* Mute Math at the 9:30 Club with The Cinematics & Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin $15 at 9 p.m. [9:30 Club]
* The Artie Shaw Orchestra (minus the late Artie Shaw) at the Blues Alley. $25 at 8 p.m. & 10 p.m. [Blues Alley]
* Four local authors — Louis Bayard, Eleanor Herman, Franklin Foer, and James Swanson — read from their books at the Penn Quarter Olsson’s. What connects these authors? HarperCollins paperbacks. Free at 7 p.m. [Olsson's]

They hired a Foer, they refuse to institutionalize Marty Peretz, and now they’re owned by the McKenzie brothers. A “Canadian media giant” has purchased a majority stake in the New Republic, that venerable 92-year-old joke. MORE »

Hate your friends and family? But very passive-aggressive? Has Franklin Foer got the Holiday Gift idea for you!

They did, in their defense, choose the most appropriate TNR cover ever to top that gift-wrapped pile.

Ace national security journo Spencer Ackerman quit his editing gig at The New Republic this week, announcing it officially with a tiny little note on his brand new, aptly titled blog. Considering that we’d been told it would happen a month ago, the lack of shock echoing throughout the DC mediasphere is hardly surprising. Why’d Spencer leave? MORE »

• ATTN Riders of Public Transit: You will soon have even more chances to punch a Foer! [The Plank]

• The headline: “Fox Finally Provides the Balance On Global Warming.” The content: Not what you think. Unless cheat and look at the source first. [The Corner]
• We’re sorry we made you read The Corner. This should make it up to you. [Alicublog]
• Hippies! California! Unhinged moonbats! Global warming! Al Gore! Mexicans! Sputter sputter Beverly Hills! Limousine Liberals! Drudge! Aaaaggghhh!!! [Michelle Malkin]

We have to admit (and we’ve admitted it before), we have a total crush on Lewis Lapham. Something about patrician radical-leftist patrician blue-blood ivy league types… he’s so ’60s! Oh, we’d trade a hundred Cindy Sheehans and Markos Moulitsas Zunigas for a couple more Laphams and Vidals! And his profile in today’s Post — featuring classic bitchy in-fighting in the form of sallies from Michael Kinsley and Kurt Anderson which Lapham, sadly, doesn’t return — shows just why we love him. Here’s his story about a job interview at the CIA in the ’50s. MORE »

Dear Washington: MORE »