But people love a deal, and more than anything, it's a way for the company to snatch up new subscribers. Just like the Amazon and Whole Foods deals before (both of which sold out at 1,000,000), this one is likely to appeal to a wide swath of people—and give Living Social access to several thousand new email inboxes. All the better to fund their new offices on 7th Street and New York Avenue NW.

Yeah, so it turns out 1 million people bought the $10 for $20 worth of Whole Foods kale chips deal (or whatever, you don't actually have to buy kale chips) that LivingSocial was offering yesterday.

I don't even know what this means, except that I would very much like to eat some kale right now.

Photo by Claire Sutton via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License

BYO Books: The upper Northwest rare books market may soon take a bit of a hit. Politics & Prose will introduce an Espresso Book Machine, a sort of copier-on-steroids that can print books—including those that are out of print—in five minutes, on demand. The downside, of course, is that every retired former lobbyist living in Forest Hills will now be publishing their own tomes on public policy. +1

We're No. 22!: Every year, college admissions officers swear they don't care how U.S. News & World Report ranks their school. And every year, without fail, the rankings come out and cause great cheering and/or gnashing of teeth. The highest-ranked local school on the list this year was Georgetown, ranked 22nd. The University of Virginia came in at 25th, William and Mary was 33rd, George Washington University 50th, the University of Maryland 55th, Virginia Tech 71st, American University 82nd, and Howard University 115th. Not that anyone at any of those schools is counting, of course. +1

Half Foods: There are times when the Whole Foods on P Street NW resembles someone's very carefully designed vision of the worst place on earth—long lines of entitled customers, all battling to get that one final $20 per pound tuna filet. Those times—known as "evenings"—may come even more frequently; Whole Foods and D.C.-based LivingSocial teamed up today for a half-off deal that may set a record for the most purchases ever in one day. At one point, people were snatching the coupons up at a rate of 1,500 per minute. Presumably, it's a loss-leader to get more registered LivingSocial users—and to ensure there's no arugula left unsold. -1

Hollywood for Ugly People: It's been a good run lately for the District's Office of Motion Picture and Television Development. Covert Affairs and Veep have shot in D.C. lately, and today, officials said NBC's The Firm, based on the John Grisham novel, would also use our fair city as a backdrop. Of course, the last time there was a major production in town, Autobots wound up battling MPD—so maybe the OMPTD should be careful what it wishes for. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 60 Today's score: +3 Today's Needle rating: 63

D.C. gets another Whole Foods location today—the store opened today in Foggy Bottom at 22nd and I Street NW.

Two critical questions: A) Will having a new fancy grocery store in the area relieve the wrap-around-the-store lines at Trader Joe's? B) Will the new store (and parking garage) be less of a design nightmare than the P Street NW Whole Foods?

Photo by dionhinchcliffe via Flickr / Creative Commons Attribition 2.0 Generic License

Metro Sells Out: Usually, name changes at Metro stations involve adding some neighborhood feature or nearby attraction (and yes, we're talking about you, Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter). The next name swap might involve replacing all the clunky hyphenations with corporate ads. Strapped for cash, Metro officials are considering selling the naming rights to stations. Considering the new revelations that subway drivers frequently have to improvise bathroom breaks, we look forward to transferring at Depends Center soon. -4

Love, Government Style: The new D.C. Council was only sworn in last week, and apparently, they've already run out of important work to do. Or at least, that's the impression we get from learning that council Chairman Kwame Brown spent the morning swearing in Top Chef star Carla Hall as D.C.'s "Secretary of Love and Relationships." (Presumably, the Love and Relationships Bureau is a division of the D.C. Department of the Environment.) -1

Movin' In: This year's Census was the first one in decades that had found the District's population growing, not shrinking, but it may not be the last. United Van Lines says D.C. had the best ratio of people moving into the city vs. people moving out in 2010, giving the District the snappy title of "highest inbound" state. The biggest loser? New Jersey. Of course, this ranking ignores anyone who moved without hiring movers, or for that matter, without hiring United Van Lines. But we still suspect D.C.'s a more popular destination than Jersey, no matter how you slice it. +2

Grocery Groveling Recommences: For years, residents of Columbia Heights have begged and pleaded with Whole Foods to grace their neighborhood with one of its stores, seeking validation in the form of outlandish markups for organic Chilean produce. That never actually succeeded, but for a while, it looked like Richmond-based Ellwood Thompson's would move into the DC USA complex. Today, that dream died, too, as the chain formally backed out of a lease they had shown no signs of ever using. Considering it's been barely five years since Giant built a new store a block away, the keen desire for a new grocery store in Columbia Heights never made a whole lot of sense to us, but neighbors have moved on—now they're hoping for Trader Joe's. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 51 Today's score: -4 Today's Needle rating: 47

