D.C., as you should be aware of by now, isn’t just the captial of the United States, but also rampant, apparently unsatisfied sexual libidos.

Besides the Madame incident, The AP says that after complaints were lodged by a single employee, D.C.’s mayor launched an investigation of city workers browse for porn on any of the 10,000 government computers .

Surprise, surprise: nine city district workers were found to have accessed porno more than 19,000 times in 2007 and that 32 other emplyees took their porn hobby to work, frequenting adult sites more than 2,000 times last year. A total of 18 agencies were found to be festering in adulterously digital sin.

Featured Song: “Sexual Healing” by Hot Chip

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Porn Viewing Runs Amok at DC Agencies ABC News

I’ve written posts for Wonkette every weekday since May, except on the days I’ve overslept and Alex had to write it. In my second week or something, when I was still doing Metro section and something else that I don’t even remember, I had been late a couple times in a row. Then the third day, I wasn’t late, but for whatever reason the email hadn’t gone through. This is the conversation we had when I signed on the next morning:

11:55:36 AM Gregory William Wasserstrom: hey
11:56:53 AM Alex Pareene: mornin
11:56:58 AM Gregory William Wasserstrom: word up
11:57:02 AM Gregory William Wasserstrom: how goes it
12:00:27 PM Alex Pareene: hey, greg, you’re funny, you seem like a nice guy, but basically i have to fire you, as you’re totally irresponsible, so no hard feelings.
12:00:37 PM Gregory William Wasserstrom: wait wait
12:00:53 PM Gregory William Wasserstrom: did you not get the daily breif/
12:00:58 PM Alex Pareene: no?
12:01:00 PM Gregory William Wasserstrom: cause i definitely wrote it and sent it
12:01:03 PM Gregory William Wasserstrom: at 2:48am
12:01:13 PM Gregory William Wasserstrom: i will now copy and paste it

I copied and pasted it.

12:01:40 PM Gregory William Wasserstrom: i will also take a screen shot of it in my sent mail folder.
12:01:51 PM Alex Pareene: ok ok ok if you say so but it’s not in my inbox or my spam folder.

I sent him the screenshot.

12:02:28 PM Alex Pareene: shit, all right, we can try it again tomorrow if you like
12:02:37 PM Gregory William Wasserstrom: haha yes alex i would like that very much.

And then he made me send him a picture of my penis. It was weird but worth it because he didn’t say anything about the 12 million times I’ve overslept since.

Obviously, he will be missed. Good luck at Gawker and stuff, bro.

Abe knows how to keep it real through the ages sporting his classic limestone look

If you are leafing through the New York Times Travel Mag today, you might notice the long article on Washington, DC. You might also wonder why the pages are stuck together - we certainly do. Let’s discuss.

After a sentence or two regarding the political barriers being broken by women in minorities in Washington (inept house Speaker Pelosi, Dynasty heiress Clinton, Barrack Obama) and then:

Similarly, after waiting decades for some of its blighted neighborhoods to amount to something other than block after block of boarded-up abandonment, Washington is buzzing with energy. The H Street corridor is starting to hum, with cafes and bars including the Rock and Roll Hotel, a new music club that hosts bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Solillaquists of Sound.

We’ll leave out the obvious point that most thing’s are over by the time the Times gets around to writing about them to discuss the more elusive aspect of this article: what the fuck are they talking about?

The boxes from CW’s Big Move from DC to NY aren’t quite unpacked yet, so we feel as though we have some insight into the goings-on in the nation’s capital. Is Washington a more interesting place than when we got there four long years ago? With more bars and things, it certainly is. But despite the recent proliferation of venues, galleries and the blogs like BYT and Panda Head to keep track of it all, we still feel that such things a hotbed of style does not make.

We don’t mean to be a downer and we definitely don’t want to sound bitter. It’s just that, you know, if you go to DC looking for Williamsburg, you’re not going to find it. You’re just going to pay too much for a PBR at a place Dave Grohl owns and talk to a lot of kids who have lived their entire lives in Silver Spring.

Maybe we’re being unfair. We have a whole host of pretty rad friends from our time there that we hop to keep track of for as long as we can and there’s no better place on earth to radicalize a person’s politics than Washington, where crazy policy manifests itself in a very tangible way. But still, are we wrong about this? Are we denying our roots are giving in to self-loathing?

