I am a subscriber to Time—and around another fifteen to twenty publications (Iíve lost count). Increasingly, these items sit around for around a week until I actually read them. Half of my reading may now be taking place on the Internet. I subscribe, for instance, to both the paper editions of the National Review and The Weekly Standard. The only reason why I continue to do so is primarily out of a sense of obligation.

True. Ali is not responsible for the idiotic comments. And I can easily see him being very upset about something and posting the way he did. But I still wish he wouldnít.

Yuck. Just read through the current tail end of the comments at ITM – I’ve never seen so much ugliness there.

I suppose that Ali posted when he did because that was when he made the decision. I think he can be forgiven for not considering whether people would be tortured wondering wha???

The blame for all the silly speculation rests primarily with those who are speculating (e.g. me), not with him.

The ìHate Sweet Little Old Ladies Secret Societyî grows daily. You think that itís the Illuminati who rule the world? We took over that joint years ago! Hahahaha!

But seriously, I quite agree with Terrye. Ali should have either provided full explanation or just announced a break in blogging until he was ready to write on the subject. The comments in ITM at this point resemble Conspiracy Central. Rogerís name was dragged into this with some lunatic speculating that he is one of the exploitative ìextreme conservativesî.

There are folks out there who would say I am an old lady myself, I prefer “mature”. Although I have never been accused of being sweet..

What, are you joining Katherine with a “K” and Jamie Irons in antipathy for sweet little old ladies?

I hate this kind of thing. If he can’t tell people why he is walking away from the blog now, I wish he had waited to to even mention it. The blogosphere is great for gossip. The internet is worse than a bunch of old ladies in a beauty shop.