Here is a little “news analysis” I think our City Paper constituency can appreciate.

Yesterday, beer lovers were devastated to hear global warming is hurting beer production. While that news was bad, the Washington Post followed up with a dispatch today suggesting that we can solve global warming if we stop having kids.

Put the two news items together in time-honored “news analysis” tradition and what do you get? A solution! To assure a lasting supply of quality beer, forget about having that The Waltons-style family you were considering. In fact, better not too have any of the little darlings, according to a crack team of researchers at the London School of Economics.

That’s right, if we stopped having kids, we’d pretty much wipe up the climate change problem, according to the U.K. study. And, we’d presumably still be able to drive around in Hummers, live in sprawling suburban McMansions, shop until we drop, and spend every evening at the pub - mugs of a top of the line pilsner in each hand.

Read More "News Analysis: To Save Beer from Global Warming, Stop Having Kids" »

This just in: Our Amazin' Nats are a national punchline. First the Wall Street Journal used the team's woes in the lede of its Sonia Sotomayor hearings coverage, comparing the hopelessness of being a Republican senator with the hopelessness of being a Nat.

Then President Barack Obama, in the broadcast booth during the All-Star telecast, told the country that because of parity fans of all teams still remained hopeful that this season would turn out OK. Then he threw in a caveat: Except fans of the Nationals.

Obama clearly enjoyed his Nats takedown, smiling and looking around the booth for support.

But Fox announcer Tim McCarver reacted as if POTUS had told another Special Olympics joke. McCarver stayed stonefaced and silent and stared straight ahead. It was fabulous TV for everybody.

Except, you know, for fans of the Nationals.

AFTER THE JUMP: Czarniak and Rieger pile on? Tim Lincecum = Mitch Kramer? All-Star Do-Gooder Still Never a Bullet? Beer is bad at parties? Fight, fight in the comments section? Joe Gibbs Comes Back to D.C.?

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Lincecum and Obama Leave Nats Fans Dazed, Confused" »

They go together like sports and wine! Orr Shtuhl hangs on the porch with NPR.

Fortune magazine has named some folks who might try to get control of the New York Times from the Sulzberger family.

The piece has some likely suspects -- David Geffen and Google, among them.

But the most intriguing and, for us locals, scariest of the alleged Times takeoverers?

Howard Milstein.

Yes, THAT Howard Milstein.

The Howard Milstein who a decade ago tried to buy the Redskins at the Jack Kent Cooke estate sale! The Howard Milstein who brought Dan Snyder into the fold to give him the local color he thought would get him approved! The Howard Milstein who had too many enemies at NFL headquarters and got kicked out of the buying process! The Howard Milstein who then stepped aside and watched as his former partner took over the buying process!

THE HOWARD MILSTEIN WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DAN SNYDER OWNING THE REDSKINS!

Whew.

According to the Fortune piece, Milstein, identified simply as "a New York-based financier," has been "buying shares" of NY Times stock.

Run for your lives, New York Times readers!

Or, maybe, just renew your subscription and give subscriptions to all your relatives so the Sulzbergers don't have to sell.

Just don't say we didn't warn you...

***

Those streaky Nationals are at it again!

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: The World’s Greatest Beer Man, Milstein Resurfaces, Ficker Running Again" »

Read More "800 Block of 7th Street NW, May 5" »

Among the perks available to residents of the Armed Forces Retirement Home: beer machines.

In the canteen, at the golf course and at various spots in hallways throughout the compound, you'll find vending machines that dispense cold beer.

Any time, day or night, folks with a thirst and some spare change can grab a Miller, Miller Lite, Michelob or Budweiser for $1.50 a can.

Sodas and water are just a quarter less.

Dan Snyder's non-liquid theme park chain, Six Flags, has decided that if it's going to go down, it's going to go down tipsy.

In 2008, firms that were nowhere near as leveraged as Six Flags, which is anywhere from $2 billion to $3 billion-and-some-change in debt, tended to sign on for Chapter 11 protections or just go away.

But Six Flags, albeit with its stock still cratered (down from a Snyder-era high of $11.93 to just 16 cents a share a couple months ago) and its future bleaker than Levi Johnston's, made it through with no such filings.

And with the new year has come the first good news of Snyder's disastrous reign atop the corporation, which began with a stockholder coup he led in late 2005 amid promises he'd boost the stock price and make the parks more family friendly: A barrister in Texas on Friday ruled in favor of Six Flags after a nasty battle over the chain's request to be allowed to sell booze at two parks in the state.

From the Dallas Morning News:

Read More "Update: SIX Flagging" »

It's been a historic time for Virginia. On Tuesday, the state turned blue, voting for a Democratic presidential nominee for the first time in decades. In March, the state will lose its signature brewery, according to Greg Kitsock, the suds guru for the Washington Post. The Old Dominion Brewing Co. plans to shutter its facility in Ashburn and increase production at its other plant in---wait for it, wait for it--Delaware. (Hey, doesn't Delaware already have a famous microbrew?)

Local beer geeks are deciding whether they will remain loyal to the area's oldest microbrew once it abandons Virginia. What do you think? Will you continue to buy Old Dominion? Or will you tell it to kiss off, much like Old Dominion has done to the state after which the company took its name?

In the meantime, I suggest Old Dominion change its name to Small Wonder.

Please give a big welcome to the Beerspotter, aka Orr Shtuhl, whose new weekly column spotlights interesting brews he's found around town. Shtuhl's written a couple pieces in this space, and he knocked out a fine Young & Hungry once. He's really interested in music, specifically lyrics, which he writes about on a blog called Wordsworth, and beer. If you see an interesting beer, drop him a line.

Photograph by Darrow Montgomery

* In case you missed her: Washington Post's Howard Kurtz on Palin's Katie Couric interview. "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in her third interview since joining the Republican presidential ticket, licked her finger and stuck it in the air, saying that Sen. Barack Obama might wait and "see what way the political wind's blowing" on the Wall Street rescue package," he writes.

* For those interested in competing in one of those high-stakes, emotionally wrenching reality television programs---and for those whose place of employment merely imitate them---Slate's Joanna Weiss has your guide to how not to be the first contestant kicked off a reality show.

* New Columbia Heights has updates on the proposed neighborhood farmer's market: At a recent ANC meeting, William Jordan proposed that the market be run by EMG Marketing Group and Change Inc. and be held three (!) times a week.

* Mr. T in D.C. bows respectfully to the employees of the Columbia Heights Subway sandwich shop:

I just wanted to thank them here today. By now, all the employees there recognize me, and know what kind of sandwich I usually get. . . . The two women who work there on weekday evenings are particularly helpful and pleasant. They recently told me they were from Eritrea; I wonder what their lives were like there? It's not very far from lawless, violent places like Darfur and Somalia.

And in this newspaper:

* Arthur Delaney on D.C. Jail disaster readiness, terrorist threats, and the power of Google.

* Tim Carman tries to make a bagel, lies to City Paper staff.

* Mike DeBonis on the Nat's stadium slush fund.

* ... and the debut of Orr Shtuhl's Beerspotter!

Image courtesy pingnews.