August 13, 2008
Morning Roundup: Other People's Money Edition
Good morning, Washington. So, uh, how about that Michael Phelps? Pretty fast, right? If you somehow missed it, last night the Baltimore native picked up another gold medal, leading the U.S. men's 4x200m freestyle relay team to a record-setting victory. That makes eleven gold medals for Phelps — the most of anybody in history.
Heads Roll Over Summer Jobs Program: Or one head, anyway. The Post covers the fallout from the massive budget overruns racked up by the city's summer jobs program. The aide heading the program has been forced to resign, and the mayor's office has released a report detailing exactly what went wrong. It's pretty much what we've already heard: enrollees were mismanaged, overpaid and sometimes outright ineligible. Mayor Fenty spoke with the press yesterday and told them he takes full responsibility for the failures of the program.
Briefly Noted: Two people killed in Northwest in separate incidents ... Body found in Potomac in Great Falls Park... Kaine pardons English woman facing deportation... Fire in SE leads to one serious injury...Horrific SUV accident kills pregnant woman, two other pedestrians... Teens arrested for pellet gun bank robbery after scooter getaway...
This Day In DCist: One year ago Metro officially acknowledged the walk-left-stand-right doctrine (at last!).
Image posted to DCist Photos by Flickr user andertho
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That photo of Phelps on Drudgereport. Wow, hot.
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Mayor Fenty spoke with the press yesterday and told them he takes full responsibility for the failures of the program.
I was unaware that he had that type of money lying around. Though I suppose he is heir to the Fleet Feet fortune. Big running shoe has some deep pockets.
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Mayor Fenty spoke with the press yesterday and told them he takes full responsibility for the failures of the program.
So why didn't he fire himself?
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maybe i missed something, but why so many days lately without a "Go Home Already" post???
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Uhhhhh...when I went to the 'body found in Potomac' link, the WTPO website had an image of a swimmer butterflying. Awkward.
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WTOP, even. Damned sleep deprivation.
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Bank robbery via a pellet gun and a getaway scooter... hmm. Yeah. These kids need to invest in some infrastructure!
Low speed chase. Damn, there goes my idea for a new screen name.
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I was going to mention that shooting on Decatur yesterday, since that's right next to my apartment. It was all blocked off and cop cars and signals when I went to bed and still that way when I woke up. Didn't see anything mentioned about here yesterday but then I forgot to mention it too.
You know the DCPD are all around the block with those "look it's daytime!" floodnights and they move them from one corner to another corner meanwhile the bad guys just move to the opposite corner. Or wait it out an evening.
I don't see how this cat and mouse game around and around my block (all summer long!) would indicate to anyone that this system is an effective police strategy. MInd boggling. It's like a cat chasing it's own tail.
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So, are they gonna take away those teenage robbers' Wii privileges?
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For the record, Phelps actually won two golds last night.
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Oh! And last night was also the "do over" concert for Radiohead in Camden, NJ. Did anybody bother?
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For the record, Phelps actually won two gold metals today; he won them Wednesday, while we watched on Tuesday…now it is Wednesday. Also, anyone know if you lapped the world record line does a black hole open up?
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Oh! And last night was also the "do over" concert for Radiohead in Camden, NJ. Did anybody bother?
I had traded in my Nissan Pavilion tickets for Camden lawn tickets. But had to sell them a couple of weeks ago when it became obvious I wasn't going to be able to go. *sigh*.
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Also, anyone know if you lapped the world record line does a black hole open up?
Jet lag wise it sort of does in your brain, yeah.
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Also, anyone know if you lapped the world record line does a black hole open up?
This is one of the questions they hope to answer at the Large Hadron Collider.
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"I'm sure by next summer all the bugs will be worked out," [Barry] said.
By bugs, of course, he means all this pesky press attention on this relic of the Barry political machine. This sort of shoddy mafia-style no-show (and even no-resident or no-where-near-the-right-age) work program is unacceptable in a modern city, but Barry doesn't care. As long as his constituents (and their Maryland cousins) are "getting theirs" from the DC gov't petty cash drawer, he gets to keep his job. And trust me, he needs the job. There aren't too many 6 figure jobs out there for a geriatric ex-con who is still clearly using.
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@Reid: Right on. This program is just a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to Barry and his constituents, both through direct public funding and higher prices to consumers to pay for hand-outs.
Is there any campaign to abolish it once and for all? If we started early, perhaps we could get past the accusations of racism soon enough to have an effect next year. (Are there similar programs in other cities?)
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Reid:
Excellent post.
The whole 'summer jobs' program is a sham and a travesty.
And $50 million? That's just stunning.
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I heard from one friend who made the trek: awesome. Certainly was a nicer night.
And it's the time warp that allows him to win. Didn't you hear? That's Phelps' secret. He's an average swimmer, but from the future.