The Agonist - Blog Criticism

Scientist announces that she is call girl and blogger Belle de Jour

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:21:59 -0800

Guardian - One of the best kept literary secrets of the decade was revealed last night when 34-year-old scientist Dr Brooke Magnanti announced she was the writer masquerading as call girl Belle de Jour.

The author behind the bestselling books detailing her secret life as a prostitute decided to come out to one of her fiercest critics, Sunday Times columnist India Knight, after claiming anonymity had become "no fun". "I couldn't even go to my own book launch party", she said.

Until last week, even her agent was unaware of her name. But now Magnanti, a respected specialist in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology in a hospital research group in Bristol, has spoken of the time six years ago she worked as a £300 an hour prostitute working through a London escort agency. Magnanti turned to the agency in the final stages of her PhD thesis when she ran out of money. She was already an experienced science blogger and began writing about her experiences in a web diary later adapted into books and a television drama starring Billie Piper.

Magnanti saysshe has no regrets about the 14 months she spent as a prostitute. "I've felt worse about my writing than I ever have about sex for money," she said.

A month ago she revealed her secret to her colleagues at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health, who were "amazingly kind and supportive". She was preparing to tell her parents this weekend.

Magnanti said she was working on a doctoral study for the department of forensic pathology of Sheffield University in 2003 when she began her secret life. "I was getting ready to submit my thesis. I saved up a bit of money. I thought, I'll just move to London, because that's where the jobs are, and I'll see what happens.

"I couldn't find a professional job in my chosen field because I didn't have my PhD yet. I didn't have a lot of spare time on my hands because I was still making corrections and preparing for the viva and I got through my savings a lot faster than I thought I would."

Unable to pay her rent, Magnanti's mind turned to other things. She told the Sunday Times she wanted to start doing something straightaway, "that doesn't require a great deal of training or investment to get started, that's cash in hand and that leaves me spare time to do my work in" Her solution was prostitution.

"I did have another job at one point, as a computer programmer, but I kept up with my other work because it was so much more enjoyable."

Magnanti said her future lies in medical science, but she also has a literary streak. She has been writing a novel, and the Belle blog will "continue for a bit — I'd like her to have happy ending".

interview

Conspiracy Theories: When sceptics fight back

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 06:35:38 -0700

Arran Frood | Oct 6

BBC - Conspiracy theorists have used the internet to co-ordinate increasingly slick attacks on the accepted versions of events, but now a group of scientists and sceptics has decided it's time to organise and fight back.

Conspiracy theories are pervasive and popular.

A poll for the Scripps Howard media organisation in 2006 suggested 36% of Americans suspected government involvement or deliberate inaction in the 9/11 attacks, and belief in a Kennedy conspiracy ran at 40% in the same poll.

A decade after Princess Diana's death, one survey found a fifth of Britons believed she was murdered. And to millions across the world, 2009's Apollo Moon landing 40th anniversary was a hollow sham because we have never been there.

Conspiracy theories predate the internet but the web has provided a fast, accessible platform for groups to unite, gather research and disseminate information without even meeting or leaving their houses.

While many people find them harmless fun, others believe there is a darker truth - that conspiracy theories are rewriting history, warping the present and altering the future. Enough is enough they say - it's time to fight back.

Enter the sceptics with the gathering of The Amazing Meeting (TAM) in London, the first of the conferences outside the US. A fundraising offshoot of the non-profit James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), TAM London saw scientists, writers and comedians target conspiracy theories - and their close cousins pseudoscience and medical quackery - in front of an audience loosely allied by their desire for more rational, critical thinking.

"A lot of sceptics feel very isolated," says psychologist and magician Prof Richard Wiseman. "It's not a popular position to be saying 'Father Christmas does not exist' so it motivates people and acts as a springboard for people to see what we're up to."
9/11
Many conspiracy theorists believed the government was complicit in 9/11

This brand of scepticism is not new. The movement was first galvanised in the early 80s when spoon-benders like Uri Geller claimed not to be magicians, but to really have paranormal powers. It was an age that saw a test of Geller's abilities make its way into the prestigious journal Nature.

The internet era has changed everything. The web-only film Loose Change, which questions the findings of the 9/11 commission, had already been viewed 10 million times by May 2006. It has had a massive impact. But the sceptics are also using the internet to organise loose networks of informal meetings.

