You know, a wise man once told me that if you make it really easy for someone to do something they feel compelled to do, then they'll probably do it -- despite all warnings to the contrary. Put a warm cookie in front of a child and tell them it will burn their mouth, and the kid will still grab and chomp. Put a cocktail in front of an alcoholic in distress and he'll probably drink it. Make it incredibly easy for someone to siphon your work for a few extra pageviews despite all conventional mores, and damn it, they'll be slapping Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V faster than you can get the words "fair use" out of your mouth. more ›

Following in the fine form of fellow New Yorker Jennifer 8. Lee, former D.C. resident and Gawker editor Alex Pareene took some time out of his busy schedule of posting items about Peggy Noonan's supposed penchant for cheap vodka to remind Washingtonians that we'll "never be cool." To wit:

DC isn't cool. It's boring. The hip and cool new DC residents brought to town to work for the Obama administration? Uh, they're "hip" and "cool" in a really, really relative sense. Like, cooler than 50-year-old Heritage Foundation senior research fellows.

Michael Calderone over at the Politico broke the news today that D.C.'s original foul-mouthed political blog, Wonkette, is leaving the Gawker media empire. Managing editor Ken Layne will personally take the helm of the newly independent Wonkette, as he confirmed in a post on the site today. more ›

Seems the folks over at Gawker can't quite figure out to do with the staff of their political blog Wonkette lately. Late Friday afternoon, former Wonkette associate editor Megan Carpentier was fired from the position she took on just a few short months ago. The Huffington Post aptly sums up the merry-go-round, when last fall then-editors Alex Pareene moved up to New York to start writing for Gawker and Ken Layne stepped down to a contributor. A new editor and associate editor were brought on board, and Carpentier, who had been writing their "Ask a Lobbyist" feature and, coincidentally, had just been laid off from her lobbyist job, was asked to join them full-time. more ›

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,... more ›

>> D.C. United star striker Luciano Emilio is neck and neck with the Chicago Fire's Cuauhtemoc Blanco for MLS Goal of the Week. Emilio scored his 20th goal of the season with an sensational left-footed volley. Be sure to vote. It's your civic duty. >> It's been exactly five years since the sniper shootings perpetrated by John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo began. [WTOP] >> "D.C. Council leaders will not hold up the... more ›

Hey look, someone who writes for Gawker doesn't know where to go out in D.C., and thinks that everyone who lives here works for the government and never changes out of their work clothes! How adorable.Yesterday, I was trying to get home from Miami, but the weather had other plans, and the plane I was on got diverted to Washington, D.C. To Dulles Airport, to be exact, which is way farther outside of the city... more ›

Good morning, Washington. We pestered you yesterday about your Memorial Day plans. Today, a word of warning: make sure they don't include flip-flops. As FOX5 helpfully warns us, the sandals can lead to sprains, broken bones or even the dreaded Flipflop-Induced Foot Failure Syndrome (aka FIFFS). We had no idea we were in such peril. Bad Day For Bobb: Yesterday the U.S. Senate unanimously approved Mayor Fenty's school takeover plan. Rest assured, we'll have... more ›

In honor of National Burger Heritage Awareness Month, our favorite Internet travel buddy Gridskipper opted to run a post lauding the awesomeness of Washington's hamburgers. We have no quarrel there; they are awesome, and we feel it completely appropriate to exalt their bovinity. Hmm. Bovinity. Where have we heard that word before? Bovinity, bovinity, bovinity, bovinity... But Gridskipper's list is certainly respectable — incorporating true burger all-stars like Colorado Kitchen and Tallula — even if... more ›

Controversy In Captivity From the disturbed minds at the Onion News Network: Fictional National Zoo giant panda Yun Mei is pro-choice. >> As part of a promotion for his new movie, Kickin' It Old School, Jamie Kennedy taped himself breakdancing at various locations all over Washington, D.C. We know, we couldn't believe Jamie Kennedy still had a career, either. [AOL Video Blog] >> Jimmy Kimmel gave Gawker editor Emily Gould a right serious spanking during... more ›

City Paper Editor Jumps Ship: This won't do anything for the District's morale. Gawker and WJLA are reporting the Erik Wemple, the City Paper's Editor in Chief, has been hired away by New York's Village Voice. Wemple has manned the helm of the City Paper since January 2002, and has long been known in D.C. for his biting cutdowns of the Post. We'll miss Wemple, but we're sure it'll only be a few months... more ›

Although the advent of the real-time Gawker Stalker map has freaked out certain celebrities who would prefer that their Us Weekly-devouring public not know that they're dining at New York's Tao or taking their fruit-monikered babies out for walks on Fifth Avenue, DCist has no qualms about letting its readers know where local celebs hang out. And there's no area celeb more freshly minted than George Mason University basketball coach Jim Larranaga, who just yesterday... more ›

