Pepco Will Lobby 'Til The Lights Come On: But it won't actually turn the lights on itself. HuffPo D.C. reports: "The power company, fined $1 million by the Maryland Public Service Commission in December for its unreliable service, paid $3.8 million in lobbying expenses while paying negative $508 million in taxes, according to the report." . +3

No Home For Old Bourbon: It's really difficult to get a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle—in any vintage—here in D.C. Young & Hungry sent contributor Sam Hiersteiner to find some in D.C. and even though he found a liquor store that technically sells the stuff, he couldn't buy any. "Technically, yes, we have some," says Stewart Phillips, wine consultant and beer buyer at Schneider’s of Capitol Hill. "We got the 12-year and 20-year this morning, but it went on hold for customers in about 15 minutes.” -1

Remember the Ashburn: After a bit of prodding from us and others, the publicist of the famed Alamo Drafthouse theaters admits the new theater won't actually be a D.C. location. Upside, that means that at some point in the future, there may be an iteration of the famously fussy cinema even closer than 30 miles away in Ashburn, Va.+3

Yesterday's Needle rating: 26 Today's score: +7 Today's Needle rating: 33

The Power Of Pepco: Next time the lights go off during a thunderstorm, and you grumble about the rates you're paying for electricity, just remember they could be higher, if Pepco wasn't getting so much money back from the feds. Turns out the company paid an effective federal tax rate of -57 percent over the last three years, thanks to loopholes Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has seen fit to make available to corporations. The utility paid the lowest tax rate of any company in the nation, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. -2

#OccupyTheSenate: Unemployment in the District was 11.1 percent in September. Which meant there was no shortage today of unemployed D.C. residents to stage a protest in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office. The Kentucky Republican didn't meet with the group (in part because they occupied his Russell Building office, not the main one he uses in the Capitol). Something tells us he won't rush to hire any of them, despite their clear skills in generating media attention. +2

What's In A Name?: The days of ever-expanding Metro station names are over—mostly. The Metro board voted to scale back most hyphenated names to emphasize just one part of the cumbersome terms that have sprung up in recent years, except in a few cases where—either due to neighborhood protests or changing geography nearby—they kept compound names around. So much for our plans for the Woodley Park-Zoo-Adams Morgan-Washington City Paper stop on the Red Line. +2

Lanier Likes It Here: Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier is one of the most popular figures in local government (admittedly, the bar's kind of low these days). So chances are, she'll get her wish when she asks Mayor Vince Gray to keep her on after her current contract expires. No word on whether Gray plans to replace her with Sulaimon Brown. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 38 Today's score: +3 Today's Needle rating: 41

With Hurricane Irene on its way and the District under a tropical storm warning, Pepco has been making robocalls to power customers around D.C., warning that power will probably go out and stay out for a while.

"We strongly urge you to prepare now for the very real possibility of power outages this weekend," the calls say.

Listen to the message here:

Image of Hurricane Irene via National Hurricane Center

The Snakeheads Are Coming: When snakehead fish first appeared in Maryland a few years back, it was easy enough to be amused at the prospect of land-borne invasive fish, at least if you didn't live near Crofton, where they were first spotted; the whole thing sounded like a horror movie concept that didn't quite make it to production. The fish, though, had the last laugh: Snakeheads have now been seen in the Rhodes River near Annapolis, which means they've escaped the Potomac and could be spreading faster. Maybe there's a b-movie plot in there, after all. -1

Feed The Meter By Phone: Parking in the District no longer requires hoarding quarters (which is probably good, as a quarter doesn't buy you much time anymore, anyway). The pay-by-phone system city officials rolled out recently is up and running, and early returns look pretty good: More than 37,000 transactions were recorded this month and last, with only 250 mistaken tickets issued—an error rate of less than 1 percent. The typical cause of a problem? Human error. If only smartphones could run everything. +2

