September 24, 2008
Morning Roundup: Bemoaning the Budget
Good morning, Washington. You know, it's easy to get discouraged. Our nation's economy is unraveling, our presidential race has largely devolved into trivialities, and our city remains plagued with violence and poverty. But take heart! You still live in a city, country and universe where a headline like "MySpace Helps to Capture Monkey Thief" can exist. Alright, "headline" might be pushing it — it's just the text on the Metro page that teases the story. Still, that's pretty solid.
Area Governments Confront Budget Crunches: They may not be much of a surprise, but that doesn't make the revenue shortfalls facing Virginia, Maryland the the District any less daunting. The Post reports on the damage: Virginia is as much as $3 billion in the hole, Maryland's missing up to $1 billion, and D.C. is short $131 million. In all cases the culprit is reduced tax revenue born of the nationwide economic downturn. It's too early to say exactly how each will deal with the budget problems, but the District, at least, is signaling that tax increases are a possibility.
Shooting, Chase Shuts Down Part of 395: Last night we received a text message from a friend that read: "WTF? The most cop cars I've ever seen - 14th street bridge, shotguns out." Well, this morning there's an explanation — Fox 5 has video and the Post has a written account. During a traffic stop in Arlington (begun in Alexandria), a police officer was shot in the chest by the driver of the stopped car, who then got back into his silver Lexus and fled the scene. The suspect ultimately crashed on 395N and then apparently committed suicide. Two lanes of Northbound traffic on 395 were shut down for several hours as the investigation proceeded. The officer is expected to make a full recovery — he was wearing a protective vest, which probably saved his life.
Briefly Noted: Biden speaks in Northern Virginia... Maryland declares crab disaster in order to qualify for federal aid... P.G. County emergency responders raise safety concerns about county's forced furlough plan... Report assesses D.C.'s HIV/AIDS programs, finds them wanting... Apparent inter-car gun battle in Prince George's... Gilmore fails to gain on Warner in Polls...
Image posted to DCist Photos by Flickr user Toshio
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I saw the police barricade last night as I went through Crystal City, but it was gone by about 9:30. I was wondering what happened.
Those damn Lexus SUV owners and their criminal ways. When will they ever learn?
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I had a 'crab disaster' once in college. A quick trip to the drugstore was all it took to fix it.
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Virginia is as much as $3 billion in the hole, Maryland's missing up to $1 billion, and D.C. is short $131 million.
I originally thought this whole $700 billion Reichstag fire-style bailout was a big mistake, but then I remembered that a LOT of that money is going to stay in the DC area. Remember the SNL bailout? They had to put the Resolution Trust Corporation together to manage all the bailout money, which in turn generated a lot of business around DC. There's a beautiful new bureacracy that needs to be created, along with real estate that needs to be bought to house them. This imploding economy is your chance to cha-ching CASH IN on the flyover states' misery.
Also, kudos to PG County for keepin it reals with the inter-car gun battles. DC youth can barely muster the strength to throw rocks at white people anymore, and here comes PG County making our kids look bad. If only the so-called working classes in DC would wipe themselves out with such pluck and tenacity! Come on, RayRay and Thugee Fresh! Show your stuff!
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glad to hear that the police officer is going to make a full recovery (thank goodness for the kevlar vest!) and glad to hear the guy who shot him removed himself from the gene pool. thanks for tying everything up in a nice, tight bow, sir. we all appreciate it.
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Exactly IMGoph. Pig food.
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"Remember the SNL bailout?"
Of course I do. It was the dark summer of 1995. Long time stalwarts Sandler and Farley had been phoning it in since '93. The casting of so many stars-on-better-shows like Chris Elliot, Mark McKinney, Micheal McKean and Jeneane Garofalo led to predictable disaster. They were the darkest SNL days since the infamous 1983-84 tragedy that claimed the professional life of one Joe Piscopo.
Thank god the Feds stepped in during those dark days in August 1995. An immediate shot of $10 billion dollars led to the hiring of Will Farrel. It's not like it ever got that funny, but at least it got back to the level of funny where it's really only funny when comparing it to whatever the current season is.
Hopefully the feds can step in now and finance a chin-implant for Kirsten Wiig.
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Sorry to rain on your parade Goph but if he has any living descendants he's still in the gene pool. I think we know what needs to be done.
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Reid, I disagree with your bailout plan as it unnecessarily rewards the big name comics who have been phoning it in for too long (Darrell Hammond, "longest-running cast member in SNL's history", looking at YOU) while giving nothing to the little guy. A better example to follow is when Canada's comedy market collapsed in '84 and we seized all of their assets (John Candy, Eugene Levy, Martin Short), even those with a "junk" rating (Robin Duke).
It's been obvious to anyone paying attention that the market was overinflated, "Everyone Loves Raymond" was the number one comedy for the longest time for crom's sake.
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is it okay to give a shout-out to sommer and her 3 minute interview with the examiner? i say yes ;)
good on you, sommer!
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This is not Nam. These are bad mortgages. There are rules. Mark it zero.
HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE CRAZY? AM I THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE RULES? MARK IT ZERO!
You're entering a world of pain, Smokey.
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don't fuck with the jesus....or the monkey
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From the Examiner interview with Sommer:
I would say we have about 25,000 daily readers. There are a few of them who are super-active who were actually invited to our Christmas party. There are some I’ve never met and wouldn’t know if I was sitting next to them on the bus.
I'm like the 7th ranked waster-of-time on this site, and I didn't get no god damn Christmas invite! Oh you just wait, you'll have no problem recognizing me on the bus. I'll be the one shooting daggers out of my eyes at you. Figuratively, of course, but also Literally.
Maybe!
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You wouldn't have missed much, Reid, except Ryan Avent doing a fan dance and Martin karaoke-ing "Annie Get Your Gun."
And super-active? WTF is that? The term is "hyperactive" and it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's why god invented snorting Ritalin.
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is it time for a dcist commenter happy hour, or something like that...let people get together and put faces to names.
and then put fists to faces?
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@ sumergocogito
in hindsight, that's probably not funny since the guy most likely killed his (19 year old) wife first... (and i can't suck w/href, but it's on the post's homepage)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092401108.html?hpid=topnews