The Washington Post is having a crisis of identity — it recently laid off most of its local columnists but apparently still wants to focus on local news:

Sir William and co. are floating an idea called “Local+,” a new offering for readers who want to pay extra for premium local content, sources tell me.

At the same time, their coverage of 12 best ice cream shops in Washington starts with one in Alexandria, Virgina. So, the “+” in “Local+” may not mean what I think it should mean.

One of the first things European visitors to the US will notice is how many squirrels there are running around — almost as many as rats!

Well, there is a whole family of albino squirrels living at the National Mall, behind the National Gallery of Art. Albino rats I haven’t seen outside of a lab.

It is the first Tuesday in June and DCPS schools are closed for primary elections.

1. Weekday elections are disruptive and if the ones in November have to be maintained out of respect for history why double the misery during the primaries? At the very least move them to after the school is out anyway.
2. It is the first time non-citizens can vote in local DC elections and the uproar is in line with my expectations.
3. As a non-citizen myself I did in fact register to vote. Alas, not registering myself as a Democrat means I won’t make an iota of difference in voting out of office the ding-dongs who thought giving non-citizens a vote was a good idea.
4. If the ding-dongs wanted true democracy in this deep blue city-state, why not go for open primaries?
5. This is the only overtly political post I will make until November.

Why build such an eminently sittable window then forbid sitting on it? I’d throw a few cushions and pillows on it, not a crumpled up paper and a sad plaque.

We recently bought a condo in DC and made a conscious effort to avoid houses like this one, which always looked like they were made out of sawdust and glue. Well:

… inspection report found about 70 code violations. The most severe: The building lacked lateral bracing for its exterior walls, causing it to sway. Without this bracing, relatively weak door frames and interior partition walls were load-bearing, holding up the weight of the structure without adequate support. “I was very scared for those people,” Englebert says. “You need those braced wall lines to stop the building from moving. If that building were to rock in the right direction, it could fall over on itself.”

Criminal negligence from builders to the initial city inspection. I feel for the home owners who have to live through this horror show. Most alarming of all: the contractor is still at it, shielded from lawsuits thanks to an LLC. Caveat emptor! (ᔥr/washingtondc)

It’s been a cold, rainy spring day in DC today, but just a few weeks ago we had this. Isn’t spring great?

A very DC story about a DC cat in today’s Washington Post:

She dozed on sunlit stoops, scaled fences and slept in a boxy shelter on a neighbor’s lawn. She was named Kitty Snows, after her new home on Snows Court in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of D.C., where she belonged to everyone and no one.

And then, she vanished.

What has unfolded this year around Snows Court in is an old-fashioned neighborhood melodrama — “Kittygate,” if you must — complete with wounded feelings, rampant gossip, sidewalk spies and lawsuit threats.

For what it’s worth, I side with the new owners.

(ᔥReddit)

Our bubble baby at the NIH Clinical Center playground, back when I was working there. NIH was a bubble in its on way too, of course.

You can recognize avarice in any community, and the carps at the US National Arboretum are no different. It is no accident that the one fish with its mouth wide open and ready to eat is also the largest one in the pond.

I don’t often leave online reviews and when I do it’s usually to commend. Not this time.

I might have cooled off by the time I got back home, but then I noticed that the worst auto repair shop in DC has left me a surprise.