Steve Novick launched his campaign to run for Republican Gordon Smith’s Senate seat in April 2007. He’s one of those prototypical Oregon progressives, with staunchly lefty views on war, taxes and health care. He also has an amazing story. He stands under five feet tall and was born with a missing left hand. Raised in a working-class family, he went on to Harvard Law School, at age 18, and ended up serving as the government’s lead attorney in the Love Canal case.

Half a year after Novick started his grass-roots campaign, the Democratic establishment put a more generic horse in the race: state House speaker Jeff Merkley, who’s voted against giving in-state tuition to immigrants’ children and in favor of denying driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Now, the two candidates are neck and neck in next week’s primary.

Novick’s underdog battle is getting an extra push from a bunch of notable musicians, from Death Cab for Cutie to REM to Rufus Wainwright. The campaign is giving tickets to Pearl Jam’s D.C. show this June to local supporters who donate $250. Even MTV is paying attention now.

(Conflict of interest alert: I went to grade school, high school and college with Novick’s campaign manager.)

People still don’t get it: Man with H.I.V. sent to prison for trying to contaminate a police officer with … his saliva.

California high court approves Satan’s plan.

Did two people need to die here? A former diplomat shot and killed his sickly wife after finding her collapsed on the sidewalk. Then he shot himself.

The Smithsonian pimps itself out.

Woe to Gossip Girl fans world-wide, the CW is in trouble, and it’s all your fault.

Fun document from Princess Sparkle Pony: An appeals case from Texas in which the deadly weapon is none other than Baby Jesus!

Sad news: Marshall Thompson is closing the District Line, his British-ish clothing store in Georgetown, (also a Best of DC winner). Perhaps there will be a sale.

I just stopped by Woodrow Wilson High School in Northwest, hoping to talk to kids about the breaking news that at least one of their own is suspected in connection with a mostly-suburban drug ring with “plans” to sell marijuana to high school students. After finding more than $6,000 in cash and more than three pounds of marijuana in one student’s home (which leads me to believe the “plans” had already been realized), Montgomery County police arrested two students, from Winston Churchill High School in Potomac and Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, and two adults. More arrests were promised–potentially at Wilson. Police said they were proud they caught the little buggers before they had a chance to sell any drugs. Um, right.

Anyway, I figured this news would be the talk of the town at Wilson. Even though the campus was relatively busy this afternoon, I found only one student who’d heard anything. The gossip, she said, was something about “a white, 17-year-old girl” involved with selling drugs with kids from Maryland. The rest of the students I talked to were more concerned about another police action on campus today: the closure of Fort Reno park due to high arsenic levels in the soil. According to a group of students sitting on some steps at a business across from the school, at about 1:30 p.m., the park was their favorite place to ditch class. Now where will they go???

I understand their frustration. When I was in high school, we would sneak away to a place called Hamburger Mary’s in Portland. We would order home fries, douse them with Tabasco, nurse coffees and smoke Marlboro Reds. I was really not that much of a rebel, so we only skipped during assemblies or when we’d done something to make showing up in class riskier than getting caught skipping. When Hamburger Mary’s closed, we were distraught. We tried going to the fancier brew pub down the street, but the waiters quickly caught onto our game and gave us a time limit. The next year, our school started locking the doors during assemblies. That meant we actually had to go. And they were really, really bad. Wilson students, I feel your pain.

Has anyone else noticed smirk-inspiring ads for the new drug AcipHex? On the commercials, the name is pronounced, “Ass Effex.” Do the drug companies make up homophonic names for new pills on purpose? AcipHex will certainly stick with me more than Reglan or Nexium.

I am a big fan of red wine. Such a big fan, that I often opt for wine at dive bars. It’s a bad sign when the bartender has to go hunting for the bottle. Even worse if said hard-to-find bottle is already open. I do know the difference between good red wine and bad, it’s just a weird, personal preference. Anyway, I’ve recently discovered a cocktail that can dress up even the worst house red: the Calimocho or Kalimotxo.

It’s a Spanish concoction made of equal parts red wine and Coca Cola. Sometimes it comes in plastic bags. I like my Calimochos in tall glasses with lots of ice. I’ll admit the drink’s flavor is distinct–something like a very acidic cherry cola–and some people find even the smell offensive. But don’t diss it out of deference to the wine. Just think of all the champagne cocktails that bastardize decent bubbly with soda and juice.

I even like Calimochos made with Coke Zero, but obviously, I have weird taste.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy released a “study” last week arguing, essentially, that teenage pot smoking causes mental illness. The NDCP seems to trot out one of these reports every year or so, often citing data showing an increased risk of mental illness among youth who smoked reefer. I called bullshit on that alleged causal link last week. My argument is better made in a new study from the British Home Office, cautioning against the temptation to draw find a cause and effect relationship between cannabis use and increased risk of mental illness.

