PERSONAL:

SORRY FOR THE LACK OF CONTENT HERE:

Regular readers of this of this blog may have noticed a lack of content recently. I've explained this before as I have transfered a lot of my activity over the my Facebook account. I've been contemplating this for some time, and have posted on it before. I MOST certainly don't intend to abandon Molly's Blog because it reaches a larger audience that even the 2100 + "friends" I have on Facebook. It also a fact that most of the people that I am connected to on Facebook are those who I already agree with in one way or another, ie they are anarchists, union activists or people involved in such things as "time banks" or social justice efforts. THIS blog, however, has the potential for a larger outreach given the way the internet operates. So...don't despair; there will be things here that I couldn't express on facebook or are better expressed here.

BLOGGING:

REPORT FROM THE MOLLY UPDATE DEPARTMENT:

I did it ! I did it ! I did it ! After some rather humbling communication from a Bosnian comrade last December I set myself the task of editing the links section. Today Molly is happy to announce that at least a large portion of this task is completed. The 'Blogs and Facebook Pages' section of the Links has been thoroughly screened. All dead links have been deleted, and any items that have shown no action for a year have been removed to the 'Baron Mollydi's House Of Zombies' section. God only knows if any of them will return from the dead.

There's still a lot of go in the other sections, though I have been working on them piecemeal. Sooner or later, however, it will all be done, even the, literally, hundreds of items that are in the queue to be added. Much thanks to Srdjan and his Kad Budu Gorjeli Gradovi blog. There's also a tip of the Molly hat to Srdjan because the blog linked above in Tumblr is the third one he has had since mid December. For some reason that is beyond me he managed to get banned from both Blogger and Wordpress for the infamous and ever mysterious "violation of the terms of service". I've never known anybody else who managed this, and it is very mysterious to me as I never saw anything tremendously offensive at his sites. The Lords of the Internet move in mysterious ways.

So I toast Srdjan and thank him profusely.

BLOGGING:

THE CAT ON FACEBOOK:

OK, take a deep breath now. Here's a list of what is over at our sister site on Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1078669782 ). Once more from oldest to newest:

* Rothbarian Feudalism

*One Milliom March To Cairo

*Walmart Fesses Up In China

*First Hearing Of Missing And Murdered Women Inquiry Vancouver

*Canadian Imperialism

*Soccer And The Egyptian Revolution

*Protest Against The CCO and The UGT (Catalan Video)

*Wikileaks On The Egyptian Revolution

*Egypt: It Used To Be A CIA "Vacation" Hotspot"

*The Unknown Victim

*2011 begins In Protest (Video)

*Paul Robeson..Joe Hill (music video)

*"Seeds" by Anne Feeney (music video)

*"Graffiti From Cairo (images)

*"Mississippi Godam"...Nina Simone (music video)

*Class War In Egypt

*Videos Of The General Strike In Spain (Catalan)

*"No More Idols"...Samo Ravnol (music video)

*Dual Power In Egypt

*Vivir La Utopia (Video/Movie Español)

*Not Yet Happy Days

*"Anarchy In The UK"...Sex Pistols (Music Video)

*The Working Class In Egypt's Opposition

*The Death Throes Of A Dictatorship

*600 People Rally In Toronto To Support Egyptian Struggle

*Vancouver Rallies In Solidarity With The Arab people's Struggle

*Gulf War Propaganda 20 Years After

*Egypt Cracks Down On Al Jazeera

*The Arab World Is On Fire- Interview With A Syrian Anarchist

BLOGGING:

RECENTLY POSTED AT THE 'CAT HOUSE' (MOLLY ON FACEBOOK):

Oldest to latest. Last 24 hours. See http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1078669782 for details.

@@@@@@@@@@

++Will Qaddafi Be The Next To Go ?