More Than Meets the Eye: Once again, it's time for Shia LeBeouf to save Optimus Prime—and the world—from certain doom at the hands of the Decepticons. Streets will close near Capitol Hill next week as filming begins for Transformers 3. Obviously, a thriving local film industry can be a good source of jobs, tax revenue, and creative energy for the District. So we don't want to complain too much. That said—have you seen the first two movies in this series? If the writing on the third installment doesn't improve, the new movie may well dissuade tourists from visiting D.C. for fear of being associated with the whole franchise. -3

Don't Tase Me, Bro!: Next time you find yourself visiting Annapolis for an afternoon of picking crabs, guzzling beers, and generally carousing through the streets of Maryland's capital, don't be surprised if you wind up getting shocked. Anne Arundel County cops are more likely to use a Taser to subdue suspects than their hands, a new report finds. Yet another reason to oppose Rep. Jason Chaffetz's plan to retrocede D.C. to Maryland, if you ask us. -2

Scenic View (Of Expensive Produce): Shoppers at Whole Foods sometimes give the impression they look down on those of us who can't afford to spend $9 or $10 on imported out-of-season produce from the southern hemisphere (even if there's a lot of overlap in that group with those of us who would rather just spend less money at local farmers' markets on in-season local produce). Now you can go look down on them—literally. The P Street Whole Foods has opened a new mezzanine seating area overlooking the market floor, part of a bigger renovation that brought express lanes and new prepared food counters. No word on whether the store will charge a cover to get into the seating area, though we suspect some people out there would pay it. +2

Redskins Win Drama Bowl: Donovan McNabb's much-hyped return to Philadelphia winds up being mostly... well, boring. The Redskins hung on Sunday to win an ugly game over the Eagles, 17-12, leaving them with a 2-2 record their play so far this season doesn't quite seem to have earned. The good news: A win is a win. The bad news: Watching them lose might have been more entertaining than watching them win that game. +3

Friday's Needle rating: 46 Today's score: 0 Today's Needle rating: 46

Tune In or Tune Out? The Real Housewives of D.C. has its big debut tonight! Aren't you excited for television that will be as nourishing as iceberg lettuce? As Mike Riggs already told us this week, D.C. has some magic suckage effect on reality television. But it's confusing to those out in the American hinterlands who hate "D.C." enough as it is! This newest iteration of Housewives could increase the risk of domestic terrorism here in our fair city. Nobody wins in that scenario, except, maybe Michaele Salahi. -8

A Whole Foods in Foggy Bottom! Another new grocery store in the District? Here's hoping that a Whole Foods at Washington Circle will thin the herd of George Washington University undergrads who can sometimes make the line at Trader Joe's on 25th Street NW intolerable. It may also create safer traffic conditions outside the "Georgetown" Whole Foods in Glover Park and at Whole Foods' P Street NW location, too! +3

The Sweet Smell of Garbage: Normally the excessive heat is something to complain about. But when we were walking down a superheated Champlain Street NW in Adams Morgan this afternoon, the odor wafting from a garbage truck smelled like a tasty and juicy hamburger! Certainly a turn-off for vegetarians, but it's win for everyone else! +2

Strap on Your Fanny Packs! After a lousy 2008 and 2009, D.C. tourism honchos are predicting a bit of a turnaround next year, thanks in part to convention business. Among those organizations whose members will soon by buying spots on Tourmobile, lining up at the Spy Museum, and otherwise pumping their dollars into D.C.'s tax base: Teach for America (February) and the American College of Surgeons (October). The District will also host the Fancy Foods trade show the next two years. To woo non-conventioneers, officials say they're planning on reviving the "Date Night" hotel-and-a-meal promotional campaign, and on publicizing the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. As long as they don't try to pull off these two come-ons at the same time, this is good news. +3

You Cross the Line (With Expired Tags), You Do the Time: WTOP weekend contributor Nycci Nellis (also the force behind TheListAreYouOnIt.com) had just crossed into D.C. from Montgomery County when she was pulled over for driving with expired tags. It seems Nellis was three months out of date. The results: She was "handcuffed and locked up in two jails for hours." And don't go accusing  D.C. Councilmember Phil Mendelson of being soft on car-registration miscreants. "If the issue is whether or not this is excessive, the fact that the tags have been expired for three months is excessive," he tells the station. (Mendelson also acknowledges that "[w]e are looking at the whole issue of citation release. The idea that this person could have been taken to one police station and given a ticket seems to be a bit gentler.") -4

