I hereby declare this blog dead. It's been forever since I updated it with any frequency, as my online time belongs to the Muckraking these days. So, rather than feel a recurring pang of guilt about not updating this creaking thing, I might as well make it official: we're closed for business here. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you at the TPM Media Empire.

A word of advice. Don't stop reporting on a huge legislative development with far-reaching national security and civil liberties implications for several hours while you see a movie and have a couple beers and then agree to go on BBC World to discuss a state of play that's been completely overtaken by events. To World Service listeners, if that made it to air, sorry.

However, if you need to use a bar's phone so an international call can reach you on a landline, Solly's at 11th and U Street is remarkably accommodating. Would that every neighborhood pourhouse could function so adequately as a makeshift media center.

TNR triumphs. The Standard, committed now to playing the Benzino role, is reduced to sputtering over an inaccuracy that TNR itself uncovered and disclosed. But look, it's not like they're in the business of acknowledging lost causes.

Via -- I'm just going out on a limb here -- Christina: vote to send the Spice Girls to Baghdad. Ogged, you can help out with this, right? Tommy?