Congress, Occupied: Occupy D.C. is one of the only remaining encampments in the nation, after crackdowns in other cities, and the protesters in McPherson Square appear to be making the most of it. They filed for permits today to hold an "Occupy Congress" march on the Mall on Jan. 17. But maybe that doesn't go far enough. After all, Congress is pretty inept; it's hard to see how a group of people who've been sleeping outside all winter could actually do a worse job than the ones the rest of the country (but not D.C., of course) has sent here to govern. Why not make them switch places for the day? +2

Redistricting, Not Just For ANCs Anymore: Should the dawn of 2012 on Sunday mean that, due to misbehavior on your part on New Year's Eve, the police are looking for you, exactly who you'll be dodging could be a little different. Come Sunday, new police district boundaries will be in place throughout D.C. The boundaries were last redrawn in 2004, and booming populations in neighborhoods like Columbia Heights and H Street NE since then meant police resources don't match up as well with needs. Naturally, the changes yielded anxious community meetings, as any change in our city does. +1

No Edition: Underage drinkers planning to party Saturday night in Georgetown can blame some of their own if their scheme to spend the night at Third Edition has now been foiled. The club will be closed through the weekend after allegedly selling to minors. Third Edition says they'll be shut down "due to circumstances beyond our control," and promises refunds for anyone who bought advance tickets to a New Year's Eve party. -1

London Calling: Okay, yes, we get it—it's been a bad year for the Washington Redskins. The team can finish no better than 6-10, the same sorry record as last year, despite starting off the season 3-1, and a loss in Sunday's finale in Philadelphia would leave them 5-11. But still, London Fletcher can't get a break? The linebacker leads the NFL in tackles (though that may be more a side effect of playing for a losing team than a sign of his virtue), yet was left out of the lineup for the annual Pro Bowl all-star game. What he ought to do is take Sunday off and fly to Hawaii on his own anyway—since the rest of the team's been playing like they're on vacation all year. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 59 Today's score: +1 But Dave McKenna's leaving Washington City Paper: -10 Today's Needle rating: 50

The Post tabulated her personal wealth as $1,697,521 in 2009, good for 176th highest on the list of 518 current and former House members.

Norton's 2009 financial disclosure, obtained from Legistorm.com, shows that in addition to her $174,000 salary, she drew income from a "retirement fee" from Pitney Bowes Inc. (she served on its board of directors) and a teaching gig at the Georgetown University Law Center. She also reported several transactions made on a portfolio of mutual funds and bond holdings.

Pitney Bowes paid Norton $12,000. For her class at Georgetown, she received $10,200. In her 2010 disclosure, Norton again reported those income streams at the same levels, in addition to payments on a pair of individual retirement accounts totaling $8,793. Altogether, Norton earned $30,993 outside of Congress last year, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Among Norton's financial holdings are stakes in funds administered by a variety of wealth-management companies, including Blackrock, John Hancock, MetLife and Janus. She also holds positions in municipal bonds in San Diego, Illinois and Seminole County, Fla. OpenSecrets calculated her total assets as between $909,038 and $2,536,000 in 2009. (Disclosure rules only require members of Congress to write down ranges rather than specific amounts.) Based off her 2010 disclosure, which is posted at the bottom of this article, Norton's net worth was between $898,043 and $2,497,000, good for 147th among current House members.

So, $1,697,521 clearly puts Norton in the top tier of American wealth. Still, this number struck me as rather low, considering her level of educational attainment, age, and outside work. Meanwhile, the Post reports that Darrell Issa, the guy in Congress who's responsible for most meddling in District affairs, is the richest member of Congress, with a personal wealth of nearly $450 million.

And if, like me, you were curious about the poorest member of Congress, that would be Alcee L. Hastings, a Florida Democrat who owes $4 million in lawyer fees from various legal dramas dating back to the 1980s, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Ezra Klein

Poll respondents in Connecticut or Idaho may not number this among their reasons for maligning the legislators, but we locals have a pretty hefty new set of grievances from 2011: Budget riders that strip the District of self-governance, attempts to "fix" D.C. hiring practices, and other continued attempts by members of Congress to turn the District into its personal laboratory.