Today's sign that you might just need to have your medication adjusted

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:30:30 -0700

The best email EVER

from Kristen Atkinson <[REDACTED]>

to ken@wonkette.com

cc jim@wonkette.com

date Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 3:26 AM

subject my story
Dear Wonkette editors,
I posted a very serious article recently in Townhall.com about witchcraft in the White House, and later realized that your website had made a farce out of it. I saw that your staff and readers made a lot of extremely cruel comments about me and my story. Why are you people so rude? Does anybody take anything seriously anymore?
Do you really, truly, seriously think it is OK for a president to use a forged birth certificate? Do you actually believe it is appropriate for a man who was raised a Muslim to pretend he is a Christian and go to a church for 20 years with an anti-American preacher? Do you really want a president who was brainwashed by communists since he was a child, up through university, to hate America to be our president? Do you think that it is fine if a family member of the president defiles the White House with voodoo? Don't you know what fate could befall our nation as a result of allowing Satanic forces to gather over the White House?
After 8 years of a president sent by God to lead the American people and rescue us from the horrors of 911 and Islamo-fascists, it now boils down to this? How incredibly tragic. You folks don't really seem to understand the extreme peril that our nation confronts. Stop making fun of me. Take off your blinders! Wake up!
Respectfully, Kristen

Man, who needs to make fun of Kristen Atkinson...when she's doing a bang-up job all by herself? I could care less that I despise everything she believes in and stands for. It's a free country, and she's free to hold whatever opinions get her through the night. What I find so stunningly amusing is that Atkinson is genuinely offended by the idea that anyone would find her breathless bleatings to be the height of the comedic art. (STOP MAKING FUN OF ME!!)

I'm glad that there are Conservatives willing to voice their opinions. This is still a democracy, after all, and this whole "freedom of speech and expression" has worked pretty well for the past couple hundred years. Open and honest debate is a good thing. If one's open to it, it's possible to learn from the ideas and opinions of others. Here's the problem, though; freely expressing oneself doesn't mean the thoughts expressed are lucid, reasonable, and worthy of serious consideration. In Atkinson's case...well, 'tis still better to be though a fool than to spew all over your keyboard and remove all doubt.

If you've convinced that your belief system has been ordained by God, you're going to have to know that you're opening yourself to ridicule. At some level, you have to understand that "ordained by God" is simply your way of rationalizing and justifying your own narrow beliefs and prejudices. Faith can be a wonderful thing, but it can't reasonably be used to justify elevating your beliefs above all others and/or negating them altogether. The nature of faith is that belief cannot always be proven to be correct or real. If you use your faith to denigrate and dismiss the beliefs of others...well, you just end up looking arrogant and intolerant. Lord knows Atkinson has that going for her...in abundance.

If you're going to paint pictures in hues of religious conflict and Good vs. Evil, you shouldn't claim to be surprised when some pundits treat your "art" like open mike night at the Improv. Frankly, given some of the irrational, brain-dead bile spewed forth by Atkinson, one could be forgiven for assuming she's a (not particularly funny) comedian. "Witchcraft in the White House"? "Satanic forces"? "A President sent by God"? "Forged birth certificate"? This might actually be funny...if Atkinson wasn't so deadly serious and thoroughly convinced of the moral superiority of her beliefs.

If Atkinson can't handle the reality that some folks find her beliefs laughable, then perhaps it's time for her to find another line of work...or just stop reading sites she knows won't be favorable to her. Free speech and debate can often be silly, ugly...and occasionally offensive. Not everyone is a disciple of Miss Manners, so if harsh opinions and ridicule are going to be causes for alarm...well, I'll bet Home Depot just might be hiring....

Judge rules blogger's identity must be revealed

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:46:38 -0700

rcfp | Aug 18

A blogger lost his bid to keep his identity secret after a judge in New York City ruled that a fashion model had established a legitimate defamation claim against the blogger.

Establishing a legitimate underlying claim is necessary under New York rules of discovery before a subpoena to reveal an anonymous speaker will be enforced, according to the court.

The blogger had created a site called "Skanks in NYC," and had featured model Liskula Cohen in several postings. One posting labelled her a "psychotic, lying, whoring ... skank." more

** Judge: 'Skanks in NYC' blogger may be unmasked
** Vogue model Liskula Cohen wins right to unmask offensive blogger

The model was looking forward last night to discovering the identity of the alleged acquaintance who insulted her.

UNAP sources falling over each other to report the wrap

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:30:05 -0700

Content thieves, be warned: The AP isn’t sitting idly and taking your shit anymore.

While the 'protect, point and pay' new registry will make it easier to target blogs that distribute content through automated systems, it will not alert the AP when others manually rewrite stories or excerpt passages.

Agonistas can rest easy:

"It's not DRM," said Jane Seagrave, SVP for global product development at the AP. "It's CMI, copyright management information. It carries metadata about the story, it carries rights information and it carries a tracking beacon, a way of reporting back what's been found."

Aware that Facebook's Beacon initiative has turned "beacon" into a synonym for privacy invasion, Seagrave acknowledged that "beacon" is not a great word to describe the system. "It's not the same [as what Facebook did]," she said. "There are no cookies attached. We're not after personal information at all. What we're trying to find out is where the information is being used rather than who is using it."

