Sarah Palin and Charlie Sheen have some things in common: They've both occasionally indicated they're open to questions about whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States, and they both seem to subscribe to an Oscar Wilde-inspired theory of media coverage ("the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about"). One thing they don't have in common, though, is having recently been escorted by D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department.

On April 19, Sheen hired MPD to bullet him from Dulles International Airport to his speaking gig at Constitution Hall, lights flashing. The trip set off a controversy about MPD escorts and whether celebrities like Sheen deserve to zip through red lights. According to MPD policy, the correct answer is "no." Officially, only the president, vice president, D.C. mayor, and visiting dignitaries should get escorts, and only for security; nonetheless, it turned out visitors like Jay-Z and Bill Gates had also gotten the special treatment in the past.

Apparently, though, Palin didn't think she needed an escort when she arrived in D.C. last weekend for her "One Nation" bus tour/PAC-funded family vacation. Had her entourage asked, MPD could have authorized an escort for her. But she didn't ask. MPD spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump says MPD had nothing to do with Palin while she was here: "We did not receive any request from Sarah Palin for an escort, nor was one authorized. We did not escort her anywhere." Messages sent to Palin's handlers weren't answered.

Since Palin was reportedly escorted by ten park rangers and police escorts on a trip to Ellis Island in New York on Wednesday, we decided to check with some other agencies. Secret Service, Capitol Police, and U.S. Park Police all say they dispatched no details at all to safeguard Palin.

Obviously, Sheen ruined a good thing.

YouTube clips appear to show that Palin's visit to the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally was overseen by the event's security guys, and that one of them was really into yelling at the media. Photos and videos also show some guys in polo shirts and sunglasses in the background who look like private security.

MPD seems to have caught a break here; a security request from Palin could have put the department in an awkward position. Refuse it, and they could be (gulp) alienating the future leader of the free world. Comply, and it looks like celebrity worship. For now, at least, that's one scandal dodged.

Photo by Matt Dunn

99 Problems But a Motorcade Ain't One: Turns out the list of celebrities who've gotten police escorts through the District doesn't begin and end with Charlie Sheen and Fran Drescher. Internal Metropolitan Police Department records show Jay-Z and Bill Gates have also sped through D.C. with flashing lights. Gates' escort cost $445.68, and Jay-Z's cost $1,114.20. Both zoomed between Dulles and destinations in the District. No matter what else, Gates should certainly have to wait for red lights; it's payback for every time a Washingtonian's copy of Microsoft Word has frozen. -2

USA Today Gets Results: Back in the day, people used to mock USA Today for being an unserious newspaper. Now, any newspaper that's still got enough readers to be worth publishing daily gets some automatic respect. USAT ought to get a little more now: A District investigation following up on the paper's story about cheating on standardized tests found that, indeed, there was cheating, and the results from three classrooms have been thrown out. Prediction: This will not calm the ongoing battles in town about what kind of legacy Michelle Rhee left behind when she split for California. -2

Weeded Out: Worries that medical marijuana would mean a huge influx of pot to the District (which, really, wouldn't have been so bad) seem to have been completely misplaced. So far, only 11 applicants have put in to run "cultivation centers" to grow the, uh, medicine, and only nine have applied to sell it. (The Rabbi of Pot is one of them.) Two would be in Northeast, and one would be near Eastern Market along Pennsylvania Avenue SE. One would be somewhere in Ward 2. Not exactly Amsterdam-esque. You've got another month or so if you want to get in on the action. +1

100 Percent Chance of Weather: May and June in D.C. tend to mean one thing: Thunderstorms. Okay, two things: Thunderstorms, and lots of 'em. Today is no exception. A serious storm front is rolling through the area; a tornado was already spotted on the Eastern Shore, and the D.C. area is under a severe thunderstorm watch until 9 p.m., with a chance of winds up to 70 m.p.h. Maybe the end of the world guy was only a few days off? -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 65 Today's score: -4 Today's Needle rating: 61

