I am becoming quite fond of my little corner of Schiphol airport. I have put up my Christmas cards and a few bits of tinsel. I now have a boarding card for the 0800 to Manchester. This is the sixth boarding card I have had. It is very hard to understand why, time after time, they don’t know a flight is cancelled until some time after it was due to leave and all the passengers have queued at the gate for hours.
Of course, Manchester is a lot further from Ramsgate than Schiphol is, so even if the flight atually goes, this represents rather dubious progress.
Happy New Year everybody.
Remarkably, KLM delivered my lost luggage, including my laptop, at 9.30 pm on New Year’s Eve. At that time a pretty lively party was already in full swing,much improved by the presence of a great many beautiful young women, mostly from Latvia. I am not sure why; my life as ever consists of a bewildering succession of chance encounters with really nice people. I am in the fortunate position of being able to say that Nadira was the most lovely of all, without indulging in dutiful hyperbole.
It was an extremely happy Christmas. Having my mum, both my brothers and all my three chidren together was as great as it was rare.
We have been through the laptop in lost luggage discussion before. The problem is that my shoulders dislocate at the drop of a hat, and I travel without hand luggage to avoid an accident.
2011 is going to be a very important year for me. particularly the first quarter. A number of crucial events are going either to set me up financially for the rest of my life, or result in real distress and failure. At present I have reason to be very optimistic. I am also very absorbed in my life of Alexander Burnes, which I hope will help establish a serious academic reputation.
The Portuguese edition of Murder in Samarkand has sold unexpectedly well in Brazil. The translation of the Turkish edition has just been finished.
I hope to do a Wikileaks retrospective in the next couple of days. Just a quick thought on the case of the poor young gardener in Bristol. Of the Jill Dando case, long before Barry Bulsara’s succesful appeal I blogged that this appeared to be a miscarriage of justice in which the police had fitted up the local weirdo.
Despite not being enamoured of landlords in general, I fear the same dynamic is at work in Bristol, albeit Chris Jefferies is much more intellectually capable than Bulsara. My instinct is that the police have picked up on Jefferies for being camper than a boy scout jamboree and archer than Trajan.
Jefferies’ release on bail has me worried that there was nothing against him other than the “He’s a weird one, guv” instinct of some not very bright cop. The case needs to be closely watched as history shows that the powers of the police to make the evidence fit the suspect are considerable.
Craig? Are you still out there? Jon?
Don’t you think it might be a good idea to simply shut down the whole “Comments” section?
This really has got fuck all to do with a proper weblog anymore -, although I find it quite amusing; but at the moment it’s nothing but a forum for the most insane patients of Arkham Asylum.
On the other hand I couldn’t care less; after all it’s not my website that’s going down the drain.
Anyway, I’m out of here, it was fun as long as it lasted. But this is getting unbearable.
Larry, as Omar you suggested beheading, and you have repeatedly suggested suicide bombing, even on this thread.
Dreoilin, I thought you were Larry, trying to trick me.
IP addresses are relevant only in showing the repeated introduction of personally violent suggestion by one poster. Larry.
Cartoonist, can you give me any suggestions? Is it really best just to leave?
I’m going off now. Any further ‘posts’ supposedly from me tonight will be impersonations. This blog is infested with assholes who are prepared to sit all day and post using other people’s names. Either because they’re sick and twisted and this is their only form of entertainment — or because they are paid to destroy this blog.
Cartoonist:
Well said. It’s not worth the hassle as it is. I do hope registration/moderation is brought in soon.
Goodnight all
The Cartoonist – ‘Anyway, I’m out of here, it was fun as long as it lasted. But this is getting unbearable.’
That is, of course, the objective of people attacking the blog. The only practical way round it is Craig approving specific IP addresses to post in my view, as excluding specific IP addresses would do no good.
Cartoonist, I have some respect for Craig leaving this space open. Ultimately, we’re all human, and if this little group of us can’t sort out our differences, what hope for Humanity?
Perhaps it was Craig’s plan to let the blog die by internal implosion. Very sad when I think back to what it used to be and what a voice it gave Craig and us.
Using a valid email address is no kind of protection against trolling. It only takes a few moments to create a valid email address.
