Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to a slightly soggy Freedom Friday!

"All Hands on Deck," Chief Cathy L. Lanier's unconstitutional excuse for setting up roadblocks and checkpoints, is done--but not because it violated the Fourth Amendment. No, AHOD is dead because "police union officials have long decried the AHODs as essentially a publicity stunt that generate goodwill for politicians at the expense of rank-and-file officers."

Christ almighty: "We'll stop this thing we're doing that's illegal, but only because the people we've asked to do it ARE TIRED OF DOING IT SO MUCH. " If you're disappointed that AHOD is kaput--and at least one of you is--then you obviously never had anything to hide and are probably an incredibly boring person.  The rest of us will be celebrating the return of our right to no unreasonable searches and seizures at an undisclosed location. ORWELLIAN SAPS ARE NOT INVITED.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: RIP, AHOD; You Won’t Be Missed" »

New Columbia Heights posts the highlights from a spat on the neighborhood listserv among ANC Commissioners about paying for cellphones that became a free-for-all. Favorite listserv quote: "The commission has done nothing in the way of administrative housekeeping: mail is not picked up on a regular basis, the phone bill went unpaid until service was disconnected, the rent went unpaid for 6 months--and I'm not sure it's been paid to date, and the ANC website was shut down because the maintenance fees were not paid." At least the commissioners are fighting in public. Let's hear it for transparency!

Borderstan has shocking findings from its latest mini poll: People want affordable restaurants on 14th Street NW. Borderstan has some fun with the number crunching: "My initial read on the results, below, of this very unscientific poll, is that respondents tend to want more food options in the affordable range (lower-priced restaurants and delis) along with places to hang (coffee houses). In addition, people would like to have more general shopping options, including clothing stores. Noticeably, there was no excitement among respondents to this poll for more furniture stores, art galleries or clubs/lounges."

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Transparency In Reporting" »

Don Beyer has been announced as the new U.S. ambassador to Switzerland.

Gotta be a mistake.

What happened to Sweden?

Beyer's a sainted figure in my native Falls Church, and I'd heard a couple months ago from townies that Beyer was in fact going to get the Ambassador to Sweden job.

That made total sense. And not just because Beyer was a huge Obama fundraiser.

Beyer's also Mr. Volvo! He's been Falls Church's ambassador to Sweden forever through the work at his dealership! He's beloved by Swedish commerce types, and even sponsors U.S./Sweden chamber of commerce golf tournaments! He's helped Sweden enjoy a fabulous trade imbalance with the U.S. for decades! "Beyer" might as well have umlauts over the E's, the guy's so perfect for the job.

So I called up Beyer's office to confirm. Folks there denied, denied, denied there was any chance of him getting that job or any other job from the administration. Then after I posted what I'd hoped was a jokey refutation of the ambassador rumors on City Desk, Beyers staff called me and acted as if I'd mucked everything up and committed some sort of journalistic war crime just by putting such stuff in print. Their over-reaction was as bizarre as any I'd ever gotten from a story.

And now it comes out that Beyer will indeed be an ambassador. Only to Switzerland.

What's he ever done for Switzerland?

Again: Gotta be a mistake.

An understandable one, from my perspective. I always get the two confused. And I think everybody does. Quick now:

Roger Federer: Swiss or Swede?

Read More "Did Obama Confuse Switzerland and Sweden? Don Beyer Named Ambassador to Wrong Country!" »

Anyone who's tooled through Ward 3 or the tony expanses of Fairfax or Montgomery Counties has seen their share of license plate frames bearing the '70s-ish Scandinavian minimalist logo of Don Beyer Volvo. ('Scuse me---"don beyer volvo.")

Looks like that could soon be "secretary don beyer volvo."

Read More "Local Volvo Magnate for SecCommerce?" »

I wrote a column this week about the killing of Sal Culosi, shot three years ago last weekend by Fairfax County SWAT officer Deval Bullock. At the time of his death, Culosi was under investigation for sports betting.

Nobody was ever charged with any crimes in either the gambling investigation or the killing of Culosi, who was unarmed when he was gunned down in front of his house.

Culosi's death came during what felt like a spree of deadly and indictment-free police shootings in Northern Virginia.

Just five days before Culosi's killing, a civil jury had awarded the family of Prince Jones $3.7 million in a wrongful death suit.

Jones, an unarmed Howard U. student, was shot five times in the back in a Falls Church driveway in September 2000 by an undercover Prince George's County cop, Carlton Jones (no relation).

Read More "The Killing Fields of NoVa…" »

There's not a lot about Northern Virginia now that reminds me of the way it was when I was growing up there in the '70s. It's wealthier and more refined and liberal. Democrats win every big race.

JVs is a link to the old Old Dominion, however.

Judging from the scene inside JV's, a wondrous Falls Church honky tonk that's only a few blocks from my boyhood home, you'd think the state was still redder than Six Flags' financials. Another American flag or MIA placard hangs every few feet overhead. It's no accident that bikers use the place as their Ground Zero during Rolling Thunder weekend.

If there's a bar inside the Beltway with a more overtly conservative clientele, I haven't been there.

I went to JV's in 2003 to watch George W. Bush's speech to the nation the night he started bombing Iraq. I figured it would give me insight into how the rest of the country felt, since everybody I knew downtown was against the invasion.

The bar was packed that night, and I remember seeing a guy from the neighborhood who'd I'd known for years raising his beer and yelling "Let's kick some fucking ass!" when Bush finished talking. Everybody cheered.

Read More "Wonder How the Other Half Is Partying? They’re Not" »