No Sales Tax Holiday? The District repealed the summer sales tax holiday. Time to hit up Maryland and Virginia for tax-free back-to-school purchases. -2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 42 Today's score: -6 Today's Needle rating: 36

No secret, they target elites
With tasty (and overpriced) eats
The yuppies will revel
They've reached a new level:
A station for only smoked meats

The soda tax met its demise
For reasons that most can surmise
M. Cheh could have  scored
With Freeman on board
But not with those industry cries

Oh whoopsy, the CDC said
There's news that we shouldn't have spread
We told you no sweat
There wasn't a threat
From crazy high levels of lead

The District is switching their brand
To something a little less bland
The wrapper is shiny
And also less tiny
The impetus? student demand

"Thursday: Whole Foods on the 1400 block of P Street NW closed its doors at 9 p.m., which was 30 minutes earlier than its previously announced 9:30 p.m. closing. The early closing caused a near panic among some Dupont-Logan residents. One woman screamed, 'Let me in, let me in. I don't have any coffee at home!'"

(Via DCist).

City Paper was on the scene to interview the protesters.

Single Payer Action promised yesterday to picket Whole Foods stores in New York, Austin, and D.C., and today, picketing they are: Neatly, sweetly, and sweatily, making the lunch scene at 1440 P St. NW the most bucolic  in the history of organic-food-store protests.

Holding up a piece of orange poster board three times as wide as she is that reads "Boycott Whole Foods," Carol Kramer is just waiting for Whole Foods CEO John Mackey to take it all back so that she can resume being a Whole Foods customer.

When asked if she misses the salad bar, Kramer makes a delighted face and then winces.

"I miss being in there," she says, nodding towards the door.

But single payer, or at least a public option, is more important to her than the salad bar, which she will not visit despite having driven all the way from Fredericksburg, Va.

Many of the picketers are former Whole Foods customers. And for a few of them, boycotting Mackey's stores has been a long time coming.

Adrienne Pine, a professor of anthropology at American University, admits that she's known about Mackey's "right-wing libertarianism" for a while now, but that his Wall Street Journal op-ed was "the straw that broke the camel's back," and the reason she switched from Whole Foods to co-ops and farmers' markets.

Pine came to the P St. location today to tell people that Whole Foods employees work under "very bad conditions" and that Mackey is a "notorious union buster" and a "key player in fighting the Employee Free Choice Act."

When pressed to name other bad conditions, Pine gives the same answer as United Food and Commercial Workers Executive Assistant to the President Mark Federici, whose crew is also handing out fliers: Mackey is bad for workers everywhere because he's anti-union and anti-health care.

Single Payer Action's Sam Husseini doesn't say much about unions, but he loves the idea of the U.S. modeling itself after and improving upon Canada's medical system.

"There are some problems [with Canada's system]," Husseini says, but "we're more technologically advanced than Canada and we can do it better."

Husseini can't name any improvements off the top of his head, and declines to comment on how an effective store boycott might affect low-level Whole Foods employees. Instead he refers Washington City Paper to Russell Mokhiber, the founder of Single Payer Action and the author of a viral essay which ends with this call for action: "Don't spend another penny at Whole Foods until John Mackey and his right wing friends are defeated. And single payer is enacted."

Mokhiber, dressed in all black, says that his efforts, among those of other Whole Foods protesters, have inspired "rightwingers" to start shopping at Whole Foods. He's fine with that.

"The CEO can say what he wants," Mokhiber says.

Protesters can boycott, and  "we'll let the organic tortilla chips fall where they may," he adds with a grin, after which he admits that he just came up with that phrase this morning.

But it seems the guilt just isn't strong enough today. One young man, upon reading Russell's tract, exclaims, "Fuck yeah! Keep on with the health care stuff," and then makes a bee-line for the salad bar.

Update: We now have a video of interviews with the protesters.

Photo by Andrew Beaujon.

Today: Lefties will picket the Whole Foods at P Street. Tomorrow: Righties will respond by handing out Whole Food CEO John Mackey's Wall Street Journal editorial. In the near future: At least one person plans to boycott Wal-Mart to punish the mega retailer for pulling its ads from Glenn Beck's show.

To all of the above, a newsflash: Boycotting is a) wrong and b) doesn't work.