++Translating PolSpeak

++Superpower (graphic)

++Rand On The Dole

++La CNT En La Huelga General (Spanish)

++Vegetarianism...Another Point Of View (Video)

++Independent Labour Federation In Egypt

++Squatting And Building Anarchist Communities

++Alex Hundert Released From Prison

++CIA Drones Have Killed Over 2,00 Since 2006

++Song For Bradley Manning...David Rovics (Music)

++Too Much Money Can Make The Boss Mean

++Charley Chaplin Speaks (Video)

PERSONAL:

THE CAT IS ON FACEBOOK:

People may have noticed fewer posts here recently. The reason is that I've been spending a lot of time over at my Facebook site (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1078669782 ). Does this mean I'm abandoning Molly's Blog ? Far from it. I'm still, however, trying to work out the proper balance. Facebook has its advantages. I can post things there from other sites far faster than I can here, but the ability to explain and give background is considerably less (non-existent ???) . The chance to archive over there is zero, and linking via their "Friends" section is highly restricted. On the other hand I can easily post music and video, and I encourage my readers to drop over to see these efforts. The Facebook page also has a far larger selection of current news than I am able to give here. Some ( I hope few ) may miss my personal comments over there, but far more people respond to things there than they do to blogs so you can get the, unfortunately short, opinions of others.

I hope to get back into the swing of things with Molly's Blog so expect the number of posts to return to a "normal" level. In the future I will give short references here to things published over at Facebook. So...this is not a shrinkage of this blog but rather an expansion.

Enjoy.

ANARCHIST TACTICS:

THE "FACEBOOKALIZATION" OF ANARCHISM:

There's something I've noticed over the past few months given that Molly's Blog is a 'contact site' for anarchists across the world. As I gradually go through my editing process I find that not only are the majority of sites that I add 'Facebook sites', but that I am either deleting or sending to the Zombie listing a lot of others who were on the internet via other internet providers (blogspot/wordpress,etc).

That's fine, but a few cautions should be given here. First of all, as anyone who has followed this blog for long enough should be aware I am utterly and completely opposed to conspiracy to commit illegal acts. Not that I am opposed to "illegal acts" of civil disobedience, but I am completely opposed to the idea of trying to make them "secret". SECRET ???? I am completely astonished by the wishful thinking that a radical organization's plans could be kept "private" whenever it is communicated via the internet. I have debated this up and down with many people who are under the delusion that their "encryption" is sufficient to guard their plans. All that I can say here is that they are either wrong or actual state agents.

That, however, is something quite different from what is presently bothering me. What I have noticed is a gradual shift of anarchists to Facebook sites, and NOT always as simply a mirror of their main site. What does this mean besides the fact that, whether it is admitted or not, that their sites are continually monitored by US intelligence ? What it means is that unlike a blog post on website post whatever they say is eternally lost once a few days (hours, minutes,seconds ????) passes. THAT is what posting on Facebook means. It is lost forever. It is "etherbuzz".

I, of course, intend to maintain Molly's Blog as a main site while also using Facebook, but I would ask people to recognize the limitations of the latter. I would also ask others to consider the limitations of Facebook.

PERSONAL:

HERE AT MOLLY'S BLOG:

Oh the guilt. Oh the shame. After having had a personal conversation with a friend where he remarked about "how I was able to keep the links current" I was visited by a comrade from Bosnia who pointed out some dead links on this blog. It takes me way back to an internet conversation with an "anarchist hero" I shall refer to as "Dink Ass", and his refusal to list a certain anarchist site because it had "dead links". This was despite the fact that he had "dead links" in his own listings that were at least 7 years dead and perhaps ten years in the grave.

All that being said those words plus the undeserved admiration and the unexpected help from Bosnia put me on a campaign track. As far as I can determine this blog has the most complete listing of the libertarian left in the entire world. It is, of course, a work in progress, and will continue to expand. The way that I have devised is; whenever I add a new listing is to go four or five listings both above and below the new one. I look for things that have to be either deleted or put into the 'Zombie' (long inactive ) category. The latter is not entirely useless. Some things actually do come back to life. Recent examples include the 'Institute For Social Ecology', 'Barking Coins Blog' and the 'Centre For A Stateless Society' which were inactive for a long time but are quite alive today. The 'Zombie' category has its uses.