In Bloom: The District doesn't always get the same kind of recognition from federal agencies that states do; it took a while to get a D.C.-designed quarter approved, Congress won't let us have two statues, and then there was the whole taxation without sanitation thing. But the Postal Service is showing the District some love. A stamp will debut next year featuring cherry blossoms and the Tidal Basin. Be a good D.C. nationalist, and use the stamps to mail in your angry letters about budget autonomy. +2

Energy Drain: No one would accuse today's weather of being particularly pleasant—it's in the mid-90s, muggy, and thunderstorms are brewing. But the real heat predicted for later in the week is still 24 hours or more away. Lest they be more overwhelmed than usual, Pepco issued some guidelines on how to save power when it heats up: Turn up thermostats, turn on fans, keep the refrigerator closed, shutter windows. Not mentioned: Live in a region with a reliable utility. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 43 Today's score: +2 Today's Needle rating: 45

Unsafe At Any Speed: The Post has been covering Twitter reaction to the story of the Beltway driver who allegedly hit a taxi while having having drunken sex and cruising along at 85 mph since the trial got underway. So it was probably inevitable that the defendant would wind up tweeting, too. But that defendant, Salem Trad, should probably find a way to make money on Twitter—a Fairfax County jury ordered him to pay $22,000 to plaintiff Abdu Omar. +1

Delusions of Grandeur?: The accusations Sulaimon Brown has made against Mayor Vince Gray and his former campaign aides might be easier to take seriously if Brown didn't pull stunts like testifying before the D.C. Council wearing sunglasses. But apparently federal officials have been able to look past the shades long enough to get a grand jury to look into what Brown's saying. Which isn't good news for anyone who hopes Brown's 15 minutes of local news fame will soon be over. -2

Greed, For Lack Of A Better Word, Is Good: It's been a good year for Gannett CEO Craig Dubow, who runs one of the D.C. area's high-profile national corporations, based in McLean. In March, the world learned he got a $1.25 million bonus and his pay doubled—even as the recession crushes what's left of the media business he works in. Today, Gannett announced 700 layoffs around the company, which amounts to about 2 percent of its workers. Presumably, the annual salary of those 700 people adds up to about... $1.25 million? -2

Powerless: Managing expectations is always important in business. Pepco's CEO, Joe Rigby, seems to have figured that out; he told the Montgomery County Council that the utility is "not even shooting for average" performance over the next few years. Which won't come as a surprise to anyone who wondered each night last summer whether they'd be able to keep the lights on. Rigby claims his comment was taken out of context, but it sounds more like a classic Michael Kinsley-style gaffe. -3

Yesterday's Needle rating: 64 Today's score: -6 Today's Needle rating: 58

Government Shutdown, the Old-Fashioned Way: Forget budget standoffs or terrorist attacks; the surest way to close the federal government, apparently, is to run offices on electricity provided by Pepco. A power outage that started yesterday continued today, affecting nine District agencies and several federal ones, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Prediction: New regulations coming soon for utilities. -3

Bike This Way: Alexandria and Arlington left the District to return to Virginia in 1847. Is Capital Bikeshare the way to reunite them? The popular bike service may expand to Alexandria; it already operates in D.C. and Arlington. The city would get 54 bikes at six stations, which users could borrow to ride to the other stations in the other jurisdictions. Just let us know when you want to play, too, Fairfax County. +2

No Exit: We've all been there—you're tired, you're ready to get home, you're frustrated by the commute, and you can't wait to get out of the Metro station. Apparently someone found a shortcut; D.C. fire officials report that a person fled the Georgia Avenue-Petworth stop on the Green and Yellow lines through a ventilation shaft leading up to New Hampshire Avenue NW. Predictably enough, they didn't make it all the way to the street and had to be rescued. Moral of the story: Just wait for the escalator. -1

Weather Or Not: You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, as Bob Dylan sang. But if you do need a weatherman to tell you much else, and you're used to calling 936-1212 to get the information, you are officially out of luck. As promised, Verizon has pulled the plug on the weather and time services it used to provide callers. As a public service, Washington City Paper can inform you that the weather today is damn hot. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 61 Today's score: -3 Today's Needle rating: 58

Jessica Castro, a restaurant server who moved to the District last June, has always thought of her Shaw neighborhood apartment as a residence. Pepco doesn’t seem to think so.

