The Agitator evaluates the desperately-trying-to-sound-relevant Office of National Drug Control Policy’s contention that the only potential job that someone who indulges in marijuana is qualified for is “burrito taster,” and begins to compile a list of the successful, famous, self-admitted pot smokers in public life:

• Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger
• astronomer Carl Sagan
• mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg
• billionaire rock star/songwriter Paul McCartney
• Barack Obama, president-elect
• Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the U.S
• John Kerry, U.S. Senator and 2004 Democratic nominee for president
• John Edwards, multi-millionaire, former U.S. Senator, and 2004 Democratic nominee for vice president
• Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, 2008 Republican nominee for vice president
• British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, and and Chancellor Alistair Darling
• Josh Howard, NBA all-star
• New York Governor David Paterson
• Former Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Oscar winner Al Gore
• Former Sen. Bill Bradley, who smoked while playing professional basketball
• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and former New York Governor George Pataki

We knew that Mark Begich would likely have an advantage over Ted Stevens in the remaining 90,000 votes to be counted. It was gonna be close – but we didn’t know how close. Today, after counting a 40,000 of those, the totals stand at:
Stevens (R) 125,016
Begich (D) 125,019

12,000 more are coming in tonight, and the rest will be counted in the coming days. Given the composition of the existing absentee/early/provisional ballots though, and the location of the uncounted lots, Begich’s lead is only expected to increase, by as much as another half a percentage point.

Update:

After counting the evening’s votes, Begich is up by 814.  The ballots not yet counted are apparently from heavily D-leaning areas, so it’s pretty safe to call this one for Begich.

That puts the Senate tally at 56-40-2 plus two races too close to call.

Brownsox over on DKos is doing a pretty good job of tracking races that havn’t yet been called… we watch with bated breath.

In the Senate, the tally is 55-40-2, with 3 seats undecided:
Alaska:
FiveThirtyEight has a simulation that suggests that there is still a decent chance of Mark Begich defeating convicted felon & Republican senator Ted Stevens, thereby preventing Sarah Palin from appointing herself temporary Senator (and then winning the special election) and making us listen to her verbal gymnastics for another six years.  If she wants to run for President this would be an ideal place to improve her image… but since the Senate has to actually vote on the record, strategically and tactically on many different issues, it’s traditionally been a very difficult place to springboard to the Presidency from.  Whether Sarah Palin’s appeal to her base is subject to tedious things like how she voted is up for discussion.  More on her (and the future of the Republican Party) in a later post.

Georgia:
While a few more votes have to be counted, Georgia’s Republican senator Saxby Chambliss is at 49.8% to Democratic challenger Jim Martin’s 46.8%. Under Georgia law, the winner coming in under 50% triggers a runoff that it would be entirely possible for Jim Martin, campaigning with President-elect Obama and enjoying much of the Democratic Party’s attention, could win.  3 points is considerable as a handicap, but I think this is entirely about how the economy does and how much effort the Democrats put into this race.

Minnesota:
Odds are close to even on who a month-long recount (to start in a week or two) will favor. Coleman has around 200 votes over Frankin, and lawsuits over things as small as a 32 ballot absentee batch that was slow in the coming in have been filed.

Update:
It looks like that lawsuit (which has been thrown out) may have attempted in the small print to stop the counting of most of the uncounted ballots:

Connecticut:
Lieberman was not up for reelection this year, but he may be impacted. Over the course of the last 8 years, he has gone:

• from the Vice-Presidential Nominee who torpedoed recount efforts & his chances of winning by being too conciliatory

• to an influential part of the DLC who “Votes with us on everything but the war”
• to an independant pro-war candidate who couldn’t muster enough Democratic votes to win a primary but could win an election by splitting both Republican and Democratic votes

• to a full-on neoconservative shill who campaigned with McCain and said he doesn’t know whether America would survive a government with the Democratic Party at its reins

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pretty adamant that his committee chairmanship (Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs) be yanked, but even offered him a trade: a chair somewhere else where his pro-war positions won’t damage Democratic ability to govern effectively. Joe’s spokesman said simply that losing his chair was “unacceptable,” as Democrats stood in awe of his audacity and the blogosphere called for him to be thrown out of the caucus entirely. The sole position I’ve been warning about since the issue came up in 2006 where this could matter after 2008, the 60th censure vote that Democrats need to stop Republican obstructionism in the Senate, would be at stake if the above three races are decided in favor of Democrats. The question for the Senate might end up being – Is suffering Joe Lieberman as deciding vote worth having the deciding vote?

