ELI LILLY UPDATE: Ellen Miller of TomPaine.Com emails:

It’s easy for Dick Armey to say he did it — he’s a lame duck with no accountability. And in a way, he did ALLOW it to happen. But what TomPaine.com is looking for is THE PERSON WHO *ASKED* ARMEY to ALLOW it to happen. THAT is the person we want to finger. Keep searching…

Dang. So much for the 350Z this week, I guess. But, the above remarks notwithstanding, I think that my work here is finished. And I now definitely regard this as a phony issue.

UPDATE: Speaking of phony, reader John Norton points out this from the TomPaine.Com website:

Democracy requires accountability, so TomPaine.com is offering a $10,000 reward to the first person who proves the identity of the Eli Lilly Bandit — the >>member of Congress responsible for inserting the company’s special provision<<. Mail submissions to PO Box 53303, Washington, D.C. 20009. The complete terms and conditions of this offer are posted at www.TomPaine.com.

(His emphasis). He adds:

Sounds like you are in for that Z Car.

Flood the Zone!!!!

Yep, TomPaine seems to have a Carbolic Smoke Ball problem — though the Z-car routine is a joke, especially as I promised the reader who emailed me the CNN link that I’d see the reward money went to him in the unlikely event that they paid up. Which seems to be just as unlikely as I figured — and at any rate, I didn’t communicate by mail, as their terms-and-conditions seem to require. Had I been serious about claiming the reward, I would have done so.

Still, they were awfully quick to change the terms here, weren’t they? Another “broken dot-com promise?”