One word: Oprah! The "queen of daytime television" will announce today she's ending her show in 2011. This is huge! Now, in case you're a little slow, let me connect the dots and tell you what's really going on here. Just this week, Sarah Palin goes on Oprah to plug her book Going Rogue even while insisting that 2012 is "not on my radar screen right now," which is what all candidates for president have to say in 2009. Oprah is all charming, as usual, and gets her biggest audience in two years! Then, just a few days later, Oprah announces that she will be leaving her show after 25 years to "start her own cable channel." Coincidence? This could really only mean one thing: Palin-Winfrey 2012! You heard it here first.

I'm sure there are skeptics out there. Yeah, Oprah endorsed Barack Obama during last year's campaign. But whatever. Remember how she didn't go out and stump for him, except, like, once? It's obvious now that this is because she is a secret political admirer of Sarah Palin. And Michelle Obama knows it (see picture).

Also, put yourself in Palin's place. Who else would you pick to be your vice presidential running mate? John McCain? He's too old, and he obviously held her back last time. Mitt Romney? Not until he changes his hair, and that doesn't seem imminent. I suppose Todd, the ex-First Dude, is a possibility. Sarah does say in her book that "God and Todd" got her where she is today, and it's not like she can put God on the ticket. Anyway, Oprah makes total sense.

In other news, NASA has confirmed that the world is not ending, at least not on Dec. 21, 2012.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, there is a shortage of canned pumpkin.

Two-thirds of American Santas are fat—and they want a swine flu shot.

Happy Friday! And catch up with me on Twitter!

Photo by woohoo120, Creative Commons Attribution License

*Checked out NBC Washington's new "Moods"/Washington Is... section? I hadn't! (Sorry, vacay.) Definitely interactive. Also, leads to hilarious/tacky catchphrases at the top of the homepage (see above). My problem with this is the same problem I have with "viewers' choice awards" on reality TV shows. (Full disclosure: don't watch many reality TV shows.) The whole "America has spoken" thing smacks of a.) Regis Philbin and b.) hypergeneralization. Still, Washington has spoken...and NBC's new site, moodswings and all? Pretty baller! Or maybe not.

*WUSA-9 reports that four teenagers are being charged by Prince William County police for white supremacist-style vandalism:

First Sgt. Kim Chinn says police received a call at about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday that some sod had been pulled from a pallet and used to write "White Power," "KKK" and form a swastika at Sinclair Elementary School. She says the incident may have occurred overnight.

*BREAD & BUTTER WaTimes SCOOP: Jennifer Harper upbraids the Obama admininstration for cheapening the annual remembrance of 9/11. Biggest faux pas? Evites for families of those killed at the Pentagon.

*INSPIRATIONAL REUTERS QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "The amount of solar energy falling upon the earth's desert regions during 6 hours of a typical day equals the total amount of energy from all sources consumed by the entire population of the globe in a year's time."

*JUST IN TIME FOR VALENTINE'S DAY, SORT OF: Studies show that candlelit dinners are bad for the environment!

*AWKWARD TOWN HALL/HEALTHCARE VIDEO DU JOUR:

Did anybody tell Abe Pollin?

***

Lebron's come and gone. But we only have to wait a week for the next celeb sports doc extravaganza: Luis Tiant will be at the E Street Cinema downtown on June 22 for red-carpet screening of "The Lost Son of Havana," a film about the ex-Indian- Twin-Red Sock-Yankee-Pirate-Angel's trip back to the Cuban capital, which is his Akron.

After the screening the movie's producers will throw a bash across the street from the theater at the ESPN Zone. But don't expect much. In the invitation the party's organizers just sent out, they're promising that: "Light refreshments will be served in accordance with House Ethics rules."

House ethics used to lead to the wildest parties in town. Jack Abramoff mussed up everything.