Via the nearly telepathic xkcd:

With the knowledge that this is a bit more optimistic than Intrade & 538′s polling projections, I’m going to predict that all the tossup states go Obama, and even several of the marginally McCain-leaning states join in.

The line will be drawn in the red Arizona sands, in John McCain’s back yard – a trophy that the Democrats won’t gain, but nevertheless an endpoint that represents the biggest margin a Democrat has been elected by since Johnson trounced Goldwater in 1964.  Say what you will about the Bradley or anti-Bradley effect, Obama has too many other things going for him.

• The cell-only correction in an age when young voters register Democratic over Republican bby a 2:1 ratio

• The unprecedented African-American voter turnout expected

• The ‘enthusiasm gap’ that McCain suffers (where he has to hold events at a school so that students are included and he can get more than 1000 people to attend, while Obama gets crowds of 100,000) will likely cause many of his voters that get polled to stay home.  This includes the GOTV efforts that Obama has set up – a ground campaign that McCain’s efforts were never able to touch.

• The deep hangover that the Republican party faithful tangentially connected to reality suffer from in the face of Sarah Palin, after the two-week-long euphoric highs of her cult of personality

And the clincher:

• The amazingly high numbers of people voting early, and the amazing margin by which they’re going for Obama. I understand that his canvassers urge early voting, but the numbers we’re seeing would need an election-day landslide for McCain to correct in some states where a significant portion of the electorate has already voted.

We’ll know in 24 hours how accurate I was.

Side bets:

• States without early voting, particularly ones with a diverse populations like Maryland, will positively swell with voters today, causing long enough lines to provoke outrage.  I’ll be out there at 7AM.

• When Obama makes his inauguration day address, the District of Colombia will swell with the biggest event it’s ever had.  If the same regurgitated speech in a campaign that lasted two grueling years can fill 100k seat stadiums multiple times a day, Inauguration Day will draw millions – and the low-attendence restricted-ticket events planned (where controversy has arisen over things like restricting crowds in front of bleachers) will be ill-equipped to handle it.  I’ll be out there at 7AM as well.

Update:

Arrived at poll at 7:30AM to a line that was just doubling back as it reached the end of the elementary school’s property.  I heard “Been here 90 minutes” from the people coming out.  There was a lot of chatter about Palin’s outrages and Obama’s merits as well as a few Democrats at their table – but not a vocal McCain supporter in earshot.  An hour and 15 minuts later, I was out, and the line appeared to be shorter by about 10%.

The jury handed down a guilty verdict on all counts yesterday to Ted Stevens, who had urged a speedy trial in order to beat the election cycle. What struck me in the case was this Taped phone conversation of Senator Ted Stevens from two years ago demonstrating the cockiness with which he viewed the whole situation, even while assuming he was under FBI wiretap & talking to the main codefendant & witness in any potential trial:

STEVENS: So, but it, you know, it doesn’t make any difference. Hell, I don’t care what they ..(inaudible) I’d say the same thing I said if they were sitting here right in front of us. I’m not going to let these guys get us in a position where they can charge us with something just because we didn’t do what they think we should do. They, they’ve got to go out make the case that we did something that, that is against the law. I don’t think we have violated the law.

ALLEN: I don’t think we have either, Ted. But, uh, you know, I, I – that lawyer has grilled me and grilled me on what they think they can do. He talks to them, I don’t.

STEVENS: That’s, that’s the way it should be. But as a practical matter, the question is, what can they convince the jury, uh grand jury, to charge us with. That’s the problem. But when I was a district attorney, I, I handled grand juries, lots of them. They’re funny people, but they also are people from within the community. And your reputation and everything else comes into into this play, as far as grand juries are concerned. But I think, really, when you look at it. We ought to just cool it. I told Ben the same thing: just cool it, you know, go about our business and smile and have a happy face. You ought to get out and meet people and do things. Do the things you used to do and just keep going. If it’s a violation of the elections law, that’s a corporate violation. This thing, it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t get to your mind, old buddy.