Castro’s place sits above two floors of offices, so the electric company says it is classified as "non-residential."

This might be a minor technicality if that status didn't also translate into higher electric bills.

After calling for months, Castro finally went down to Pepco's headquarters, determined to see someone in person. Once in the lobby, they presented her with another "courtesy" phone, and told her to call customer relations.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” she says. “I wanted to talk to a person, but you just use a courtesy phone in the lobby.”

Being classified a "non-resident" has cost Catro approximately an extra $50 on December's bill, an extra $100 on January's, and an extra $120 this month. She's been trying to get the status changed since June.

“On our first bill we were classified as a non-residential account,” she says. “I called them to get that changed and our account was put under investigation.”

But that “investigation” didn’t change anything.

“After a month or so we were told that our building was zoned as non-residential,” she says. Pepco told Castro “there was nothing they could do.”

Castro’s landlord, who argues that unit has always been residential, started contacting Pepco as well. Finally, Castro’s bills started getting lower, so she figured someone at Pepco had fixed the glitch.

Then November’s bill arrived.

Castro is from California, and she figured her summer bills (averaging around from $200 a month) had been mainly because of air conditioning. Once the winter arrived, she and her roommate hadn’t planned on using electric heat much at all.

Castro says the two offices below her use plenty of heat, saving her and her roommate from having to turn on the electric heater themselves.

“We are fortunate because we are on the third floor,” she says. “The heat rises up... generally our apartment stays between 65 and 72 degrees."

“We don’t need to use the heater,” she explains. “We’re conscientious people... when it gets colder than that [i.e., the heat from the offices], we just bundle up.”

So, when Castro received her bill in December, she figured it would be pretty affordable. It wasn’t.

“It was $272,” she says. “I was dumbfounded—I figured it would be lower... it was more expensive than whatever we had paid before.”

According to the D.C. Public Service Commission's price calculator, her bill had been hiked $51 due to being a "non-residence." But the rest of the tab, Castro surmised, was a result of a bad meter or faulty wiring.

Cue more phone calls, and more run-around from the folks at Pepco.

The bill she got in January was even worse—$575. Pepco said their usage had tripled. Also, they were still a “non-residential unit.” (Added price: $99.)

That's when Castro marched down to Pepco headquarters, determined to finally talk to someone, in person and was presented with yet another phone.

She called someone, got transferred around, and finally lodged her complaint with an official.

He thought she was lying.

“The guy didn’t believe me,” she says. “He said ‘it’s 30 degrees’... he didn’t believe that we weren’t using our heater.”

When Castro finally convinced him, Pepco’s representative said they’d re-read her meter.

“He said Pepco would get back to us in about a week,” she says. “That was Jan. 14, and I have yet to hear anything from him.”

But Pepco did send along her next bill—for $671. (She’s still living in a “non-residential unit,” by the way, raising her price $119.)

“I called Pepco again,” she says. “They said ‘we re-ran your meter and we’re right.’”

“Pepco pretty much said ‘it’s on you—we didn’t do anything wrong,” Castro continues. “I have no idea what to do.”

Castro says there was some electrical work done on her apartment recently, so there’s a chance some wiring has gone seriously wrong and the problem is on her end.

“But, either way—Pepco’s handled this so poorly,” she says. “I am so fed up with them.”

City Desk contacted Pepco about Castro’s problem. They said they’d look into it, but (“because of the President’s Day holiday,” their spokesman explained) they wouldn’t be able to come back with an answer before March 1.

When City Desk pressed on why Castro’s apartment is still classified as “non-residential”, Clay Anderson, Pepco’s senior media representative, sent along this response:

"Due to privacy considerations, Pepco can not discuss individual customer's account information,” he wrote. “It would be in the customer’s best interest to continue to reach out us to resolve this matter."

