Then I went to the Locations of Neighborhood Cameras page to compare the addresses of cameras to the addresses of murders. I found eight unsolved murders that had occurred within one block of a camera in the last two years.

See for yourself!

One of the corner stores near my east Capitol Hill apartment is seeking out a middle ground. Behold, the 3-pack:

Answer: Nah. Local and federal officials have done everything they can to make the prospect of attending this thing totally unattractive. Too much stupid security, too many ugly warnings, and too cold, too.

The initial crowd estimates were totally made up. The rental market was a bust from the start. Hundreds of hotel rooms remain unbooked. The city's received less than half the expected tour bus reservations. And only 662,560 people have RSVPed on Facebook.

We'll never get an official estimate, per Dave McKenna's story this week, so just take it from me: Everybody's definitely staying home.

The boys immediately stopped fighting and ran for their lives.

I said to the nun, "Good work, sister!"

She said she didn't know what to do, but she'd done exactly the right thing.

"I know if I’m clean they’ll give me my kids back," she says.

She said she wanted to see what people are saying about her, so I emailed the link and listened to Shawntaye read aloud the mostly anonymous comments on the bottom of the page.

"She needs to shut up," says Shawntaye in response to anonymous commenter Lala, who accused Shawntaye of continuous "breeding."

Shawntaye was very touched by her sister Tamika's comment. She got a little choked-up reading the last part of it:

My sister had a baby trying to find herself. But what she found was love in the wrong place. She didnt neglect her daughter London if anything she did what she could to survive. Hell she had no mother so how could she be a mother. She improvised and did what ahe thought was best and yes I admit she made some mistakes along the way but so have I and so have you. My sister wants her daughters back and believe you me she will take every breath in her body to get them back.

Shawntaye added her own comment, too. Go to the story to check it out.

Sullivan wrote this diddy right around when I was born, and I've never missed a Christmas Eve in Washington...but I'd never heard the tune before this year!

WTF

This is an excellent song.

What's really weird about this is that my real-life friend Tony already did this exact thing, in real life, and started a website about it on Nov. 21. City Desk linked to the mousecapades on Dec. 9.

"What the hell," says Tony, reached by telephone this morning for a reaction to the Onion story. He says that soon after he started his website, a friend who'd seen it told him he should write for the Onion. He thought that was a ridiculous idea: "Who writes about mice like that?"

I don't think Tony's story inspired the Onion's story, or that the Onion even borrowed a few details from Tony's website. But this isn't a coincidence, either. This is bigger than the Onion. This is a cosmic joke on Tony. It's a prank of celestial proportions. It's a higher power toying with Tony just like Tony is playing with the mice in his kitchen.

Maybe this is just a warning, and now Tony must either repent or start watching out for elaborate traps, decoy women, etc. Either way, keep it right here on City Desk for continued coverage of this ominous tale...

Photos courtesy The Onion and Tony

Start with Chapter 1, "First Contact," and click NEXT to follow the demented tale from there.

I frequent all the cheap sandwich shops near my downtown corporate office. Yesterday I wanted an empanada and beans & rice from Julia's, but they weren't selling beans that day. So, since lunch was a bust from the start, I decided to cut my losses and go for a cheap $5 footlong sandwich from Subway.

I now question whether this is ever a good choice.

Normally, I'd get a Veggie Max, but I'd eaten one too recently, so that was out. Almost everything on the $5 menu contains the chain's signature slimy deli meat, which hurts my stomach. Last week I gambled on the new Chicken Pizziola, which made my intestines feel very strange indeed. I figured the Oven Roasted Chicken Breast sandwich would be a safe choice.

My friends, here is the answer to your question: I will never eat this sandwich again because the chicken is so bland it lets me taste all the other ingredients. After lots of Subway sandwiches, a man realizes that something about the flavor of Subway's bread, vegetables, and condiments just isn't right. I could not even finish the chicken sandwich. I threw it away.