ALLEN: Well it has been, I’ll tell you.

STEVENS: Well but, you got to, you got to just stand back and say what’s going to happen when it’s all over. You got to get a mental attitude that these guys can’t really hurt us. You know, they’re not going shoot us. It’s not Iraq. What the hell? The worst that can be done, the worst that can happen to us is we round up a bunch of legal fees and, and might lose and we might have to pay a fine, might have to serve a little time in jail. I hope to Christ it never gets to that, but, and I don’t think it will. But I don’t, I’m developing the attitude that I don’t think I did anything wrong so I’m going to go right through my life and keep doing what I think is right.

ALLEN: Well, when this, when this grand jury is over, where are you going to be?

STEVENS: Grand juries meet about two or three days a month, Bill. They’ll finish and then they’ll go up and think about stuff and ask people to get more information on this or that and then they’ll come back in about a month to five weeks. So it’s not going to be over. They last about, their term is about 18 months.

ALLEN: Shit.

STEVENS: I’m going back to Washington on the 25th.

ALLEN: What is today?

STEVENS: The 19th.

ALLEN: 19th. .

STEVENS: I’m going to Seward, then I’m going to Valdez, then I’m going to Fairbanks, going to Barrow, and come back here and then leave the state.

ALLEN: OK.

STEVENS: But we ought to get together some time, when we can …

ALLEN: Yeah, we really should, Ted. And just between me and you – we’re not going, we’re not going to do anything, Justice, but I’ve got more information, maybe, maybe, than you got. You know, uh, and …

STEVENS: That’s probably true. But we’ll, we’ll get to the point where we have share information. Right now, let’s not, let’s not hasten, you know, this thing along and make it look like we’re trying to stop them at the pass. I’m not afraid of them at all.

ALLEN: I know you’re not. Uh, well, there is, there is things that I need to tell you. But, but uh, you know, I can’t do it over the phone.

STEVENS: If there’s some things you need to tell me, tell your lawyers to tell my lawyers. Bill Phillips in Washington’s my lawyer.

ALLEN: Is he? OK, well. How…I think I got all your cell phones and all that, so.

STEVENS: Well you, anything gets really serious, give me a call. Lets not try to share information that they don’t have.

ALLEN: OK.

STEVENS: That, that would be obstruction of justice…

If elected & not sentenced to jail time, odds are he’ll stay in that Senate seat for the rest of his life.

The last years of the Clinton presidency, 1999:

The eve of the Bush presidency, 2008:

Courtesy of Americablog

So I believe I’ve finally figured out why the city has been promoting an Anacostia streetcar on a freeway. As nonsensical as this strikes some people interested in transit, they’ll still push it because it’s the beginning of the DC streetcar system. But a useless alignment as technology demonstration struck me as a bit absurd even for transit authorities. It took me a while to make the leap that I suppose others have understood implicitly. It’s not about spending precious transit money serving spread-out base residents or revitalizing a sewer treatment plant. It’s not about connecting to National Harbor. It’s about existing opportunities, low-hanging fruit, and momentum.

As a newly constructed line, this “streetcar” makes no sense whatsoever – why waste all that transit money replacing a traffic-ridden rushhour-only shuttle bus with a traffic-ridden train? We already have a bus system as well as more than enough people using their own cars. Confused, I explored the area in Google Earth.

I encourage you to zoom in on the satellite feed:

Turns out, there’s a 6 mile long singletrack already built & in place(The Shepherd Industrial Spur) that can deliver people from the Anacostia Metro to the dense employment centers at NRL, Bolling, & Anacostia with a little fixing up, as well as to the new St. Elizabeth’s DHS complex on a 1-mile spur that’s been graveled over (Replacing a Metro infill station likely to cost $100-$200 million). It’s owned but unused by CSX. A few of the grade intersections appear to be paved over, but most are signalized & a few are even bridged. With a few thousand feed of freight track separation in front of Fort Dupont, you could even utilize another 1.5 miles of track to run a transit line all the way up to the Minnesota Avenue station on the Orange Line.

Yes, it would be singletracked, but you can still do a lot with a singletrack, particularly if you double-track a few hundred feet in front of the Anacostia Metro Station, effectively dividing the span into two 4-mile tracks. Thus, two 400-foot long light rail vehicles serving 6 stations each on 4-mile-long segments would be implemented for a few million dollars, with traffic problems limited to isolated base roads & 1 grade crossing each on Suitland Parkway, South Capitol Street, and Howard Road.

