My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
A quarter of a million pages later.
The pages read counter on this blog is closing in on 250,000, so it seems to be a natural review point. The blog came out of an extended discussion with some friends that occurred at the height of climate hysteria. We could all see the damage it was doing but for them it was an academic thing and consequently the discussion went around and around. In an effort to move it on, I posed Lenin’s classic question; what is to be done? The dreaded consensus was that there was nothing which could be done.
That answer didn’t work for me and after examining a lot of different avenues, I came back with the idea that writing a blog was a least a strand of something which I could do. They looked into it and assured me confidently that the odds were I’d be lucky to get five hits a week and settled back into the usual discussion. Everyone was comfortable just talking but no one was prepared to do anything.
I made a measured withdrawal from the group and left them to it. They’re probably still talking. They were good, clever people but the downside of living an orderly and ordered life is they simply didn’t understand about long shots. If it’s the only one going, you have to take it and make your mind up to have a bloody good go at it, whatever that might entail.
There’s nothing special about me or this blog; I’m a painfully imperfect ordinary person and this blog by its very nature will never be mega. It’s just the thoughts of someone who is genuinely surprised to realise what they plainly see before them is quite different from what they’re supposed to be seeing. That’s not a recipe for a content life but at the same time, I feel blessed that I still have that capacity to be surprised about things and more importantly, be prepared to do something about it.
Whether it actually achieves anything is an unknowable, but that’s the essential nature of a long shot, a leap of faith into the darkness, so that’s a pointless discussion I’ll leave alone. It’s by now an old and tired question for me, a part of my profound personal frustration with writing this blog.
There are so many other silly hearted things I’d much prefer to write about but they’re all off-mission. I can’t write about the science I love, because that’s not the demographic I’m aiming at. I write context, analysis and political trends. Cold infowar. I occasionally end up writing snippy articles about the petty financial green thievery in the developed world, without mentioning the ongoing industrial scale genocide caused by environmental policies in the developing world, because I know people are inured and ultimately bored by those stories. They just can’t relate to such misery for too long, so I tastefully ration myself to a rare sharp crack across the knuckles piece. They’d soon get bored with a succession of bleeding heart articles.
I write exclusively for people in the developed world in the faint hope of kicking off something at the Fat City end of the causality chain, which just might conceivably one day clink its way down to those one billion humans scraping along on a dollar a day, and have a palpable effect on their lives. Sometimes I think the blog’s readers might not really believe they exist as human beings – real actual people like you and me.
Everyone knows they exist but they’re somehow theoretical; they don’t have faces, eyes, despair or the loved ones who’re looking to them to get everyone through the grind of yet another day. That’s truly the Devil’s greatest trick – they’re the invisible ones, the victims who don’t have any input into this so-called debate, so they don’t exist in any meaningful emotive sense.
There’s an urgency, impatience and anger in me, which I have to brutally sublimate every single time I sit down to write the usual calmish indirect piece, or I’d be overwhelmed. That’s the necessary discipline and it fairly drains me at times.
But I will keep bashing away, because what I do know is that it’s a shot at doing something rather than standing idly by doing nothing. You never can tell. It might actually have some effect, no matter how modest.
©Pointman
Related articles by Pointman:
Comments
23 Responses to “A quarter of a million pages later.”Trackbacks
Check out what others are saying...-
[…] Yeah. I have been kinda absent. Busy. Incredibly busy. I hardly have time to read blogs let alone write one. So what am I doing? Well it involves electronics. And it is a long shot. Several long shots in fact. Which brings up something I was just reading by following an old link suggested by Facebook in a round about way and then going to the home page of the article linked in the link. Which is where I found this little gem . […]
LikeLike
Pointman's 
Dear Pointman (and I appreciate the name),
I forget how I came to your blog, possibly via Jo Nova, but then I forget how I came to her blog!
Your blog is one of the few lights in the window on a black night and I was so pleased to have found it.
I salute you.
LikeLike
Pointman,
Congratulations on a quarter million page views – that’s a milestone in any language. Certainly a little gristle for your concerned friends to chew on while they ponder the world’s injustices.
It isn’t hard to feel that there is little that ordinary citizens can do to remedy these crimes against humanity. ‘Letters to the editor’ remain unpublished, calls to radio stations are dismissively cut off, letters and emails to local and Federal politicians may be acknowledged but never answered, tip-offs to so-called ‘investigative journalists’ about known Climate Grant Fraud meet a resounding silence, questions to Green political candidates are never answered but invite another long diatribe about Climate Catastrophe.
So much information exists on the Internet that utterly refutes the Alarmist claims of Thermageddon but what to do with it? On sceptic blogs we can agree on issues, discuss posts, offer links to other sites or news articles and send these links to friends and family who remain concerned about AGW, but little on our political landscape changes.
All of the actual implementation of disastrous Climate Policies and Regulations remains the sole purview of our respective Governments and when both sides of the House remain in lock-step endorsement of the Climate Scam, not even an election will change the status quo. Just the means and method of wealth redistribution change and the same pockets are lined with increasing amounts of cash.
Apparently the heavily laden Gravy Train will continue to rattle along the tracks until Western Economies crash and burn; when the bean-counters’ ledgers run out of columns to shuffle the figures about and our Treasuries are full of IOUs.
Meanwhile Pointman, your posts are sincerely appreciated by so many of us for whom you explain complex issues in everyman’s language which we pass on at every opportunity. There’s now a groundswell of community awareness that didn’t exist a few years ago and we have you and your sceptic blog colleagues to thank for that.
