For those of you who do not get the Laundry reference I will elaborate. Charles Stross assumed a multiverse in this book series and that one could use mathematical alogrithms to communicate with aliens. The parallels with witchcraft were noted: and the aliens consider us Scooby snacks. Or as he put it, they find us nice and crunchy… with sauce.

Since we are both from the commonwealth, the only sauce we share is Tomato sauce.

But trolls and opposition is one of the facts of life in the internetz. Mundabor, a Papist who prays that I will join the Barque of Peter (and I pray he is one of the elect) has a method of dealing with such issues. He does not swing the banhammer as much as some form of selective virus that takes out any people who troll him and all their supporters.

When I started writing this blog I decided that the smart way of doing it was to limit interactive battles to the mere minimum, and devote the time to my little space on the Internet instead; at least as much as my fiery nature can manage.

Since then, I have been insulted many times, by many people, very publicly: from homosexual journalists to frustrated bloggers, and from failed seminarians to outright nutcases. Add to that a lot of atheists and perverts, but those I do not even count as worthy of notice.

Whenever I detected something of the sort, what I did is to look for the commenters who supported the attacker and ban them from my blog (yes: there are people out there who will praise you on your blog and insult you elsewhere; that’s how much they love to see their nickname on the Internet). Then I make a knot on my handkerchief, and remember the episode at the appropriate juncture. Then… well, that’s it, really. But trust me, I have a long memory, and the knots on my handkerchief are rather strong ones.

This way of running the blog has several advantages: it avoids the never-to-bed-and-you-know-you-have-to-work-tomorrow internet evenings; it avoids giving more ammo to atheists who then mock us for attacking each other; it saves vast amounts of adrenalines; it avoids making of the blog something self-referential, and it allows to dedicate the time to the blog topics instead, ad maiorem Dei gloriam.

Let me stress this particular point again: the savings in adrenalines are vast.

From blogger to blogger, I must say this to you: it’s the smart way to go. I know it out of quinquennial blogging experience. Mind, it does not mean that I will leave an attack unpunished. I tend to leave very little unpunished. It means that, as smart people used to say, est modus in rebus.

But he has a view count in the millions. He has had more opposition than I have.

I reblog it because it is not quite my tactics. I will basically let anyone comment — who gets through the spam filter that stops viagra, nike shoes, and Ms Obagabue from Nigeria or Uganda with her financial advice —

But you get about 1.5 chances. Then the hammer swings. If you have been around for a while you get more leeway. I continue to have a sense of humour (God be praised). But this is not a free for all: I will confess that swinging the banhammer is as enjoyable as trolling twitter. I have a combative side, and I am far more abrasive than nice. Besides, Trolls deserve mockery: it tends to be lethal.

Finally, I tolerate a certain amount of insults against my Reformed faith. Papists are going to be papists. The orthodox, orthodox. There are the elect among them. I am not going to get into fights with beleivers about Saints, or Mary, or Transubstantiation. We have enough enemies inside the church, and even more outside the church.