Pretty Please: In the grand hierarchy of actions that seem like good ideas but won't actually amount to a whole lot, "starting a petition drive" falls somewhere a few levels of effectiveness behind "forming a blue-ribbon panel." Which is why we don't have great faith that a petition drive by local civil liberties groups against Metro's new bag-searching policy will accomplish much. Metro, after all, is only marginally responsive to the demands of riders that they keep the trains running on time; surely they wouldn't listen to reason on this unreasonable policy. But hey, at least someone's trying! +1

I Want My Bus TV: Lately, the frigid weather has made using NextBus downright painful; who wants to take their gloves off long enough to fiddle around with an app to tell them when the (nice warm) bus is going to arrive? At 14th and U streets NW, riders no longer have to worry about that, as the District has installed a large monitor displaying bus arrivals, Capital BikeShare availability, and presumably, wind chill. Eventually the screens will be installed in bus shelters around the city. For now, though, you'll still need to use NextBus to figure out the best way to get to 14th and U to check this one out. +2

City ISO Overlord: The District has about 600,000 residents and nearly as many credentialed members of the national press corps. So you'd think the chance to interfere in our municipal affairs would be hard for an ambitious House Republican to resist, if only for the obvious grandstanding opportunities. You would, apparently, be wrong; the GOP is having trouble finding someone to take on the chairmanship of the subcommittee that involves D.C. That no Republican wants the chance to rule our city may be even more of an indignity than the whole "taxation without representation" thing. Then again, maybe if no one wants the job, they'll just leave us alone? +1

Rexy Not So Sexy: Changing the quarterback didn't actually do much at all for the Redskins, who lost 33-31 to Dallas. For some reason, the fact that Rex Grossman threw four touchdowns is being taken as proof in some quarters that benching Donovan McNabb was wise; here at Washington City Paper, we're a little more old-fashioned, so we have a tough time applauding the tactic, considering the team still didn't win. Memo to Mike Shanahan: Moral victories, as Jay-Z reminds us, are for minor league coaches. (Though the way the Redskins are playing, it's understandable if Shanahan thinks that's what he is.) -2

Friday's Needle rating: 53 Today's score: +2 Today's Needle rating: 55

That means Mitchell's now ex-employer was Dan Snyder.

The same guy has fired the same guy before.

In 2000, Snyder's first offseason of running the Redskins, Mitchell, the team's all-time punt return and kickoff return leader, was let go.

In Thom Loverro's 2007 book, Hail Victory: An Oral History of the Washington Redskins, Mitchell insinuated he got run out of town because he was disliked by Snyder's favorite Redskin, Darrell Green.

That's sorta interesting again, because the owner's pet these days, Clinton Portis, got in a big to-do over the airwaves with Mitchell last year over things the host said about his attitude and play.

Portis and Snyder were recently spotted dining together at N9NE Steakhouse in Vegas.

Vegas!

And now Snyder banishes Mitchell again!

Hmmm.

***

Speaking of the underworld: Pittsburgh Penguins winger Miroslav Satan assisted on Games 4's winning goal versus the Capitals on Friday, and helped out on Pitt's first score a day later.

I only bring this up so I can also relate some Awesome Trivia about Satan: His player number in Yahoo sports is... 666!

You can look it up!

Sure, the guy's been around the NHL for 13 years and every beelzebubby joke's been made. (Even the copy editors of the Washington Times, a sectarian paper if there ever was, couldn't resist while headlining this morning's wire story about the Caps/Pens series.)

But hell if the name's not still funny!

And check out his official photo! Tell me Satan's not central casting for Satan!

So when I was reading the wire stories about Friday's game and saw that "Satan feathered the puck through Erskine's legs," of course I giggled. (Hilarious as "Satan" surely is in print, he's "Shuh-tan" on radio and TV. Not so funny.)

"Satan"'s one of those names you can't not giggle at if you went to seventh grade. Like J.J. Putz of the Mets, or D'Cody Fagg of the Florida State Seminoles, or Jimmy Douchebag of the Oklahoma City Thunder. (OK, there is no Jimmy Douchebag on OK City. But if there were, I could at least name one player on that team.)