Castro’s not sure how else she’s supposed to “continue to reach out.”

“I mean, I talked to them yesterday, and they said there’s no problem on their end,” she says. “But when you have a two-bedroom apartment and a $600 a month bill, there’s a problem.”

She sighs.

“I just don’t know how else to reach out to them.”

Photo by Flickr user Daquella manera using an Attribution 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license

As mad as some of you might be after Pepco’s recent missteps restoring power following the Jan. 26 thundersnow event, don’t worry: some members of the D.C. Council would like you to know they are even more angry.

Speaking at public hearing of the Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs late Friday afternoon, several councilmembers did not mince words about their feelings toward Pepco.

Mary Cheh of Ward 3, a member of the committee, said Pepco had no reason to fear the fines she wants to impose on it, as "Pepco itself is doing quite well."

"They're doing really nicely, thank you, while we sit in the dark," Cheh said. "It’s an understatement to say that we have woefully inadequate service in the District of Columbia."

Cheh also said she had trouble believing Pepco’s claim that D.C.’s tree canopy was a huge obstacle that hindered the utility's ability to restore power. "Pepco tries to make the trees responsible," she said. "The trees are not primarily responsible for the outages."

But even if the trees were a huge factor, Cheh noted Pepco has yet to use up all the funds it has to prune D.C.'s trees. Nevertheless, Cheh said, Pepco has complained to the city about difficulties with the tree canopy.

"Talk about hypocrisy," said Cheh, who did not reserve her vitriol for just Pepco. She also singled out the D.C. Public Service Commission, which she likened to a "fat little puppy."

"The Public Service Commission has failed us," she said. "The chief sheriff has to be the Public Service Commission...both entities—Pepco and the Public Service Commission—need a push in the right direction."

To her credit, the committee’s chairwoman, Ward 7's Yvette Alexander avoided going off into extended speeches about her displeasure with Pepco. Instead, she focused on asking questions of the members of the public who showed up to testify.

Similarly, Ward 4's Muriel Bowser said she had come to the hearing only to listen to what her fellow residents had to say. "I just wanted to join you and thank you for calling this hearing," she said, in lieu of an opening statement. "All of us are concerned about improving reliability for our residents."

Ward 5's Harry Thomas Jr. also showed up, ostensibly to listen to the public as well.

"While I’m not a member of your committee, Chairwoman Alexander, this is an issue which is very important to me," he explained. "We want to make sure our utilities are doing the right job.... we need to figure out what obstacles we can remove to expedite our services."

Although Thomas started his remarks by saying “I’m here to listen,” he went on to argue the city needs to change the way it deals with events like the January snow event.

"We need a coordinated effort that I have always been saying needed to exist," Thomas said. "We need to solve this problem once and for all."

While it did take some time to get power fully restored following the storm, Thomas did note that his post-storm calls with the utility were returned promptly. "I got responses that were expeditious in a personal manner," he said. "But the citizens didn’t see this."

Thomas then ended his remarks, and began taking notes on each public witness’ testimony. At one point, he expressed his surprise at the number of witnesses who showed up to testify. "I bet many of you would rather be at happy hour.”

Photo by William F. Zeman

Dan Snyder Sues: Every day since last summer, The Needle has brought you a status report on the District's quality of life around this time of day. Unfortunately, yesterday, we weren't able to publish one—in part because our site was struggling to deal with all the traffic we were getting, and in part because we were working on this. We're sorry, D.C. Anyway. As you may have heard, Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder sued Atalaya Capital Management, the investment firm that owns Washington City Paper's parent company, and Creative Loafing Inc., our parent company, over our "Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder." (In New York, presumably because he was a little nervous about going before a jury of Redskins fans.) The lawsuit itself has no effect on quality of life for most of D.C. But the fact that this is what Redskins management is worried about four days before the Super Bowl? The glory days are gone. -5