(As an aside, I'm curious to know what the approval rating is for the D.C. Council. The last poll I could find was from March of this year—when the council had a 54 percent approval rating, which was down from 62 percent the previous August.)

Photo by comedy_nose via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic License

-News release, D.C. Office of Motion Picture & Television Development, December 2

To: Leslie Moonves, Chairman, CBS

From: Vincent Gray, Mayor, Washington D.C.

Re: D.C. Statehood–the TV show

Sir:

Please consider the following relevant programming data assembled by my crack One City Division of Televisual Marketing Advice (only two of whose employees are children of my political allies):

• Millions of Americans have spent 2011 watching televised reports of people taking to the street demanding justice as part of the "Arab Spring," and "Occupy  Wall Street," among other causes. Many of the participants in these movements come from the much-sought-after 18-35 year old demographic.
• Films focusing Middle Eastern current events have flopped, and movements like Occupy Wall Street disturb key advertisers.
• On the other hand, urban America is now associated with "edgy" music and fashion that appeal to key consumer demographics craved by your advertisers.
• Demographic changes in urban areas mean that government mistreatment now affects the upscale consumers desired by television advertisers.
• Thanks to initiatives like the District of Columbia's "Taxation without Representation" license plate program, 61 percent of people who purchased new tablet computers in 2011 tell consumer researchers that they are aware of the nation's capital's lack of local democracy.
• 91 percent of potential buyers of deodorant, English muffins, and midrange Korean automobiles express overwhelming disapproval for Congress.

Clearly, he time is right for a show capitalizing on the "justice" zeitgeist. But you should set the show in a multicultural, edgy-yet-retail-friendly stateside locale. The focus should involve the ideologically neutral issue of basic democracy. And it should feature a foe all viewers can rally against: Congress. The D.C. Office of Motion Picture and Television Development presents.... Stateless.

PILOT SYNOPSIS: It is day 42 of a federal government shutdown. Because of Washington's unusual status in the federal budget, local trash goes uncollected, local police are on furlough, local streets are unplowed. Beverage-industry lobbyist Eric Carpenter (Will Smith) is not bothered. Though he enjoyed a brief go-go music career before law school, he's a long way from his roots in D.C.'s "hood." His children go to private school, he lives in gentrified Logan Circle, he drives an SUV over the potholes that are exclusively caused by Congressional mistreatment of the city.

But his world changes during the opening episode's freak ice storm. Cut to:  South Carolina Republican Rep. Tucker Beauregard (Bradley Cooper) drinking at an upscale Dupont Circle bar, mocking the "freaks and foreigners" who he says populate the city. Cut to: Beauregard enticing a young intern into his SUV. Cut to: Beauregard's car skidding onto a tidy 14th street sidewalk where Eric's wife and children have just exited a chic vintage-furniture boutique. Eric's family is killed instantly.

There are only two witnesses: One is street musician Telly (hip-hop artist Wale, in his first television role). Telly has been reduced to bucket-drumming for pocket-change because he was forbidden from accepting a National Endowment for the Arts grant when heartless federal bureaucrats limited the grants to residents of bona-fide states. The other is boutique proprietor Artie Solomon (Justin Timberlake). Artie is a Harvard Law graduate who lost his job as a hill staffer because Congress selfishly exempts itself from D.C. laws forbidding discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The presence of eyewitnesses appears to mean Beauregard will be easily convicted. But then, a Congressional committee forbids the local police force using testimony from people who do not live in one of the fifty states in any case involving members of Congress from one of those fifty states. Beauregard is effectively  off the hook. The episode ends with Eric, Telly, and Artie vowing to end D.C.'s colonial oppression...and to also get their man.

EPISODE 4: Through contacts from his old Congress Heights neighborhood (now much-improved, thanks to efforts by Washington's wise, deliberative mayor), Eric learns that a Beauregard aide is procuring medical marijuana from a newly legalized local dispensary. This is despite the fact that the Congressman has railed against the decriminalization of pot by "that liberal, un-American D.C. government." Masquerading as a law-abiding customer, Telly snoops about the store and learns that the marijuana is actually for the Congressman himself. The trio are about to expose the hypocrisy when federal agents (led by Jon Voight as uptight bureaucrat Davis Hamilton) raid the place as part of an executive branch effort to stamp out the marijuana that D.C. voters have voted to approve. Though Carpenter bundled money for Barack Obama in 2008, his appeals go unheeded, underlining the District's miserable condition.