***

Sign of the times or the Times? Despite a big write-up in Sunday's Washington Times, the Hoop Dreams Scholarship fund had to cancel its next big fundraising event for lack of interest.

Hoop Dreams has been a powerhouse on the DC charity and social scene for more than a decade. The organization was started in 1996 by former H.D. Woodson teacher and sleepless superhero Susie Kay, who began holding an annual outdoor basketball tournament to help her students get money for college.

Her cause took off, and before long, Kay, backed by Ted Leonsis, Ari Fleischer and scads of local pro athletes and federal lawmakers (including John McCain and Barack Obama), was divvying out grants to kids from schools all over the city. (Leonsis threw more than checks at the group, serving for years as a mentor to Kay's kids.)

The organization now claims to have funded continuing education for more than 1,000 DC students.

The plan was to celebrate that milestone on June 25, with a soiree at the Historical Society of Washington, DC, called "1,000 Strong."

But this morning Hoop Dreams sent out a brief, terse announcement that the event was canceled "due to lack of ticket sales."

"For the few people who purchased tickets online you will receive a full refund," read the cancellation notice.

Hoop Dreams' cause remains righteous. This party might be canceled, but the party can't be over for this bunch.

Other hoops-related charities are claiming big doings around here: The group Nothing But Nets, also known for raising funds through basketball tournaments, is holding a series of local events this week with the Mystics, DC United, the Bayhawks and Michelle Obama and Jack Evans, and says it will use the proceeds to send 10,000 malaria nets to various refugee camps in Africa.

***

Good golly, did David Letterman look like a coward and a buffoon last night, caving in and bumbling through a fake apology for his lazy line about Sarah Palin's daughter getting "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez.

Yeah, talk about an athlete impregnating a Palin daughter really isn't fit for a late-night monologue. It's ok to use that material in a campaign press release, however.

Guess it's all been said. But let's take another look at Palin with her daughters at the Flyers game during the campaign, one of many appearances at sporting events where she's used her kids as human shields.

What network fool told Letterman to crater?

***

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I don’t want to see my father’s picture near any picture of a guy I am attracted to, especially if we haven’t even had dinner yet.

From Meghan McCain's Daily Beast confessional, "Looking for Mr. Far Right."

(Second place goes to the same piece:

Any guy that has a fetish for older women in pantsuits and large pearls obviously only finds my last name attractive about me. )

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.

So I went back to JV's again tonight. I wanted to see how a bar whose regulars leaned as far to the right as any three-legged dog would do on a night when the mood around town was all about entertaining The Other Side.

The answer: Not real well.

The musical lineup JV's management put out there was as old school as the bar itself: Tom Principato, Catfish Hodge, Tommy Lepson, Pete Ragusa and Steve Wolf were playing together as the January All-Stars. About 30 years ago, all the Stars were in separate DC bands that each got radio airplay and would have packed any Georgetown nightspot on the night before a holiday -- Principato in Powerhouse, Wolf with Danny Gatton's Redneck Jazz, Lepson in the Lazy Boys and Root Boy Slim, Ragusa in the Nighthawks, and Hodge fronting his own group.

But on this night, at its most crowded, I counted 16 paying customers in the whole place.

Sixteen! That's about 20 percent as big as the bunch there whooping and hollering on the night of Bush's speech.

"I don't know why nobody's here," said Lepson.

Me neither.

But maybe the guy taking money at the door dressed in an official JV's t-shirt with the slogan "Don't Blame Me I Voted for McCain" on the back provided a clue.

In any case, the show was fabulous. I still say that when it comes to hearing the blues or watching a declaration of war, JV's is the place to be.

Friends, as we observe the inauguration of a new president, there are still two Americas: Those that are happy to see Barack Obama take office, and those that aren't.

Yesterday, during a visit to Gambrills, Md., our car was vandalized by a member of the latter demographic.

Somebody with a lot of free time, duct tape and leftover paraphrenalia from the 2008 presidential campaign taped a "NOBAMA 'O8" placard over the rear license plate of our car, which was parked in front of my in-laws' house.

