What Condom Are You?: First, the District started handing out Trojan Magnum condoms, in an attempt to encourage people who think the standard-issue sizes won't fit them to use the free prophylactics. Now D.C. officials have set up an elaborate quiz designed to match would-be condom users' personalities to their rubbers. Depending on what type of food you like, what type of music you listen to, what you drink when you're out, and what your dream job is, it'll recommend either standard latex condoms, flavored condoms, or extra-large condoms. Sure, this is a preposterous campaign, but in a city with a 3 percent HIV infection rate, why not give it a try? +3

Journalism Still Dying: By now, it's hardly news that for-profit journalism is rapidly becoming an oxymoron. Apparently non-profit journalism won't work, either; the Washington Independent, an investigative and policy site supported by charitable donations, closed up shop today, a victim—like many other non-profits—of the economy. The lesson: Everyone writing for Washington City Paper—and every other news organization—is mostly still in this business because we literally have no idea how to do anything else. -1

Metro Needs a Mayor: There's the broken escalators, the bus drivers punching McGruff the Crime Dog, the subways crashing, the busted air conditioners. But the problems with our beloved transit agency go deeper than all that, a report out today says. A new governance structure is needed, a regional task force claims—and the mayor of D.C. needs to be on the Metro board. If Vince Gray knew that would be part of the job, would he still have challenged Adrian Fenty this fall? -2

Phone Books, RIP: That stack of phone books piled up in front of your apartment building? This year may be your last chance to come up with a conceptual art project using them. Verizon wants to stop delivering the white pages in Maryland and Virginia, and, eventually, also the District. You will still be able to order the directory on CD-ROM, though—an indication that Verizon hasn't quite figured out the whole "obsolete technology" thing after all. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 48 Today's score: +1 Today's Needle rating: 49

Child porn, compulsory abortions, and Obama birthers after the jump.

• David Malakoff, a former science editor at NPR who was found to have downloaded and viewed child pornography on his work computer, was sentenced yesterday to "five years probation, a fine of $5,000, 600 hours of community service, and he will have to register as a sex offender for 25 years," according to the Examiner. U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle saw something in Malakoff that judges don't see very often in these cases: A person worthy of her sympathy and mercy. "In explaining the exceptional step of sentencing below the guidelines," wrote the Examiner's Scott McCabe, "the judge said Malakoff had already thrown away a successful career and has to live with the stigma of being a sex offender for most of the rest of his life. But the strongest argument for the lesser sentence, Huvelle said, was that Malakoff had been raped as a 9-year-old boy and he had looked at the child pornography over five hours last year to relive his own rape." Malakoff lucked out; most victims of pedophilia who perpetuate the cycle of molestation and assault as adults–even through a proxy like child pornography–end up behind bars.
• Another good one from the Examiner: David Freddoso reported earlier this week that John Holdren, President Barack Obama's science czar, "approved of and recommended compulsory sterilization and even abortion in some cases, as part of a government population control regime" in the late 1970s. Freddoso's proof? Ecoscience, the book that Holdren co-authored with fellow Malthusians Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. If the horrific significance of this is lost on you, dear reader, please surf your uninformed ass over to Wikipedia. Or better yet, search Google using the terms "China" and "one-child policy."
  
• In other batshit-crazy news, the Washington Independent's Dave Weigel reports that the birthers are at it again: "Six months into Obama’s presidency, after scores of embarrassing legal defeats, and even after tussles between the attoneys who’ve turned frivolous lawsuits about the president’s citizenship into full-time jobs, the cottage industry of conspiracy theories about the president’s birth shows no signs of disappearing...The urban legend has become too pervasive for Republicans to avoid. In February, Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) introduced a much-mocked bill that would require presidential campaigns to provide “a copy of the candidate’s birth certificate.”...As of July 15, nine fellow Republican members of Congress were backing the bill." The upside folks is the more time spent fighting or promoting a contentious, bither-sponsored bill amounts to less time spent TRYING TO TAKE AWAY OUR GUNS/JOBS!

That's all for me. See U next week!

