Today's the last day to enter Dan Snyder's Cheerleader Pride Giveaway Contest! Tomorrow, folks at Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM, will hold the drawing to find out the five 25-to-54-year-old males who've won the right to have Redskins cheerleaders -- armed with sponges and buckets and zero self-esteem -- come over and scrub down their cars.

Come on, pervs: Get your name in before it's too late!

('Course, this also means time is running out on Cheap Seats Daily's ability to run everybody's fave photo.)

(AFTER THE JUMP: Does Dan Snyder's vacation choice mean he's met his Waterloo? Elba is nice this time of year? Somebody wrote something nice about Dan Snyder? Really? Was it accurate? Not really? Where'd David Donovan learn to fib? Dan Snyder's poster confiscating binge was all a prank? Will anybody get a "Goofus and Gallant" reference?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Somebody Once Wrote a Nice Dan Snyder Story? Does It Hold Up? No?" »

D.C. teachers are preparing a protest for Thursday over the impending teacher layoffs announced last week by Chancellor Michelle Rhee.

Read More "D.C. Teachers to Protest Michelle “Teacher Terminator” Rhee" »

Kudos to CNN for leading its Obama Beer Summit story with who drank what instead of who said what. There's a special place in hell for people who pander. Also, did you know Obama had another meeting yesterday, with Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo? Of course not.

While we're on the topic of elevating abusive cops above world leaders, I've got two more candidates for future beer summits--and one of 'em's local!

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: We Need Another Beer Summit" »

Never thought I'd be scolded by a Huffington Post official for linking. But I was!

Here's a chronology that explains how this HuffPo reprimand came about:

Read More "HuffPo Scolds Washington City Paper for Linking" »

...The Baster, which the sewer-minded among you may have guessed is about a woman trying to get pregnant via artificial insemination. Classy!

Yesterday, the Huffington Post tried to make a big deal out of stars Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman "making out" while filming a scene. The article's alleged point was CDC's suggestion that we all avoid sucking face during the swine flu outbreak.

Check out the scandalous photos if you've got nothing better to do, what with the kissing kibosh and all.

We had some fun yesterday. Hope you enjoyed it.

Washington City Paper contributor and Huffington Post staffer Ryan Grim reports that the Office of National Drug Control Policy is taking the War against Fun in a new direction:

"Getting high affects your brain in ways that may directly influence your gaming ability," warns the Drug Czar's Web site, citing the impairment of "many of the skills required for winning a background, defeating an opponent, [and] beating games."

To dramatize how bad a stoner can be at video games, the site interviews a computer-generated character who laments the demise of a gamer friend of hers. "I used to have a good time with Lyle. We made a good team. He had skill. He had swiftness," she says. "Well, he used to, anyway. Then our last fight, Lyle decided to get high. And it was simply: sayonara skill, sayonara swiftness."

Read More "Can Weed Kill Your WoW Ranking? Drug Czar N00B Says, “Totally, Dude”" »

Good morning, City Desk readers, and welcome to another addition of Freedom Friday. In case y'all missed it, please check out Average Day D.C., and, if you have time, my review of Arthur Delaney's Nanonman: The Post-Human Prometheus. And now, some news:

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Time For a Tea Party?" »

Elliot Spitzer chats up a reporter about his new gig at Slate, and the above is what Huffington Post's front page editor comes up with for a visual? Because if it weren't for that picture of Ashley Alexandra Dupré, Huff Po's enlightened readers would have had no idea who the fuck Elliot Spitzer was? (The defense that HuffPo is jabbing Spitzer and/or Slate for the former's decision to work at a magazine that heralded his downfall doesn't hold water, seeing as no one at HuffPo actually wrote about the dynamics of that relationship--then again, no one at HuffPo writes about anything.)

Stunts like the Spitzer picture should give dead-tree journos everywhere pause. If this is what it takes to be a dominant leader in page views--posting tacky Photoshop pictures and "breaking" news before it happens--maybe a million eyes just aren't worth it.

Then again, plenty of places manage to sustain high levels of traffic without stooping to HuffPo's level, so maybe the question is: How bad do we want to be on top of the web-garbage pile?

Editor's note: An ill-advised paragraph has been deleted from the original post.

One of Obama's campaign pledges was to “wrest the federal government out of the hands of lobbyists.” And granted, most talk of lobbyists conjures images like this and this. But, c'mon, not all lobbyists are greed-driven parasitic rodents -- some actually work to protect citizens.

For instance, organizations like The American Cancer Society, AARP, and The National Federation of Independent Business (to mention a few) all have robust lobbying outfits in Washington.

In a column today at HuffPo, Lanny Davis tried to redirect lobbyist discourse, hitting the issue on its head.

"What is negative about lobbying is the absence of transparency -- when the powerful and the wealthy have secret influence on members of Congress or the executive branch."

Davis continues:

"With total transparency, lobbyists and the officials they try to influence will have to ask themselves the question "would I mind if this lobbying meeting is fully reported in all respects in tomorrow's newspaper?"

The Jack Abramoffs of lobbying will continue to sprinkle their corruption and egregious fraud in big DC firms, but if Obama puts a few former lobbyists in his administration, don't be so fast to make the jump to corporate corruption.