Burglar, Charge Thyself: Pepco has been having a tough time lately doing its main duty, which is to say, providing electrical service to customers in the Washington area. The utility, though, seems to be pretty good at fighting crime. Police say Cody Wilkins broke into a Silver Spring home last Friday, looking for jewelry—and, apparently, a place to charge his cell phone, which he left, plugged into the wall, at the house. Wilkins' own home had lost power in last week's snowstorm. +3

Pepco, Charge Thyself: Speaking of Pepco, the utility has come up with an ingenious way to recoup revenue lost by the fact that thousands of its customers weren't using electricity—and thus, weren't buying power from Pepco—after that snowstorm: Raise rates! The accounting may be sound; the politics, to say nothing of the decency, seem a bit off. Economists, of course, would point out that this plan creates incentives for Pepco to have more outages. Pepco customers, though, would point out that they don't need any additional incentive for that. -3

Hi Ho, Kermit the Frog Here: For years, the Capital Children's Museum brought joy to kids around the D.C. area, until it closed in 2004 (and then, briefly, brought joy to slightly older District residents, who fondly recalled past trips to the museum while running around drunkenly in its brief incarnation as Art-o-Matic site). For decades, D.C. native Kermit the Frog has brought joy to kids around the whole world. So a new agreement between the National Children's Museum and Sesame Workshop, producers of Sesame Street? That's a recipe for, yes, joy. +3

Tuesday's Needle rating: 53 Today's score: -2 Today's Needle rating: 51

Power to the People: Wednesday night's snowstorm took out electricity to so many Pepco customers that the utility's outage maps weren't even working most of the day today. Turns out there may be a good reason why: Pepco didn't request extra help keeping power on until hours after most other area companies had done so. Service should be back by 11 p.m. tonight, but if you're reading this, chances are you already have power anyway. (At least this time they didn't blame the trees.) -4

Metrobus-ted: Just how bad was the commute Wednesday night? Bad enough that most Metrobuses on the road during the snowstorm couldn't manage to go more than 6 miles an hour, which is pretty slow. Some roads wound up blocked by stuck buses; others were just congested and icy, leaving buses caught in traffic the same as cars. In Silver Spring, the 70 bus moved only a few feet in the hour The Washington Post analyzed. Next time: Buy skis. -3

Have a Lucky Day: Sure, it was manipulative and one-sided in its portrayal of public school teachers' unions and the politics of education reform—but there's no question the lottery scene in Waiting for "Superman" made for great drama. The same drama is now playing out in real life, though mostly via websites, not in auditoriums with film crews around: DCPS opened the lottery for the 2011-12 school year today for out-of-boundary schools or for pre-school or pre-kindergarten spots. (Charter school lotteries are held at different times throughout the year; don't forget to apply for a spot in the Washington City Paper School—guaranteed not to make adequate yearly progress, or your money back!) +2

House the Rich: What recession? Sales of homes that cost $1 million or more were up about a third last year over 2009; one rowhome in Dupont Circle recently sold for $1.699 million, paid in cash. (We hope the buyer used lots and lots of $2 bills.) Affordable housing is still hard to come by in the District and elsewhere in the region, though—but if the millionaires are moving, at least the rest of us can live in their discarded cardboard boxes. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 53 Today's score: -4 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 51

Dispatch from a Silver Spring source, who lives right over the D.C. line and still doesn't have power:  "Pepco sucks ass. Forty-four hours with no power and no relief in sight. I was so fucking angry I left my home at 12:30 after midnight to drive the streets looking for a Pepco truck. I don't know what I was going to do when I found it....I drove around for an hour.  I couldn't find one."

"I didn't see a Pepco truck until one went down the end of our street this morning. Apparently, some wire they put up a couple weeks ago had broken. Apparently, they tightened that wire up. By doing so, they fucked up some other wire because it's sagging real low. Then they left. I and at least two other neighbors told the motherfuckers they needed to come down to this cul de sac and open my goddamn transformer. There's a box in front of my house. Every time this shit has happened for the last four or five years, I've had to go out and literally follow Pepco trucks and lead them by the nose back here. I reported once that these fuckers were reading magazines behind some church."