It doesn’t help to match a userid against an IP address as this fails when users do not have a static IP address or legitimately post from different locations.
Maybe the best thing is registration, making a userid unique and unusable by anyone who does not have the credentials for that userid. Any ID can then be blocked from login, and new registrations can be checked against IP addresses known to have been used by blocked posters.
The principle vandal here is Craig, who seems happy enough to watch the whole thing burn down. I know he’s a busy man but there is such a thing as delegation. Finger out of arse Craig, please.
@somebody:
“Very sad when I think back to what it used to be and what a voice it gave Craig and us.”
Exactly. That’s what I meant. This place used to be a great weblog once.
Vronsjy – ‘The principle vandal here is Craig, who seems happy enough to watch the whole thing burn down. I know he’s a busy man but there is such a thing as delegation. Finger out of arse Craig, please.’
I quite agree, even if it means me becoming a persona non grata. :-0 Sort it out Craig. One big effort and you can fix this problem for good. Please!
And now I even find myself agreeing with Vronsky:
“The principle vandal here is Craig, who seems happy enough to watch the whole thing burn down. I know he’s a busy man but there is such a thing as delegation. Finger out of arse Craig, please.”
Absolutely.
Right, I’m off.
And now I even find myself agreeing with Vronsky:
“The principle vandal here is Craig, who seems happy enough to watch the whole thing burn down. I know he’s a busy man but there is such a thing as delegation. Finger out of arse Craig, please.”
Absolutely.
Right, I’m off.
@all: A few weeks ago I made an offer to manually moderate for Craig, which he’s accepted in principle. However he was abroad at the time and so couldn’t sort out a log-in immediately. I’ve sent a reminder, a day or two ago, but not heard anything as yet. I’ve not yet given up, as I don’t think the signal/noise ratio is as bad as it could be – but as several have said above, Craig needs to take action.
@Roderick, try not to respond to Larry. He’s repeatedly shown himself not to be interested in, or a disbeliever of, the dark side of imperial power. I doubt he would accept whatever proof you offer, so why waste your time? Seasons greetings to you, incidentally: I trust you have celebration plans for the new year!
All that really happened was that one belligerent turned up. I said at the time, and I repeat now, it’s no use accusing people of being employed disrupters. You’ve no way of proving it, and they can call you paranoid. It adds a new, open ended dimension to the argument. Just deal with them at face value. Larry is very aggressive and obsessed with 9/11. That’s bad enough, I don’t care if he’s getting paid for it, he’s still human.
You people that call Larry a shill, are you really saying that there is no one like the character that Larry presents? That there are no ordinary Americans, who broadly believe in the US, believe the mainstream 9/11 account, were personally affected, and are very angry and scared by terrorism? Do we really have nothing to say to such a person than that they’re paid to be that way?
Jon: “@all: A few weeks ago I made an offer to manually moderate for Craig, which he’s accepted in principle.”
So then this site will officially become a 911 truther site then, eh?
Clark: you’re right. jaded, I apologise for bringing up your past: it was sparked by (and perhaps explains) what I feel to be an overly aggressive attitude on your part. Hurling insults at a persistently unpleasant poster is no way to improve a debate, indeed it seems to have interrupted Clark’s attempts to connect with that poster on a human level. So please accept my apology, and do tell me what your definition of Zionism is?
By the way, sure this blog will re-energise with a new post; it always seems to.
Larry, something draws you back here. You going to register?
You’re right, Technicolour; with each new post the blog revives. Meanwhile, there’s us regulars, (hopefully) thrashing out our differences. I would like to hear Larry’s account of 9/11, but with all the hostility he’s received (some from myself) I can see why he could be reluctant.
I’ve set up a few net forums in the past (using phpBB and CMS plugins etc.), and also moderated several hosted discussion groups. My services were at Craig’s disposal earlier this year when I was staying with him, but I got the impression that this weblog wasn’t a priority for him. He uses it as a bulletin board to air his thoughts, and doesn’t spend a great deal of time on it or glean information from it. I don’t see that he has any great incentive to police or edit the Comments. By leaving this section open, he doesn’t have to take any responsibility for the contents.
