Via WJLA:

D.C.’s Shadow Senator Arrested
Sunday July 24, 2005 7:40pm

Washington (AP) – Police say D.C. shadow senator Paul Strauss has been charged with disorderly conduct, following a weekend run-in with authorities.

Sergeant Joe Gentile says Strauss was arrested about
9:15 p.m. Friday on the 900 block of 30th Street Northwest, while with a group of people acting unruly. He’s been released on a personal recognisance bond.

Gentile says the shadow senator was arrested after confronting officers as they arrested another man.

Strauss tells says he was – quote – “only standing up for someone else’s rights.” He plans to contest the charges.

Strauss, a Democrat, is a non-voting representative of the US Senate, which he lobbies on behalf city residents. He was first elected to the post in 1996.

I had a great time at the beginning of the month on Shadow Senator Paul Strauss’s boat and I’ve found him to be quite an affable man, so I doubt this arrest was really warranted. He is lawyer and I bet he’ll fight this with valor. What I find mildly ironic is that Strauss is jewish and the arresting officer’s last name is Gentile. I really wonder why the article is so freakin’ vague about the circumstances surrounding the arrest. Why was there a group of people on the 900 block of 30th St acting “unruly”? I’ll find out soon enough!

Less than a few weeks after Google Earth was released, the long awaited MSN’s Virtual Earth has finally been given the green light for beta testing.

After spending a few minutes using it today, I can with a certain degree of honesty say that MSN Virtual Earth isn’t all that special. I was expecting a stand-alone application instead of a modified version of Google Maps. Virtual Earth resides in your web browser, and I was under the impression that it was a stand-alone application.

Currently the only advantages of it are (after 5 minutes of use):
1) It uses the full web browser, so you get more map per pixel on your screen.
2) Using the .3 meter USGS imagery from April 2002 (the same imager of DC that Google uses), MSN’s Virtual Earth lets you zoom in quite a bit closer.

Other than that, eh… It’s better than Google Maps visually, but not as sophisticated as Google Earth.

I am waiting for the inclusion of more layers and the Pictometry’s 45 degree oblique images. These images will allow viewers more spatial information because you’ll be able to see the sides of buildings instead of the straight overhead (nadir) that most imagery is currently taken at.

There is also a user community website already established for Virtual Earth: http://www.viavirtualearth.com

Regardless, I look forward to seeing the next developments… Like maybe a stand-alone application that’s not designed to find you, but something similar to Google Earth. The hacks will be interesting too… Let the (re)development begin!

Read my Google Earth review here.