Many of you are aware that there have been comments issues over the past several days.

My tech guy (One Fine Jay) has completely disabled the anti-spam program that was causing the problem, and returned me to the old one. I hated the new one. It completely deep-sixed comments into an unusable folder, rather than the old and convenient moderation folder. It wouldn’t let me restore comments by hand. Perversely, it was actually nuking comments from regular commenters. It even nuked some comments that had already been posted, even though I hadn’t done a thing to prompt that.

Comments should be working better now. Hopefully.

Second, my descent into the lefty snake pits yesterday has fortified my resolve to keep my blog from turning into a den of poo-flinging monkeys. The monkeys will not be invited in, and those that have sneaked through the cracks will be given a gentle boot out the door. Here’s a hint: someone who uses words rhyming with “uckwit” or “ucktard” is unlikely to stay. What is the point of discussions with such people? Yesterday I learned the answer: there is none.

Dafydd ab Hugh once recommended to me a treatment for the very worst trolls: ignore them. Ban their comments. If they send a trackback, delete it. If they post about you on other blogs, do not respond under any circumstances. Take pleasure in watching their increasingly desperate efforts to get your attention.

I have been employing this strategy with a couple of major offenders for months, and it has kept my sanity in situations where engagement would have risked it. I am adding a couple more names to the “ignore” list today. I think it’s for the best.

This is never going to turn into a bland, Ann Althouse-style site where everybody is polite and has tea and cookies — and where comments are deleted because they disagree with the host. I continue to seek out rational lefties (they do exist) and will continue to treat the intellectually honest ones here with respect. But some people are just not worth engaging. You know who they are; you’ve seen them over the past couple days. If I have anything to do with it, you won’t see them much more.

This has nothing to do with the offending commenters’ point of view, and everything to do with the offending commenters’ being poo-flinging monkeys.

P.S. I am away from the keyboard for long periods of time, so the monkeys will sneak through from time to time. Ignore them, be patient, and rest assured that they will be escorted out when I get a chance.

The cleanup has already begun.

It’s a very tough call whether you should view the graphic video of soldiers Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker, killed by terrorist animals in Iraq. You may view it here. Allah initially made the decision to post the video at Hot Air, and I think he was right to do so. While there is a serious issue of respect for the families, this is news. Captain Ed says it well:

In the end, I decided to watch the video as well as see the photographs, because I believe that we need to see who our enemies are in this war. We have shaded our eyes after 9/11 and even before that, allowing network news executives attempt to induce a collective amnesia by refusing to show the heartbreaking aftermath of the attack: people jumping out of windows 100 stories up because they had to choose between burning or falling to death.

This is what terrorists do. They try to suck all of our will to resist them by creating horrible images for us, taunting us with their cruelty and sadism. While we blather about whether Gitmo detainees might be bummed out with their three hots and a cot, Islamofascists butcher people for the fun of it. They do so because they want us to believe that we cannot beat them — that they are so evil that we cannot hope to compete with them.

That’s why I chose to view the video on Rusty’s site. We need to show that this butchery does not frighten us but steels our resolve to put a permanent end to such evil.

If you don’t want to watch a video of a decapitated body, you shouldn’t. But whether you watch it or not, you should be aware that this is what the terrorists are doing to our soldiers.

P.S. That vile woman Frisch is mocking Tucker’s death at her site. I’m not linking her any more. She is trying to set herself up as the next Ward Churchill. She and Ward can burn in hell as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not giving her a link.