The city saw this, and sprang to buy the rights from CSX and begin operation. When CSX revealed that they only had easement rights over some of the land, the District tried to renegotiate the $16M they’d offered, and CSX held out. Meanwhile the people enthusiastic about streetcars (who had been bothered that it wasn’t actually on any walkable streets) grabbed the reins and took the approved, groundbroken project to the nearest suitable right of way – South Capitol Street – a freeway anathema to the concept of “streetcar”. Anywhere else, and the busy 2-4 lane semi-urban streets of Anacostia would have to be widened beyond practicality. The three years since then have seen the project stall, an anachronism which noone wanted to build.

The City Paper describes the situation well.

Don’t look at it as a streetcar, look at it as light rail that extends Metro. This is perhaps a third of the benefit of a new Metro line across Anacostia, at 1% of the price. It won’t automatically revitalize Minnesota Avenue due to the quarter-mile walk, but it will serve it better for residents than buses during peak hours, especially once Poplar Point is built, and it will make the jobs overlooking Potomac in SW quite transit-accessible for nonresidents.

Several libraries around the District have been shuttered since 2004 under a modernization plan.  Two-story, 15000 foot Tenleytown library was demolished in mid-2007 in order to begin redevelopment on a public private partnership with a more modern library facility.  The library is sited across the street from the Tenleytown Metrorail station, and thus is a huge opportunity for Smart Growth.

Janney Elementary School next door is one of the most overcrowded schools in the District.  The building was recently designated as historically protected, and the school system wants to renovate it and build additional footage, in effect doubling its size.  A joint building on both parcels was proposed, and thus began a long, hard slog through the approval process.

We’re most of the way through 2008, and every plan that’s been brought up has been shot down, a back and forth of delays that leaves the library in a 5,000 square foot interim location, the demolished site a brownfield.  People want their library, and there is a lot of finger pointing at the differing needs of developers, the Mayor’s office, the school system, and the library system.  The failure of the discussion has even prompted a debate on the use of surplus public land.

Area residents want the open space & recreation area for their children & for community uses.  Connecting additional school space & the library would be nice, but building over the soccer field that backs the library is highly unpopular.  Meanwhile, any PPP that brings in money would require parking that would further reduce recreation space.  The site has a high-water-table underground stream making underground development impractical.

In my mind, a large mixed-use building with school, library, residential, commercial, & recreational could fit the bill if it used a green roof and multilevel parking.  So I set off to see how that might be done, using Sketchup as a modeling tool

I attempted to maximize FAR & community uses for the site, assuming no underground parking is available, that the mature-treed parklike area is off-limits (becoming a pocket park), that Old Janney itself is off-limits as a recently designated historic building (which could become whatever is able to use its facilities).

I played around with it for a while & lost interest until the subject started thread-jacking several  Greater Greater Washington threads recently.  So I thought I’d share my ‘have your cake and eat it too’ plan.

Sketchup Model (Get Sketchup)

The building includes approximately:

• 156k sqft residential space
• A 0.6 acre wooded pocket park
• 44k sqft streetfront & 2nd-level retail
• Old Janney School building unchanged, for whatever purpose necessary
• 148k sqft school area, including:
• 25k sqft cafeteria, possibly dual-use as an evening restaurant
• 59k sqft classrooms & administrative
• 19k sqft auditorium/stage
• 29k sqft library & community center, plus
• 15.5k sqft class-instruction library section
• 1.65 acres roof recreational space managed as school ground during school hours, and as a public rec center at other times, including:
• 16k sqft indoor rec center
• 10k sqft shaded/paved basketball court
• Soccer field w/ bleachers
• Kickball field
• Playground
• 89000 sqft parking spaces on three levels in the core of the building, enough for approximately 150 spaces
• Wide through-driveway for schoolbus parking
• 6 feet of additional sidewalk space in the middle of the block
• 12 feet of additional sidewalk space on Wisconsin Avenue
• Benches & small plaza in front of entrances (evacuation space, waiting space)
• A 95 foot high roof, keeping under the higher of the two height requirements for the area.