Charles on… anything that comes along

Watching the BBC’s Question Time, which is coming from the US, in a move that the producers no doubt thought would be smart - with Michael Moore, David Frum (ex-GWB speechwriter), coupla other Americans, and the UK’s Richard Littlejohn; the latter usually thought of as a corrosive commentator. In this company, particularly the audience’s, Littlejohn is just drowned out, too nice to bother with.

It’s awful. Nasty, vituperative, bitter, divisive, a dialogue of the deaf. The audience cheers and jeers, and the reason why the whole debate is so sterile - in the manner of razed ground - is that there’s only two sides. Heads or tails, black or white. There’s no credible third party offering the risk of an alternative, in the way that the Liberal Democrats do in the UK, able to call the bluff on both parties, and win votes from either. People are on one side or the other.

Sometimes, it turns out, you need a fence.

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This was due to me messing up some characters in my editing of the Three Strikes Plugin which has been sorely tested today by a comment spammer who for the past 18 hours has been hitting the site about every four minutes trying to advertise hold-’em poker. Look, pal, buy an advert and we’ll see about it, OK?

Meanwhile the plugin thwarted them all, and I’ve edited it so that if it blocks a comment and emails you, there’s a clickable link to look up where in the world the PC doing it is. I’ll aim to post it sometime. (Email or comment if you’re desperate for it. Or see the Strikes Plugin page - I posted my bit of the code near the bottom.) And maybe write a version that incorporates the Spammer Tar Pit. Make his Trojanned PCs wait. (I’ll call it “Three Strikes And You’re Into The Tar Pit”.)

..and later, some other idiot has taken over trying to advertisie something I can’t even figure out. Look, your attempts at comment spamming don’t work, OK? Stop wasting your money on the Trojanned zombie networks.

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