There have been a few questions about the comment system used here at Weekend Pundit since I changed it back in July, so I'm going to post an updated version of the why's and how's. There have been a few problems with logging in for registered users, so after looking over the actual registration process, I realized there was a problem and this update should (hopefully) solve it. The updated section of our policy and registration procedure will be in bold.
From the July 23, 2010 post:
After being buried every day with spamments requiring moderation (between 100 and 300 per day) I decided it was time to change the comment policy here at Weekend Pundit. More than a few of you wishing to comment were being drowned out by the spam masquerading as comments, meaning I couldn't find your comments among all the crap filling my e-mail Inbox.
So here goes:
If you don't like it, that's just too bad. It's our blog, not yours.
From the July 23, 2010 post:
After being buried every day with spamments requiring moderation (between 100 and 300 per day) I decided it was time to change the comment policy here at Weekend Pundit. More than a few of you wishing to comment were being drowned out by the spam masquerading as comments, meaning I couldn't find your comments among all the crap filling my e-mail Inbox.
So here goes:
From now on anyone wishing to comment must register in order to do so. If you click on the Comment link on any post the login request will pop up. Make sure to select "Movable Type" under the 'Sign in using...' header on the Login page. If you use the other options - Open ID, LiveJournal, or Vox - the registration will fail. If you are not already registered click on the Sign Up link in the lower right hand corner and fill in the blanks on the form. Once you are registered and after I enable your account any comments you post will appear immediately without need for moderation by either Brent, Bagheera, or me.A Warning: Management (meaning me) reserves the right to ban abusers of the comment system, such abuses being defined as but not limited to threatening authors or other commenters - explicitly or otherwise, committing acts of libel, or promoting criminal acts.
Everyone is welcome to comment, even those who may vehemently disagree with us. It makes things more interesting for all involved.
If you don't like it, that's just too bad. It's our blog, not yours.
The important comment above refers to this entry: http://weekendpundit.org/2009/12/socialist-smokescreens-using-b.html
Tretyakov says that the KGB started the disinformation campaign by commissioning bogus studies by Kondratyev, Golitsyin and others. Knowing that Western scientists would not believe these bogus findings, the KGB didn’t publish them but used agents to spread them in the Western peace movement so that they would be picked up by Western scientists. The KGB targeted "Ambio", the journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which published a key paper in the development of the nuclear winter theory, "Twilight at Noon" by Crutzen and Birks. Tretyakov was not involved in the operation and says he was told about it by a former KGB official and that he researched it at the Red Banner Institute, the Russian spy school.
In fact, Kondratyev's paper, far from being part of a "carefully orchestrated KGB propaganda campaign", as Tretyakov says, was part of a joint Soviet/American exchange program between the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S.S.R. Hydrometeorological Service. A paper identical in content to the one that Tretyakov describes was published by Colorado State University in 1976 No-one other than Tretyakov has ever suggested it was fraudulent or written at the bidding of the KGB.
Tretyakov claims that Western interest in the nuclear winter scenario was also created by an unpublished study by Golitsyin, Moiseyev and Alexandrov. It is not possible to identify this paper. It has never been produced and its title has never been cited. Given the open publication of the Kondratyev paper, it is hard to discern its purpose.
Tretyakov claims that "Information from the study's key findings was distributed by KGB officers to their contacts in peace, anti-nuclear, disarmament, and environmental organisations in an effort to get these groups to publicise the propagandists' script." There is no record of any discussion outside scientific circles about global cooling after a nuclear war until late 1982, after Western scientists began to publicise their work on subject.
Tretyakov does not explain in what sense "Ambio" was targeted, but the implication is that it commissioned articles as a result of being fed fraudulent, unpublished data by KGB agents and that Crutzen and Birks made use of this data. No work by Kondratyev, Alexandrov and Moiseyev is cited by Crutzen and Birks, who relied only on data in Western publications. "Twilight at Noon" was refereed independently. If it used data for which Crutzen and Birks provided no citations - i.e., fraudulent data circulated to them by the KGB or, even more unlikely, data planted by the KGB in the peace movement and then picked up by Crutzen and Birks - one would expect the referees to have commented on it, but apparently they did not. Crutzen and Birks also acknowledge the critical reading of the article in draft by nineteen scientists. Apparently they did not notice the insertion of unreferenced data either. It is impossible to discern how the KGB exerted any influence on "Ambio" at all. If this KGB disinformation ever existed, it seems to have vanished without trace. The probability is that it never existed.
Tretyakov is the only source for this story. It has been repeated many times since 2009 but is always traceable back to him and cannot be followed any further. No-one has corroborated it and it is impossible to corroborate because Tretyakov does not give any sources for it.