I don't know that it's the most compelling argument in favor of the writers' strike I've ever seen, but I'll give the creators of the cute animals on strike video, apparently Colbert Report writers, all the credit in the world for the sheer amusement of the dog not riding the skateboard.

It's increasingly looking like the hopeful news from Nikki Finke regarding the possible settlement of the writers' strike was wishful thinking, and things perhaps look bleaker than ever. I have long subscribed to the belief that there would either be a short strike settled by Christmas or a long strike not settled till summer, and I'm now anticipating the latter, which will make for a bleak time for the shows you love. According to United Hollywood, the AMPTP's latest is a rollback, and they don't seem to have any interest in it at all. Settle in, folks; I think it's going to summer. Once positions begin to harden like this, even more than they already were, you're not going in the direction you want to be going.

Headline: "Canadian writers take to streets to support striking U.S. colleagues."

WGA Member Reaction: "Aw, Canada. That is SO CUTE."

So there was the report that Carson Daly would be the first late-night talk-show host to return to work since the WGA strike. Which...I mean, when Jimmy Kimmel has more integrity than you do, maybe you need to hang it up and go open a cigar bar or something. But wait, there's more! Already knowing that he doesn't have enough material at his fingertips to wing it for however long his show is (half-hour? Hour? I don't watch it, and neither do you, if the forty-three posts in the show's thread are any indication), he's calling on his friends and loved ones to feed him material. It's almost worth tuning in to see what a horrible train wreck it's going to be. Also, dude? Eat a sandwich.

We knew that the writers and producers were going back to the table today, but has a deal already been struck? Nikki Finke says yes. Woo!

Wondering what Roger A. Trevanti, Studio Head, has been doing for the past few weeks? Wonder no more: UnitedHollywood.com has brought us a video of him trying to bring down a WGA picket from within. (Link via Defamer.)

Our own Dan Blau comments on the current WGA strike from the perspective of last year's fight over Guild membership for producers on reality shows.

The news that writers and producers will resume negotiations a week from today (because God forbid anyone have to reschedule Thanksgiving plans in the name of thousands of people's livelihoods) is certainly welcome, but the fight's not over yet. Mindy Kaling explains her initially conflicted feelings about striking -- and does a good job addressing the sort of "good lord, they're not coal miners, they should get over themselves" naysayers who I think don't really understand the nature of this fight. And recent TWoP interviewee Rich Sommer blogs about his experience on the line.

With the holiday shopping season upon us, we fans of Things I've Bought That I Love -- the shopping blog maintained by Mindy "The Office" Kaling -- may have feared that Kaling would fall into strike panic and curtail her consumer updates. Fortunately, we needn't have worried.

In fact, when you're bored by the absence of new Office episodes, you should treat yourself to her archives. They're brilliant.

Perhaps one of the mystical properties of the island on Lost is that it allows you to have your cake and eat it too. Because although producer Carlton Cuse was all over the big showrunner protest last week, now he's back at work.

Should we start a pool as to how long it'll take for Cuse to be so eaten up by his strikebreaking hypocrisy that he's moved to drink, drive, and get arrested on DUI like the (by my last count) 8,000 of his actors who've followed the same sordid path? I call five days.