There is nothing to stop the community of commenters here from starting a new forum on another site. An FAQ exposing some of the tactics employed by the trolls here might also avoid the need for regular rebuttals.
“The Muslim population has grown from 1.65 million to 2.87 million since 2001, say researchers. What does this mean for liberal Britain?” alan campbell at 3:44pm.
Well, Alan, I’m not sure where the Daily Telegraph (now being run largely by ex-Daily Mail executives and journalist, and boy, does it show!) got its figures from and I’m not sure who these “researchers” are.
Why would we automatically beleieve anything the Daily Torygraph says? Why would you believe what they say; I thought you were a Labour supporter.
In 1900, there were probably a few hundred Muslims living in Britain. Does that mean that everything that has happened in Britain since 1900 – the Yorkshire Ripper and Oswald Moseley included – now will be blamed on Muslims?
And you know, I was one of the supposed “1.65 million” in 2001 and I am one of the supposed “2.87 million” now. There’s just one of me and (as Dr Alfred Burdett, PhD, Microbiologist, like your good self, an ex-pat now living ‘over there’, would no doubt be able to confirm if he had not run away a few days ago) unlike, say, bacteria, I am unable to multiply by mitosis. I am an individual, just like you, Alan. I am not a number, I am a free man.
There are very important arguments to be had about ghettoisation, the place of religions in society, the law and education, etc. But this kind of horror-film scare tactic is hardly the way to go about it. It comes across as more redolent of Nazi propaganda in the run-up to Kristallnacht – or does the Daily Telegraph think that Muslims did that, too?
Clark: While I admire your diplomatic skills, I fear you’re doing a bit of an Obama here. “Reach across the aisle” is all you ever hear from Obama, failing to realise that he’s reaching across to snarling, rabid dogs, and not to the tail-wagging set of puppies he considers his political foes. You’re not going to get any reasonable behaviour out of Teabagger from St. Loony. That’s because the SOAB doesn’t want reason, harmony or understanding. These filthy scum who infest this blog are trying to destroy it, and you’re helping them if you converse with them.
Jon: You said, “There’s no way you can determine whether our resident troublemaker – or anyone posting on the internet – has lost someone.” I disagree. When a lying sack of dog droppings like the trolls makes any assertion, you should automatically assume they are lying. If they want to be taken seriously (even for a moment), they must provide proof. If none is forthcoming, your assumption that they were lying is more than good enough.
Take St. Loony – he/she/they/it claimed to have lost a friend in the WTC. Furthermore, that friend’s head was apparently found later. Now I’ll put my own head on the block here, and state categorically that St. Loony is a lying, miserable bastard who not only never had a friend of any description, but most certainly didn’t lose one in that manner. The burden of proof is on Liar from St. Loony to prove otherwise, given that he’s a worthless sack of crap with a well earned reputation for total contempt. And I guarantee you that no such proof will ever, ever be offered.
It won’t stop the bleeding hearts on this blog telling everyone we’ve got to be careful, just in case it is true, though!
Glenn, it doesn’t matter if Larry is lying. You have to be able to answer someone for whom it IS true, unless there could never be such a person.
glenn, he’s got a friend in jesus…
think his comments are intolerable and incomprehensible myself, but was quite interested to see if clark could raise anything more than the usual screeches of ‘truthers’ and ‘antisemites’.
Now, Glenn does know what he is talking about. 😉 They are talking over the fricking world as we speak. Literally! Now isn’t the time to ‘converse’ with them. Identify, insult, boot off is the strategy needed.
I appreciate the intelligent comments of SamB, but would emphasise that people are only calling for registration, not active moderation. It will become obvious after a while if someone needs to be deregistered or not.
Larry won’t engage when I ask him about his personal obsession. He’ll happily argue with anyone who calls him a paid shill. Which set of questions do you think frighten him more?
Fuck-off larry/clark… and take your fake conversation with you.
jaded, your definition of Zionism, please?
It’s interesting what one person sitting at a computer in the Midwest can do. I’ve got all you convinced that MI5 or the Mossad are monitoring your every move.
Of course, I didn’t have to make much of an effort; I just had to be a contrarian.
You never convinced me, Larry. It doesn’t excuse your repeated suggestions of violence, or your repeated personal attacks upon other posters here.