"Everybody has power except for our street and the houses across the street within my immediate [area]. This has been reported, reported, reported. You can't even get through to a live person. Forty-four fucking hours. Just think about that."

Update Hour 45: "Supervisor appears on scene. Tells me he has two trucks he radioed for. They can't find the fucking place. Then supervisor is gone. Now nobody is here."

Update Five Minutes Before Hour 46: Power restored. Once workers arrived—after getting lost—it took just under six minutes to turn the juice on. The neighborhood now has power. "First thing I did already was I removed one layer pants and one layer of sweat shirt. Actually, the very first thing I did was plug my cellphone in. The next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take a fucking shower and put some clean clothes on and then I'm going to come down and start throwing away all of the food that has spoiled."

SnOMG!: The first snowflakes of the season fell in a flurry early this morning, causing mass hysteria on Twitter and, we're sure, prompting every local TV news crew in the region to camp out at grocery stores to get B-roll of people buying milk, bread, and toilet paper. Anyone who spent most of February shoveling out from Snowmageddon promptly fell into a catatonic state of post-traumatic stress. Fortunately, the snow didn't last. Unfortunately, there may be more of it—and bitter cold—coming soon. And it's not even winter yet! -2

I Got the Power: Don't let anyone say Pepco doesn't stay on message. The same week the Washington Post zapped the utility's claims that power went out so frequently around the D.C. region because of an unusual amount of trees, Pepco says it'll start cutting tree limbs on customers' property if it wants. If they keep this up, Pepco will start ordering Agent Orange by the spring. -3

A Brickskeller By Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet: One of D.C.'s old standby bars, The Brickskeller, will close on Dec. 18 for renovations, to reopen about a week later with new ownership (and a new name). The buyers, who also own the Windsor Inn, Embassy Inn, and District Hotel, will install new carpet and redo the bathrooms. Hence the headline for this item. +2

They Say That Ashburn is a Bad Mother...: In the annals of totally unscientific rankings of cities, the one out this morning ought to win a special prize. Editors of Business Insider plugged each of George Carlin's famed seven dirty words into Google Trends, looked at where each word was most often searched by residents, and determined that Ashburn, Va., is the most obscene city in the country. We note that Redskins Park is located in Ashburn; the team has certainly given fans—and possibly employees?—plenty of reason to curse this year. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 51 Today's score: -2 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 51

So Long, and Thanks for All the Bike Lanes: It was revolving door day at the Wilson Building. DDOT Director Gabe Klein, a favorite of the smart growth set, departed in the morning, along with DCRA ; by the afternoon, the big news was the appointment of Allen Lew as city administrator and Gerri Mason Hall as Almost Mayor Vince Gray's chief of staff. So that's one transit-friendly official out, one former Amtrak official in. May not be time to trade that Bianchi in for a BMW yet, after all. +2

But I'm a Congressman!: Last month, around 1 a.m. one night, a guy got into some kind of altercation near the Capitol building and called police for help. He was, he told the cops, Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. In fact, police now say, he was Walter Nelson Lewis Jr., he was, at 26, less than half Kingston's age, and he had somehow gotten a hold of a real lapel pin identifying him as a member of Congress. Lewis has been charged with impersonating a member of Congress—which we're not saying is a tactic Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton should use if Republicans don't give D.C. a vote, but we're also not saying she shouldn't. +1

The District is All In: Vegas on the Potomac is here at last! The D.C. Council passed a law last night allowing the D.C. Lottery to set up online poker games, which would be legal as long as players are physically in the District while gambling. The bill would generate about $13.5 million in revenue, which the city could certainly use. Yes, technically, the law would run afoul of several federal statutes. So what? Raise! +1

