Well, there's good news and bad news.

Presently I cannot post using the AOL browser, after resetting my IP.

However I can post with the same address using IE.

The implications of this however do not adequately address your concerns.

Want me to call a priest?

Well, I don't know... the thing is, this whole domain is kinda glitchy anyway. I frequently can't comment myself, or check trackbacks, etc., and of course I haven't banned myself.

YET. But I'm on warning.

Is there a decoder ring for this string?

Has that power been conferred upon me as well? Deleting C's comments?
What about changing them to say what he really means?

Holy crap.

I can.
But I promise not to.
Unless you say its OK for me to always delete C's posts where I see them.
Don't hog all the fun for yourself.

Ace,

You may want to consider handing out admin privs to a few others that you trust. The idea being that their only job would be to delete C's posts.

You could make a big thing of it and have them preform special tasks of loyalty. Like making stick their hands into fire or driving spikes into their legs or reading "My Story" or something like that.

Okay, all co-bloggers have the right (and duty!) to delete cedarford with extreme prejudice.

Check with Bill A. He's a really good at banning! Banned me twice in one day just for saying ...

When speaking of any group with an agenda, advocates, leaders and followers it is appropriate to refer to the group regardless of some who might claim the label yet disagree with portions of the agenda.

Some in the communist party simply wanted to be safer and have better stuff. That doesn't make it wrong to claim the communists wanted to spread communism worldwide.

It's because Cedarford is a self-loathing Ethiopian Jew ... isn't it, Ace?

or is it the AOL thing?

Would it do any good to just contact AOL, tell them that one of their members is a anti-semetic, racist troll and ask if there's some way to block him from accessing AoSHQ? A group I belong to has had similar problems and we always include a complaint to the offender's ISP. It's a registered user group though so it's easier to ban people.

Ace,
How about you tell Cedarford that he is banned and to never darken your virtual door again?

Will he have the class and dignity to just stay away on his own, realizing that he is not wanted?

Um, probably not.

Of course, as Bill A pointed out, all he needs is a new IP address and moniker in order to return, assuming he does not have the "class and dignity" to stay away on his own.

The only real solution is to hit the AOSHQ tip jar hard so Ace can hire some of his more questionable friends to get Cedarford whacked.

P.S. Ace, if this works you can buy your TV back from that Vietnamese hooker who stole it.

You know, if you weren't such a swarthy, hook-nosed miser you could pay some slave laborer in China 15 cents a day to delete Cedarford's messages for you.

It's not really an AOL thing. Most people get a new IP address every time they log in; that's by far the norm. It's often an extra option (and a high-priced one) to get a static IP address.

Some services may be doing static IPs by default, so you could get lucky with certain people. Or it might just appear that way, because with DSL and cable you keep your IP as long as you don't disconnect from the Net, so someone might have the same IP for days or weeks but will be magically unbanned if they log off and back on.

Alternatively, Cedarford could redeem himself by performing an act of contrition by, for example, contributing a guest post about what he likes about Israel.

This is not hard, especially if you've been there. I have. Always on business, but I had time on weekends to see stuff. The surprising thing about Israel is that the reality is so much different from what you see on TV. Israel is really a big party town. These people know how to have fun.

So, just to inspire Cedarford's act of contrition, I will list

TOP 10 THINGS MICHAEL LIKES ABOUT ISRAEL

10 The Arab spice markets in East Jerusalem

9 The Galilee Region, and eating Petri fish from the Galilee.

8 This famous Arab bakery in Jaffa (a port town that dates to Biblical times and is now surrounded by Tel Aviv) where Jews go because they make these incredible bagels. It's nothing like the bagels we buy here; it looks more like a kind of flatbread.

7 Hummus (there's apparently a raging debate about whether the Jews or the Arabs invented it) and the fresh fruits and vegetables. In general, the food is great in Isreal.

6 The drive up from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem where you can see all the areas that have been reforested.

5 The Holocaust Memorial.

4 Seeing so many women in uniform that I'd like to screw.

3 Israeli women in general. This country is incredibly endowed with breast tissue. Must be the diet, I figure.

2 A tie. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Masada.

aaaaaaaand the number one thing I like about Israel:

1 The people.

See, this is what happens when you step away from the computer for 12 hours - you miss a banning.

I missed viewfromireland getting banned from LGF back in the day, and now this ...

Some services may be doing static IPs by default, so you could get lucky with certain people. Or it might just appear that way, because with DSL and cable you keep your IP as long as you don't disconnect from the Net, so someone might have the same IP for days or weeks but will be magically unbanned if they log off and back on.

At home I have DSL (behind a firewall) provided by my company, and there's no way I can get back onto INDC Journal, where I was banned. So, from your comment, do I correctly infer that I have a static IP address?

Out of curiousity, I registered at Hotmail and tried to log on to INDC Journal using that email address to post a comment (which was blank) just to see if it would work. It didn't.

Ace, Bill seems to have the art of banning down cold. He also picked up on my computer at work. Maybe you could get some tips from him.