EPISODE 7: Artie is set to marry his longtime partner, Gustavo (Mario Lopez), a Salvadoran immigrant entrepreneur who has taken advantage of many of the District government's helpful small-business initiatives. But on Capitol Hill, legislators are trying to undo Washington's legalization of gay marriage. With comic pacing, the episode shows Eric and Telly rushing to different locations around the city (one in each of Washington's eight diverse, vibrant wards) to gather supplies in order to ensure that their friend's festivities come off before the dastardly Congress unfairly undermines local law. At the wedding, Eric meets Artie's former law-school classmate Sarina (Kristen Stewart), now a top political organizer. Sarina has also known pain: Her brother, a heroin addict, died after being infected by a dirty syringe during a period when Congress banned the District from funding needle-exchange programs.  The pair dance long into the night, beginning a romantic arc.

EPISODE 13: In the season finale, tens of thousands of residents are preparing to march to the mall to demand freedom for Artie, who has been arrested on trumped-up charges that he had driven the SUV that killed Eric's family. (The charges, we later learn, were fabricated by the ambitious former local schools chief, played by Sandra Oh, who wants to please the Congressional leaders funding anti-union advocacy group). Sarina has organized the rally brilliantly. It opens with performances by local music legend Chuck Brown. The plan is that once the full crowd gathers, a giant video screen will display newly discovered footage from a Department of Homeland Security camera that captured video of the accident. But just as the tape rolls, the power dies. Cut to: Voight's character smirking as underlings wheel away a National Park Service generator. Cut to: DHS agents racing toward the stage to confiscate the tape. Cut to: Eric and Telly, running for their lives towards the bridge over the Anacostia. It's a cliffhanger.

As credits roll, we see Beauregard on the phone, ordering feds to redouble their efforts to track down the D.C. freedom-fighters. As the camera pulls back, we see that someone has scribbled graffiti over a nearby sign marking Pennsylvania Ave.

"D.C. Statehood Blvd.," it says.

In the future, all veggies will come in tubes.

Congress continues its race to the bottom:

If you put nutritious broccoli and kale on top of a chocolate-glazed donut, can the concoction be considered equivalent to a vegetable serving?

This is the same logic that Congress is about to incorporate into a new law as it gets ready to vote on legislation that would, among other things, allow public schools to count a small amount tomato paste that is put on top of pizzas to be counted as a vegetable.

A couple of teaspoons of tomato paste—which is about as far from a raw tomato as a byproduct can be and still have "tomato" in the name—and kids are supposed to be satisfying a veggie serving? Come on. Then again, this is the same Congress that hit its lowest approval rating in, well, ever, last month when polls showed that only nine percent of Americans approved of the job they were doing.

Hopefully the District of Columbia Public Schools ignores this foolishness and continues to serve healthier lunches. On the menu today at area middle schools:

• Spicy Asian Glazed Chicken
• Stir-Fried Brown Rice w/ Veggies
• Stir-Fried Fresh Vegetables w/ Napa Cabbage & Local Bok Choy
• Locally Grown Pear

Photo by Ross Catrow via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License

Your Papers, Please, D.C.: The United States is tied up in two wars, and the unemployment rate is so high that a drop to 8 percent would be cause for celebration. So naturally, Congress is turning to what's really important—making sure every senior-level D.C. government appointee has never committed "willful engagement in acts or activities to overthrow the United States Government by force." That's part of a bill introduced today by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., whose House Oversight Committee just wrapped up its investigation into how Sulaimon Brown wound up on the District payroll. That's a good question, Congressman, but maybe you could leave it to the pros? -3

Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money: If anyone ever tries to actually carry out Henry VI's instructions ("the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"), everyone in D.C. better watch out. A new study out today from the American Bar Association shows that one out of every 12 District residents is a lawyer, and the District accounts for one out of every 25 lawyers in the nation, despite only having .2 percent of the nation's population. With some luck, no one will sue anyone over the study. -1