“An association between cannabis use and the subsequent development of a psychotic illness does not necessarily indicate a causal relationship in either individuals or populations. The onset of schizophrenia usually occurs in the late teens or early twenties; and it is at this age that cannabis use is most prevalent. A temporal association – which may not necessarily be a causal one – is therefore almost inevitable”

The authors note later that other factors might be at play, “such as a common predisposition to schizophrenia and also to cannabis use.” Meaning, people destined to develop schizophrenia may also be the kind of people who smoke pot in high school. Not so hard to believe. As for the potential impact of the mental health menace that is marijuana, the study notes that very few young pot smokers (in the UK anyway) will go on to develop a psychotic illness. According to their research, “around 5,000 young men, or 20,000 young women, would need to be prevented from using cannabis to avoid one person developing schizophrenia.”

Mayor Fenty attended today’s memorial service for fallen police officers, despite getting last-minute dis-invitation to speak at the annual event. The Fraternal Order of Police told the mayor his remarks would not be welcome in a letter yesterday, citing his handling of the DeOnte Rawlings shooting. Fenty didn’t respond to questions about his soured relations with the union.

Officers in attendance didn’t reserve their grumbling for the mayor. I collected gripes about the drain of increased patrols, and worries among higher ups about Chief Cathy Lanier’s continuing efforts to reshuffle leadership positions in the department (by my scatterbrained count, two district commanders have made “lateral” transfers in the last two months.) The service comes just before something called National Police Week, May 11 - May 17, in which bus loads of police from across the country come to D.C. to remember officers killed in the line of duty. I’m told there’s also so some good-natured drinking involved.

Americans are still paranoid about seeming pink. The fine arts commission threatens to veto planned statue of MLK because it looks too confrontational, like Social Realist art from totalitarian Communist regimes. Puh-leeze.

I’m calling bullshit on this out of the gate. White House “study” links teen marijuana smoking to the risk of mental illness later in life. Wah? Any evidence that marijuana actually causes mental illness? How about a study showing that kids who listen to Nick Drake are more likely to suffer from moodiness? Or write crappy love notes? Zero skepticism from the Post.

An example of what sounds like Munchausen by proxy in Frederick, Md. The local paper also has a whodunit main story on several garden gnomes that appeared in front of downtown businesses yesterday.

And Now, Anacostia updates the Salvation Army construction. The assessment: “this is turning into somewhat of a hodge-podge monstrosity.”

Artomatic starts tonight.

Obama’s starting to assume a win.

I missed the least sexy holiday of they year somehow. Yesterday was the National Day to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Cristina Page at the Huffington Post did some data hunting on NARAL’s website and came up with the conclusion that kids in pro-life states get laid more often than kids in pro-choice states. They start doin’ it younger, and do it with more people too. Her assumption is that pro-life states are more likely to be places where schools and parents teach abstinence and cover their kids’ eyes when Bugs Bunny dresses like a lady. Of course, the causal relationship between the laws in those states and the horny tykes behavior behind the bleachers isn’t really drawn by the available data. The point is, pro-lifers aren’t having much luck with this whole abstinence campaign.

That said, I started to feel a little nervous today listening to NPR’s report on how women are waiting too long to have babies. If only I’d grown up in Wisconsin.

Whoa. BYT happens upon a juicily secret scoop. A fight club, maybe, at a skate park in DC.

Update: Apparently, this isn’t exactly a discovery.

In case anyone’s wondering if journalists are still bitter and disgruntled: angryjournalist.com.

Moe at Jezebel points out the oh-gosh politics and journalism cross in strange ways news that Andrea Mitchell won’t let her hubby Alan Greenspan spend any time alone with his one-time snuggle bunny, Barbara Walters. Moe thinks our generation of women is more comfortable with sharing past partners. I think she’s right, for the most part. Especially in incestuous fields like journalism and politics, it’s sort of inevitable. And if you’re not totally dependent on dudes for your sense of self-worth, you won’t waste your time wondering if your girlfriend gave that one dude something you couldn’t. Mitchell’s situation is a bit different, since she is still in possession of said dude, and since Babs is so freaky. But, still, she should loosen the reigns a bit.

The Post’s headline on the latest of many recent stories on this supposed rise in crime reads: “D.C. Slayings, Nerves Spike.” Wrong! Sloppy! Slayings are actually lower so far this year than last year. The “spike,” as the story itself points out, has been in violent crime — things like assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery. Those stats are easily manipulated and hard to pin down. (The numbers can rise if there are more arrests or more calls from citizens, which can hinge on efforts like Chief Lanier’s to increase patrols or on demographic shifts like the ones happening in the 5th and 1st districts.)

I just spotted workers putting finishing touches on DC’s newest shticky museum, the National Museum of Crime & Punishment, which opens May 23 on 7th and F streets NW. A brief perusal of the museum’s website leads me to believe the exhibits will not probe any of the moral murkiness in the history of crime. The museum is a project of John Walsh, of America’s Most Wanted, and looks pretty focused on the classic good guy-bad guy stories. I do have to say I can’t wait to take the promised lie detector test. They also have fun items I do not wish to try out: an electric chair, a gas chamber and a $17.95 ticket price. Crossing my fingers for a press preview.