Tim Dunlop of The Road to Surfdom, known around here as “The Far Better Tim of Australian Blogging,” has performed an admirable service documenting the ups and downs of the Washington sniper story, garnering extra praise for keeping our eyes on the human angle of that seemingly interminable tragedy while all too many others were brazenly exploiting the crisis to support their bizarre ideological agendas.

Jesse Taylor of Pandagon is on a roll lately. Biting political humor, sarcasm, and satire, extremely well done. Don’t miss Taylor’s run down of Montana Republican senate candidate Mike Taylor’s campaign schedule. Among much else on Mike Taylor’s calendar: “10/24/02 - Meeting with Polar Bear Club, where he dons a Speedo and jumps into freezing cold water with twenty other men. When played on the news, he will accuse the Baucus campaign of yet more homophobia and withdraw for three days.”

More humor, this on the PBS line-up, from funny “Poor Man” Andrew Northrup. Among my favorites: “3:30 PM – Clifford the Big Red Dog The people who drew He-Man make fun of this cartoon. What are there, seven frames of animation a minute? Is it being drawn in real time? I know this is PBS, but really.”

Of course one can’t discuss blogger humor without bringing up Tom of TBogg. A small slice: “I just checked in on Mickey Kaus and he went exactly 684 words before he mentioned Paul Krugman. On the other hand, Andy Sullivan only made it to 90 (possibly due to a case of premature articulation). This got me to wondering. Since Sully is so proud of his Sontag/von Hoffman awards, should we possibly have a Margaret Ray Award? Just a thought. . .”

Gee whiz, if Avedon Carol of The Sideshow gets any smarter or more observant or more prescient or more articulate, she’s going to get migraines or something.

Similarly, I don’t know about you, but when I stop by Jeanne D’Arc’s Body and Soul, I feel, like, really stupid. (Sadly, she is on hiatus.)

Yuval Rubinstein of the invaluable Groupthink Central alerts me to a phrase I’m surprised I haven’t heard before: “The New Republic is the Jewish Commentary.” And nobody gives it to the much-deserving Martin Peretz better than Yuval.

I sure miss the previously frequent but always succinct observations of Brian Linse, author of AintNoBadDude, even if I couldn’t pick Warren Zevon out of a line-up. (Not that I’m saying that would ever happen. The line-up, I mean.)

Finally, and only slightly off point, don’t you hate it when you can’t make a statement by terminating a service? Earlier today I wrote to So-Long to cancel my “premium” subscription and was breezily informed that at renewal time I would be dropped from the site’s rolls of paying customers. Nope. No refund for all of those password-protected articles I’m not going to read during the next six months. I’ve never before encountered a magazine that didn’t give pro rata refunds. Check the fine print, people. I know I will from now on.