People losing their damn minds #10

Since on planet blog, one is open to charges of hypocrisy - allow me to qualify above concept that is part of an occasional series in this space. I'm working with the following assumptions:

1) Human race - even at the best of times - generally fairly insane.

2) Bloggers often a tad more insane than the general public.

3) This blogger slightly more insane than the average blogger.

Knowing myself reasonably well, I've calculated that I am in fact something between 25 and 33% insane. And in the interests of editorial balance, there are a few people - essentially my ex-partner (actually all of my ex-partners, when I think about it) - who would say that this is a rather generous self-assessment and argue that one is pushing into the dangerous 40% plus area. On one hand, since they do have a reasonable amount of evidence to work with, well, fair enough. On the other, people in glass houses really shouldn't throw stones.

So when we are discussing the topic - damn minds, losing thereof - one should be clear that I mean those with the majority shares in this area; the 50% plus crew.

Now, can I make a suggestion? If you have 'watch' at the end of your blog's title, I really think you should consider the possibility that you've lost your goddam mind. Not all, obviously. Political parties have power and huge publicity machines so 'party watches' almost certainly keep the insanity quota below the crucial 50+ tipping point.

But I'm afraid we can't make these allowances for others. Take Harry's Place Watch, for example. In the comments for one of the, um, three posts the author has managed so far, someone wrote about the dark forces at work behind HP:

"And no, you're not paranoid. Just another intrepid sleuth like myself about to blow the big banana on these fascistoleftist frauds and their anti-Gallowaynian hegemony...

Now, like you said, let's get to ridiculing them!

PS We have The Independent and The Guardian on our side - we cannot lose!"

Ah, but where to begin? Suffice to say anyone capable of penning the phrase "anti-Gallowaynian hegemony" has quite clearly and irrevocably done gone and lost their damn minds. You disagree? That's because you're insane.

Now one could mock that "Harry's Place Watch" lasted about as long as a wine gum but personally I think it's an encouraging sign; perhaps the author paused to think, "Fuck me - I'm out of my flippin' gourd", pulled back from the brink and has settled for a life below the 50% madness threshold. Or perhaps Harry's Place have had him killed - you never know.

Anyway, new, hitherto unimaginable levels of lunacy have been achieved with the arrival of Worstall Watch. Now, Tim Worstall has a pretty fundamentalist free-market ideology, which I don't share - and I never did get a copy of that bleedin' "Blogged 2005" book, which was a bit of a cheek - but he strikes me as a fairly decent sort who wouldn't kick puppies, burst the balloons of passing children with a fag, have people killed, or any other anti-social activities of that nature. In other words, nothing that would seem to justify having your own cyber-stalker. Take this, for example:

"This post on Paul Krugman is weird. It's admittedly rather hypocritical for a Watcher like myself to label someone else obsessive but Worstall does seem to have some issues with Professor Krugman. Today's post is particularly strange."

"It's admittedly hypocritical" indeed! For the love of all humanity, please take it to the next stage - not so much hypocritical as completely mental. It's not too late: the path to recovery begins with admitting you've got a problem. Otherwise next thing you know, you're covering all your electrical appliances with tin-foil, saying to yourself, "Hah - that'll stop the mind-control rays. CIA bastards - who do they think they're messing with?".

As for HitchensWatch - don't get me started...

This is the main picture of Hitch from 'HitchensWatch'. He looks completely fucked, doesn't he? On planet blog, pictures of Hitchens looking like that are used to denote evil, y'see? You can't see the connection between looking fucked and being evil? That's because the dark forces of the 'anti-Gallowayian hegemony' have obviously got to you. Time to break out the tin-foil.

(Hat tip: HP)