Photo of Thomas Circle in 1922 from Flickr user NCinDC 

“I’ve been told that the traffic circles, most with statues, in Washington were purposefully placed two cannon ranges apart so the city would be defensible from any point. Is this true, in whole or part?”—Kay Larson

As far as we can tell from our research, Kay, that wasn’t quite the case—though the traffic circles did have something to do with defending the city. While the circles throughout the District may now seem like a nuisance, they were originally meant to do more than frustrate drivers. Read on for the explanation.

Miss out on some of our blog posts from this week? Worry not—we're here to fill you in on what the most popular blog posts were from the past seven days. See below for our top five.

The 2008 presidential campaign has been one for the ages when it comes to parody. From spot-on impersonations of Sarah Palin and Barack Obama to hundreds of viral Web videos mocking the candidates, this race might be remembered more for the spoofs than for the real thing.

People such as Tina Fey may be grabbing all the headlines for their spoofs, but bubbling under the surface of the Web is a growing trend of folks using a microblogging service called Twitter to effectively parody the candidates. Twitter—which allows you to send out messages of 140 characters or fewer to a group of friends via the Web or cell phones—is used most often by people to let friends know what they’re up to or for organizing purposes.

But a few people in the Washington area have commandeered the accounts FakeJohnMcCain, FakeSarahPalin, and FakeJoeBiden to skewer and impersonate the candidates—and have gained thousands of readers in the process. (There is a FakeBarackObama, but the account hasn’t been updated since July.)

We sat down—er, or chatted over e-mail—with the people behind these accounts. (Though the Twitterers all wished to retain their anonymity, we can tell you they all live and work in DC, either for progressive political organizations or public-relations firms. Two people are behind FakeSarahPalin, so we refer to them as FakeSarahPalin1 and FakeSarahPalin2.) They talked about everything from why Twitter works so well for parody to what they’ll do with their accounts when the election is over.

Miss out on some of our blog posts from this week? Worry not—we're here to fill you in on what the most popular blog posts were from the past seven days. See below for our top five.

This week, we’ll start out with a two Craigslisters who will not let the cool fall weather stop them from enjoying some cold, sweet treats with a side of romance. And we’ll end with a couple of long-winded fellows, one of which is severely punctuation- and grammar-challenged.

Mr. Yogato - m4w - 23 (Mr. Yogato)
Reply to: pers-870802600@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-10-08, 12:28AM EDT

I saw you in Mr. Yogato. It has been so long since we last saw each other. I know,we have become different people...but it must have been fate that our paths have crossed once again.

And yes...I like my women how I like my yogurt...tangy.

^_^
        * Location: Mr. Yogato

Please tell me, what qualities make a woman “tangy”?

Author: Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of Defense

Title: Stuff Happens

Surprise revelation: Meant from the start to invade Iran; hit the ‘Q’ key by mistake on his BlackBerry.

Author: Elaine Chao, secretary of Labor and wife of Senator Mitch McConnell

Title: Seven Years in Labor and Not a Penny in Overtime

Surprise revelation: Kept her fingers crossed behind her back during her swearing-in in 2001.

Author: John Snow, secretary of the Treasury and former CEO of CSX

Title: Blinding Snow: Why the Housing Mess Isn’t My Fault

Surprise revelation: His wife still has to balance his checkbook.

BOSTON—Saturday morning found me at a campus leaders’ conference at Harvard with a crowd of 120 students, the leaders of College Democrats, College Republicans, and campus newspapers from state universities in 43 states. Florida Gators were mixed in with Iowa Hawkeyes, Kansas Jayhawks, Montana Grizzlies, and USC Trojans.

During the first session, I sat bolt upright when pollster John Della Volpe asked the audience how many had land lines. As I looked around the room, just three students raised their hands. I realized that could be the election right there.

Why? Pollsters can’t legally make unsolicited cell-phone calls, so people without land-line phones are much harder to include in surveys. Increasingly, that means it’s hard to reach young voters—government surveys last year found that one in three Americans under 30 doesn’t have a land line, and as Della Volpe’s informal survey showed, that number rises the younger you get. Pollsters are trying to find ways around that hole in their data; for instance, Della Volpe has partnered with Harris Interactive to provide massive online panels for his surveys and to help reach younger voters. Other pollsters are asking for the youngest voter in a household in their calls. By and large, though, the surveys are far from perfect.