Now back to Fagg: It seemed to me that when he was at FSU no announcer ever called him just "Fagg." Instead of, say, using Cosell's famousest verbiage, "Watch that little Fagg run!" the play-by-play was always something like "Catch by D'Cody Fagg!" or "Dropped by D'Cody Fagg!" or "Touchdown, Florida State!"

The guy had a fine college career, providing me and every other former seventh-grader with all sorts of giggles. But he went undrafted last month, probably a combination of injuries and his surname.

The Buffalo Bills, clearly the most open-minded NFL squad, have signed Fagg as a free-agent.

Now back to Satan's work: Caps fans are mad at defenseman Tom Poti knocking a pass from the Penguins' Evgeni Malkin past his own goalie in overtime to give the Pittsburgh Game 5.

But look at the replay: If Poti doesn't go horizontal, Malkin's pass gets banged in by Sidney Crosby, standing solo in front of a half-open net.

Imagine the depression here if Crosby got the winner.

***

Barack Obama never announced who's going to win the Stanley Cup.

But the President's March Madness pool pick came in, and today the NCAA champions fromthe University of North Carolina will get a meet-and-greet with the Tout-in-Chief at the White House.

***

Speaking of post-racial: I don't know if I thought I'd live long enough to see a black president. But I'm sure I never thought I'd live long enough to see the top eight heavyweights be white guys.

You can look it up!

'Course, seven of the eight whiteys atop the world rankings are Eastern Europeans.

And next month, the highest rated black heavyweight, current No. 9 David Haye, fights Wladimir Klitschko in Germany for the IBF and WBO titles. Haye is also a Euro, a Brit who trains in the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus.

Where have you gone, Joe Louis?

I mulled the racial state of boxing while watching Manny Pacquiao destroy Ricky Hatton last week from Vegas on pay-per-view.

I didn't think I'd ever seen a PPV with no black fighter in the main event.

And here were Jay-Z and Denzel and a ton of mostly black celebs at ringside, having paid silly money to watch grown men pound each other.

We've come a long way, baby!

(And, my god, what a fight! Boxing's been written off like horse racing and newspapers, but PacMan/Mayweather will be among the biggest prize fights of all time.)

***

Ryan Zimmerman's streak is now 28 games.

As with any such skein, Zimmerman's mostly makes us remember how incredible Joe DiMaggio's 1941 streak was.

We're rightly enthralled with Zimmerman's franchise-record run...and he's only halfway there!

***

Another local boy made good turns out to be not so local and not so good: Tomorrow night ESPN will air a report on troubles with Binghamton University's basketball program.

The piece will focus on Miladin Kovacevic, who allegedly beat a fellow student into a coma, then fled to his native Serbia. U.S. officials are now trying to get the Serbs to extradite the suspect.

Kovacevic played his high school ball in Fairfax at Paul VI of the WCAC, which is probably both the best and the most international prep basketball conference in the country.

***

Update on the U.S. Government's War on Pickup Soccer: The red snow fences that prevented folks from playing at the park across Tilden Street from Peirce Mill have been taken down.

But the fences are still mucking things up at Piney Branch Parkway beneath 16th Street.

All the dirt spots at the Piney Branch site have been covered for a while by new grass, so the fences serve no purpose now other than to hamper the Hispanic players that have been using the site for years and years from playing the international game.

I'd love to hear another excuse for the fences.

ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!

***

D.C. United had their March on Lincoln Park on Saturday to little effect. At this point, the team might have better luck marching to Linkin Park and asking for money.

***

Anybody know who won the DC Rollergirls championship on Saturday?

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Gwyneth Paltrow, when asked by MTV UK if she had any advice for Two Lovers co-star Joaquin Phoenix regarding his fledgling hiphop career, responded, "[G]o live in the projects for a few years to get some authenticity, maybe."

Wonder if she'll offer that same wisdom to kids Apple and Moses should they ever want to follow in "Uncle" Jay-Z's footsteps.