Dear friends,

After being urged to do so by a lot of you (thanks!), I have backed up this blog on WordPress.  You can now find the backup blog here:

http://thesaker.wordpress.com/

For the time being, this is only a backup option so PLEASE continue to post your comments here and not on the backup blog.

Also, I am, alas, limited to 13MB of blogger import on WordPress.  At least the newest 13MB have been uploaded.  But the full XML file of this blog is 92.5MB so only the recent stuff has been backed up.  I have already stored the full 92.5MB of backup in a safe location, but unless somebody offers to host it elsewhere, only the more recent stuff will be on WordPress (from May 2011 from what I can see).

I also have another emergency backup blog here: http://thesaker.ucoz.com/blog but that one does not allow any importing of other blogs.  Still we can use it to stay in touch should something happen here.

Also, just as a reminder, my backup email address is vineyardsaker@mail.ru, you can use it if you want, I also check it regularly.

Also,

I am still looking for somebody capable and willing to automatically mirror this blog elsewhere, this would be the best solution by far.  Can anybody do that?

Finally, some of you have reported that this blog has been offline for 10min with a message saying that it has been deleted.  These are most likely blogger bugs, local network overloads or DNS problems.  So far, I did not get any threats from Google and, frankly, irritating as this blog might be for some, I am doing nothing against the Google policies.  I know, they can still pull the plug anytime they want, but at least on my end I do not see any signs of that happening.

A automatic mirror, hosted in Russia or China would, of course, be ideal (-: just saying, hint hint :-)

Please write down all the info above so you know where to find me, and all the wonderful contributors/commentators, should something ugly happen.

Many thanks and kind regards,

The Saker