This picture of the rubble outside the National Cathedral in DC is my favorite picture of the toll in DC so far.

Cable nets reacted calmly to East Coast quake. Watch.

This afternoon we got an email from DC TPM Reader JJ who said he thought the mockery of the DC quake had maybe gone a bit too far.

I actually think the backlash now against the DC earthquake hysteria is a bit much.

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We all know that the arc of the international affairs universe is long but it bends toward self-parody.

To that end, quasi-deposed, quasi-exiled former strongman Moammar Gaddafi addressed Libyans by radio this evening from an unknown location claiming his withdrawal was but a “tactical move” in the face of NATO aggression.

In a perhaps inevitable development, Gaddafi also found time today to contact Russian head of the World Chess Federation, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, his long time chess partner, to let him know the latest on what was happening. Read More

After a close helicopter inspection (see video here), National Parks Service finds cracks at the top of the Washington Monument and orders it closed indefinitely pending further inspections and repair.

TPM Reader AB is a Californian and gives the DC quake his stamp of authenticity:

I happened to be in the Library of Congress doing research with microfilm when the earthquake started. After a few seconds of the initial low level shaking the guy sitting at the machine next to me said, “If we were in California, I’d think this was an earthquake.” Then the heavier shaking started and I said, “I guess this really is one.” …

Now, I’m actually from California, and I’ve been in a number of earthquakes before, enough so that I don’t keep count, and including Loma Prieta in 1989 when I lived in the East Bay. The whole thing, from the initial shaking to the very end felt entirely familiar, in the sense that there was really only one thing it could be. But despite all that, because I’ve never thought of earthquakes happening here or expected one to happen, I have to admit that I still wondered just a bit until I got outside and saw people leaving the other buildings. Still, as I ran through the possibilities in my mind, I really couldn’t imagine what else it could have been. …

I don’t mind a bit of mockery, but I’d say that even by California standards this was still a “real” enough quake.

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Many industry watchers assume that Twitter’s move to take over the URL shortening business on Twitter signals the end for Bitly and other similar services. But CEO Peter Stern says, au contraire. Read our interview.

National Science Foundation clears Michael Mann of any wrongdoing in the “climate-gate” hoax/scandal.

CBS’s Mark Knoller is the one of the journalists in DC who uses Twitter more effectively than maybe any other. And by effectively I mean usefully, as in to a productive journalistic purpose, not just as some sort of social media strategy. Bringing the whole idea of a White House reporter significantly into the 21st century. But over the last few months I’ve noticed a slowly increasing, more acid tone towards the President, verging into hostility. Perhaps that’s not surprising: the attitudes of the White House press corps are always one of the key barometers of how a president is doing.

But then I noticed his piece last night on the Obama debt record which read almost like a Republican press release. So I was interested to see this morning that our Brian Beutler had written a run-down of all the questionable reasoning, data and special pleading included in the piece. Take a look.