This is how I hope to keep the links on this blog current (something that anyone with experience with anarchist websites knows is a problem). Quite frankly I cannot go down the lists of literally hundreds of items to try and eliminate dead links, but this method will allow me to "punt the corpses" rather efficiently. Once more I request anyone who detects dead links to report them at the 'Molly's Suggestion Box' link on this blog. Until then I hope this method serves everybody well.

PERSONAL:

HERE AT MOLLY'S BLOG:

The seasons change, and the leaves begin to fall. Molly is due to go on vacation soon so the number of posts at this blog will drop during that time. I hope I've provided at least a little information and amusement in the last little while. the squirrels are busy gathering their nuts, and Molly is busy decorating the yard for Halloween. It's a long process preparing for my favourite holiday, and each year the cars drive by, stop and take pictures.

In terms of this blog I'd like to call the readers' attention to three different sections that have been added in the last little while. All of them are under the anarcho-syndicalist rubric, the form of anarchism that I feel closest to and which I consider the most practical. The first is the listing for the KRAS, the Confederation of Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalists in Russia. While it must be admitted that KRAS is still only a propaganda group rather than a functioning union it is still significant that they have at least expanded their online presence in the last little while. it is part and parcel of the general expansion of practical anarchism that I have taken such delight in in the last few years.

Speaking of such there is also a new listing for the youth section of the German FAU. The (take a deep breath) Anarhistisch-Syndikalistischer Jugen (Anarcho-Syndicalist Youth) in Germany has been expanding rapidly, and I have added a separate category for them following the FAU listings. While not up to the level of the youth federation of the Swedish SAC (also listed under our Links) the young German comrades seem to be expanding rapidly. I have to admit that it is beyond me why the Swedes and the Germans seem to be so successful while in Spain both the CNT with their FJIL (historical nostalgia ?) and the much larger CGT seem to have their youth sections "stillborn". There is also another Iberian youth federation that, as far as I can tell, is not an extension of one of the Spanish anarchosyndicalist unions, but it is also very small. They have been listed under the Spanish section of our links. As I said, beyond me, and I can definitely see the utility of a youth federation as it addresses concerns different from those of older people. As for here in North America this is obviously a project for the far distant future as "youth" would probably encompass close to 95% of anarchists here.

Perhaps most pleasantly there is now a listing for the Workers' Initiative/(another deep breath) Inicjatywa Pracownicza of Poland. These people are the "non-AIT' anarcho-syndicalist union federation in Poland, and despite my early misconceptions they are (as expected) far more successful in organizing than the AIT affiliated ZSP. Their base of strength is in Poznan, but as the listings point out they have branches in many Polish provinces. These are the people who have a "dual card" arrangement with the British IWW. The latest news that I have heard from their quarter is that their decision to actually run as candidates in the workplace councils has brought the same success (in a smaller way) as it brought to the Spanish CGT and the French CNT (Vignoles). The anarcho-syndicalist project faces some fundamental choices in the modern world...whether to actually collectively bargain, whether to participate in union elections (in both the North American and European sense) and so on. My own opinions are very much in favour of making the necessary compromises because the alternative is shrinking away to an irrelevant sect that will be of no use even if times were to change. I recognize the dangers, but I also recognize the dangers of the sectarian alternative.

Enough of this pontification. May the busy squirrels of Fall not shit on your head.

Molly.

PERSONAL

HERE AT MOLLY'S BLOG:

Molly has a confession to make. I was a murderous little kid. Of course a lot of my detractors knew this all along. Back where I grew up in rural Saskatchewan it was considered something of a patriotic duty to wage perpetual and unrelenting war against the gophers and crows. I did my part, though I have to admit that other kids outdid me in sadistic ways to dispose of the cs and gs. What I specialized in was the eternal war against the insects. Well the crawling ones anyways. Most of the flying ones were exempt. I actually liked them.

One of the residues of my childhood is what may be an unreasonable attachment to spiders. To this day, even as I enter into the first stage of my dotage, I get upset when I see someone kill a spider, and I do my best to plead for their lives. If I find a spider in an less than advantageous place I carry him or her to a place where it is likely to find prey. We were always on the same side after all.

