Breakfast links: Transcend the mediocre

Buy now

The FTA has cleared Metro to buy new railcars from Kawasaki under the Buy America program, the last hurdle before they could order the cars. (Examiner)

Midcity?

Georgetown isn’t the only neighborhood doing some branding studies. The 14th and U area got a grant to work on marketing, led by Andrea Doughty, who also ably led the ARTS Overlay review process (Housing Complex) … My take: don’t call it “Midcity,” which connotes being medium, mediocre, middling, in between other more important places, and more. What do you think?

Truck driver in Swanson incident arrested

Immigration officials have arrested the truck driver who killed Alice Swanson after press scrutiny turned up that he was undocumented and had been deported in the past. While I think Alice’s death ought to carry some consequences, it’s killing bicyclists that ought to have consequences regardless of one’s immigration status. (9 News Now)

Barry the blocker

Marion Barry filed disapproval resolutions last week blocking two projects, Gage-Eckington Park in LeDroit Park and DDOT’s move to a single building on M Street SE. Both are likely procedural efforts to get support for other priorities. Since the Council just went on recess, that may delay both until September. (Housing Complex)

Changing behavior in Paris without government

Drivers on a Paris bus line created a Web site for people to get to know them and what their job is like (Le Bus 38) … Groups of private citizens, like the Bad Behavior Brigade, try to change social norms including littering, public urination and more in Paris and New Delhi. (City Journal)

And…

NSA will add 6,500 more jobs to Fort Meade besides BRAC, even further exacerbating mobility problems in the area (The Capital) … Los Angeles’ mayor was hit by a taxi driver while bicycling, but won’t stop riding (LA Times) … The Post again confuses Northeast and Northwest. (District Curmudgeon)

Fair use and prior restraint

This is a bit off topic, but I used to blog about online freedom, and yesterday had some big news. First off, the Register of Copyrights finally allowed some fair use exceptions to the problematic Digital Millennium Copyright Act, including ones allowing people to “jailbreak” phones, use short clips from encrypted DVDs for education, documentary film, and noncommercial videos, to use text-to-speech on e-books, and to conduct research on security (Ars Technica) … Meanwhile, a Superior Court judge prevented a newspaper from printing information about which federal agency is investigating pomegranate juice maker POM Wonderful. (DeBonis)