Let's start with the stock prices: Mackey's value has only gone up since the boycott threats. Why? Because people love his store so much that their response has been, "I disagree with what he wrote, but I don't want to shop anywhere else." To investors, this makes Whole Foods appear bullet proof. After all, it may have the most liberal clientele of any national chain in the country, and its owner is a card-carrying libertarian. Not enough people are willing to shop at an inferior grocery store just because they disagree with Mackey's politics–especially since Whole Foods is a model of corporate responsibility in every sense of the word.

Second, even if it were possible to stage a revenue-affecting protest at the P Street Whole Foods (and it's not in this day and age–my generation doesn't protest, we twitter), the people to feel the pinch first would be store employees. The same employees that Whole Foods critics have frequently touted as needing union representation (and who would, in all likelihood, probably lose money by unionizing). Assuming single payer fanatics could arrange an effective boycott, is a cashier's job worth their cause?

And Wal-Mart protesters, please, stop. If you keep this up you'll just be proving that you're as dumb as everyone says you are. (And you and I both know you're not dumb, you're actually really good at prioritizing your financial needs.)

Speaking of government-run programs: Cash for Clunkers ends Monday after putting almost half a million new cars on the road at a cost of $3 billion and hemorrhaging participating dealers due to untimely reimbursements. If my math is right, that comes out to around $6,564 in tax dollars per car. The cap was supposed to be $4,000. So what does that mean? It means that approximately $2,500 per car went to other stuff. Call it a transaction fee or call it bumblefucking, it still means one thing: The only entity that can get away with promising to spend one amount of money and then actually spending 55% more than promised is the U.S. Government.

Don't get scammed, y'all!

Not directly, though. The following morning, Craney says, as many as a dozen GOP loyalists will be at the very same P Street Whole Foods, weather permitting, distributing literature defending Mackey's point of view, including copies of the Wall Street Journal op-ed that touched off this whole debate.

"We're trying to show the other side of the health care debate in D.C.," he says, "and how it affects District residents."

LL raised the possibility, given the well-recognized progressive bent of Whole Foods soppers, that Craney et al. might find themselves subject to a barrage of $3 organic tomatoes.

"We'll bring rain coats for the rain," he says, "but not for the tomatoes."

Craney notes that he's been subject to some Whole Foods-related abuse before. He says he regularly drives his Jeep Grand Cherokee, bearing John McCain and Rudy Giuliani bumper stickers, to the Tenleytown location. "I can't tell you how many times I get stuff put on my car that says something...snide." His favorite: "Something about about how either Rudy Giuliani or John McCain would not like how I parked my SUV."

They'll be there from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday.

From the group's organizing email:

We know that Whole Foods allows non-profit public interest groups to set up tables inside their stores to allow these groups to reach Whole Foods' liberal customer base.

Our demand: That Whole Foods allow single payer advocates to set up shop inside Whole Foods stores around the country and allow them to counter the lies and distortions of their CEO John Mackey on health care.

The "first wave"of D.C. protests will take place tomorrow (Friday, Aug. 21) from noon-1 p.m. at the Whole Foods at 1440 P Street NW. Washington City Paper will be there with cameras, recording the madness.

• Health care. Jesus Christ on toast with Marmite, am I ever sick of hearing about health care. Whole Foods—SHUT UP. Public option opponents—SHUT UP. Fox News—SHUT UP. Meanwhile, in British rationing news, I'm horrified to report that my wife's grandmother recently had to wait over an hour to be seen, mostly because the Edinburgh Council moved the Royal Infirmary from right across the Meadows all the way out to Little France, which is as far from the city center as it sounds. This is outrageous and would never happen in the United States, where there is no socialized medicine and never will be—SHUT UP.
• MEDIA NEWS! Battle of the Hottest rages on Capitol Hill. Jayson Blair is a life coach! City Paper's parent company begins its Week of Reckoning today! CEO tells Atlanta Journal-Constitution decision to buy CP and Chicago Reader was thoroughly vetted: "It wasn’t just me running over a cliff."

• THE WORLD OF SPORTS! Nats lose, lose acting GM, sell many seats for Friday night's game for $1. Morning Roundup will be there with eldest son, who will be limited to one dessert item purchase. Also exciting: Washington National Opera sent me a Nats hat and some Cracker Jack to promote its free simulcast of Barber of Seville at Nationals Park on Sept. 12. I may go to that, too! But I'm totally sneaking in the Cracker Jack on Friday. YOW! Also, Nascar full of Republicans. Aussi: Quel dommage!
• ENTERTAINMENT! 2009's worst album title. Weezer Advances. MTV maybe does, too.