Twitter Power: Annoyed about your Pepco bill and/or that time the power went out while your TiVo was in the middle of recording Glee? (Note: We don't watch Glee, but we understand a lot of you do.) Vengeance can be yours tomorrow, as Pepco president Thomas Graham will take to the utility's Twitter feed to answer questions from customers. That is, unless power suddenly cuts out at the Pepco headquarters on account of all the trees in D.C. Hit Graham up at @PepcoConnect. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 40 Today's score: +6 Today's Needle rating: 46

Banned in D.C.: Yes, we used the same Bad Brains song title as a headline on a previous Needle item about the National Portrait Gallery. But now it's even more appropriate, as the Metropolitan Police Department told two protesters arrested at the museum on Saturday that they were forbidden to set foot in any Smithsonian Institution properties ever again—for life. Admittedly, we've never passed the bar exam, but such an order certainly doesn't seem like it could possibly hold up in court. But why would the cops let that stop them? -2

Fight the Power: About the only thing you might ask for from your power company is that they regularly keep your home or business supplied with power. That is not, however, Pepco's way. As a Washington Post report detailed yesterday, the utility provides its customers with 70 percent more outages than they'd get if they lived in another utility's service area; trees, which Pepco usually blames for the problems, don't actually seem to bear as much fault as the utility's own equipment failures. Pepco executives apparently read the Post report and decided to double down: Today, they announced they'd be raising rates. -3

Wild Blue Yonder: Usually, the sound of a helicopter flying overhead at night is a bad sign—either a medical evacuation, or the police are looking for someone, or it's one of those pesky unmarked black helicopters that mean it's time to put the tin foil hat on again to protect your brain. The helicopter, and accompanying Civil Air Patrol plane, that will be flying around the region tonight, though, are only part of a NORAD training exercise to test the area's defenses. Still, the tin foil hat might not be a terrible idea. +1

Jersey Turnpike Roadkill: It's December, which means it's time for football teams to prepare for the playoffs. Or, in the case of the Redskins, to begin planning winter vacation destinations. The Skins were drubbed by the Giants yesterday, 31-7, in a game that featured six turnovers and a blocked punt. Fortunately, at 5-7, the team has already won more games than last year; unfortunately, if they keep playing the way they did yesterday, they're in danger of having earlier wins stripped away retroactively just on principle. -2

Friday's Needle rating: 53 Today's score: -6 Today's Needle rating: 47

Power to the People: Frustrated by the frequent power outages that have plagued Howard Kurtz's home (and possibly yours, too)? Pepco has finally found a solution—spend $256 million trimming tree limbs. And voilà: a reliable supply of electricity. After, uh, a five-year wait to implement the plan. Potentially faster solution—go solar. -2

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: Labor Department stats show D.C. posted the second-largest gain in employment in the nation last month. A total of 17,800 new jobs were added to D.C. payrolls in July; it was the biggest one-month gain in the District since the department started tracking the statistic in 1990. The biggest gainer? Michigan. Fenty administration rumored to be testing new slogan: "D.C.'s Economy—Almost as Dynamic As Michigan's!" +7

It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature: Elevators at Metro's Union Station stop will be out of service for three months as part of a $177 million Red Line rehab project. Unlike the system's many escalator outages, this one was announced in advance. Like the system's many escalator outages, it's still likely to prove inconvenient and irritating. -3

Socialist Schism in Mayor's Race: Trouble could be brewing among D.C. leftists if Vincent Gray wins the Sept. 14 primary—the rival D.C. Democratic Socialists of America and Socialist Workers Party have split over endorsements for the District's chief executive office. The DSA backed Gray; the SWP put up its own candidate, former Floridian Omari Musa. Presumably, if Adrian Fenty wins the nomination, both sides will unite behind a plan to exhume Leon Trotsky and run him. -2

Lost Highway Found: One of the most least pressing issues of our time is on the way to resolution, as District officials have started removing misplaced Route 29 highway markers from the Dupont Circle area. Soon the scourge of lost, interstate highway-phobic drivers wandering around New Hampshire Avenue on their way from Baltimore to Florida will be a thing of the past. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 41 Today's score: +1 Bonus points for Friday: +2 Today's Needle rating: 44