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

Movin' Like Bernie: Parents today! After Maryland's Perry Hall High School soccer team did the Bernie—you know, a Weekend At Bernie's style shimmy—parents freaked out and the principal canceled the rest of the season (until protests got him to change his decision). Their reasoning? It's just too sexy. Dead sexy, in fact. Honestly, if people are getting turned on by watching some high schoolers flail around like a corpse, then the problem may not be the dance. The only people who should be offended by it are probably the walking dead. -2

Can You Fear Me Now? An MPD officer who chased a suspect down into the Metro only found a broken intercom when he tried to call for backup. And his cell service wasn't working either. He prevailed, however: "According to sources, the officer was able to handcuff one of the suspect's hands to a metal seat railing as the suspect was struggling against the officer." -2

Homosexual McKinsey: Ward 2 Council candidate Fiona Greig is embarrassed that some "chicken scratch notes" about fundraising targets made it all the way over to the Office of Campaign Finance. On the list? Folks like Gerry Sigal and Post columnist Ezra Klein, whose names were misspelled. Also, a gay man who's summed up by his sexual orientation and employment. +1

Feed the Birds: So, what kinds of birds was convicted feral cat-killer Nico Dauphine trying to save, exactly? Apparently the birds in the neighborhood Dauphine was trying to protect are not endangered: "they are very common types — pigeons, sparrows and starlings." It looks like she was just not a cat person. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 41 Today's score: -6 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 37

In this space way back on Wednesday, we mentioned—OK, ranted—about O.J. Simpson's "acquittal suit," which, as part of a ridiculously stupid idea, was being offered as a donation to the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian didn't want it, because what self-respecting institution would?

The Newseum! According to the Washington Post's Reliable Source, the museum is "in discussions to obtain" the suit.

Seriously, can't we just burn it?

In related news, the Los Angeles Police Department has apologized to the family of the late Robert F. Kennedy for exhibiting at a homicide investigators conference the tie, shirt and jacket he was wearing when he was gunned down in 1968. Because, yeah, well, duh.

In other news: how not to run a transit agency;

how to ensure police will come and break up your post-game celebration over the Duke men's basketball team with pepper spray and billy clubs;

how not to go about obtaining beer from CVS (or anywhere);

how to apologize for shooting someone in the parking lot of a mall; and

how to be like Ezra Klein (if doing 20 blog posts a day doesn't appeal to you, skip that last one).

Marion Barry turns 74 tomorrow, and he's planning a quiet celebration. Understandable enough after the week he's had.

Happy birthday, Mayor for Life! And happy Friday!

49% of Americans are inhumane monsters and other epithets, after the jump.

• Yesterday the Pew center released a humdinger of a study, titled "Public Remains Divided Over Torture." The guts: "Currently, nearly half say the use of torture under such circumstances is often (15%) or sometimes (34%) justified; about the same proportion believes that the torture of suspected terrorists is rarely (22%) or never (25%) justified." Makes it hard as hell, don't it Shep, to take any kind of stance against the Mugabe's and Gaddafi's of the world? You know, when half your country is in favor of committing the same atrocities.
• Speaking of absurdities: Jay Nordlinger has an unusually funny joke over at the Corner, and one that rivals Dan Savage's efforts at sexifying the names of the Saddleback Church and Rick Santorum. Nordlinger, no stranger to unfairly tarring opponents, rightly thinks we should come up with a name for politicians who fight vouchers and yet whose children attended private school. Ad hominem? You betcha. Deserved? Fuck yes.
• In gossipy Beltway news, The American Prospect's Ezra Klein has joined the Washington Post. POLITICO's Michael Calderone breaks it, Klein himself elaborates: "The news is true: On May 18th, I'll be moving about two blocks east and two blocks south to the Washington Post's massive building. I will have part of a desk rather than much of an office. I will not have natural light. This blog, too, will change its home, moving to the "columnists and blogs" area of the Post's Business section. It will have a gray and white color scheme rather than a red one. It will have a .com address rather than a .org. For all that, the site won't change much. As now, the core subject area will be domestic and economic policy issues. That means the financial crisis, health care policy, cap and trade, the budget, the congressional process, and all those other fine topics that let me deploy the charts and graphs I so adore."

• Charles Homans reported on the death of local conservative web venture Culture 11 for Washington Monthly. Homans' initial impression is spot-on, and one that conservative sites, by their prudish nature, can't help but cultivate: "On its surface, the softly launched beta (test) version of Culture11 hewed closely to the original vision, down to its Slateish design. Poking around the site was a bit like wandering into the Christian rock section of a record store: the bands were recognizably bands, with electric guitars and vaguely countercultural clothing, but there was something … different about them, the musicians just a little too healthy looking to be real rock stars." I tossed my two cents on conservative culture writing into murky waters a few months back. David Sessions at Patrol has a great response to Homans' piece, in which Culture 11's Joe Carter makes a CONSERVATIVES GONE WILD appearance in the comments.
• You know how all those political types have been frothing at the mouth about the AIG bonuses/Wall Street sodomizing Main Street/Etc.? WCP alumnus Dave Jamieson calls them on their bullshit in a fantastic TNR piece: "Last week, lawmakers dashed to the podiums of Capitol Hill to condemn AIG and the rest of those bonus-loving scoundrels on Wall Street. But not long before that, some of those same members had been dashing to fundraisers with the very financial bogeymen they were now skewering." Charlie Rangel? Crook. Chris Dodd? Douche hat. Carolyn Maloney? into Wall Street for big bucks. Don't trust a one of 'em.
• Why does William Saletan talk about Lady Parts all the time? Because they matter: "The reason I keep you posted on developments in IVF, surrogates, and embryo screening is that they're transforming the debate. They're changing the conditions on which our moral positions rely. Were you pro-choice because the embryo was in a woman? Now we have embryos in dishes. Did you support embryo screening for fatal diseases? Now we're talking about screening embryos for eye color. Does the value of an embryo depend on what its mother thinks? Now we have embryos with two mothers: a genetic one and a gestational one. Should they at least consult each other?"

That's it for me, folks. Enjoy your weekend.

"It's a bit odd that we give the Undecided Voter such a privileged place in American elections. Because from a civic standpoint, few creatures are as contemptible. ... Many of those who claim to be undecided are not. Some don't want to admit their preference."

The media seems to think the opposite is true.

Science did a study a few months ago that examined the psychology of a undecided voter. They found that:

"People who think they are undecided about an issue often have made up their mind at an unconscious level ... " "It's not that people are lying to the pollsters," social psychologist Bertram Gawronskitells said. "It's that they may not consciously recognize the automatic associations that influence their decisions."

I think saying you're "undecided" sounds somehow more sophisticated and thoughtful, but, most of the time, it's not true. So stop pretending like you don't know who you're voting for, "undecided" voters. Because, whether you admit it or not, you know exactly who you're voting for.