make sure no one votes for you,” to Chairman Vince Gray, which is no small threat given Barry’s clout in distressed Ward 8. Given that the Democratic Party is still afraid of Barry, this is no small measure of revenge for Barry, to attempt to frighten and impose upon the council in retribution for censure.
Barry continued to defend his innocence, to defend his record as “clean”, and then went on to challenge the very censure process that he’d just underwent. Barry said that he was “not dismayed” by the process, which largely means to me that we need to give these censure proceedings further teeth.
By Tom Bridge
‘westboro baptist church and me’
courtesy of ‘Burstein!’
It’s hard to deal with the hateful jackasses at Westboro Baptist Church with the degree of response that they need, as curbstomping useless hatemongers is still technically aggravated assault, but it’s still good to let them know how we feel. For that, the Sexist at the City Paper has a great guide to how to handle a Phelps protest, which includes the sort of thing that you should put on your signs, how to not get arrested, and how to generally behave. It’d be great if DC could put together some quality counter protests to generally drown out these feckless thugs.
By Tom Bridge
This is an Intoxilyzer 5000, a computer-based system for determining the blood-alcohol content of a person arrested under suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Unfortunately, due to a massive failure and/or product defect, the machines were generating false positive tests in many cases, throwing into doubt hundreds of DUI cases dating back to October of 2008. Worse, it’s 8 of the department’s 10 units that are under suspicion of producing faulty results. It’s not clear how long the department knew of the issue before replacing the units, or how this will be handled in the public eye.
‘Neither rain nor sleet nor snow..’
courtesy of ‘Diacritical’
NBC Washington reports that our U.S. Postal workers are thinking about changing things up a bit.
The U.S. Postal Service is asking Congress for permission to shorten its week by cutting Saturday mail delivery and amending their health benefits for retirees.
Worker’s demands aren’t the sole reason for the request. U.S.P.S. claims it lost $297 million in the first fiscal quarter due a 9% drop in mail volume.
As of right now, the plan would mean continuing express mail and processing of “remittance mail” (payments from costumers to businesses and checks to and from banks). However, the request – if granted – would not be implemented until mid-2011 at the very earliest.
By Tom Bridge
News is out this morning at the DC Social Media Club Breakfast that iStrategy Labs and Shinyheart Ventures are putting on a 10-day festival called Digital Capital Week. Details are still coming together, but they’ve put up the first 2,000 tickets up for free. It’ll be summer in the Capital, and there will be parties, says Frank Gruber from Shinyheart Ventures, and a focus on a Capital City that is alive with the digital.
By Tom Bridge
‘Happy Birthday, America’
courtesy of ‘afagen’
Today is DC’s 209th Birthday! While the city of Washington was founded in July of 1790, the Organic Act of 1801 passed on February 27th, 1801, which created the District of Columbia, which contained the counties of Alexandria (west of the river Potomac, including the islands) and Washington (east of the river Potomac). The free cities of Georgetown and Alexandria were not to be affected by the creation of the District, their own laws and codes were to remain intact.
If you’d like, you can read the act (starts at the bottom of the first linked page) thanks to the Library of Congress.
Happy Birthday, DC!
By Tom Bridge
‘US Airways Jets at DCA’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’
Two planes collided this morning on the ground at National Airport, causing significant damage to the departing plane. No injuries are reported at this time. It’s not clear how the collision occurred, but one of the planes had to cancel their flight due to the damage. More as details come.
By Rebecca
‘Down to the Oubliette’
courtesy of ‘Karon’
According to an Obama administration official, Desiree Rogers will be leaving her post as the White House social secretary. Rogers was a much hyped hire for the Obama Administration, and was even featured in the February 2009 issue of Vogue.
However, recently Rogers had faced a wealth of criticism for the handling of the Salahi-Dinnergate kerfuffle that took place during a November 24 state dinner for the Prime Minister of Indian. Whether or not this debacle factors into her departure is unknown.
By Tom Bridge
‘Bottlecap Folk Art Reflection’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’
Mayor Fenty is proposing additional levels of recycling for residents and businesses, requiring tenants and citizens to separate out cardboard and plastic from their trash, in addition to cans, newspaper, office paper and glass. The Examiner suspects that this will mean stepped up enforcement on DC businesses, along with stepped up fines, which will probably mean there will be an all-office memo about your trash cans again.
It’s not clear if this is a budget neutral move, but we’ve asked the DPW for more information. Of course, we’re still not to the point yet where we’re collecting compostable material like San Francisco, so I suppose we’ve still got a ways to go before we’re super green.
By 