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As brought to my attention first by The Turner Report, followed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Republican Joe Brazil has filed a defamation suit against Jeff Roe.

Democrats, and Republicans who don’t like Jeff, are in a tough spot here. They’ll be tempted to gloat about the lawsuit, especially since it’s coming from a Republican. On the other hand, they know that making a big deal of the case would give Jeff and his website more attention. (The Democrats who used to hound Jeff in the comments section of his site seem to have gotten bored and moved on in the last month or so.)

A blogger getting sued? Who woulda thunk it? (see #10).

The general public obviously won’t care too much about this story, but Roe’s friends and foes will be watching very closely.

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I’m switching web hosts this weekend for the first time ever. I anticipate zero down time, but hey, you know how those things go. If the site is down for a few hours, it will probably be Saturday afternoon.

If you visit the site on Sunday morning and the domain hasn’t properly transferred, visit this site for the day’s headlines.

Why am I changing hosts? Because I exceed my bandwidth every month, and the company I’m switching to (which hosts this blog) is faster and more reliable anyway.

But more importantly, the new web host makes it easier to provide RSS, and will allow faster and easier editing of the site. Which will please you and me both.

Thanks for your patience with this.

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Last night, I had the pleasure of speaking to Gov. Bob Holden’s class on Political Communication Research at Webster University. We talked about the impact the Internet has had on political communication in Missouri and what we can expect for the future.

We Republicans can say what we will about Holden’s ideology — and Lord knows I’ve said plenty over the last six years — but it’s great to see him in a spot where he can direcly influence young people’s lives and facilitate their involvement in public affairs. He is working to make the Holden Public Policy Forum at Webster a true bi-partisan effort. I’ll post more details and contact information about his programs — and potential opportunities to get our side involved — soon.

And a special thanks to May Scheve, who took my occasional age jokes better than any other woman in their mid-30s would have.

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According to Jo Mannies’ Political Fix post last week, John Hancock’s forthcoming blog will identify the authors of all news, opinion, and gossip content on the site. This announcement is a pleasant surprise, and I think future sites should consider following that accountability model.

By not allowing anonymous posts or comments, Hancock is ensuring that the site will stay libel-free. My suggestion is for Hancock’s staff to capture readers’ comments and questions via e-mail, verify the authors’ identity, then post those comments on the site. This would require a little more time from Hancock’s staffers, of course, but it is much better than having them sit around and post anonymous comments on his site all day.

If Hancock sticks to his anti-anonymity pledge, and his site lasts through an entire election cycle, he will have set a meaningful precedent.