The offending paperwork also advertised for www.malagent.com, a blowhardy but currently inactive blog written by an apparent far right-winger. (There have been no posts on that site since Nov. 6.)

The car had no bumper or window stickers betraying any political affiliation. Just an American flag decal that was stuck on the back windshield before we bought it. We figured we were tagged because of our DC tags.

But then the vandals came back later and taped more of the same on the door of my brother-in-law's house, while a number of folks stood feet away on the other side of that door.

My brother in law is a loyal Republican. He's peeved.

But, as low-brow and time-consuming as the act was, it doesn't appear to be a prank: Other houses in the neighborhood were also struck yesterday.

I'm generally pro-civil disobedience, but what bugs me most about these actions is: Did the genius have to use duct tape on all four sides?

Bill Mallison, a friend, cast his vote for John McCain in the contested state of North Carolina (CNN initial polling projected the state at 50% Obama, 49% McCain, though Obama has now broken away). Mallison may be an out-of-state voter, but he is, at the moment, physically in the District (photo evidence above).

Mallison says he supports McCain despite the messy election cycle he's emerged from. "If you ignore all the election pandering, which you have to do in order to shore up all wings of the party, he hasn't changed," says Mallison. "He's the same politician he was in mid-2007. As bad as the Republican party's been, after Tom Delay and Rove, it's important to support the moderate wing of the party. And the moderate wing's about gone because Delay and Rove killed most of the moderate Republican members of Congress. And McCain is basically all the things that a Republican wants in Republican, subtract all the insane token positions like stem cell research and gay marriage amendments and no prescription drug importation and torture. That being said, it's not the party's time to win. It's the Democrats' time."

I, too, once voted for John McCain, for Senator of Arizona (totally won). Perhaps it was even my very vote that encouraged McCain to quench his unspeakable thirst for unparalleled international power. My bad.

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Among other things.

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An Obama victory, Pam adds, might signify that God requires "penance" from the U.S. For something.

Plus: will Prop 8 turn California red?!?!

Um...probably not.

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*We're not really counting that "this is your brain on democracy" thing.

This is your brain on democracy:

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Our first vid comes from Iglesia Festival (polling station for precinct 35), where we spoke with Alice Bell.

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Now here's a subversive little thought about that Khalidi tape that the Los Angeles Times is guarding like a cargo of plutonium.

Item:  The Los Angeles Times is owned by the Tribune Co.

Item:  The Tribune Co. is based in Chicago.

Item:  "In 2008, Tribune is struggling under a $13 billion debt load, much of it incurred in taking the company private in 2007, and from plummeting advertising income at its newspapers." (Wikipedia. A business friend tells me the current figure is actually $14.7 billion.)

Item:  Tribune Chairman and CEO Sam Zell is a major Republican donor. Why would he not want his paper to release the Khalidi tape?

Item:  The federal government is sitting on a bailout fund of $700 billion.

Item:  It's not likely the Treasury can disburse more than one or two hundred billion of that before the next administration comes in.

Item:  The next administration will therefore have at least half a trillion greenies to hand out to anyone it deems worthy of being bailed out. Anyone — there are no hard and fast rules.

Item:  14.7 billion is a very small proportion — less than three percent — of half a trillion.

Which of course it is. Perfectly ridiculous. Utterly, impossibly ridiculous. Preposterous. Totally preposterous … (Rinse and repeat.)

When Sam Zell's office was called and asked about this (by a friend of mine who requests deep anonymity), they said the thought was ridiculous.

John Derbyshire: cuckoo for conspiracy--any conspiracy--that will aid Republicans in painlessly rationalizing next week's loss. (What else do the poor saps have?) I think I'd take up smack if I had to wear the scarlet "R" after Nov. 4.

Erik Wemple nailed shut this bullshit-laden coffin earlier today.