This is a meandering way of explaining why I don't set up this blog so that commentators have to sign in via a code to post here. My "liberalism" here means that Molly's Blog gets more than its fair share of spam comments. Well....I love them. Every once in awhile I sweep through the old posts and amuse myself by killing these bugs ie deleting them. The fools usually make my task quite easy by "building nests" ie they will post dozens of comments on one blog post. To an unreformed insect killer this is like stumbling on the pot of gold. Kill, kill, kill with minimal effort.

Thank you spammers. You help me relive the "innocence" of childhood.

PERSONAL:

HERE AT MOLLY'S BLOG:

Can you imagine ? It's mid-July and I'm still planting flowers. Rain, rain and rain. They aren't likely to do well, but I make the effort anyways. It's been a very busy spring and summer, and, of course, my productivity at this blog has fallen off. Hopefully this will change in the next few weeks.

On a rather happier note I can say that the project of listing the SAC contacts is finally coming near to the end of the tunnel. I've even managed to learn a tiny, itsy bitsy bit of Swedish during this. Or at least how to type their accents. Not enough for sure to get me more beer and complain about the price in Stockholm, but it is interesting nonetheless.

On an even happier note the hacking into my personal email seems to have ended. The last "check" as to what I was writing about Siemans came in through the usual front door rather than through my email. I went all the way up to have the most secure password possible as the first password change was also 'decoded". It is also possible, however, that they simply lost interest in me. I hope to rectify this situation. As an even greater chuckle Siemens itself, according to Business Week, has been attacked in its operating system by something called the 'Stuxnet Worm'. Somehow I have extreme difficulty working up sympathy for them. Or suppressing my giggles for that matter.

That's it for now. The squirrels continue their antics in the backyard. Put the nuts out last night. The grey squirrel came early, and, as they say, "the early squirrel gets the nut". At the same time, however, as I was loading the car for the day one of the lazy red squirrels showed up. Big squirrel fight with the red chasing a grey at least three times its size. Over the garage and far away. I still am in amazement at people who report that grey squirrels "replace" red squirrels in various localities (anecdotal here in Winnipeg, documented and fretted about in England ). Maybe all that it is is that they are less than double plus thick to the 3rd power as to where they bury the nuts. That may be hard to believe if you have ever seen a grey squirrel close up (I have). They tend to project stupidity.

PERSONAL:

MOLLY GETS HACKED:

I'm impressed. I'm really and truly impressed. For a long time now I've had "visitors" who are not exactly the curious average citizen. They are basically of two types. One is the various government agencies, usually Canadian but sometimes American, who are "news gathering" in general. They will drop by concerning a particular issue, person or organization, and its understandable that they have to pretend to be working their office staff. In the end I expect that they gather so much trivia and repeated posts from the internet that their activities are pretty well useless. But isn't that something of a part of the definition of "bureaucracy" ? It's actually been a long time since either the RCMP or the Defense Research Establishment has dropped by here, and I sort of miss the buggers. Maybe, just maybe, after an extended period they finally got the idea that nothing sensitive is ever discussed here. Maybe, just maybe, the lightbulb finally went on in their heads and they realized that I have always been opposed to the sort of "sensitivity" that they publicly always oppose themselves but privately promote in certain instances. Ah well, I'm sure they have enough 'fake work' to occupy themselves without dropping by here.

Then there is the other category...private enterprise. I suppose it is simply good corporate policy (if that is not an oxymoron) for a business to keep a beady eye on how it is portrayed in the media, even in tiny little blogs. I've certainly seen dozens upon dozens of these corporate checks over the years. There are even supposed internet "services" who offer businesses info on how they are being portrayed on the internet, and I suspect that they are a great shell for doing nothing but a google search 99 times out of 100. Who am I to say how a corporation should waste its money on this sort of thing or on the innumerable "management consultant" scams ? If they didn't waste it here they'd waste it elsewhere.

The latest incident, however, is over and beyond the usual. It began with the previous article on the CAW's demonstration against the plant closure of Siemens in Hamilton. Fairly standard. I've probably written hundreds of similar articles on labour issues. These quite often attract the attention of the corporation concerned. This, however, is the first and only time that the corporation has gone to the extent of breaking into my private email. They even went so far as to look into the emails that I have sent to others. There are actually very few of these which I hadn't previously deleted, and I'm sure that none of them were of any use to the company. God only knows how they did this. In any case I have done my best to block future access.

