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So here we are, approaching the period where summer goes to die. For the next week or so J. Co will be off, attending sensitivity training for her pathological dislike of Jews. C-Money will be gone as well, coincidentally confronting his hatred of the Tribe, which makes more sense when you consider that he works with two of them. That leaves Balk at the helm, which is completely in line with Gawker policy: Let's have the least experienced member of the team run the ship in the absence of the regular sources of authority. We're mostly sure that they'll be back after Labor Day, but you're free to make your inevitable jokes about Nick Denton's firing policies in the comments section.


Don't be afraid, however: Dumb as Gawker Media is, they're not stupid enough to leave you with Balk alone; we've enlisted a couple of guest bloggers to provide the six suckers who still have to work with some sort of entertainment. Starting today and tomorrow the part of Jess Coen will be played by Patrice Evans, better known in these parts as The Assimilated Negro, Gawker's Special Correspondent for Brown-People Issues. Next week, Ms. Coen will be portrayed by frequent Gawker commenter Worker #3116. Mr. Mohney, who is here today, apparently rates so low on the Gawker scale that we haven't even bothered to find a suitable replacement for him; YouTube clips of eighties breakdancers will, for the next week, be appropriately infrequent. Balk's ostentatious use of dictionary words will proceed apace. Let's just all keep our heads down and get to autumn, shall we? Thanks.