Well, that's torn it, as Lord Peter says. My brand-new netcomments system appears to have gone defunct. So Jessica, Rebecca, your insightful comments have gone down whatever Internet drain they go down when people go under. So I signed up with Haloscan. We'll see if this works.

(mutter mutter, bad words, bad words)

On the bright side, Haloscan appears to be a bit more snazzy and versatile.