The original break in occurred via a 'Suddenlink' IP 74.198.28. this was forwarded via email to a Rogers IP 99.247.178 in Pickering Ontario. There are multiple links to Siemens in Pickering. Now, as I said I've seen corporations snooping before, and it hardly bothers me. At its low level it has resulted in the owners of some smaller business owners getting drunk and firing an angry email back to the blog. I think, however, that Siemens is the largest outfit that I have ever pissed off. They rank #40 in the world according to the Fortune 500. I don't think I have pissed off any of the top 39 yet. Give me time. Comparing their revenues to that of 'countries' they make more money than the GDP of 137 countries across the world. They are also very much the definition of a "conglomerate" with their fingers in more pies than I have fingers and toes. Some of their interests are, of course, in IT. Hence their ability to track critics. One also has to say that as a German company that one has to "admire" their Teutonic thoroughness bordering on obsession. Nobody else goes to such lengths.

I'm uncertain if Siemens has broken any laws by their actions, but I am quite certain that it would be impossible to make a legal case against them even if they have. This whole entry then is just a cautionary tale of the depths that corporations sink to probably regularly.

PERSONAL:

HERE AT MOLLY'S

BLOG:

What can I report besides the obvious ? Molly's 'Links' Section continues to grow day by day. Right now I'm on the last of the syndicalist unions that deserves a separate section, the SAC of Sweden. This will be the last major addition (I hope), and the rest will be tidying up and additions in the listings of other organizations. I dearly hope to be proved wrong on this. I await another country coming into a "multiple contact" situation. I have hardly finished the listings for the SAC. As the second largest anarchosyndicalist organization in the world (after the Spanish CGT) I guess that I should expect unexpected layers of complexity. It doesn't help that Swedish is a totally foreign language to me. Bear with me in the next couple of weeks as I add to the SAC listings. Once more the listings on our Links section are designed to be as comprehensive as possible. No doubt there will be call in the future to subdivide various headings. Also no doubt some of the listings are out of date despite my best efforts in deleting dead links.

As to the "content" of this blog, well that is my personal responsibility. It will always vary in terms of subject matter (and even stray from politics entirely- it is a blog after all) , but it will hold to one overwhelming principle. This blog is an anarchist blog for non-anarchists. You'll find no academic gobbledegook here,no "discourses", "dialectics", "intersectionalities" nor any other pseudointellectual words that dress up the speaker's ignorance. You may find rather uncommon words. They will be used properly according to their sense, unlike in leftist "theory". Use a dictionary. The basic ideas of anarchism are just that...basic, and after almost 40 years reading leftist essays I have come to the unshakable conclusion that pretty well all of what passes for "theory" is a waste of breath, especially when it is dolled up in the academic fashion of the day. This is especially true in the age of the internet. After dropping in on enough internet forums I have come to realize that there is an infinity of ways to make erudite, intelligent, well crafted defences of what is utter nonsense. Not that there isn't room for debate about the perennial "what is to be done", but I'm convinced this should be framed in English rather than in "leftish".

OK enough bitching. On with the show.

INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM:

FREE KARIM AMER:

Karim Amer is an Egyptian blogger who has fallen afoul of the authorities in that country for daring to publish opinions critical of both Islam (which Islam ?) and the Egyptian government. The latter rather than the former is probably the reason that he has been sentenced to four years in prison. There is an internet petition calling for his release. Here's the story and appeal.

KAKAKAKAKA
Free Egyptian Blogger Karim Amer
Target: President Hosni Mubarek
Sponsored by: Care2.com

One of the luxuries of the internet is that it's a forum of expression. And in this forum, anyone should be able to contribute to a discussion and speak their mind.

But Karim Amer, a young blogger from Egypt, was sentenced to four years in prison for this very act.

Amer was charged with publishing material critical of Islam and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarek and imprisoned, despite the fact that he acted within his universal right to peaceful freedom of expression. Amer claims that while imprisoned, he has been beaten at least twice under the supervision of a prison officer.