We Love You Too, L.A.: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was once considered one of the up and coming stars in the national Democratic Party. Then news broke that he'd cheated on his wife with a TV anchor, and he won only a narrow re-election in 2009, despite running against a field that might make the D.C. Council look formidable. But a somewhat humbled Villaraigosa has found the ideal target to bash from his perch in the City of Angels: The District. He went out of his way this morning to stress he'd never want to visit our city, but his job requires him to do so frequently. Okay, but at least Paula Abdul doesn't live here. -1

#Fail to the Redskins: It was a day for the record books in Toronto on Sunday, as the Washington Redskins went out to play the Buffalo Bills north of the border. Unfortunately for the team that traveled farther to get to the field, the records were all bad: First shutout of a Mike Shanahan-coached team; first time the Redskins failed to score since 2007; most sacks by the Bills in a game all year. The Redskins lost, 27-0, as Luke Russert rejoiced. But don't worry: The team has signed a Dallas Cowboys reject to help turn things around. -1

Friday's Needle rating: 49 Today's score: -6 Halloween bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 45

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is introducing a bill this week which, according to the release, would create jobs and increased tax revenue by encouraging insurance companies to set up shop in town. Just as they do in Bermuda, insurance companies would have to open offices and hire local employees to handle administration. Norton says there would also be a bump in tertiary employment as accountants, bankers, consultants and actuaries would be needed to support the companies. And taxes would still figure into the equation. The District can collect a "modest" excise tax from the companies, and the local banks holding the funds would also be taxed on them.

The only catch? The tax shelter plan may not make statehood advocates happy, since the law only works as long as the District stays a district. Federal income tax—the thing keeping these companies offshore—can only be done away with if Congress is in full control of a jurisdiction.

Some possibly good news for abortion rights activists and D.C. autonomy fans alike: The Senate's 2012 budget bill for the District doesn't include a ban on the city using its own money to fund abortions for low-income women.

Earlier this year, the 2011 federal spending plan outlawed the relatively recent program ... and led to Mayor Vincent Gray getting arrested in protest. We'll see if the conservative House agrees to the non-interventionist version of the budget bill; they've had some trouble with that in the past.

Here are just some of Congress's greatest hits (and attempted hits) on D.C. social policy and home rule. Got other suggestions? Leave them in the comments.

1. Though District voters wanted to start a medical marijuana program, in 1998, Georgia Republican Rep. Bob Barr made it illegal for D.C. officials even to count the votes of a referendum on the issue. (Barr later went on to change his mind and worked to dismantle the amendment, which just shows how arbitrary federal intervention can be.)
2. Also in 1998, citizen-approved, D.C. tax-funded needle exchange programs were outlawed. For a decade.
3. In 2005, a year after Ronald Reagan died, Texas Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla decided 16th Street NW should be named "Ronald Reagan Boulevard," even though Reagan couldn't even win D.C.'s three electoral votes in 1984, when he won every state but Minnesota on the way to a second term.
4. Former Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican who went on to run for president, attempted to institute a flat tax in the city. Why not experiment here, after all—if it goes badly, his constituents would never be affected!
5. Even before the Supreme Court ordered changes to D.C.'s strict gun control laws, Congress frequently tried to undo them. Now that the laws have been changed, lawmakers haven't stopped. Rep. Louie Gohmert, another Texas Republican, even drafted a bill to let members carry guns on the House floor.

Illustration by Brooke Hatfield

The big story for political operatives and reporters yesterday was the back-and-forth between the White House and Republicans in Congress over when, exactly, President Barack Obama would head up to the Capitol to make a speech about getting the economy back on track that the Republicans in Congress would then ignore.

Obama had proposed delivering the speech next Wednesday night; the GOP objected, because their own would-be presidents will be debating that night in California, under the auspices of Politico and NBC News. A terrible conflict! (At least for the reporters and editors who don't have any choice but to pay attention to both events; since the speech is unlikely to do much to actually get more people employed, it's hard to get that worked up about when it happens or what else is going on at the same moment.) Fortunately for the future of the republic—as you already know if you didn't have the sense to ignore this preposterous story—the White House decided, once again, to do what House Speaker John Boehner wants, and the Obama speech will now be next Thursday night instead.

But the showdown did make us wonder about what other events here in D.C. might cause such consternation if they were scheduled at the same time. Below, as a public service, Washington City Paper presents a list of the top five scheduling conflicts to avoid. We must all do everything in our power to make sure none of these actually happen! The fate of the world is depending on it.

