The Manhattan Project
Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Compromise Uncertain on Same-Sex Marriage Law
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
Sculpture Garden Ice-Skating Rink Remains Closed
Good morning, Washington. Anybody watch Rod Blagojevich on Letterman last night? The curious can find a transcript of the interview's main part here. The exchange contains plenty of the signature Blago obliviousness, but nothing as amusing as the elaborate horse theft analogies that the disgraced ex-governor concocted on January 23. Could Rod's post-impeachment media blitz running out of steam? That would be a shame — there's still plenty of room for it to get even more farcical.
More Snow?: Although the snow is sticking, this morning's light flurries aren't expected to amount to much. There's a winter weather advisory in effect until 10 AM, but total accumulations aren't likely to exceed one or two inches anywhere in the area.
Md. Slots Auction Gets Even More Underwhelming: Yesterday brought news of the anemic launch of Maryland's slot machine gambling industry. There were five licenses available, but only six bidders chose to compete over them, and they're only proposing to build about ten thousand machines, despite fifteen thousand having been authorized. Well, that was the story yesterday — today's Post reveals that the situation is even worse. Two of the bidders may be eliminated due to their failure to pay application fees on time; and the number of proposed machines has been revised further downward, to 6,550. Lawmakers say they're lowering their expectations for the budgetary windfall that slots will provide, and are talking about sweetening the terms of potential agreements to attract more investors.
Briefly Noted: Bulova claims victory in Fairfax County Board race... Va. to announce $2b in transportation cuts... D.C. approves dedicated funding for Metro; now it's up to Md. and Va... Young woman sexually assaulted by police impersonator in Stafford... Two young men and an unidentified teen arrested in connection to cabbie's murder... Virginia Senate delays closing gun show loophole — but they haven't been slacking off: the legislature found time to pass a law allowing concealed weapons in restaurants... Two charged with human trafficking in Montgomery County... Unscreened VIPs raise questions about inauguration security...
Image posted to DCist Photos by Flickr user Jess J
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That $2 billion cut in transportation funding is going to go over real well with all the PW County jokers soiling themselves over their multi-hour commutes. You mean, if I live an hour's drive from work it will take me an hour to drive to work? What's next? Eating FAT that's been fried in FAT will make me FAT?
Boo f**king hoo, Mr. and Mrs. Prince William County. My heart just BLEEDS that your commute is totally worse than Hitler. Cry me a goddamned river and, while you're at it, why don't you arrest some more illegal immigrants? I'm sure that will help your commute. Or better yet, BUILD MORE ROADS. Because if there's anything that a junkie needs its MORE HEROIN. Yesirree, that'll git 'r done!
YOU are everything that's wrong with America. You're house is too big, your car is too big, your ass is too big, your mortgage is too big, your debt is too big, and now you're commute is too big. Live closer to work OR get a job where you can afford to live OR STFU. Some of us decided that living in a f**king Mcmansion in the middle of f**king nowhere that costs thousands to heat and cool wasn't such a brilliant f**king idea. So we live in a modest place in an inner suburb or a small place downtown. Yet we still have to listen to Doug and Linda Boring whine about how hard it is to commute from West Virginia (not to mention all those banjos blaring in the distance) and Gettysburg (Yeah. Gettysburg. WTF?) because they "just can't afford to live in DC," which is their code phrase for "don't want to live next to THOSE people who look DIFFERENT from me who breed like rats and have all that smelly cooking."
So by all means enjoy your 4-hour commute dodging tumbleweeds in your Nissan Apocalypse on your way back to your imploding forclosure ghosttown while you wolf down your takeout meal from "The Gilded Truffle" and DIE, leaving a garlic-scented CORPSE.
PS: Parking was NOT ample.
Jesus Christ on a Crutch, I think we've found a button.
Amen, brother. "all that smelly cooking" is why I like living downtown.
I think I need a cigarette after all that.
you smoke?
No
Pity that the postcoital cigarette has now gone the way of the shoefitting fluoroscope, the sanitary napkin belt, and America's superpower status. What a tragic loss to human intimacy! Oh, well. C'est la vie! That's what they say. You're riding high in April then shot down in May.
[puts on wet suit, returns to inflatable pool filled with banana pudding]
Well said, Monkey. I'd like to add a note to the lady from the article with the husband who leaves for work at 5 a.m. and gets home after 7:30: He's having an affair.
What is her address....
Don't worry monkey, the teeming masses of poor will ">http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime> soon be following them out to Whateverbrooke, VA. While they are desparately trying preserve their exurban dreams and prevent their daughters from dating any of the smelly-food-cookers, we enlightened city dwellers will be sitting around signing petitions to finally get a Whole Foods built in Anacostia.
brilliant--wish i could send the comment to my family. that wouldnt go over so well.
Holy cow! Monkey took the words right out of my mouth.
p.s. Everyone in PWC should move to Australia.
If by "Australia" you mean "prison colony" I'm all over that like brown on dookie. Just have the Feds re-open Lorton as the "Reagan National Sprawl Re-education Camp and Aromatherapy Salon," where PW County people can be studied and such unnatural commuting practices can be conditioned using electroshock aversion techniques and experimental SUV/cellphone-deprival therapies.
Top quality rant, mate. Reminds of those who demand both a large backyard and a walkable neighborhood. If everyone had large backyards, how could the neighorhood possibly be walkable?
Also, I read that headline expecting an exposé on prostitutes suffering from the current economic downturn, but to no avail. Please put a reporter on this story, post haste.
Could it be that no one is bidding to put in slots because slot machines are boring and suck ass? If you're going to have gambling, just go all the way and have fucking table games already. This bizarre train of thought that leads people to believe that lottery tickets and slot machines are somehow not *really* gambling, but blackjack and craps are, is baffling in the extreme.