All people should have the freedom to peacefully express their opinions. Tell the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek to free this prisoner of conscience and accept all people's right to the freedom of expression.
deadline: Ongoing...
Goal: 15,000
15,222
signatures so far!

KAKAKAKAKA

THE LETTER:

Please go to this link to send the following letter to Hosni Mubarek, President of Egypt.

KAKAKAKAKA
Dear President Mubarek,

Karim Amer is a blogger who was sentenced to four years in prison for publishing material critical of Islam and Egypt on the internet. At the time of his arrest in 2007 he was 23 years old.

Amer's actions are within his universal right to peacefully express his opinion, regardless of whether those opinions are critical of religious or political figures and ideals. While imprisoned, he has been beaten multiple times by a fellow prisoner and a prison guard, under the supervision of a prison officer.

[your comments will be inserted here]

All people should have the freedom to peacefully express their opinions. Free Karim Amer and accept all people's right to the freedom of expression.

Sincerely,
[Your name here]

LOCAL NEWS WINNIPEG/BLOGGING:

THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED:

Molly is happy to see the return of the Insurrectionary People's Picture Show Theater from here in Winnipeg after a far too long hiatus (since last October). The IPPST comes back with an improved design and also a commitment to cover music as well as video and film. Well worth checking out. See their website from which the Godzilla graphic has been stolen.

PHILOSOPHY:

A CONUNDRUM:

Molly is proud to present the following philosophical problem from Mr Beer N'Hockey's Dope City Free Press blog. To say the least the problem that Beer presents in the following post deserves far more attention than those usually pondered in academia.

BNHBNHBNHBNH

Tell Me Why
As I was eating my breakfast (it will not be my liquor consumption that kills me), drinking my second cup of coffee (one cup is never enough), reading the newspaper (all politicians, cops and everyone else associated, however tenuously, with the fucking government is a fucking crook) and watching Ma shake her moneymaker (the bigger it gets the better I like it) out of the corner of my eye as she attended to her coffee shop's other customers on her busiest day (Friday), I got to thinking. Sonja says, "Don't think, just do." She is right, of course, but if our brains are roughly 75% beer, you cannot help but think now and again when you do not have a beer in one hand and a remote control in the other.


This is what I was thinking - How the fuck do I keep on waking up and going to work day after day, hangover after hangover, week after week, month after month, year after motherfucking year? It does not make any sense. Firstly, you want to keep sleeping when the fucking alarm goes off; secondly, you have better shit to do than show up at the sawmill and pretend you give a shit about how much money your company is losing; thirdly, your head fucking hurts; fourthly, you put your life in danger driving on the highway to work with every other demented motherfucker in town, none of whom give a shit about anything but getting home later that day and having a few drinks (and about a quarter of them have already had a drink before they start their car in the morning); fifthly, after a few decades of work all you have to show for it is a broken down house, a broken down car and a body and mind so broken down if you could trade it in, like you can do with a broken down car, the only time a dealer would give you a dime for it would be at a push, pull, or drag sale.


Metaphysicians, the motherfuckers who try to answer questions as yet unsatisfactorily answered in mankind's brief history, ought to spend more time figuring out why we keep on working instead of whether or not there is a God, and if there is, why are all his believers starting to make Charles Manson look lucid.
BNHBNHBNHBNH
Truer words were never spoken...Molly. Mr. Beer N'Hockey's blog is the only "personal blog" that I have ever come across that is actually worth following, as he shows the humour and greater meaning in the events of everyday life. Most personal blogs attempt to destroy both. Many great recommendations to this site.

PERSONAL:

HERE AT MOLLY'S BLOG:

Well this blog continues, and it now passed the 100,000 mark for unique visitors, despite my ambition to "finish" the anarchosyndicalist links before that happened. I'm still working on the Spanish CNT which, as I have mentioned before, is a lot larger than I thought. The blog promotion hit a temporary road block, but I am working around it...especially as this blog tries to speak to non-anarchists. But more on that later. Until then I have to hold my arrogance in check. It's a hard task, but necessary.