• Conflict: Washington Adult Kickball Association championship game scheduled for same time as D.C. Bocce league opening week.
• What Would Go Wrong: Supply of plastic cups runs dangerously short; lines to get into bars with rec-league-sponsored drink specials run dangerously long.

• Conflict: National Cupcake Day scheduled for same time as D.C. Tweed Ride.
• What Would Go Wrong: Alarming confluence of precious foods and/or outfits could disrupt the time/space continuum.

• Conflict: Metro escalator outage at same time as overactive Department of Public Works parking enforcement.
• What Would Go Wrong: Neighborhood email lists swamped with passive-aggressive posts about how inconvenienced members feel could potentially be the thing that finally brings down the Internet.

• Conflict: D.C. Triathlon scheduled for same time as Morning Joe taping.
• What Would Go Wrong: Former Mayor Adrian Fenty is fast, but not fast enough to swim, bike, run, and praise Wisconsin's union-busting Republican Gov. Scott Walker all at once.

• Conflict: Hurricane scheduled for same week as earthquake—again.
• What Would Go Wrong: Alas, Pat Collins might not make it through a second time.

Screengrab from YouTube

Capital Helmetshare: The rides used by Capital Bikeshare are sturdy and slow as a tank, but that doesn't mean they can't crash—and if they do, your head's just as vulnerable as it would be if you crashed Adrian Fenty's Colnago. So DDOT is giving out helmets to go along with the bikes. Like the bicycles and the Circulator buses, they'll be bright red. Also like the bikes, chances are they'll be snatched up already when you go looking for them; officials are only ordering a batch of 500 to start. +2

Turn The Page: The population of vaguely clueless teenagers wandering around the vicinity of the Capitol South Metro station will soon be declining; the House of Representatives has decided to close down the page program, eliminating the fleet of blue blazer-clad kids who tote press releases and other piles of paper around the Capitol complex, on the theory that email does that just as well. The $5 million tab for the program probably doomed the program, which the occasional affairs various lawmakers have had with pages over the years never quite managed to do. +1

Cash Rules Everything Around D.C.: Sure, the economy is in the process of completely falling apart again. But before the last few weeks, we had it pretty good here; personal income in the Washington area was up 3.7 percent from 2009 to 2010, with people making $323.5 billion, the fourth-highest income in the nation. New York-area residents made $1 trillion last year, but if it's any schadenfreude consolation, they probably also lost about that much in Monday's stock market crash. +1

Skating USA: Since the Washington Redskins moved to Maryland, RFK Stadium's been sort of a lonely place; the Nationals moved to their own ballpark a few years after making their debut, leaving D.C. United as the only permanent tenant in the old facility. Now a skate park will be part of the mix, too. The Maloof Money Cup, a pro skateboarding tournament, will alight on East Capitol Street the first weekend in September, and afterwards the skate course will be open to the public. No word on whether crumbling pieces of the stadium that happen to fall during the tournament will be official parts of the course. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 53 Today's score: +5 Today's Needle rating: 58

Upholding stereotypes of federal Washington—the superficiality, the high school-esque cliques, the general douchiness—isn't easy. But someone's got to do it, and thankfully, The Hill is on the case. Yesterday, the paper unveiled its annual "50 Most Beautiful People" list, a photo-and-profile spread of the Capitol complex's best looking denizens.

The list is mostly young, and heavily Republican—26 GOPers to 16 Democrats, according to New York's Daily Intel blog, which apparently took it seriously enough to do the math. (The other eight people on the list are mostly "non-partisan" or independent, most of whom are journalists, except one Hill staffer who listed her political affiliation as "centrist.")

Besides good looks and partisanship, The Hill's list also features a lot of bad writing and dumb quotes. Below, as a public service, Washington City Paper presents our own list: "The 15 Dumbest Lines in The Hill's '50 Most Beautiful People.'" We read the whole thing, so you didn't have to!

