And on that last gloomy note, I'm going to take a bit of time off. I'll be back on October 10. I'd say I'm going to miss the government shutdown, but I think it'll still be going on when I get back to blogging. (I think very soon we're going to start hearing Republicans talking about extending it to the end of Barack Obama's term, in all seriousness.)

There'll be guest bloggers while I'm gone, so please stop by. I'm sure they'll have some appropriately nasty things to say.