May I just say

How much Gottalaff and I really do appreciate and thank all of you who stop by to check out what we're into every day. When I first started helping Cliff out with his blog, I told him that my ideal for any person starting a blog was to create something they would want to read. We'd read our blog, and we love the fact that we attract the kind of people who want to read it too.

But of course, there are always naysayers. We're not great legal minds dissecting government with a scalpel, Snark Kings**, a huge diverse community of resources or ultimate wonks. We're just a couple of gals who really care about making sure everyone knows the things that sometimes fall thru the cracks. To those of you that don't find our blog helpful or insightful, you have other options. I believe last time I checked there were a bazillion trillion megachurch million other blogs out there and I'm sure you'll be fine.

To the rest of you, thank you for stopping by and caring.

--Paddy

**Possibly Snark Princesses...

Santa has officially signed out for the year, says U.S. military

Sigh. You know what that means, right? For the next week we'll be bombarded with an endless string of "Best Of's", "Top 10" lists and other navel gazing tripe.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) — which has tracked Santa's travels for more than half a century — partnered with Google Maps to offer curious children a chance to follow St. Nick's journey around the globe this year.

The military command, which monitors potential threats over North American airspace, said Santa's 2008 trip began Wednesday at the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean. Above: a map of this year's journey, now complete, on the agency's Santa Tracker Web site.