Housekeeping

Okay, Loco to Stay Sane and The Mythology Project have basically hit the point where they've run their courses. I've got one more "Is That All There Is?" entry, or maybe two, judging by the fact that I wasn't expecting it to take as long as it has. Now, my constant repetition of the goodness of John Darwin's After Tamerlane: The History of Global Empire Since 1405 has convinced me that I should probably do something I've been intending since the start of this blog. I'm going to start a book review section. It'll be pretty ad hoc based on the books I read and feel strongly about. I'm also going to try to do random reviews of gems I find in used book stores, like Alessandro Portelli's The Battle of Valle Giulia. I'm probably going to start with two books that are near and dear: Ian Toll's Six Frigates and James Hornfischer's Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. I have no doubt I'll be handling After Tamerlane once I finish reading it and I'll run through The Measure of All Things once I get it back. I'm also seriously considering exercising my executive privilege to count Lawrence Weschler's A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers and Calamities of Exile as well as Philip Gourevitch's We Regret to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda as history books. Beyond that, well, I'm sure there are a few books on the subject of history out there... Meanwhile, I haven't forgotten about Fascism Fundamentals. I think I just need a...shall we say, slightly less ambitious plan. It turns out that when you're not writing a research paper for school, um, it's tough to want to do that kind of work. So, yeah, I gots stuff in the works. Stay tuned. Also, after the unpleasantness of the last few days I've been forced to take a slightly more active approach to moderation. Since blogger won't let me outright IP ban anybody, I've changed the settings so that all comments must be approved by me before they hit the site. My ever so tiny band of somewhat-regulars will get a free pass. If you leave a comment it might take a while to show up but it will arrive in exactly the way you posted it. Certain other parties will no longer be allowed to make comments. Hopefully this will be temporary and I'll be able to return things to normal just as soon as our immature little Christian concern trolls realize they're not having fun any more. Oh, and if you're entertaining the idea of just waiting around for me to take off the filters, I can and will delete any comment you make without any indication it ever existed. I've already done it once, so consider this fair warning. Okay, it's technically not fair. Consider it a warning. Edit: By the way, I specifically did that to piss him off. If I do this right, I won't actually have to do all the necessary work to be best man at a wedding and I'll suddenly have that weekend free to go see the Saw Doctors at Irish Fest in Milwaukee. That sounds like a win-win for me. I despise censorship, but this is ultimately my internet "home" and I'm allowed to ask anyone who annoys the hell out of me to leave. Think of it as a dinner party where two people are talking over everyone and pooping on the carpet. A good host asks them to leave. Since Blogger doesn't give me the same range of tools that other blog sites do, I have to make due with what I have at my disposal. I apologize for any inconvenience and hope to have things back to normal soon. Possibly over on Wordpress or something. P.S. James, one last thing. I didn't call your wife an asshole. I called you an asshole and I called my former Christian self an asshole. Reading comprehension, dude.