I'd like to take this opportunity to invite readers to make their suggestions over at our sister site 'Molly's Suggestion Box' (see the sidebar). No doubt I am not perfect, and I'd appreciate suggestions for improvement.

Til then,

Keep Smiling,

Look up to the stars,

Realize how unimportant your troubles are.

mm

BLOGGING HERE AT MOLLY'S BLOG:

IT'S THE NEW MEAN MOLLY MACHINE:

Well, all my computer problems are over, and even my hangover from St. Patrick's Day is a thing of the past. Molly has finally surrendered to the modern world and changed everything over to cable and high speed. I can hardly describe the difference. Now I can actually watch video on the internet, and I hope to start providing it soon here at the blog. My dear old 'Tyrannostar' is being permanently retired from the internet as the new and improved base computer and the laptop are far better for this sort of thing. Dear old TS will now be just a record keeping machine. Despite the beginning of my busy season I hope to be even more productive at this blog than in the past. We'll see what happens. Til then...come along with us as Molly enters a new era. A little late but with a lot of enthusiasm.

BLOGGING HERE AT MOLLY'S BLOG:

DISPATCHES FROM THE SPAM WARS:

I'm still stuck with my old Tyrannosaur computer. Hopefully (!!!!!!!) Dr. Dave will have good news for me tomorrow. Meanwhile the laptop continues to refuse to turn on. I think I blew the battery, but I will find out about that later. Note to self-find the fucking receipts. Good luck on collecting on the warrantee.

In any case I've taken the opportunity of this break to start going through the archives and deleting commercial spam.

I began at the beginning in August 2006 and was chugging happily along until I came to the first item in the archives in November 2006. The clunking sound was my eyeballs falling out of my head and rolling down the floor. To my astonishment the first item in that archive contained no less than 86 items of commercial spam. Delete, delete, delete, delete and, for a change, delete ! Some of the stuff might actually have been of interest to someone: an ad for a certain French cheese, hair restoring methods, the usual porn and blah blah about pirate movie copies and, best of all, an ad for the "atomic yoyo". The mind boggles at what the later is, but I'd definitely want one if it was free.

I also noticed how Blogger had managed to eat (ie delete) about half of the posts in November 2006, just as they did in February of this year. These posts don't show up in the archives but they do show up when I go to the "edit posts" item in Blogger. My best guess is that I am over my space quota. This is a rather large blog after all. I may, however, be totally off track on this, and Blogger may delete things randomly. I guess I'll find out in the fullness of time.

Til then, and when I return to normal blogging and get away from this personal nonsense ...remember that things are never as serious as they seem. In the long view everything is short. Even me. I actually like the idea.

BLOGGING HERE AT MOLLY'S BLOG:

HELP FIND THE ZOMBIES:

Anyone who takes a glance at our Links section which we hope to make a comprehensive list of anarchist and libertarian socialist contacts on the internet will see how extensive it is. The Links are always in state of upgrade, pretty well from day to day, but because of their extent there are often dead links that we miss deleting. Some of them are on the various "to-do" lists, but a large number are ones we are unaware of. Checking all the links would probably take the better part of two days.

So...we're asking for our readers' help. We've opened up an item over at Molly's Suggestion Box (see sidebar) where you can list any dead links as a comment to the post. Or you can do it here of course.

Another thing where help would be appreciated would be in the deletion of commercial spam from the comments. I try to keep current with this, but I have little doubt that many items in the Archives have loads of such items attached as comments. If you come across such things try to post us either here or at the suggestion box. Give date and title of the blog post, and we'll try and make it a priority to get around to deleting the spam.

Any help you can give us on these matters would be greatly appreciated.

BLOGGING HERE AT MOLLY'S BLOG:

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES-PLEASE STAND BY:

It's starting out to be a hard week here at Molly's blog. Just as the busy season starts the damn computer does a hard drive crash. Then the laptop won't turn on. I'm typing this on my old 'Tyrannostar' model of a computer that had whiskers before I was born.

We hope to be back in blogging business soon, but until then productivity will be quite low here. All God's chillun' got problems, and I'm hardly into maudlin self pity. I can say, from experience, that it's better than colon cancer.