The Court is officially closed today, tomorrow, and Friday (the 26th). By an email, the Court says that emergency requests should be directed by email to the Clerk of the Court. (Sorry, Blake.) The Court will also be closed next Thursday (January 1st) and Friday.

I expect that the blog will be similarly quiet for the next two weeks, as I spend some time with family and work on some other things.

One unresolved item: The holiday has delayed my promised follow-up post about the important decision last week in Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., L.P. v. Mitchell, No. 05-0171. That post is on its way. The elves are hard at work on it now.