News Bullets, same old story Tuesday;

Another accident involving track workers on Metro. Fortunately there were no injuries after a chain-reaction crash along the Red Line. Kytja Weir reports in today's Examiner that a piece of equipment carrying 20 workers slid into a contractor's truck, causing a pile-up of sorts that damaged at least four vehicles. The accident was likely caused by ice on the rails, but the story here is that Metro failed to notify the Tri-State Oversight Committee of the crash. According to TOC Chairman Eric Madison, the crash did meet the requirements for reporting, and that he was not notified. He contacted Metro Monday after hearing about it through the grapevine. Metro is required to notify the TOC within 2 hours.

Gilbert Arenas can eat a bag of dicks. No, really, this Washington Post op-ed is a complete joke. Why do I have a problem with this? Well, the man hasn't even been sentenced for his felony conviction. To me, it seems a bit premature for him to be writing about getting on the right path and all of that when we don't even know what his official punishment will be. OK, and let's just talk for a minute about why this whole thing stinks. Some people will say "so he made a mistake, it doesn't mean he shouldn't be allowed to pursue his career." I think that committing a felony by threatening your co-worker's life with a gun is enough to get you fired. And if you are in a profession, it might just cost you your license. So yes, it could cost you your career. You'd have to find something else to do. For normal human beings who have to live with some sort of responsibility, thems the breaks. Maybe you are a really great brain surgeon, but if you are convicted of a felony for threatening a fellow doctor with a gun at the hospital, I think we can all agree that doctor should lose his medical license. We went over all of this back when Michael Vick came back to the NFL, and many said that it's not his fault that athletes are role models, etc, if they get the job done then who cares. Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too; in the WaPo op-ed, Arenas acknowledges that he's always known he was a role model, and that it's something he claims is important.

Last Tuesday, I wrote a letter to students in D.C. schools that was also about owning up to my mistakes. I said that I lost sight of the lesson I learned from Abe Pollin about how the responsibility to be a good role model comes along with the opportunity he gave me. I reiterate now the pledge I made to those students: that this is a responsibility I am not going to walk away from, that I will choose more wisely in the future and do my best to help guide children into brighter futures. 

No, it's the hundreds of millions of dollars you aren't going to walk away from. If he wants to talk about Abe Pollin's legacy, the first thing he should do is "retire." If he wants to pull a Vick in a few seasons and go to some other team, let it be their problem. Get him out of DC.

LOLZ, DC is the most "Democratic" spot in the country. Not only are we supposedly the most attractive part of the country, but we are also the bluest. A recent analysis of polling data seems to indicate that the District is, in fact, the most Democratic area in the United States. Please note that this is big D Democrat. While the Democratic Party holds an obscene edge over the GOP in this town, let us all remember this makes no difference in the House or the Senate. So we are, at the same time, the least democratic spot in the United States (and possibly the western world?). Yes yes, again we talk about how the residents of the country's capital city can't vote. :: Broken Record ::

Election 2010 round-up coming. There's simply too much information coming in for me to sift through it all for a short morning piece. We've got Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) slamming a potential opponent's fund raising numbers, we've got Clark Ray behind Mendleson in the money game, and we've got Vincent Gray talking tough on the budget, but still not running for mayor. Local political bloggers are swamped trying to summarize this because the Post's DC Wire did a big dump of stories yesterday.