This episode reminded me of a piece of original wisdom from a famous writer named Dave Jamieson, who once said, "Subway sandwiches always seem as if they've been thrown from a moving vehicle, or as if somebody sat on them."

Never again.

Unfortunately for single beers, over 800 people voted for four-term incumbent Neil Glick. He sent an email bragging about it to his family and friends with a little note to Arthur Delaney at the bottom.

Thank you, Arthur for your spirited campaign.

I just checked the unofficial results this morning, where I reicieved 818 votes -- the highest amount of votes for a candidate in ANC 6B, and second highest in all of Ward 6, and the 8th highest votes received in all of the City for ANC Commissioners. You might have received as many as 34 votes.

I am glad you interjected a discussion about the sale of singles in our neighborhood. And the voters made their choice: they support the ban on singles.

Getting the endorsement of your employer, the Washington City Paper is very impressive, and I commend you for that.

And choosing to put yourself out there and being a candidate takes guts. I wish more people in America would do the same. We'd have a better political system if we did.

Can I buy you a six pack?

Neil Glick
5 term ANC Commissioner 6B08

Lately, the local political establishment is united in its insistence that corner stores not sell single cans or bottles of beer and malt liquor. Delaney has two simple questions:

1. What is a person supposed to do if he or she wants a beer but can't afford a six pack?
2. What if a person just wants one beer?

The answer to these questions is that a person who has ever been or ever will be in either situation must vote for Arthur Delaney in 6B08 tomorrow. Arthur Delaney has the necessary maverick qualities to begin to reverse the nannyish tide that will outlaw single sales in early 2009.

After the jump, more details, plus Arthur Delaney's first campaign video.

In a surprising development, the office of Ward 6 D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells inexplicably endorsed Arthur Delaney, because, according to Wells chief of staff Charles Allen, Wells approves of the idea of drinking just one beer.

Sometimes, you just want one.

UPDATE: Charles Allen writes to say that Tommy Wells does not, in fact, endorse Arthur Delaney. Allen writes, "My actual quote was that Tommy supports the idea of enjoying one beer, not that he endorses your candidacy….perhaps an overeager candidate has stretched my words little too far."

This absurd FOIA battle was the subject of a Sep. 22 City Paper story. The document is no longer directly accessible from the D.C. government's website, but please feel free to download it from the Washington City Paper's website.

The D.C. Jail went into lockdown the same day the story came out. The Department of Corrections insisted that the lockdown was routine and had nothing to do with the story, which was very alarming, because if the department believes its own statements about the security threat posed by the release of this document, wouldn't you expect them to put the jail in lockdown or something when the document was publicized? Or maybe in this case the most alarming thing would be to know the government believes its own statements.

DOC spokesman Anthony Diallo says there was no incident or emergency at the jail. He says the two-week lockdown has been planned for months and is in effect so guards can perform random checks for contraband items, cigarettes and stuff like that.

Legal visits are still allowed. A law student at the jail today said inmates reported that the lockdown is not routine--something happened inside the facility--but the student said client confidentiality disallowed providing further info on what happened.

Ann Keep, director of the nonprofit Visitors' Service Center, says lockdowns do happen from time to time, sometimes precipitated by violence in the facility, but as far as Keep has heard this one is routine.

On a completely unrelated note, the City Paper on Sept. 22 reported on the DOC's efforts to suppress an emergency planning document sought via the D.C. Freedom of Information Act. The department said releasing the document would "encourage an act of terrorism" at the jail. Turned out the thing was readily available from the department's own website all along.

Sometime over the weekend the plan finally disappeared from Google's easily accessible cache of PDF documents. Of course, you can still get the document from the Washington City Paper's website.

Savage died on his friends' couch in the early a.m. of April 19, a few hours after he'd been beaten by muggers in Adams Morgan and only five days after he'd left an unhappy life in California to make new friends and start a new job in D.C. Those last five days were the subject of an April 30 City Paper story.