Photo of Dambisa Moyo courtesy of  www.dambisamoyo.com

• Charles Homans reported on the death of local conservative web venture Culture 11 for Washington Monthly. Homans' initial impression is spot-on, and one that conservative sites, by their prudish nature, can't help but cultivate: "On its surface, the softly launched beta (test) version of Culture11 hewed closely to the original vision, down to its Slateish design. Poking around the site was a bit like wandering into the Christian rock section of a record store: the bands were recognizably bands, with electric guitars and vaguely countercultural clothing, but there was something … different about them, the musicians just a little too healthy looking to be real rock stars." I tossed my two cents on conservative culture writing into murky waters a few months back. David Sessions at Patrol has a great response to Homans' piece, in which Culture 11's Joe Carter makes a CONSERVATIVES GONE WILD appearance in the comments.
• You know how all those political types have been frothing at the mouth about the AIG bonuses/Wall Street sodomizing Main Street/Etc.? WCP alumnus Dave Jamieson calls them on their bullshit in a fantastic TNR piece: "Last week, lawmakers dashed to the podiums of Capitol Hill to condemn AIG and the rest of those bonus-loving scoundrels on Wall Street. But not long before that, some of those same members had been dashing to fundraisers with the very financial bogeymen they were now skewering." Charlie Rangel? Crook. Chris Dodd? Douche hat. Carolyn Maloney? into Wall Street for big bucks. Don't trust a one of 'em.
• Why does William Saletan talk about Lady Parts all the time? Because they matter: "The reason I keep you posted on developments in IVF, surrogates, and embryo screening is that they're transforming the debate. They're changing the conditions on which our moral positions rely. Were you pro-choice because the embryo was in a woman? Now we have embryos in dishes. Did you support embryo screening for fatal diseases? Now we're talking about screening embryos for eye color. Does the value of an embryo depend on what its mother thinks? Now we have embryos with two mothers: a genetic one and a gestational one. Should they at least consult each other?"

That's it for me, folks. Enjoy your weekend.

Top o' the morning, folks! Hope everybody enjoyed a whomping St. Patrick's Day. Lotta environmental news out there, so in honor of the collective hangover, City Paper presents a mean, green batch of news.

*WHAT'S HARDER TO SELL THAN A HYBRID? A three-wheeled, fully electric supercar from outer space.

*AMSTERDAM GOES GREEN! NO NO, NOT IN THAT WAY: Business Week hails the capital of the Netherlands as the sustainable city of the future!

*EXTRA-SPECIAL INTERESTS: The Center for Public Integrity explores the ballooning world of climate change lobbyists. Marianne Lavelle reports:

...while the Obama team readies to take on the global warming challenge, the special interests that seek to derail, blunt, or tailor any new climate policy to their narrow agendas have already gathered in staggering numbers.

If CPI's numbers are legit—at least 770 companies, they say, have deployed over 2,000 lobbyists to influence the legislation in question—it's a no-brainer that this'll gum up the works. Elsewhere, CPI publishes a nice spread on the clean coal perplex and the "human disaster of longwall mining."

*THERE'S MORE THAN ONE KIND OF GREEN: The Washington Independent argues that the spiraling economic crisis has deflated public interest in the issue of global warming. Commenter AntonioSosa fires back:

"Progressive" (communist) politicians like Obama seem determined to force us to swallow the man-made global warming scam. We need to defend ourselves from the UN and these politicians, who threaten our future and the future of our children.

Terrifying. Though I always thought commies were supposed to be red, not green.

*PLIGHT OF THE HONEYBEE: If you prefer a less wonk-ish, more cinematic take on the globe we've taken such pains to defile, head on over the the 17th annual D.C. Environmental Film Festival. Noteworthy flicks include Esiritu del Bosque (Spirit of the Forest, an animated feature), Peace With Seals, and The Return of the Honeybee ("a piercing investigative look at the economic, political and spiritual implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee"). Lush cinematography abounds. The Festival runs to March 22.

*Photo above: "Go Irish! Go Green!" by Flipped Out