Another commenter liked my comment and suggested that it might soon disappear. I replied that I had made preparations and included a link to this blog. Newton and some of his regulars belittled my blog. I also made a response to a comment by Newton that disappeared from the thread. I asked him if he deleted it and he replied that he didn't know what happened to it. He said as a rule that he was not deleting comments. And he included this quote from Mao: "let a thousand flowers bloom". I responded by reposting my comment and hazarding a guess as to what Mao's moderation policy might be.
NCSE uses the DISQUS commenting system. When you log into your own DISCUS profile, comments that are in moderation will include a red box that says "pending". Deleted comments will have a red box that says "removed".
About Mao's Quote
According to phrases.org.uk, "let a thousand flowers bloom" is actually a misquote. The actual quote from a speech in Peking (Feb 1957) is:
"Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land."From their entry:
This slogan was used during the period of approximately six weeks in the summer of 1957 when the Chinese intelligentsia were invited to criticize the political system then obtaining in Communist China.
And:
It is sometimes suggested that the initiative was a deliberate attempt to flush out dissidents by encouraging them to show themselves as critical of the regime. Whether or not it was a deliberate trap isn't clear but it is the case that many of those who put forward views that were unwelcome to Mao were executed.
Links:
http://ncse.com/users/steve-newton
http://ncse.com/blog/2015/10/who-counts-as-climate-scientist-0016688
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/25/judith-i-love-ya-but-youre-way-wrong/
https://disqus.com/
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/226950.html
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