• "'I think being nice is being pretty,' Johnson said. 'Having a bad attitude makes you unattractive.' Johnson would know, having won the superlative “most sincere” in high school." (Johnson also tells The Hill she's a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell: "I would marry him if he were available.")
• "Call him the Tom Cruise of Congress—Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) flies planes, fights wars and wrestles criminals to the ground."
• "Stephenson wears brightly colored outfits that give away her Hispanic heritage. She continually brings in different regional cuisines for lunch. She says she keeps her hair shiny by using a family recipe: She mashes up an avocado with olive oil, rubs the mixture into her hair and lets it sit under a shower cap for an hour. When she washes it out, it shines like a freshly waxed limousine."
• "When not holding down a full-time job or serving up drinks, Goscinski keeps busy batting for the House softball league. His tips for looking good might not be for everyone. '“No sleep, a lot of Jameson,'he said with a laugh. While he’s not sure what his 'life plan' is just yet, Goscinski joked that one thing’s for certain. 'When I make my millions,' he said, 'I’ll still bartend one or two nights a week.'”
• "For Coley, a typical Saturday night is decidedly untypical: She often gathers with friends to listen to jazz on NPR and mix up a specialty drink — concocted just for the occasion—called the 'Constantino Brewmidi,' a play on the 19th century painter (Brumidi) whose frescos adorn the underside of the Capitol dome."
• "'I still do workouts from the ‘70s,' the congressman said during an interview in his office in the Cannon House Office Building. 'I’m very traditional, very old-fashioned.' 'I really do think that when you look at all the top bodybuilders in the world, there’s always extreme training techniques that [they take] from Arnold Schwarzenegger,' Grimm said. The former Marine may be able to execute a floor-rattling clean-and-jerk, but Grimm has yet to master the art of dog training. During the interview, his teacup Yorkshire Terrier puppy, Sebastian, yipped for attention behind a plastic gate that kept him confined to one corner of the congressman’s office. 'No barking,' he said futilely. 'You’re in jail.'"
• "Off the field, Palisi pursues her own passions. These days, she’s busy looking for the best chicken wings in D.C., after having developed a taste for the popular appetizer while a student at DePaul University in Chicago. 'Every night there was a cheap wing-and-beer deal,' she explains. 'It became the food of my choice.'"
• "Adam Kohnstamm doesn’t like being held back. Even in times of present danger, like when he was 10 feet away from a pack of 400-lb. mountain gorillas in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest."
• "'I lived off street meat in Europe,' said Grossman, who works for Meridian Hill Strategies. He recalls working in Alaska, when he spent a week stuck in a blizzard eating ramen noodles and cake mix. Not only that, as part of the international group The Explorers Club, he’s eaten several exotic meals, including maggots and scorpion. 'The maggots were not good, and they got stuck in your teeth,' he said. 'People who’ve had snake say it tastes like chicken — it does. … And scorpions have a weird crunch.' He then admits a bit wistfully, 'I missed out on the [meal] where they served tarantula.' As for his go-to food, he calls himself an 'inventive sandwich guy,' coming up with a new version every day."
• "Woestehoff has introduced fish and chicken back into his diet, a symbol of the consistency he seeks throughout his life."
• "With parents who both had children from their first marriages, Carlos Fleites said he has always considered himself the 'mutt' of his family. Yet his strong jaw and bright smile show that Fleites’s good looks are as pure as they come."
• "Though she’s lived in Washington for only six months, Martin already is baking her way into the hearts of her colleagues on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where she was hired as counsel earlier this summer. 'I made some pretty amazing key lime cupcakes recently,' she says."
• "For Light, staying beautiful comes as common sense. 'Try to eat small portions and don’t eat crap all the time,' she laughs. And don’t forget to take off your face before bed, she says—and with authority. Light previously worked with the Personal Care Products Council, an advocacy group representing the cosmetics industry."
• "When Thompson isn’t working, bartending or exercising, he enjoys shopping for clothes at Astor & Black. 'I really like clothes,' Thompson said. 'Dress for the job you want, that’s what everyone says.' Another new goal: daily flossing. His dentist gave him a study showing that flossing every day strengthens the immune system."
• "Ever tasted a Brie cheese, dark chocolate and fresh basil Panini? It’s one of Kate Bluhm’s many specialties."

