Shorter history:
just a bunch of itinerant humans, forcibly evicted from Billmon's Whiskey Bar when he shut down the comments.

Longer history:
From the spring of 2003 thru the spring of 2004, a large community (at once raucous and amicable) formed in the comment threads at the Whiskey Bar.

In mid-May 2004, Billmon went on sudden hiatus. Owing to a combination of foresight and luck, many email addresses had been gathered by a couple of the barflies, and we were able to regroup at a (now defunct) Yahoo Group, and a TypePad blog called the Whiskey Annex.

Billmon reappeared in late May. Then, in late June, Billmon shut down his comments, having grown weary of the responsibilty of policing them. We made renewed efforts to contact additional WB regulars. At this time, the Moon of Alabama was spun off from the Annex. Both sites continued political discussion and all seemed well.

The Annex took on the work of planning a new, permament home for the community. Consensus was that a forum was best suited for this task, where no central personality would dominate and last week's discussions would not vanish into the aether. A design team came together, and lengthy, spirited discussions ensued.

Too damn spirited. In mid-July, a major interpersonal meltdown occurred. Many fled, the design team dissolved, and not long after, Billmon, suffering from burnout and (as we now know) general discouragement over the state of things, closed the Whiskey Bar - permanently, for all we knew.

Moon of Alabama helped the Annex keep the community alive, and a new design team formed behind the scenes. In October, LeSpeakeasy opened.

Moon of Alabama is now making threads available to comment on Billmon's new posts.

LeSpeakeasy is still seeking its niche. We would be delighted to have you become part of that search!

Peace ...
- eff (site designer)
- Siun, Jérôme, OkieByAccident (site administrators)
- eff, jonku (tech team)