An old line of mine: “Impeach Bill Clinton. Stop Cigar Abuse.” If you saw any t-shirts or buttons with this emblazoned on it, I know the source of the phrase. Like a dork I told it to a bloke who did t-shirts & pins at a conference, in the bar.

Dawn is mad at us males for being sexist towards female bloggers. What a load of…. er. I don’t care the sex of whomever I blog-roll; truth be told in the early days it was mostly female ones. (Hawkgirl, Solent, Meryl, Live from the WTC, Ye Olde Blog, Samizdata (W/female bloggers, including the one I pinched for this blog.) I find it offensive that you accuse us of being sexist. Have you ever considered the fact that there are more bloggers who are male than are female? So what if some people don’t link to you; you are not their style. There are people I don’t link to because I think they aren’t worth linking to, not because they are female or male, gay or straight, black or white. Crying sexism comes across as whingeing for hits. (Something I did to good affect early in my blog career. but I admit it was whingeing to get hits.) So people don’t like your posts; what the hell does the fact you are female have to do with it? Write what you want and take the consequences. Think of it as a fence; get over it.

NB: For more on this exchange and to see how bitchy it has gotten check out the comments for MB’s post. Must be something in the air, first Claire at the British Blogger Bash and now this.

I just got this lovely email from Dawn.

From: “Dawn Olsen”
Date: Tue Sep 10, 2002 12:04:22 AM Europe/London
To: andrewiandodge@mac.com

Is everyone at your blog a complete jerk?

whatever – you guys are troll looking for traffic – you deserve none.

• It continues with nastier and nastier emails. She is now personally attacking both me and Mommabear. I pressed send twice opps.

“Was your missive so great I needed to receive it twice? Good for you, may you and Andrew live a long happy life together. You are made for each other. And you are wrong, you are a troll – in every sense of the word. Maybe you are the troll who I have been fighting with? You seem to be about that intelligent.”

My response:

What the hell is your problem? I don’t agree with your assertion, so I am a troll? I criticise your assertion and you launch personal attacks on MB and I? And you call me stupid?

You are doing more harm to women bloggers with each idiotic utterance than you can imagine. If we disagree you call me a troll how very very sad. Grow up.

____

Nice to know that she appreciates differing opinions. How pathetic.

Yet another one…sigh:

From the desk of:
Dr. Dan Amanga
Tel No: Your Intl. Access Code + 873-762-692484
Fax No: Your Intl. Access Code + 873-762-692485
Email : dannama@uymail.com
Lagos, Nigeria.

ATTN: Dear Sir,

REQUEST FOR AN URGENT CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP.

After due deliberation with my colleagues, We have decided to forward to
you this business proposal. We want a reliable
person who could assist us in the transfer the sum of Twenty Million, Five
Hundred Thousand United States Dollars
($20,500,000) Via International Bank Draft Cashable in any First World
Countries.

This fund resulted from an over-invoiced bill from contracts awarded by us
under the budget allocation to our Ministry. This
bill has been approved for payment by the other concerned Ministries. The
contract has since been executed,
commissioned and the contractor was paid the actual cost of the contract.
We are left with the balance US$20.5M as part
of the over-invoiced amount which we have deliberated over estimated for
our own use. But under our protocol division,
we as civil servants are forbidden to operate or own
foreign accounts. This is why we are soliciting your assistance in this
manner and regard.

As you may want to know and to make you less curious, I got your address
from adverts in the business directory . I am the
Chief Accountant/Internal Auditor of the Contract Award Committee ( CAC )
of the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation ( NNPC). This transaction is very
much free from all sorts of RISKS and TROUBLE
from my Government. We the
N.N.P.C. Officials involved in this deal have put in many years in service
to this Ministry. We have been exercising patience
for this opportunity for so long and to most of us this is a life time
opportunity we cannot afford to miss.

We have agreed to COMPENSATE you duly if agreement is reached by both of
us and I and one of my colleagues
involved in this deal will come to your country to arrange for our share,
upon the confirmation from you that the Certified
International Bank Draft has been Approved and Raised in your favour.

Consequent upon your acceptance of this proposal, kindly confirm your
interest by Telephone to me, through my Direct Tel
No: Your Intl. Access Code + 873-762-692484 and Fax No: Your Intl. Access
Code + 873-762-692485.
(Please Call Direct, DO NOT include my country (234) and City (1) codes
when dialing). Your indication by revert
Telephone to me of your sincere and serious interest will enable me send
you or brief you of the
PROCEDURES FOR THIS TRANSACTION. If my line is busy, please be persistent
enough and you will surely get through.