UPDATE: By popular demand (well, by demand of one email), we've added this line, which was intended to go in the original 15 but was accidentally left out:

But he doesn’t exactly eschew all of life’s finer things. Bauserman wears a pair of shiny, silver Senate cufflinks, which he bought in celebration of his being hired in the Senate. He also has a pair of House cufflinks that he purchased 11 years ago when he first started on Capitol Hill, and he still wears them occasionally ('I’m a House staffer first… I remember where I came from,' he said). Rounding out the Democrat’s collection is a pair of donkey cufflinks. And then there are his grooming products. 'One word: Kiehl’s,' he said.

Government Guns: When the District's only federally licensed gun dealership closed in April, it was because of the recession (the store lost its lease), not because of overzealous regulations. But the lack of any licensed shop to register firearms in D.C. left the city vulnerable to legal challenges like the one that got the Supreme Court to force gun sales here in the first place. Now the new plan is official: Sell guns in the police station. Charles Sykes, whose store on Good Hope Road SE was the only place to register legal handguns in the District, will soon open up shop at the Metropolitan Police Department's headquarters by Judiciary Square. He'll pay $100 a month to lease the space. Considering he charges $125 to register each gun, that seems like quite a deal. -2

Office Space: The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has been in the news a lot lately, mostly because it set off a firestorm when it proposed putting a Dulles International Airport stop on Metro's new Silver Line underground, instead of the cheaper above-ground option. Which means this may not have been the ideal moment to begin work on a $7 million renovation of its conference room. The agency also decided today to go with the cheaper plan for the Metro stop, even though it may mean fewer passengers ride the subway; got to have priorities when it comes to spending, after all. -3

Hands Off Our Monument: Bad enough that Congress can muck with the District's local budget, keep us from spending local dollars just because federal lawmakers can't agree on fiscal policy, and deny us a vote in the House or Senate. Now they're coming for our memorials. The District of Columbia War Memorial, erected on the Mall after World War I, is tucked away near the federal monuments, and that means Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, thinks it ought to be federal, too. He's sponsored legislation to establish a commission to look into building something else near the memorial "reflecting the national character" of the District's spot on the Mall. The good news? Establishing a commission about something may be the fastest way to keep it from happening. -1

Beerball: The Washington Nationals spent $126 million signing Jayson Werth during the offseason. The team is suddenly playing its best ball in years. Unfortunately for Werth and the owners who shelled out to bring him, he's got very little to do with their new success. Werth is hitting .212 for the season, a dismal average—but there's good news for Nats fans, anyway. Duffy's Irish Pub, near 9th and U streets NW, will sell 16-ounce cans of beer at variable prices this season depending on what Werth's hitting. So right now, a PBR tall-boy will cost you only $2.12. Werth, for the record, could buy more than 59 million beers with the money from his contract at that price. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 45 Today's score: -5 Today's Needle rating: 40

This is Not a Test: District residents who are so inclined can sign up for emails or text messages about emergency alerts. (Yes, sometimes the system announces things like the mayor's State of the District address.) Soon enough, though, the alerts will come automatically, unless you opt out; D.C. and New York are the first cities to get a new federal alert system running. Because we live in the future, you'd only receive an alert while you were in D.C. or New York—go out of town before an emergency, and you won't hear anything about it. At least, not automatically; Twitter and cable TV will be sure to keep you updated, anyway. +2

House Call: The last time Mayor Vince Gray and D.C. Council Chairman Kwame "Fully Loaded" Brown showed up on Capitol Hill, they got arrested. So Capitol Police may be a little wary about a hearing scheduled for Thursday, when the two are set to testify on the District's budget before a subcommittee chaired by our real mayor, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. No word on whether the GOP will be looking into any fictional taxes. -3

Off to See the Wizards: Teal seemed to be the official color of pro sports teams in the 1990s—just ask the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Carolina Panthers, the San Jose Sharks, and yes, of course, the Washington Wizards. The team went back to what ESPN's Gregg Easterbrook likes to call the most successful color scheme in history today, unveiling a logo that nods to the former look ditched in 1995. But they kept the silly name! The good news: The team is still not named the Washington Sea Dogs. The bad news: It's also still not named the Washington Bullets. -2

Hot for Teacher: The dark art of SEO—search engine optimization—gets a lot of attention from people who run websites, and not a whole lot from anyone else; the idea is to figure out ways to get people who search the Internet for information to wind up on your page. In the case of one site, that task appears to have been made easier by a mistake at Bing, where searching for Friendly High School in Fort Washington, Md., accidentally directed visitors to pgpcs.com, which features links to porn, instead of pgpcs.org, the actual domain name of the school's site. That's why we stick to InfoSeek for all our search needs. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 81 Today's score: -4 Today's Needle rating: 77

New D.C. Councilmember: Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas

How to Reach Him: (202) 225-3035, @replouiegohmert

Agency: Metropolitan Police Department

After Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in January, Gohmert proposed legislation to allow members of Congress to carry guns in D.C. Don’t call 911 if you hear gunfire; call Gohmert, and he’ll come shoot back for you.

