Reminder: this evening, the sun will set in exact alignment with the lettered streets of D.C.'s grid. While "DCHenge" may not rival the Manhattan Stonehenge, early scouting suggests that you could glimpse a pretty nice sunset along corridors such as L Street NW:

It depends on the weather, of course.

Photo of the sunset on Sept. 21, 2009 by Will Atwood Mitchell, Creative Commons Attribution License

Earlier today, in response to Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's Wall Street Journal op-ed opposing single-payer health care and a public option, Single Payer Action and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union picketed the P Street Whole Foods in Washington, D.C.

City Paper was on the scene to interview the protesters.

While I was visiting the urban canyons of New York City last weekend, a friend reminded me about the solar event called Manhattanhenge, a twice-yearly phenomenon when the arc of the sun across the evening sky aligns perfectly with the east-to-west streets on Manhattan island. The result is a spectacular sunset unobstructed by towering skyscrapers.

That got me to wondering about other possible city ’henges. I checked with Whet Moser at the Chicago Reader, and in short order he had calculated the dates of Chicagohenge using some handy photographer software.

In theory, any city with a street grid can have its own ’henge, including D.C. Our downtown grid, like Chicago's, is a more or less a true east-west grid. So the next "DCHenge" sunset should occur a month from now on September 23, 2009, one day after the autumnal equinox:

Read More "DCHenge: If New York Can Have a Stonehenge, So Can We. Right?" »

We had some fun yesterday. Hope you enjoyed it.

You may notice some changes to the City Paper website today, most notably the removal of the events/restaurants/movies search widget on the right hand side of the page. We've been debating this change for a while now and looking at the usage stats, and we decided that the widget was doing more to create visual clutter on unrelated pages than to provide good search functionality. We've also removed a few other pieces that were cluttering up the page.

The goal is to create more focused sections. You can search for restaurants under eats, movies under movies, music under music, and theater under theater.

Read More "City Paper Website Update" »

Dan Kaminsky, an internet-security type who discovered a flaw in the protocol of the important servers that are supposed to send you to real websites instead of fake websites that steal from you, will be speaking at HACDC in Mount Pleasant tonight at 8PM.

Read More "Dan Kaminsky Speaking at HACDC Tonight" »

As Loose Lips pointed out earlier, President Obama's jab at D.C. over school closings inspired a veritable roundup of press commentary. Our own web servers groaned under the load of a 1000-2000% increase in snow-related blog comments (compared to our seasonal average).

In the video after the jump, NBC's Pat Collins heads to the one street in D.C. where "flinty Chicago toughness" flows like frozen water.

Read More "Pat Collins: Citizens React to Obama’s D.C. Snow Jab" »

Tonight I saw something I'd actually never seen before: A woman got stuck between the closing doors of a Metro car on the Orange Line, and couldn't get out until someone else pried the doors open. She was pinned flat between the doors, and didn't have any leverage to open them herself.

Read More "What should you do if you get stuck between the doors of a Metro car?" »

From the Post homepage: "Richardson Nixes Cabinet Bid"

Is this a pun, or am I seeing something that's not there?

According to Ward 6 exit poll surveyor Arthur Delaney, Ward 6 ANC candidate Arthur Delaney is garnering early afternoon momentum in the race.

"At least a dozen people said they voted for me," Delaney GChatted, "[and] not a single person said they wouldn't vote for me."

Is Delaney headed for a blowout? Contacted seconds later, also by chat, the candidate said that much of his support is probably due to the single-beer plank of his political platform.

"Sometimes you just want ONE!" Delaney said. "The slogan resonates with everybody."

Delaney says he plans to spend the afternoon addressing voters' hunger and desire for change. "I'm home for a snack and to put on my jeans, which are finally dry."

City Desk has obtained a copy of the new campaign flier being distributed by Delaney For ANC in Ward 6. Campaign staffer Arthur Delaney (who is also the candidate (who is also a contributor to City Paper (who asked Delaney to run for ANC))) says he expects the flier to have a "devastating impact[!!!1]" on the race. Our dynamic electoral polling regression model agrees, showing Delaney winning over 75% of the races we simulated.

Judge for yourself, below the jump. Read More "Delaney Campaign Unleashes Bold New Flier" »

On Ask MetaFilter, a lament:

"Ben's chili is the food of the gods. Sadly, I no longer live anywhere near Ben's, and so I want to try to make it myself. Although I'll probably be adding beans, to make it more meal-like (since I most likely won't be pouring it on hot dogs and french fries). And I want to make it in a crockpot.

"I know the recipe is 'top-secret,' but I bet I'm not the first person to ever attempt it at home."

Does anyone out there know the secret? If so, hop on over to AskMeFi and hope somebody out. I think the recipe actually calls for pouring it on hot dogs and french fries, though. Let's be reasonable.

The hunt goes on. Two days ago, Eric Wills reported on City Desk that Manassas, Virginia Bigfoot researcher William Dranginis was "highly skeptical" that Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer of Georgia had a real Bigfoot body in their possession. Good call. Wired reports that yesterday's much-hyped press conference came and went without a corpse to show.

At this point, all signs appear to point to some combination of hoax, scam, or publicity stunt. And a transparent one at that, according to Wired: "Casting further doubt on the pair's announcement is analysis by several bloggers showing that their photograph bears an uncanny resemblance to a commercially available Bigfoot costume."

Isn't that always the way? Well, at least there's a consolation prize, in the form of the Most Topical Bigfoot Description Ever:

"According to the team, the Bigfoot creature is 7-feet 7-inches tall, weighs over 500 pounds and has feet that are over 16 inches long, or about size 24. By comparison, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is 6 feet 4 inches tall, weighs 165 pounds and has size 14 feet. Phelps is also nearly hairless, while Bigfoot appears to be covered in fur."

For more on the Georgia Bigfoot press conference, see the Wired article. For more on Dranginis's closer-to-home Bigfoot quest, see City Paper's story "Hot For Creature." For more on Michael Phelps, wait about ten minutes and someone near you will start talking about him.

Irate craiglist poster seeks justice and a masked rider known as BILL:

"I would like to compare the images in a ticket I received versus other vehicles. If you have a Camera ticket FROM DC I would appreciate you sharing the Citation Number and Pin Number.

To show how dumb the DMV is, they sent me a ticket for someone riding a scooter because their tag match a vanity tag that I USED TO own, FOR MY CAR, and had turned in.

Oh, ya, if you've seen this scooter, that would be great to know too."

Helpful photos show the salient details:

Will anyone step up to put this case of mistaken identity to rest? Are you out there, BILL? Are you willing to let another man take the fall for your crime?

You may notice a few changes on City Desk this morning: avatar placeholders in the comments, new formatting on the footers of blog articles and in the sidebar, etc. These are due to a much-needed upgrade that took place last night.

The avatars are not currently enabled, since we're still figuring out how to handle user profiles across our blogs. This is something we want to do, but we're working incrementally to get the infrastructure in place. The present upgrade was intended to close a few security holes in our Wordpress software and get the publishing interface up to date. Some snazzy new front-end stuff will follow, but there are no major changes in that area today.

Questions? Comments? Gripes? All are welcome.