C A P I C O S T I A

Washington, DC has had an 5.9 RS earthquake and is expecting aftershocks. If you're in the area, keep perishable foods, plenty of bottled water and weapons/firearms on hand; you may also want to put some of these items in your auto, in case you must evacuate your house. Please don't forget the water, as it's very hot here in DC. Keep a half-full glass of water in a centrally visible location and monitor it for shaking. If you think it's something other than an air-conditioner, passing truck or some kind of machinery, head for an exit. We're okay here, so far.

If you missed the International Space Station hurdling over Penn Branch at 9:42 pm (EST), like a flying saucer from the movies, don't sweat it! You can catch it again, tonight at 12:00 am or whenever you like, by checking in with Penn Brancher (and my mother) Shirley Dyer 's Space News website, generally recognized by skywatchers and astronomy enthusiasts to be one of the most comprehensive space information portals (list of links) on the Worldwide Web. Look for the 'Daily ISS [International Space Station] Sightings for Fort Dupont Park/Penn Branch' and get ready for one helluva show! When you look up in the sky on a clear or near-clear night, you will see a scattering of stars and planets - stars blink or twinkle, while planets typically don't. When you notice that one of the planets you're looking at is moving across the open sky, quickly, but, not as fast as a shooting star (meteor), you will know you are probably looking at the ISS, which is roughly abo...

Pompeii knew you couldn't keep a good weiner down. (Yahoo! News) "After days of denials, a choked-up New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner confessed Monday that he tweeted a bulging-underpants photo of himself to a young woman and admitted to "inappropriate" exchanges with six women before and after getting married. He apologized for lying but said he would not resign. A conservative website that last week started a furor over a lewd photo sent from Weiner's Twitter account posted new photos..." A difficult, but, all too typical story of political intrigue about a complex and driven man! Read more of the Yahoo! News article here

As the so-called liberally biased American TV news media intentionally or unintentionally rewrites the history of America's War On Terror with chinny, cinematic video clips of President George W. Bush vowing to get the people, responsible for the 911 attacks, I think it's important to keep the record straight. As conny bloggers and wingnut journalists ask questions like, "Does Obama deserve credit for killing Osama Bin Laden?" and "Does Bush deserve more credit for Bin Laden's death, than Obama?", I think it is easy to forget the Bush Administration's dismissive attitude regarding Osama Bin Laden's capture. As we give well-deserved credit to the U.S. Intelligence Community and our armed forces for the elimination of the global threat of Bin Laden, I think it's important to remember how many lives had been lost, tracking this guy through the mountains of Afghanistan, at the time that President George W. Bush told us he wasn't concerned ...

Penn Branch may be a little behind the times and short on modern amenities, but we got cars. We can drive, wherever we like. A major coffee retailer, with a name that sounds something like 'War-bucks' , will NOT be coming to Penn Branch or anywhere else in Southeast Washington, D.C. in the Fall of 2011, ..and if you read differently here, and this is a little bit of a letdown for you, I hope you aren't taking the truth too hard. Bummer, huh? It was all a big April Fool's gag , courtesy of yours truly. It might be a bitter pill to swallow, but, eventually, we're going to have to swallow it, my friends. The market research for this area (for reasons I won't get into here) is so terrible and nearly impossible to compile, that we are commercially invisible. Besides groceries, gasoline, liquor and a few other things, no retailer can determine, with any measure of certainty, what we are or aren't buying in Southeast or anywhere else, and, without the assura...

A major coffee retailer, with a name that sounds something like 'War-bucks' , will be coming to quietly middle-class Penn Branch (Washington, D.C.) in August 2011, and it looks like they may already be hiring. One of Capicostia’ s many routine googlings of ‘retail coffee southeast Washington dc’ produced an employment notice posted for a new “Hillcrest” store here . A reliable source tells Capicostia that the world-famous coffee giant's Penn Branch store will be located between PB Center’s old, broken down escalators and the nail salon, in what used to be a High’s Ice Cream store ..and two doors down from the CVS Pharmacy . Considering that Big Chair Coffee (with GRRREAT coffee and eats) on Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue is roaring into its second year in the River East area, this new coffehouse, while long wished for by many area residents, will not be the first of its kind to cross the Anacostia. And the commercial development revolution in Old Southeast continues un...

(NYTimes.com) As the four of us headed toward the eastern gate of Ajdabiya, the front line of a desperate rebel stand against the advancing forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, a car pulled up alongside. “They’re in the city!” the driver shouted at us. “They’re in the city!” Lynsey and Steve had worried that government soldiers might encircle the town, trapping us, but Tyler and Anthony discounted it. We had covered the fall of two other rebel-held towns — Ras Lanuf and Brega — and each time, the government had bombed and shelled the towns for days before making a frontal, methodical assault. When they did, rebels and journalists fled in a headlong retreat. If Ajdabiya fell, Colonel Qaddafi’s forces would be on the doorstep of Benghazi, the opposition capital, and perched on a highway to the Egyptian border, from... Read full story here