The Virtual Stoa

Thanks to everyone who alerted me to a spam infestation at the Virtual Stoa, which was showing up in Google stuff — the search engine, its cache and in the Google Reader thingummy.

The exhortations to buy Vicodin and Cialis and the like were probably more stimulating than the actual content they replaced; nevertheless, in the interests of restoring the usual service, I’ve delved deep into the bowels of the WordPress installation, zapped a few lines of extremely dubious-looking code, killed a few files that popped up in the plug-ins folder that really oughtn’t to be there, wiped from the memory banks a couple of unauthorized users and, finally, changed the passwords. It was all quite a lot easier than I’d anticipated — I get a bit nervous in the face of MySQL databases. And so, with luck, that hack’s been dealt with.

But, just in case anything does recur, please could my vigilant readers report any further unusual sightings: I don’t use Google Reader (I’m a Bloglines man myself), so I don’t tend to notice it when my readers all drift off in search of new opportunities to purchase these valuable drugs.

Testing

The Virtual Stoa, eight years old today.

No idea what that was about, but apparently the comments have been screwy for a while, and yesterday the whole site collapsed and all the archive pages disappeared. But it all seems to be back working again now, I think.

UPDATE [27.5.2009]: And I’ve even remembered to turn off the “must be logged in to post comments” feature, which somehow managed to switch itself on.

Go here (and also here and here and possibly later also to other pages on Ted’s blog) for the one, the only, the first, the last, the very special Death of Oliver Cromwell 350th Anniversary Mini-Blog-Carnival!

There’s a lot to dislike about Harry’s Place [no link, read on], and its comments threads are often a disgrace to the entire interwebnet (which is saying something) but if you want to have an argument with them, you can have an argument with them, and you can do it in public, either over at your site, or at theirs, or at a great many other places in cyberspace. Running to their ISP to shut them down because you don’t like something someone’s said about someone is pretty low, and the person or people who did it should be ashamed of themselves.

Daniel Davies, no stranger to internet flamewars, explains why blogs are likely to spell the death of both far-left and far-right politics in the UK:

Blogs are rather like sodium pentathol or Stella Artois in their effect on social inhibitions, so when you add them to a scene which is largely composed of people with poor impulse control at the best of times, then you are basically lighting the blue touch paper…

To watch the SWP/Respect bust-up, Socialist Unity is the place to go; the BNP is self-destructing in blogland over here.

… to the Liberal Conspiracy.

Neil Clark is even more objectionably stupid than Stephen Pollard. In fact, it’s not even close. He’s been ahead of Pollard in the stupidity stakes ever since he started conversing with a spambot in the comments section of his own blog (18 months ago or so? not sure), but he’s now way, way out ahead of the rest of the field.

And remember: this isn’t just about 91 interpreters, and nothing, but nothing has actually yet been achieved. This campaign is about everyone who is in in fear of their lives owing to their links to the British forces in Iraq, and their families: i.e., quite a few thousand people. If you haven’t already, write to your MP. Especially if your MP is Hugh Bayley, who doesn’t seem to have much of a clue.

Campaign video over here. (It’s both funny and gruesome, so be careful.)

UPDATE [5 minutes later]: Jamie Kenny says it so much better than I ever could.

Over here [via]

Chris Dillow, over here.

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Stoa,
Happy birthday to you…

Chris Lightfoot, in The Times, a few days ago.

Also, over the fold, the text of a recent article from the Morning Star.

(more…)

Chris Lightfoot, 1978-2007.

Chris was splendid, and one of the few bloggers whose contributions to the world stretched far beyond blogging. (Some details over here.)

Two trivial details: he’s the only person I’ve ever successfully identified in a pub, having only seen their South Park version of themselves ahead of time; and he will always be remembered at the Virtual Stoa for writing the code that powered the Melanie Phillips Naziometer, which used to adorn the sidebar.

UPDATE [6.3.2007]: More links, over here and here.

Here’s a new blog that seems to be concentrating on discussions of Habermas and pictures of tapirs. This seems to me to be an extremely promising combination.

… to blogger Nick Barlow, who has recently completed his John O’Groats to Land’s End walk in support of the Brain Research Trust – and, no, it’s not too late to sponsor him…