Some anonymous scum has been spoofing my main email address, pulling a joe job on me and causing me to wade through thousands of bounced emails from time to time. And while steps have been taken to secure things, I understand from a few folks that some of my emails aren’t getting through. If I haven’t responded to you, please try emailing me again. Hopefully, things will be back to normal in the next week or so.

August 8: Reference here to self-defense video and Bas Rutten.

August 15: Reference at Esquire blog to self-defense video and Bas Rutten, along with August 10th Bas Rutten mention.

Can’t these hacks come up with any original material these days?

[UPDATE: Daniel Murphy writes in to correctly point out that his Bas Rutten summation came on August 10, 2007, not August 10, 2008. On this point, I was wrong. But like Dwight Garner, who claimed that he “had never seen” Largeheartedboy before after he ripped off Book Notes for his “Living with Music” series, Murphy claims that “he has never visited” this website. I’m sure that Esquire has likewise “not heard of” Matthew Tiffany’s site. Never mind that Mr. Tiffany called Esquire out for a sentence pertaining to Joyce Carol Oates, which mysteriously disappeared without an apology or an explanation.]

Leon Neyfakh: “The editors and assistants of Farrar, Straus and Giroux received an upsetting e-mail yesterday morning from the venerable publishing house’s director of operations informing them that the water in their building on 18th Street was being shut off until the following day. The building manager had reported ‘unanticipated problems,’ but a promise was made that they would be resolved very soon.”

Me? I’m waiting for the forthcoming story on Jonathan Galassi’s bowel movements. If it’s that slow in the Observer offices, I suspect some bored art director might come up with a disturbing infograph.

Michael: I have never professed to be a Kremlinologist. And indeed I have not ventured a lengthy opinion about the Georgia crisis, in large part because I don’t currently feel sufficiently qualified to write about it. Not now, at any rate, until I’ve read many books on the subject (now being obtained). And while I do tend to swing left on matters of geopolitical import, this does not necessarily mean that I will gravitate to Russia or Georgia before my considerable reading on the subject. I am not certain what blogs you read or reference. But some of us out here are giddily impetuous on some topics (generally those which are ephemeral and thereby remain ripe for satirical musings), while remaining quite serious about other topics that require due diligence. Let us not fall into tendentious lines, sir.