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New D.C. Councilmember: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.

How to Reach Him: (202) 225-4000, @GOPLeader

Agency: Commission on the Arts and Humanities

The House GOP’s second-in-command has plenty of pull in the local art scene: When he complained that "A Fire in My Belly" was “an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season,” the Smithsonian pulled it from the “Hide/Seek” exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Call him for help getting your gallery launched.

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New D.C. Councilmember: Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

How to Reach Him: (202) 225-3906, @darrellissa

Agency: 311 Service Request Center

Issa’s already so interested in D.C. politics that his staff holds meetings with Sulaimon Brown. So he surely won’t mind if you call him to request recycling containers, ask for graffiti to be removed, or call for rat abatement services.

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New D.C. Councilmember: House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio

How to Reach Him: (202) 225-0600, @SpeakerBoehner

Agency: D.C. Public Schools

The speaker clearly spends a lot of time thinking about D.C. schools—so much that he revived a plan to give vouchers to about 1,100 kids so they could attend parochial school instead. Who better to step in to replace every Republican’s new favorite education official, Michelle Rhee?

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New D.C. Councilmember: Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

How to Reach Him: (202) 224-6221

Agency: Taxicab Commission

Riding in cabs without meters had bothered Levin for years—and being in Congress meant he could just change the local laws. Levin’s budget rider in 2007 essentially ordered D.C. to dump the zone system it had been using, proving that meddling in District affairs isn’t just a GOP thing.

D.C. Don't Stand for Democracy City: The good news from Friday night's budget dealing between the White House and Congress was that D.C. libraries, rec centers, and other services—like trash collection—didn't have to close. The bad news was that, once again, Congress has decided to play D.C. Council, with President Obama's blessing. City officials still aren't even sure exactly what the budget agreement does to local laws (besides banning local funding for abortions and reinstating a voucher program, it might also ban needle exchange funding), but they know they don't like it. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton should definitely vote against the deal when it comes up on the House floor later this week. Wait, what? Oh. Never mind. -5 But late in the day, Mayor Vince Gray and several councilmembers were in the process of getting arrested by Capitol Police for blocking Constitution Avenue to protest the deal—which means years of talk may finally be yielding to action. +2

Trees, Our Mortal Enemies: And now, a very sneezy episode of Meaningless Rankings by National Organizations. The weather finally warmed up today—which meant it was time for the city's trees to unleash their deadly barrage of pollen on unsuspecting residents. D.C. is, officially, only the 25th worst place to live during spring allergy season, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. But last year, the District was 46th—which means things have gotten worse in a hurry. Remind us never, ever to set foot in Knoxville, Tenn., which came in first. -2

Suspect Stung: A word of advice on what to do if someone tries to enlist you in a plot they say they're hatching to bomb Metro stations—don't. The man the FBI says happily agreed to join them in a phony bomb conspiracy, Farooque Ahmed, was sentenced today to 23 years in prison. We take the Metro often enough that we're glad to see authorities are taking threats to its security seriously. But we've also read the Constitution often enough to wish authorities would concentrate on people who might have been dangerous even if they hadn't been recruited by the FBI. -1

Dog Whistle Politics: You might need Carl Jung's theory of synchronicity to explain the coincidental timing in the next two pieces of news. First, Sekou Biddle adviser/Kwame "Fully Loaded" Brown father Marshall Brown tells the Post that white D.C. voters "believe more in their dogs than they do in people." Then comes word that a new pet shop called Green Paws D.C. will open in Bloomingdale. Maybe Brown, who was dumped from Biddle's campaign late in the day, can go work there? +1

Friday's Needle rating: 59 Today's score: -5 Today's Needle rating: 54