We love DC, just not because of it’s pulsing cultural community. Comment away.

Condi wears the pants in every relationship.

We’re lagging a little behind on this, but Forbes released their review of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women late last month. It seems the times really are a-changin’ as most of the American women are getting bumped down the list against their international counterparts. A quick rundown:

Ol’ Condoleezza, once THE most powerful woman in the world, lost her 2006 second-place standing to place fourth. Maybe this is a good thing. And the media maven herself, Oprah, dropped completely off the Top 20 – a major turnaround from her ninth place ribbon in 2005 – to finish at 21. But even though she doesn’t start wars or command armies, Oprah still knows how to get things done better than some of our more prominent policymakers *cough, cough* like Hillary and Nancy Pelosi, numbers 25 and 26, respectively.

Our vote for this year’s biggest loser? Let’s just say she was dumb enough to marry the current president. She was the fourth most powerful woman in 2004 but has since been lost in obscurity to finish at number 60 this year. Hell Laura, even Meredith Vieira (#55) beat you.

Best in show went to Angela Merkel (#1), Chancellor of Germany, for the second year in a row, followed by Wu Yi (#2), Vice premier of China. An honorable mention went to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (#100), president of Liberia. We had no idea either.

Featured Song: “Sweet Talkin Woman” by Electric Light Orchestra


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Special Report: The 100 Most Powerful Women Forbes.com

No words. Just watch.

Via Stereogum:

“He’s in a wide stance with his Hammer pants down.”

Honestly, give the Daily Show a fucking Grammy.

In the GOP’s latest effort to scramble the party platform away from public opinion of Bush, the Washington Post is reporting that Bush made the decision to commute I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s 30-month prison sentence almost single-handedly. Lone Ranger Bush didn’t even discuss his decision with the Justice Department or even his Republican buddies, who largely wanted a full pardon for Cheney’s chief of staff.

The “Free Scooter” camp is still outraged though. I mean, a commutation is like getting stuck on third base. Why not a fucking home run? One former senator Republican Alan Simpson was quoted asking:

“Why should anyone worry about that? [Bush] gets hammered every day. They don’t think George is doing anything right, so what do you lose?”

Yeah, man. I mean, George is already fucking up, so just let him fuck EVERYTHING up. Basically, the American legal system is to Bush what a room in the Beverly Hill Hotel is to Keith Moon. Still, the most disgusting part (and there are many) of this whole ordeal is the conservative fan base that Bush has regained. The Weekly Standard’s William Kristol said:

“By acting here, he is showing to conservatives the kind of leadership that made conservatives loyal to Bush once and could make them loyal once more,” Kristol said.

Good old Texas conservative leadership, folks: keep your buddies close and fry everyone else. But don’t be too hard on Bush; he’s trying really, really hard to pretend to know what justice really is. After all, just because Scoot is getting out of jail, that doesn’t mean that the judge, jury, prosecutor, defense, media and the rest of America wasted it’s time and money:

“The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged,” Bush said.

The poor man’s gone through so much already. He’s probably never going to get a job again. Hmm. He’s going to be blacklisted from Washington. No…well, it’s going to really, really suck. Seriously.

Source: Bush Wipes Away Libby’s Prison Sentence [Washington Post]
Source: A Decision Made Largely Alone [Washington Post]

Fire is generally bad for business

It’s easy to read about how a stupid fire accidentally burnt up the building that houses the indoor portion of Eastern Market. But looking at this picture of this man coming to grips with the destruction of the business his family has owned for four generations is heartbreaking. As a cheesemonger, I can say with some limited authority that cheese is not necessarily a profitable business. It may be expensive, but unlike say, an expensive shirt, cheese goes bad. The amount of waste is huge, and to see cheese you really have to love it. I had only been to bowers once, and that was before I started selling cheese, and I could see that they were a tight community and they had fun. I’m sure that the same could be said for every business destroyed in the fire. These people put the emphasis on the customer and were truly a part of DC; much more than any monument. The rebuilding has already begun, but let’s at least recognize what’s been lost. For all that to be ruined is really fucked up.