You're asking me? I'm clueless.

Someone upthread said that cable/dsl connections tend to retain their same IP, so long as they're not disconnected.

You're asking me? I'm clueless.

Of course I was not asking you. I was asking Fred, who sounds like somebody who actually knows something and is not a moron.

Michael,

Here's what I've seen:

1. Dialup is dynamic IP pretty much always.

2. Cable modems are dynamic IP most of the time.

3. DSL is usually dynamic IP with the option to pay extra for static IP (much extra...like triple).

4. Corporate and university accounts, however they're provided, are usually static IP (probably for tracking purposes).

You fall under #4.

If I had to guess, I'd say probably 80% of the people out there have a dynamically assigned IP address. The advantage of dynamic IP is the Internet provider can reuse them, so they only need enough addresses to handle everyone that will be online at once, not everyone they service. As people move toward always-on connections, that becomes less of advantage for obvious reasons.

Even if someone has a static IP they can still get around bans by going through another server. For example, if you purchase web hosting somewhere you can put a program on the host called CGI proxy that will make it appear you're coming from that host instead of your home computer (this is mainly used to get to blocked sites, not to hide your identity, but it works for either). Even if you don't have your ow site if you look hard enough you can find proxy servers. Hell, I once found a pet supplies site that for some bizarre reason had all their external links going through a proxy server so they appeared to be coming from their site. I poked in my own links just for kicks, and it served them up just fine.

Bottom line is if you know what you're doing an IP block isn't going to stop you. Probably the only effective block is requring user registrations with a short waiting period before allowing posting. That just makes it too damn inconvenient.

Fred:

Thanks for the advice. See, I knew you weren't a moron. BTW, what are you doing at AOSHQ?

So, my take-away is that in order to circumvent Bill's banning, because I have static IP addresses, I actually have to spend money by purchasing "web hosting somewhere" and then master a program called "CGI proxy," or I have to scour the web to find an idiotically open proxy server, following which, I will once again be able to contribute comments to Bill's blog which is now virtually defunct.

Let me think this over.

Here's one that you can subscribe to:

http://www.anonymizer.com/

There used to be some for free. There was even some human rights group who hosted one for a while so people in countries like China could access anything they wanted, but I wasn't able to find it doing a quick search.

OK, I found a free one. I'm in it now. Page is a little messed up but functional. Let's see if it let's me post. If so, then you're reading this message. The site is here:

http://www.anonprox.com/nph-proxy.cgi

Fred:

So, your message came through.

But when I go to the site, it requires that I have an url. I'm not that sophisticated. I do not have my own personal home page. All I have is email addresses.

I'm ready to throw in the towel. Bill has effectively locked me out of his dead blog.

But, thanks for the information. And if you want some advice, flee this blog. You are obviously too intelligent to be hanging around here.

Michael: If you ever get back in there (but can't imagine why anyone would want to) and want his head to explode, just ask him to "wake up"...that's all it took for me. Good luck.

But when I go to the site, it requires that I have an url. I'm not that sophisticated. I do not have my own personal home page. All I have is email addresses.

Why don't you just sign up for a blogger account? It'll give you a URL even if you don't actually use it to keep a blog, and it's free. If you click on my name it'll take you to my blog. At the top of the page is a block with the words "Get Your Own Blog" in it. Just click on the box and follow the directions.

DBS:

Tried, but every username I come up with gets rejected, from 2daffodils to WolverinesRule to Tsunami999Victim.

Am I doing something wrong?

Am I doing something wrong?

The amadillo daquiris need more dry cleaning fluid...

whew. close game

whew. close game

Yeah, I thought Vince Young was going to remember he was over rated at the end. Only the second time I can remember rooting for Texas, last year against Michigan was the other time. Hopefully OU will figure out how to fix their problems before the Shootout so it won't be too lopsided.

Tried, but every username I come up with gets rejected, from 2daffodils to WolverinesRule to Tsunami999Victim.

Am I doing something wrong?

I tried billofindc,but it refused the creation as already in use, but then it took my next choice of mustangmusings. The weird part is that if you search for that blogger address it doesn't exist. I guess you just have to come up with some name that isn't in use. When I made the cedarford blog I had to use cedarford1 because cedarford was already in use. If I thought about it I would have tried cedarford* instead. It might be tied to the work they've been doing on blogger this weekend.

I like Billsadick, but that might be hard to slip past him. I'll shoot you an email and see if I can help you out.

dbs

You put in the URL of the page you want to get to, not some URL you own, silly!

For example, to add comments here I put in the URL for this page:

http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/splorp.cgi?entry_id=117137

Note that this won't save you forever, as Bill will probably just block the anonymizer site after your first post. But you'll be able to get one kick in before you have to find a new site.

Fred & DBS:

Got a bad feeling Bill's been reading this thread and has already blocked the anonymizer site. Thanks to DBS, who got me an URL on the site, but that crafty Bill was one step ahead of us and I couldn't post with my new URL.

It's working here, though -- I used it to post this comment.