NOTE: In the event of your inability to handle this transaction please
inform us so that we can look for another reliable
person who can assist in this respect.
It might surprise you why we chose you and trusted you for this
transaction. Yes, we believe that good friends can be
discovered and business like this cannot be realized without mutual trust.
This is why we
have decided to trust you for this transaction. Be further informed that
everyones interest and security had been considered
before you were contacted, so be rest assured and feel free to go into
this transaction
with us. But let Honesty,Trust and Confidentiality be our watchword
throughout this transaction and your prompt reply will
be highly appreciated.

Thank you,and God bless.

Best Regards,

Dr. Dan Amanga.

N.B. I will prefer you send e-mails to the below alternative address
cyntap234@hotmail.com

A Snarl From The Den….....

There are some “Female Bloggers” out there who are moaning about “don’t get no respect” as bloggers. MommaBear finds it most difficult to dredge up even one teaspoon of sympathy for those who blather on blatantly about details of their sex life, ad infinitum – ad nauseam, whine about all the nothings in their lives, carry on ‘stupid interviews’ that have neither humor nor content, etc., etc. and then demand that “serious attention” be paid to them. Meryl has an extensive look at this, here.

They’ve only got themselves to blame. There are “Male Bloggers” who do the equivalent just as badly. They get linked &/or blogrolled at about the same rate as those “whiney bitches”, so, the female bloggers really have reached their appropriate level of recognition. If they wish to climb higher up the ladder, they will have to do better than they currently do at honest, real blogging. Blogging has no sexual orientation, per se. To paraphrase an old political saying: “It’s the Content, Stupid!”

A quick look at the blogroll on this site will prove that those who have content earn a place, here; no-one checks to determine plumbing category, only content. This site also has contributors of all persuasions; there are no ‘naked interviews’ before granting posting privileges.

It seems Ms. Solent had the same reaction to the quote in David’s post-BBB piece on Samizdata. It struck that the words in the quote looked distinctly like the unheartly words of a spawn of one of the Old Ones. I do remember a certain musty smell about towards the end of the evening. I suppose I may have missed this shambler thanks to being distracted by temptation.

Note to MB: I would not have said those vile words no matter how pissed I was; which I wasn’t, btw.

Those of you, my dear readers, who have no idea what a Shoggoth is might be pleased to know we [yrs. truly and MB] are writing a “dummies” guide to the Cthulhu genre for Shoggoth.net.

“That is not dead which
can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons
even death may die.”

A bunch of radical ragheads are planning to celebrate the 9/11 attacks in London on Wednesday. Yes, you read that right; they are planning to CELEBRATE the attacks. One wonders whether it might be possible to have a “stray” smart bomb find itself landing on the mosque being used as the venue for this vile meeting. The Sunday Telegraph reported that Al Queda supporters were encouraged to attend.

Slade have been recognised for their contribution to popular music in the UK. This goofy glam act have always added a level of humour to the world of popular rock. Despite being mocked by “serious” music mags like the NME, musicians have always given nodding approval to the band. Those of you in the US might remember that Quiet Riot made their name in the 80s with a cover of ‘Cum on feel the Noize’. The band covered at least one other of the Slade’s tunes.

From the the letters section of the DT today. A passionate and well informed defence of the “Goth” rock sub-genre.

Sir – How can Sukhdev Sandhu say that the Goth scene “has spawned no records or books of any merit”?

The Gothic canon is a seminal genre in itself, and has spawned many subsequent branches of popular culture. The formidable oeuvres of the three bands Sandhu mentions – Joy Division, the Cure and Bauhaus – would alone be enough to constitute an imposing legacy. But this rich, multi-faceted genre also embraces the literary quirks of Kate Bush, Nick Cave and P J Harvey, the barroom noir of Tindersticks, the consummate miserabilism of the Smiths, the futuristic cyber-synth of Sigue Sigue Sputnik, the doomy indie-goth of Garbage, and the veteran punk of the Damned. As for the claim that the mass media ignore Gothic iconography, what about Madonna’s videos for Frozen and Like a Prayer, or Gareth Gates’s Cure hairstyle, or television’s Gormenghast and Urban Gothic? Indeed, what about the masthead of The Daily Telegraph?

From: Francis Harvey, Bristol

The Telegraph has a very good article on how to win the Euro referendum. George Trefgarne puts the case for a coalition against the Euro. He explains who must talk and who must just sit back. I believe his assesment is right: if the “outters” are allowed too much coverage then we might lose this incredibly important battle. There are many good people in the UK Independence Party, the Bruges Group, and the Campaign for an Independent Britain. They, however, must be prevented from turning (via a hostile media) the entire debate into a ‘little England’er vs continental one.

It can be argued that those against the Euro are more outward looking than the pro-Euro types. This point tends to be lost if there are a bunch of fat men standing around bleating on about the nasty Europeans. The only way to defeat the Euro is for the NO campaign to run an intelligent, tight campaign that is well organised and targeted. Passion is wonderful in politics, but it’s tactics that win the day.