So very true. The odds on slots and Lotto are terrible, so we aren't doing anyone any favors by limiting them to slots and the Lotto.
We should have some balls and go ahead and do real gambling.
It's about time they allowed guns in restaurants. Maybe now I can finally get my goddamned glass of water filled, you f**king f**kers! And no, I don't want the bottled $h!t! I want that murky stuff what comes out the Potomac, not some $12 froggie swill what comes from the Alps. You see what happens, Larry? Do you know what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps? Here's what happens, Larry. This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!
how many more "privileged folks scared shitless because there wasn't enough security" stories do we have to read?
I kind of hope someone steps up to the plate to compete with Charles Town. Their jingle haunts my every waking moment .... CHARLES TOOOOWN!!! Race-ces and slots .... damnit.
in my head the song goes "Charles Town! Racists and Sluts .."
Curse you...my internal iPod has that jingle on repeat now. I wish you cholera and--CHARLESTOOWWWWWWWWWWWN...RACESSSSS AND SSSSSSSSSLOTSSSSSSSSS. Damn you. Damn you to hell.
What's up with these fake cops roaming Virginia? Someone posing as an officer tried to assault my nephew and his female friend a few months ago in PW County. Maybe the real cops should stop hassling all the brown folks and hassle the folks with illegal flashing lights on their cars. When I was in high school I once got pulled over for shining a flashlight in my car while driving b/c I could have been trying to impersonate an officer. That guy was a dick though.
Monkey, who exactly from PW was whining? and, there are plenty of the folk you think white folks are running from in PW, and, there are also plenty of hummers parked in front of very large homes in Alexandria... you ran to Va from DC. why was that again?
Hillrat, who exactly said slots and lotto weren't 'really' gambling?
Hillman, so you agree, or don't agree that slots and lotto are 'real' gambling? you start to agree, and then change your mind.
IMGoph, so the morning roundup is required reading now? and i didn't see anything about anyone being scared shitless. at least no one broke your rules about neighborhood naming conventions.
Foobar, racists? they live in W.Virginia so they're automatically racists? sluts, maybe.
West, you seem to want the police to go after those pretending to be police officers, but not when it's you?
econosize, now that was funny!
the morning roundup comments should be called 'the morning freeforall rant'.
don't worry if anyone really says, does or thinks what you attribute to them, just get your own private rant out there for all to read. this is mine.
lol
All I'm saying is there might be a problem in NoVa with police impersonators and I would hope no one would condone the fact that in both cases young girls were or were about to be sexually assaulted. Also, my story has nothing to do with that, I didn't grow up in NoVa and that was several years ago (for the record, I grew up in WV and YES they are racists). Sorry my anecdotal story was offensive.
i was wondering how the police are supposed to crack down on impersonators if they get flak for doing it, but you are correct, your example was a little different. i believe police impersonation is a national issue, not just virginia.
i just broke up with someone from west virginia because they were mad that all the 'coloreds' refused to work jan 20th, so i won't argue anymore about that generalization.
jeebus krispies, hoyacougar, that was one heck of a free form rant. i guess i need to qualify everything i say so you don't get too rant-y towards me.
have to read here didn't quite mean "gun to your head—read this now". it was more like "this is what we have available to us to read".
anyways, splitting hairs and what not. hope you're feeling OK today.
it was grape nuts and the disconnect doesn't bother me. the only gambling game i really like is sigma derby and you have to go vegas to play that.
i blame dcist for the misplacement of my responses to your responses to my diatribe...
Wow. Meth much?
I agree that slots and Lotto are gambling. It's just wimpy gambling lite.
And the odds are generally worse than table games.
But we don't have table games because that would make The Baby Jesus cry. But we all know He doesn't care about gambling as long as it's not a table game. Because He's logical that way.
no meth thanks. i'll have what michael phelps is having. does the meth make you say one thing only to rebut it in the next sentence?
@hoyacougar
Who pissed in your Wheaties this morning?
What I said was, "This bizarre train of thought that leads people to believe that lottery tickets and slot machines are somehow not *really* gambling, but blackjack and craps are, is baffling in the extreme."
How else do you explain the disconnect between states that have lotteries but no casinos?
i'm sorry, and i'm feeling much better, thank you.
Meanwhile, Barbara Mikulski won a vote that would permit deduction of sales taxes for new automobile purchases, and further deductions on interest paid on money borrowed for such purchases.
If you ask me (and I'm sure you will after I buy you beer), I find that bass-ackward thinking. Let's encourage more people to go spend more money and consume-consume-consume to buy our way out of this sh!t-can economic mess.
While Mikulski (who's gotta go, fer cryin' out loud Maryland, wake up) is kissing car-maker chrome butt, folks in the city have to suck it up.
Buying useless crap NOW injects money into the economy NOW. Investing in major infrastructure like mass transit or road construction takes YEARS.
So you want to boost the economy? Make everyone buy a huge goddamned gas hawg. Whatever money you lose in a sales tax writeoff you make up for in fuel taxes and surcharges and fees. The guy riding the bus is NOT going to be able to haul cases of beer and cigarettes and hookers. Brotha with the spankin new Escalade? He gonna be drinkin Remy Martin and coke and throwin dollas at his b!tches and wrecking that $h!t on the freeway, so there's more money he's blowin to fix his ride.
Conserving resources and saving money and being prudent with your investment is a guaranteed road to ECONOMIC CATASTROPHE. If you loved America, you'd be buying the most expensive crap you can find and throwing it all away to buy some gold-plated turd that Jeff Koons is selling. Because you're worth it.