Al Qaeda reads my blog!

Slytherin House Crest

"You knew I was a snake

when you took me in!"

(Image from Wikipedia)

Some folks say that blogging is bad for your health. Ted Olsen, writing for Christianity Today in an article ominously titled "The Death of Blogs" (9/25/2007), quotes Michael Parsons on the rigors of blogging:

"Good bloggers work like dogs," says Michael Parsons, editor of the tech site CNet.co.uk. "You can't expect readers to show up unless you show up. And the Internet never closes.... Every successful blogger I've come across is the same. Eat, sleep, and drink the work. No time out; no holidays."

As Olsen notes, "That's not a recipe for healthy living, especially if you're working a day job that's not paying you to blog."

Blogging about Islamists probably isn't a recipe for healthy living either, no matter what one's day job might be.

Recently, I posted an entry on "Islamists: Mismanagement of Savagery?" in which I noted Michael Totten's report that Al Qaeda's savagery in Iraq's large western, Anbar Province had turned the insurgent tribes there against Islamists and into cooperation with the American military.

This morning, I found the following comment by a certain 'Donald':

Very funny ! ! How could someone well educated like you still bleive U.S.A media ! ! Al Qaeda or ABU NAJI never said People couldn't shave or smoke. never did action for that. The most of what you said are from G Bush media witch is made for stupid American People.

My friend 'Donald' linked his name to "Jihad Watch," in irony (I suppose) since that site is antijihadist. Anyway, I replied:

'Donald', I don't know what a "G Bush media witch" is, but your entire comment sounds rather 'occult' and therefore hard to understand. Anyway, I was reading Michael Totten, not George Bush.

Not smoke or shave? The smoking ban was news to me in Totten's report, but the shaving ban wherever Islamists come to power is well-known.

Now, I don't know that my friend 'Donald' is really Al Qaeda, but he certainly sounds like an Islamist sympathizer. He's not an American, nor is he a native speaker of English despite the fact that he's based in the U.K. (and I have his IP address). He reached my site through a Google search for "Abu Bakr Naji," author of The Management of Savagery, an Al Qaeda blueprint for ruling over areas conquered through military jihad, and he spent 24 minutes (and one second, but who's counting?) reading my blog, even troubling himself to take five page views. That shows dedication and a desire to judge my blog on its merits rather than an impulse to react in outraged indignation.

Fifty points for Slytherin!

However, given the low quality of my friend's comment -- the conspiratorial worldview, the immature name-calling, the ungrounded claims -- I must, regrettably, deduct 60 points, thereby resulting in a 10-point loss for Slytherin.

Sorry about that, 'Mouthboy'...