Apology Tour: Before Tuesday’s election, it was Adrian Fenty trying to convince voters that he was sorry and he’d change. After Tuesday, someone’s still doing that sort of thing, only now, it’s the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, which has taken to Twitter to apologize for how long it took to count votes. The BOEE says it’ll all be better in November. Which is good. Because, you know, everyone is really wondering who will win the November election, in which Republicans will not be running a candidate. -4

Shock and Eww: Protecting our nation’s security in the post-9/11 era is a tough job. You’ve got the wars to manage in Afghanistan and Iraq, alliances to keep up, supply chain logistics to contemplate, and oh, yes, also a lot of child pornography to download. Pentagon officials, embarrassed by Yahoo News reports that they declined to investigate reports that DOD workers were buying child porn, now say they’ll try to do better. Which is an improvement on their earlier line: “But if we don’t look at child porn, the terrorists win!” +2

SmarTrip Discount Not So Smart: To ease the pain when Metro announced its latest round of fare hikes (complemented, naturally, by increasingly lousy service), the transit agency promised to cut the $5 price for a SmarTrip card in half. Turns out they didn’t really mean that. Concerned that scammers will buy $2.50 SmarTrip cards, take a ride that costs more than $2.50, then exit the system (incurring a negative balance) and throw the card away, Metro says the whole “discount” thing is on hold. Admittedly, it’s hard to imagine people would actually carry out that complicated scenario en masse. Then again, it’s also hard to imagine that 34 years after the subway system opened, there’s still no guaranteed funding mechanism in place. -3

Beat Dallas, and Twitter: Turns out Courtland Milloy isn’t the only local institution that’s suspicious of social media. The Redskins are now threatening to revoke media credentials for any reporters who blog or tweet from the team’s practices. The theory, apparently, is that any intel leaking out of Coach Mike Shanahan‘s practice sessions could give aid and comfort to the enemy (this week, the Houston Texans). Which is almost reasonable. But if the team reverts back to last year’s form, don’t be surprised if Dan Snyder tries to combine this new anti-Twitter policy with last year’s lawsuits against fans, and starts suing people who complain on Twitter about how they play. -2

Yesterday’s Needle rating: 60 Today’s score: -7 Today’s Needle rating: 53