I was going to respond to your diesel response below, but at the end of the comments it says This item is closed, it's not possible to add new comments to it or to vote on it. Sheesh, I wasn't even going to use the F word.

Good morning, Mr. Goat.

That's one layer of my spambot blocking design. Many spambots deliberately target old posts, the ones to which the Webmaster no longer pays attention or cannot quickly see.

The game is that these old comment threads can then be overrun with spam links that the search engine spiders pick up. That way, people typing in searches for trash of all kinds will get referred to a site that has nothing whatsoever to do with that kind of trash but has thousands or even hundreds of thousands of links to such stuff in it.

I found out that Blogger was allowing hundreds of thousands of spambots to post in threads on articles I had published months and months previously, and now I'm having the absolute nightmare of cleaning out all of those "comments" from the legacy archives. To give you an idea of how bad it is, it took me close to 10 solid hours just to clear out the spam comments for one month.

Closing the threads like I'm doing here now that I'm running this site independent of a third-party publishing platform is not a perfect solution: some spambots actually post their stuff without ever even opening the targeted commenting page! That means I still have to go in and comb every old post just to make sure no comment spam has made it through all of my security layers. I do have to say, though, that it looks like spambots are having a very difficult time here and at Big Brass Blog. As far as I know, only one bot has managed to successfully post a comment in the past month, and that one was just some stupid thing for ringtones.

Anyway, I do recognize that the sunsetting of commenting periods for articles is an annoyance, and what I might have to do is lengthen the number of days threads are open. Maybe six or seven days would be best.

The Dark Wraith will have to think about that and make a change this evening.

Naw, just publish more posts so the lead one doesn't close before the next one is up. Just throw in another scope in the coffee pot everyday and you'll be able to type fast enough to publish more in the same amount of time.

So is it just time based, or are the number of comments a trigger too?

Just the time, Mr. Goat.

A company went to all that trouble to try to show us their extensive line of ringtones, things sure to brighten anyones day, and you, the 'Great I am' decide, all by yourself, that we should be denied the pleasure, nay, the ecstatic bliss of purchasing, without leaving our armchairs, these ringtones. I am shaking so hard with righteous indignation, all because you have cheated us out of the simple pleasures of the intertubes. I hope you're happy. Could you at least give us a link so that we could peruse these ringtones?

I was disappointed that the Part 2 video was a cliffhanger. Please keep them coming. How much do I owe for the tutoring, so far?

You owe me a ringtone, trog.

Something festive: a funeral dirge, maybe.

The Dark Wraith likes to set the mood for taking an incoming call.

Look at the coffin, with it's golden handles
Isn't it grand boys, to be bloody well dead?
Le'ts not have a sniffle, let's all have a bloody good cry.
And always remember the longer you live,
the sooner you'll bloody well die.

Sorry to be off topic, but

We just tapped $3.299 yesterday. Posted on 04/27/07 at 17:05:58

Just drove by the station I use for reference and it's now $3.359. Posted on 04/27/07 at 18:30:54

My reference station hit $3.419 today... Posted on 05/01/07 at 20:39:16

OK, here it is 5/4/07 --------> $3.479

The Dark Wraith is glad he didn't wait until next week to publish this article. Posted on 04/27/07 at 18:54:03

You pretty much nailed that one. So, when are we going to hit $4?

Good evening, Mr. Goat.

It looks like there's going to be a pull-back, but it will be relatively minor. It should start soon, but I don't know how long it's going to last, although it won't be anything that will keep the inevitable from happening: the oil folks have a genuine blood lust now for that four buck mark because that's a price threshold they think they can attain and they want people to get used to. The big one is five dollars a gallon, but that one's not in the cards unless a new Middle East crisis can be manufactured or some kind of convenient catastrophe can happen to a major refinery.

Four dollars looks like June, now.

I could be wrong about that. Once I'm walking to work, I'll lose my interest in the price of gasoline... unless I go back to oil and gas exploration, which I don't think I'll do considering it would be a long walk to Texas from where I live.

The Dark Wraith should never have thrown away that tricycle from his youth.

Good Afternoon Mr Wraith,

Oh, the hanging ending, cannot wait for the next installment.


So the government keeps driving prices higher. Businesses then see a strain on profits and must leave wages stagnant or even lay off people in order to compete with government spending. The logical conclusion of this trend is the end of capitalism with the government controlling all enterprises.

I just keep seeing North Korea at the end of that tunnel. If we can rid ourselves of the neo-cons in teh next election, we have a chance, if there's another "crisis", I truly fear for our republic.

I think its way past time to worry over ifs and wishes.

We're running out of energy, food and water.

We're probably past Peak Oil. 90% of the Ocean's fish have been eaten. Water is increasingly coming from deep wells as water tables drop. The US is switching to using it's cropland for gas tanks and relying on China for food. Imagine what will happen when the nations relying on fish start getting their food from China too?

Think Perestroika. How prepared are you?