Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. After hackers took down SoapBlox, a one-man blog-hosting company which runs local political websites, a silenced liberal commentariat found out how true that was.

Jakob Lodwick to Julia Allison today: "You know you won't get anyone better." [Tumblr]

When Nick Denton took over as managing editor of Gawker yesterday (it feels like an eternity ago!) he "let go" of many, if not all, of our columnists. The cast-offs included Tionna "Tee" Smalls, whose advice column "Ask Tionna" was beloved by most of Gawker's readers, some fervently some tepidly but really most fervently. Anyway, she's steamed she got fired and she's not going to take it lying down. In the early hours of January 3rd, she sent out an "Official Statement Regarding dismissal of Ask Tionna," that is just as raw, moving, insightful and controversial as her advice was.