Browsing through our recent copy of People, DCist noted a brief article on Jonathan Cheban's trendy tees that the likes of Nicole Ritchie, Lindsey Lohan and Ms. Paris herself own. Cheban, a celeb-connected networker, has leveraged his connections into a high-profile PR career and recently partnered with notorious publicist Lizzie Grubman. Now, Gawker isn't overly fond of Cheban and the Post ran a rather lengthy piece highlighting his obsequious buzz techniques a few months back,... more ›

When WMATA pondered random bag searches on the metro, we generally thought the process would be a waste of time. More important to deal with, we thought: what about being prepared to deal with the aftermath of an attack? You know, little stuff, like evacuation procedures, response guidelines, etc? Seems officials are thinking along those lines, too: Montgomery County officials will be conducting an explosion simulation in the Metro training tunnel in Landover today. The... more ›

You know it's August and the news has slowed down considerably when everybody starts running their "Who's The Hottest fillintheblank" type polls. The Hill ran their 50 Most Beautiful (which was appropriately snarked by the DCeiver, who in turn got a mention in Newsweek!); Gawker's already done a bunch of hottie media types; and now FishbowlDC is running their own media Hot-A-Thon, featuring several members of the D.C. media elite. The categories are Hottest On-Air... more ›

There's been a flurry of speculation and rumors spinning about in New York and D.C. over the future of Gawker's Wonkette politics gossip blog. With Ana Marie Cox, the site's editor off writing a novel, Gawker has propped the blog up with a series of guest editors. According to a source close to the Gawker family, it has been a forgone conclusion that Cox would be leaving Wonkette permanently after she finishes her book this summer. Her ambitions? Television and punditry, which doesn't seem so shocking. So who would take over for Cox? Word on the street over the weekend had it that Gawker would tap deep-pocketed Kelly Ann Collins of the Washington Socialites to take over. But that sounded like crazy talk, but talk that wasn't necessarily out of the realm of possibilities. more ›

Set your DVR's, D.C.! Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer appearers on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight at 11 p.m., to plug his new book. We know it's a Thursday night, and you're eager to get a head start on the weekend, but Gawker is billing this as the "Battle of the Boychiks" and we think it's going to be one worth watching. more ›

What has Wonkette's Ana Marie Cox been up to since she skipped town? Partying with New York media heavies, apparently. Gawker Media, the Wonkette mother ship, called our girl home for a small, A-list bloggers only shindig at the New York home of publisher Nick Denton a few days ago. (Hmm, perhaps our invitation got lost in the mail? C'mon, we're only a train ride away...) So what's the big occasion? more ›

Wonkette's (temporary) farewell:

So it turns out that after a publisher give you money, you have to give them a book. And for some reason, simply printing out dozens of posts about ass-fucking and stapling them together isn't acceptable. (Though we understand that approach works for some. So jealous!) Long story short: For the month of February, this site will be in the capable hands of Choire (KOR-EE) Sicha (SEEE-CHA). He's completely clueless about politics, incredibly shallow, and liable to post things with only the most cursory of fact-checks (and by "cursory" we mean "non-existent"). In other words, you'll hardly know the difference.

If you were wondering what MediaBistro wanted with a D.C. -based blogger a few weeks ago, the mystery is solved. Today MediaBistro relaunched, debuting several new features in addition to the new homepage. The site's existing blogs (TVNewser and Galleycat) are joined by UnBeige, a design blog, MBToolbox, a resource blog for journalists, and three "Fishbowl" blogs that provide "an irreverent insider glimpse into three of the largest media markets in the country": New York,... more ›

Gawker media is doing its best to stir up some inside the Beltway like controversy, recently reporting on the exploits of D.C.'s version of the Hilton sisters, the Bush twins. Hey, they're all we've got and we'll follow them wherever they may be. (Oh yeah, Paris was in Georgetown this past weekend.) more ›

Why does the Post continue to employ Tina Brown? That's what one reader asked us and it's an interesting question. Ah, Tina Brown. Her background is riddled with both praise and scorn -- her resume boasts a controversial reinvention of the New Yorker, the failed Talk magazine under her belt, and regularly bores Gawker's Henry the Intern to tears with her current "Topic A With Tina Brown" on CNBC -- and most of the nation's... more ›

In an unguarded moment, Washington Post "Reliable Souce" columnist Richard Leiby told a Gawker correspondant that "Boston is so bad it’s not even as cool as D.C., which is already New York's retarded step-brother. And when you’re not even as cool as DC, well... you got some serious problems." (via Unsettled) more ›