When you’re logged in as a user on Harry’s Place there’s a page called the Editing Menu with three boxes on the right showing you the five most recent entries, the five most recent comments, and the five most recent posts on other blogs that link to Harry’s Place. On Sunday I was in an internet café – blame NTL’s broadband service – and I noticed that among the most recent entries was this one, titled “Atzmon on Israel: “the ultimate evil”, and among the most recent posts linking to HP was this, headed “Antisemitism for fun and profit”. Being in an internet café, popups kept popping up, as popups do, and being popups, they weren’t advertising the most reputable of services.
A popup popped up informing me in big letters that “Sexy Girls Date For Free!”, with accompanying pictures of sexy girls to illustrate the point. The computer I was using chose that exact moment to crash, with my screen frozen on an advertisement for a dubious dating service, behind which one could make out the words “Israel: The Ultimate Evil” and “Antisemitism for fun and profit”. I tried Ctrl-alt-delete, but to no avail, and eventually had to ask the man running the internet café to help. He stood at my shoulder taking in everything that was on the screen, seeing the sexy girls, seeing the description of Israel, and seeing the headline “Antisemitism for fun and profit”, presumably thinking it was some sort of business opportunity I was considering. He turned to me; I opened my mouth to offer an explanation, but thought better of it. It would take too long, and English wasn’t his first language. I left. I won’t go back.
All of which is by means of a preamble to the exciting news that in the small hours of this morning Harry’s Place received its two hundred thousandth comment. As well as the five most recent entries, the five most recent comments and the five most recent posts on other blogs that link to Harry’s Place, the Editing Menu tells you the total number of comments that have ever been posted. When I first started writing here the total number was in the 170,000s, ever since then it’s been edging towards the magic figure of 200,000, and we’ve now reached that prestigious milestone. The thread it was posted on was Americans’ backing for Israel stronger than before – an unusual HP theme, I’m sure you’ll agree, and the comment was posted by BigBadBob III at 4.32am. Here it is in full:
Most Americans can’t even find Iraq, much less Lebanon on a map.
So of course, they’re the first people I go to for advice on foreign policy issues.
Many thanks and congratulations to BigBadBob III, commiserations to sonic, who posted a comment on the same thread at the same time, but missed out by mere seconds, and I look forward to another 200,000 comments of a similarly high standard.
Gene adds: I’ve savored and treasured every one of them.