LikeLike
I echo the comment above and look forward every week to your blog entries. They are a must read for me and I always seem to learn something from them. Bishop Hill steered me in your direction. The recent article on Journalism I read several times to get all I could from it. And then to see Cameron announce a planned “ban” on porn material that can be seen by children – which on the surface sounds good – but in reality is an early step to take eventual control of the Internet – verified your point in your piece. Just a matter of time it would seem.
Glad to hear you plan to keep bashing away. I, like others who read your blog, pass along the ideas and viewpoints you put forward, to those in our circle of friends and associates here in Canada. The word indeed gets out. Please keep up the good work.
Cheers
Ron
LikeLike
I am so glad you started this blog. I found you late, but your words often inspire me.
Blogs like yours are important. Out in the world, for quite a time, I only ever heard the hype pushing the panic. I was fed up with hearing it and I felt very – very – alone. WUWT was the starting point for me, and I found you through Anthony’s site, and now I do the rounds daily.
I would be insane with frustration by now if it wasn’t for blogs like this one and knowing that there are a lot of people who feel the same way. We are NOT alone, and the number is growing. It’s growing because of blogs like this and people willing to discuss the subject on all levels.
A blinkin’ breath of fresh air.
Thanks for being, Pointman.
LikeLike
Pointman, keep it up. I too read what you write and, as you know, have related what you write to others on my own website. Your reference to the billions reminded me of Stalin’s pithy remark that one death was a tragedy, while a million deaths was just a statistic.
With best wishes,
Don
LikeLike
Congrats Pointman
I remember first reading your comments on Delingpole’s blog at the DT and was greatly impressed by your writings then.
I think you walked away when Disqus took over and it took me some time to find this blog, I think I stumbled on it via Gibbet Hill.
Your postings are always worth reading and it is good to know that you and many others are out there taking the fight to the warmists.
Cheers
Bob
LikeLike
Pointman,
Well done, congratulations. I too enjoy your style, you hide your frustration at the length of time it takes for the giant to awake well.
There will come a time when the rush by the media and climate scientists to assure all and sundry that “I was always a bit suspicious of…” (fill in which ever part of the AGW mantra you like) will seem like a torrent compared to the trickle now. When that day arrives you will be able to hold head up with the rest of the skeptic blogosphere and say “I did my bit”
Cheers and God bless
LikeLike
Thank you for taking up your keyboard and your determination to get involved. I always look forward very much to reading your posts.
LikeLike
A quarter of a million hits! who’d a thunk it?
…….don,t stop now.
LikeLike
A tour de force Pointman. Nothing less. Your brooding, focused cynicism at the doing end of a keen eye is a real pleasure. The sardonic evisceration of the Big-Green puppeteers and the cognitively dissonant MSM in the orchestra pit is a pleasure. Thank you.
LikeLike
“I made a measured withdrawal from the group and left them to it. They’re probably still talking. They were good, clever people but the downside of living an orderly and ordered life is they simply didn’t understand about long shots.”
“If you decide to wage a war for the total triumph of your individuality, you must begin by inexorably destroying those who have the greatest affinity with you. All alliance depersonalizes; everything that tends to the collective is your death; use the collective, therefore, as an experiment, after which strike hard, and remain alone!” – Salvador Dali (The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, 1942)
LikeLike
Congratulations Pointman,
Not only have you set a standard, but you have created a unique perspective on our world and that of the foia ‘leaker’. We have watched history unfold before us and you have helped to record and document that history. However the war remains top be won and your contribution to the battles has been most worthy……Here looking forward to the next 2500 pages.
Thank you
motm
LikeLike
Plato: “The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
LikeLike
Well done!
I admire your self discipline, firstly in keeping the blog ticking over (it must be a grind at times, and unpaid at that) and secondly in containing the natural desire to pen highly emotional pieces about issues you care a great deal about.
IMO, it makes people’s work better in almost every case to do that. Like you, I was required to develop disciplined writing while working as a bureaucrat, and am thankful for it. You show the signs of having had to be concise, precise and dispassionate in your writing, and while the blog contains more passion than your previous writing probably did, a bit of restraint goes a long way in bolstering credibility.
Anyway, congratulations, and here’s hoping you will stick around long enough for the next big milestone.
LikeLike
Should you feel weary, remember the chinese proverb 水滴石穿（shui di shi chuan).
This can be translated (not by me) to mean: “Constant dripping of water wears away the stone.”
Already there are increasing signs that the stone is being worn through.
LikeLike
That is a good analogy.
Another is one of the oldest scriptures I have committed to memory:
“Truth is victorious, never untruth.”
LikeLike
Im an anarchist in the most organised state after N.Korea…..Sweden…I love to read your stuff..its intelligent,well put, and has a uniqe special aftertaste…that stays…youll get your million hits and more if you keep it up…I think you do…coz your just that kinda man. 🙂 Best wishes for the future.
LikeLike
Hazze, you may enjoy the latest from the “Skeptical Swedish Scientists”
LikeLike
Oh yeah..we have some good skeptics in Sweden… 🙂 but we have a media,corporate,state all in one kinda system…think theres some italian name for it…so the dancefloor for anything off PC is kinda small 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks for your message, Haze,
The whole world has a media, corporate, state: All-in-one.
A safe haven where politicians can hide! Liberals blame the capitalists. Conservatives blame the Communists. Behind the scenes they share the wealth of society.
But people are starting to wake up to this scheme.
With kind regards, Oliver K. Manuel Former NASA Principal Investigator for Apollo
Sent from my iPhone
LikeLike
Congratulations pointman and well done. In terms of content and style you put the mainstream to shame. It’s those enigmatic and easy to miss omissions in your articles which I like to puzzle over. What were the other strands I wonder?
LikeLike
Snap Webber. “Whatever that might entail”
LikeLike