News Bullets, "Tasters' Choice" Tuesday;

DDOT contractor reworks 17th Street Streetscape Project. A DDOT subcontractor, feeling the redevelopment project lacked a certain je ne sais quoi, decided to inundate 17th Street with a vast torrent of water. A 20" main was pierced by construction equipment near 17th and P NW. The newly formed Lake Dupont, along with the lack of water pressure (vital to modern plumbing) resulted in a Waterworld situation. Remember folks, despite what Kevin Coster may have done, it does not work like that. You cannot pee in a Mr. Coffee and get Taster's Choice.

Search for gunman turns into a food fight? Apparently the lockdown at Spingarn High School resulted in a big food fight. Yesterday a security guard at the school in Northeast thought he spotted a gun in a kid's pants. The school went on lockdown as police searched for the apparent gunman. The results were negative, however according to the City Paper a big food fight broke out. I've heard some terrible stories about conditions in DC public schools, and I can only imagine the difficulties of a lockdown. The food fight apparently occurred after gun situation had been resolved. Best part of all of this was the following comment to the City Paper's piece:

So these punks throw away good food that the taxpayers give them since they're too poor to buy their own lunches? There should be no free food at this school & no more lunch periods for the rest of the year.

In fact, the school should be closed. Why waste money trying to feed & educate idiots who refuse to be fed or be educated?

Yep, just shut the whole school down. That'll learn 'em good. In fact, maybe we can move them all to the National Zoo once Butterstick leaves. That'll be some improvement. I'll put a whole ten spot on that commenter not even living in the District. I'm going to wager maybe McLean.

New York Times writes about Arenas, DC's stupid gun laws. I've talked about Peter Nickles stupid reasoning for strict gun laws in the District before. Now the NYT writes up how DC's unique situation makes it difficult for Gilbert Arenas. The piece begins with:

WASHINGTON — The office of Peter Nickles, the District of Columbia’s attorney general, is on Pennsylvania Avenue, not far from the White House or the Verizon Center.

The proximity of the three locations underlines how law, government, sports and the continuing threat of violence stand shoulder to shoulder in the nation’s capital, creating a stark backdrop for Gilbert Arenas’s decision to store several guns in a Verizon Center locker room.

In doing what he did, where he did, Arenas has potentially created more legal trouble for himself than had he done it elsewhere.

“The District of Columbia is about as unique a place as there is in the country in terms of regulating firearms because of its need to balance safety with the Second Amendment right to bear arms,” Nickles said.

Here it is again, the proximity to the White House argument. Yeah, Gilbert Arenas is a total jackass and I hope he goes to jail. However, I'm sick of hearing how we need to have stricter gun control laws in the District simply because the federal government has important offices here. Again, jackasses who commit crimes with guns, or who plan to assassinate people, generally will not be deterred by a law saying they can't possess a firearm in the District. After all, killing people is already illegal, and homicides, while down, still aren't at zero. The biggest mistake Arenas made wasn't even the transporting of guns into DC (yes, it's illegal) but more the whole showing off the guns and then talking about it. Come on man, you make an obscene amount of money, enough to have twenty lawyers on speed dial or for DM on Twitter who could tell you if this seems like a good idea.

Metro gets on blogger bandwagon. Lately, I've noticed an improved effort by Metro to manage its image online. I know WMATA reads this blog (Google Analytics, FTW), and I've had better luck getting answers to questions from their communications office. As it turns out, John Catoe will be hosting a blogger roundtable this week. That's right, a chance for local bloggers to sit down with the transit chief and ask him some questions. This is a pretty huge deal for both bloggers and the transit agency. Prior to the June 22 crash and subsequent stories about safety, and prior to the budget crunch and service interruptions, I don't think we'd see this sort of thing. However, the C- for implementation comes from this blogger not getting an invitation. Too bad, I know. Maybe it's an oversight or maybe it's the whole demanding Catoe's resignation thing. Who knows. Maybe it's a big old distraction, get the bloggers away from their computers for a few hours and ram through some horrific service cuts. We'll see. As of this morning, I've been invited.

Herein I bestow a small amount of "proppage" to Jim Graham. Yeah I know, right, stop the presses and all of that. Early Saturday morning I heard a lot of shouting outside, followed by what sounded like a gunshot. This was around 3 AM, and it was loud enough to wake me up. I called 911 and reported what I heard. Just as I got off the phone, I heard more shouting, and then what sounded like someone screaming in agony. I've lived near Adams Morgan for a while now, and I've lived near Georgetown before that. I know what drunk people screams sound like. I've heard a lot of things out my window, and I'll tell you this sound scared me. I saw several MPD cruisers arrive nearby, and I went back to bed. I later followed up on the 3D Listserv, asking for a bit more information. The response simply said units responded but found nothing. Councilmember Graham sent a follow-up email, asking if Shotspotter detected anything or if someone had turned up in a local hospital. As it turns out, Shotspotter did detect a gunshot, but no further evidence was recovered. It is nice to see CM Graham chime in on this, even if his performance in other areas (e.g. Metro) have been underwhelming. At least we're starting off the 2010 campaign on a good note. It's also nice to know that my ghetto-ear has developed nicely, and I actually did hear a gunshot.