Asstuck-tastic

My eminent colleague Angel had an interesting entry last week on the subject of a certain blogger by the name of Susan. Susan’s website, In My Right Mind, offers such a cliched ultra right-wing viewpoint that must of us think it’s actually all an elaborate joke, in spite of her recent protestations to the contrary (methinks the lady doth protest too much). As she doesn’t have permalinks, I can’t link to that, but it was at the top of her blog at the time of writing: “For those of you who have been “told” that my site is a conservative “satire,” let me assure you that I am 110% Republican/Conservative/Right-Wing, proud of it, and none of this is a joke.”
The quotes are hers, by the way. I’m not entirely “sure” why certain words need to be “placed” in quotes.

Much of the recent commentary passed on her weblog has been on the subject of abortion, but that is not something I propose to go into here (for no other reason than the fact that it isn’t really the explosive political issue in the UK that it is in the US). Instead, the reason for this post is that I was amused by the consequences of my passing comment on Susan’s website (something that you can’t do on her site now that her comment functionality seems to have gone – not that I’m criticising, given my current lack of a comments section, but they are coming soon, I promise).

Anyway, I left a comment on Angel’s weblog about the fact that Susan’s site (at the time) rendered pretty horribly on the Mozilla family of browsers (my web browsing tool of choice). None of the line breaks worked properly, so all the paragraphs used to span several widths of my screen. I’m amused because, on seeing my comment she did two things:
(1) She fixed the problem.
(2) She posted this fantastic disclaimer on her site (the highlighting, and comments are mine):

“Quick notes for stupid visitors:

– I like graphics, and have lots of them on this page. If you don’t like that and don’t want to wait for them to load, then leave. My best advice for you would be to get a decent connection service so you wouldn’t have to worry about it. [Surely better advice would be to turn off graphics in your browser. Ah, no alt text, I see… – Matt]
– If this site doesn’t look perfect in your browser, I’m not too worried about it. I use Internet Explorer, not Netscape or Mozilla or any other second-rate program. [That’s a shame, actually, as I happen to think that Mozilla is a fantastic browser, for tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking if nothing else. The only problem using it is that you have to put up with websites that don’t conform properly to the HTML specifications – Matt] It’s your problem, not mine. You don’t have to stay here, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t invite you, anyway.
– I’m assuming that people who see this blog have seen other blogs, too. Therefore, I also figure that you have sense enough to know that posts and comments that are over a few days old go into the archives. Just because it doesn’t show up right away doesn’t mean that your comments have been “censored.” [Which explains why comment functionality has been completely removed from the site, how exactly? Matt]
– Last, but certainly not least, if you don’t agree with what is on this site, that’s fine. I really, truly don’t care. And you’re welcome to leave your comments on anything I write. [Er,?] Just don’t expect me to waste my precious time replying. Also, feel free to write about my blog on your blog, and use any kind of ridiculous made-up cuss word to describe me. [What, do you mean “asstuck”. It’s not ridiculous, it’s a fantastic word. We should all use it more – Matt] All it does is show your lack of creativity and intelligence.” [Surely making up words would be more creative, though? Matt]

[UPDATE: After writing this entry I came across a far more eloquent explanation of why bothering about the way other people see your site might be a good idea on Dervala’s blog.]