I Intend To Escape ......................And Come Back

Companies To Avoid Like The Plague: Heart Internet

If anyone out there is looking for an Internet service provider, I really do urge you to steer as far as possible from Heart Internet.

They ignore basic instructions, threaten customers with bailiffs over sums as low as £10, and carry on ignoring instructions even when they have been clearly expressed in writing. They are scum. If you are using them - I suggest you switch to another provider. If you are going through a list of potential suppliers - cross them off it.

 

Comments Policy?

I have never developed a formal comments policy for this site.

Comments that have been deliberately inaccurate or threatening to individuals have at times been removed - at other times they have not, as they sometimes tell you more about the author than anything else. I will continue to look at comments on an ad-hoc basis.

One of the downsides of blogging is that whilst the blogger goes on the record, as a named individual accountable for their own actions, those who comment are usually anonymous and frequently unknown to anyone else. Their motivations may range from the desire for an exchange of views, through to doing maximum political and personal damage to another individual or group. The distance and anonymity of the Internet can also encourage a combativity that would be unlikely in a face to face setting - an issue well known to anyone who crossed swords on the Libcom forums a few years back.

Over time I have grown more sympathetic to Ian Bone's view of 'never complain, never explain'. In Class War I was for many years a fanatical corrector of slurs and snidey comments against the Federation, but as Ian correctly points out, once you start doing that, you will never do anything else. It is interesting that the Stalinist school of falsification has prospered long after Stalinism itself. Reading certain posts and comments on Socialist Unity about Anarchists or at its worst Libcom on Class War or Libcom on Larry O'Hara, such method can be adopted by those who would normally run a mile from old school Stalinist political currents.

What I would encourage those who comment on this blog is to:

1. Keep the threats and abuse to a minimum
2. Try to make your comments shorter than the piece you are commenting upon
3. Avoid posting up scores of links to youtube clips and Google vids. It is one of the traits of the 9/11 truth movement - a link is believed to trump a concise argument. It does not.
4. Remember this blog is paid for and run by Mossad/New Labour/Zionist-Rothschildism/Me, and that all posts should be viewed in that light.

Orwell Prize For Blogging 2011

As no one else would nominate me, I have put this blog forward in the competition for the 2011 Orwell Prize. 

Last year Ray Hulm's The Bad Old Days Will End made the shortlist, the only Anarchist blog I think ever to do so. If you run a blog, you have until January 19th to throw your hat in the ring. Below are the ten articles I submitted in support of my candidacy: 

Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam

The Ex-Cops Standing For The BNP

Would You Invite Your MP To Your Wedding?

Love Football, Love England, Love Debt

Derelict Hackney

John Sankey: A Belated Tribute

CLR James: Not Wanted In The New Hackney?

On Meeting Audley Harrison

Bringing Good From The Mole Man

Five Days As A Free Man

TV Weathercams

This may be a bit weird, but stay with me.

I have an unusual hobby on holiday, which I have not been able to indulge for some time. Many European TV packages come complete with an obscure channel showing weather cams. This is particularly popular in central Europe, and I have spent many late night hours in German and Slovenian hotel rooms watching the Weather Cam station. 

These stations (I don't know the German word) take you to a succession of weather cams across the country, ranging from the centre of Berlin to mountain side locations. Normally you have a 30 second or so shot - which is often nothing more than a few cars passing, or the wind fluttering the trees - and that's it. The programme then switches to the next location, and you are off on a magical mystery tour, often of places you have either never been to, or have not seen for years. I should just add that the importance and pleasure of this is greatly increased if you are either pissed, stoned or both! 

For some reason, I am yet to find any of these channels on British TV, even though I now have a satellite package that includes everything from Conspiracy TV to Nigerian church services. In the absence of this important televisual feast, I have had to turn to Earth TV, which offers 'live TV cameras on 5 continents'. 

To be honest 100 cameras across Germany would do me, but in the meantime - thank you to Earth TV!

Meanwhile At The Bar Blog Launched

Meanwhile At The Bar has been one of the web's more interesting UK political sites since 2005, combining a mixture of Anarchist, Republican and Libertarian Socialist argument (with the odd recalcitrant Trot thrown in for ballast). 

Perhaps going a little stale recently, its great to see the launch of MAT Blog, where some picks from debate, plus new argument, is to be found. Check it out! 

Hitting The Heights

Congratulations to my fellow bloggers Ian Bone and Duncan Money, who have both been rated in the top 100 UK Politics blogs in the Wikio blog listing.

Ian comes in at 57, whilst Duncan (easily the youngest person on the list) weights in at 94.

You can view the Wikio list here.

Black Cat Purring?

A new Anarchist discussion forum, Anarchist Black Cat, has been launched recently.

The simple aim seems to be to provide a friendly discussion venue for English speaking activists to chew the fat. It is fair to say the site also looks to learn from the lessons of the Libcom site, which at least in terms of its forums serves as a copybook example of how not to run a website.

Libcom has suffered under the weight of two fundamental paradoxes. Firstly in its enrager.net days it originally styled itself as a resource website for the entire UK anarchist movement. All very good, but for the fact that many of the people behind Libcom were unable to hide their contempt for much of that movement, and the organisations already in it. Indeed when faced with virtually entirely negative feedback about changing the site to Libcom - they went ahead anyway!

As Libcom developed, an obsession with sniping and attacking other groups and campaigns prospered, where the aim was not just to disagree with what groups like Class War or the Anarchist Black Cross did, but to cause those groups maximum damage. This peaked with the despicable mocking up of a fake Class War sticker, giving Class War's correct contact details, but with the slogan "Muslims - Bastards" written on it. It is impossible to imagine another site where such a carry on would be tolerated.

Secondly the best known part of Libcom was inevitably its forums - as they are the section most visitors could engage with (It is hard to read political texts on-line, although I know many people do). Here Libcom hit its second problem. The two most divisive and most unpleasant posters on the site are Jack and revol68. On most forums abusive or disruptive posters are in some way shackled, and if that does not work - they are booted off.
In the case of Jack and revol68 that was impossible - Jack as site owner was not going to ban himself, whilst revol68 was a long standing personal and political associate of the Libcom group. Put simply they were not big enough to ban their mate, no matter how much trouble he caused. The end result was that a succession of activists have joined the site and left it, or reduced their input to the forums to a trickle.

If Anarchist Black Cat can avoid such pitfalls - and early indications are it can - it may well play a major role in bringing Anarchists together, in a manner that goes beyond mere point scoring.

The Curious Views Of The BBC

Tonight sees a programme on BBC3 at 9pm on the rise in teenage pregnancies.

This is how TV And Satellite Week trails the programme:

Teens Hooked On Porn
Examinging how the easy availability of pornography on the Internet could be related to an increase in pregnancies among British teenagers.

Surely internet porn should have the opposite effect? I was not aware that anyone ever became pregnant through wanking?

Quiet Please!

There is little doubt as to what is my favourite website at the moment.

I am slowly working through cataloguing all my books, using the excellent Library Thing site. It is free, and allows you to list your books under various tags, using the ISBN system, and records from sites as diverse as Amazon through to the Library of Congress.

You can learn more about Library Thing here.