Well, I managed to survive eight quasi-interviews with representatives of various institutions, not to mention a long, but most enjoyable, night last night at The Green Mill jazz club. Now I’m taking a bit of a break in my hotel room, listening to the Ole Miss-Memphis game on the Internet and pondering some late dinner plans.

As Brock mentioned below, Matthew Yglesias has closed down his comment section (at least for now); Will Baude has predictably approved of this decision.

Some of our commenters suspect that Matt’s recent spat with Glenn Reynolds (in which Matt castigated Glenn for failing to appreciate the nuances of one of his posts when quoting from it) motivated the decision—for background on this, see Von’s post at Obsidian Wings.

Matthew Yglesias turns off comments on his blog:

I'm sorry it's come to this, especially for folks who've been commenting on this site in a while, but I think the time has come to shut comments down, at least as a default option. We've become totally overwhelmed by trolls who come to write in the spirit of deliberate insult and misreading rather than fairminded debate, and the folks more "on my side" are just left responding in kind.

While my evidence isn't good enough to be featured on a late-night "documentary" on the Sci-Fi Channel (or even the State of the Union), I think you'll agree that this is no time to be "reasonable" or "sensitive". Here is my evidence:

I propose that the Tarzissian space aliens from the planetary system of Bellatrix Orion have started abducting Pundits. I have reason to believe that Andy is just part of the first wave.

Fortunately, the Aliens lack a sophisticated understanding of our political mores so this fake Andy can be easily spotted, however some abductions aren’t so easily discovered:

“Solid” intelligence from “reliable” sources indicates that Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds was replaced almost two years ago by a cheap Casio synthesizer.

Heh. Er… I mean, “gee, that’s too bad.”

The Tarzissian space aliens have also snatched away Mike Hollihan, but have not replaced him. They must have realized that he was irreplacable.

(þ Brad DeLong.)