Seagrave characterized the news registry as a business-to-business system designed to deter large-scale copying of AP content rather than individual bloggers who cut and paste a few too many paragraphs from an AP story. "It's not aimed at people who use part of stories periodically," she said. "It's aimed at being affirmative about how we allow our content to be used."

Bring on the court cases, the hackers, the divisions within AP but in the end the call is that to read all the news, we should have to pay to read the news. Back in June this was AP's position.

Bloggers under Warning in Caribbean

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:58:03 -0700

I would really like to ask all bloggers to take a look at this letter from a local 'indigenous' activist here on SXM giving a warning to bloggers. This Leopold James has been taken to task or criticized in blogs on our local site SXM Private Eye in the past. He doesn't like it.

Anyway, it's been blogged about by my friend LH and we would really like to hear some support and thoughts from the blogging world on this matter.

Caribdude

Fear, Threats and Intimidation - SXM PE

The nasty side of the internet

Tue, 12 May 2009 05:37:02 -0700

Paul Sheehan writes in the SMH - Several teenagers at an elite Sydney girls school are coming to terms with the full magnitude of their public betrayal via the internet. Where to begin? One has had her genitalia discussed in anatomical detail. Another has had her face likened to a koala's. A third has learnt that her circle of friends is not friendly at all: "She thinks she's best friends with lots of people but they actually hate her."

When I asked a friend, the editor of a heavily trafficked beauty site for young women, about the extent of cyber insults from other young women, she replied:

"As a blogger, I have been virtually assaulted many times. Women seem to find the anonymity and forums of the internet a thrilling way to be their nastiest, bitchiest, most insincere self, without any form of repercussion or damage to their reputation. It's vicious and disturbing the way they cluster to attack the blogger, or each other."

Gossip has become even bigger than porn on the internet.
related:
SMH - Backyard bullies have moved into cyberspace with such speed and aggression that police, governments and lawyers are testing new ways of slowing their spread.

Mish wants to roll back government salaries

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:41:58 -0800

Unbelievable. I'm a cynical swine and a cheerful warrior, but even I have a limit.

Mish wants to reduce government salaries.

It's time to roll back the salaries of all elected and appointed government officials at every level including local, state, and federal. It would be nice to see this happen voluntarily instead of by force.

Why do I read this gold-fetishizing Austrian nutbar again?

So, US Liberal Bloggers, do you really want US torture investigated?

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:33:10 -0800

I saw Bush for what he was before he got elected, I begged my US friends to vote for Gore, but they wanted the tax cuts Bush promised. Boy, how different would it have been if we had the Lock box Gore wanted for a rainy day and done a better job in Afganistan and not gone to war in Iraq. I wonder if there is some parallel universe branching off somewhere where Gore did get elected and life is 'dull and boring'.

Anyway, I didn't start this blog to talk about the global economic meltdown, I wanted to bring up torture, black prisons, rendition, kidnappings and other related matters, the ones that the US sppears to be shoving in the closet, trying hard to forget, and move on from. Personally, I'm starting to get disappointed in Obama, he's trying too damn hard to be Mr Nice in the middle guy, bringing everyone on board, but it is now starting to work against him. Sort of like a candle in the wind, weak, wavering and unsure. (Seriously Dude, you were given a majority and mandate, now call your party to order and most of all, figure out where you stand.)

Anyway, back to Torture. I want to remind you all that while hiding skeletons in the closet and trying to forget sounds like the simplest way to deal with it all, it's something the rest of the World is not going to let you forget. It's far better to confront it.

So, here's this story about US torture where two top judges state that the Bush Administration threatened the United Kingdom to break off intelligence co-operation over investigations of abuse and torture.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said last night: "Despite best efforts to shine a light on the grubbiest aspects of the 'war on terror', the Foreign Office has claimed that the Obama administration maintained a previous US threat to reconsider intelligence sharing unless our judges kept this shameful skeleton in the closet.

If this is true, then Obama has just lost me. I want to know if the Liberal blogsphere and Americans online are going to raise hell about this and force the MSM to address it, or if it will just get filed away in that closet.

Caribdude

Iran confirms detaining Iranian-Canadian blogger

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:41:32 -0800

Tehran | December 30

AFP - The Iranian judiciary confirmed on Tuesday that Hossein Derakhshan,a prominent Iranian-Canadian blogger, is under arrest over remarks he allegedly made about key figures in the Shiite faith, local media reported.

"Among the accusations, there are issues involving 'Aemmeh Athar' and some charges that have been made," judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said, referring to the 12 successors of the Prophet Mohammed who are central figures in Shiite Islam.

His highly political Internet diary, hoder.com, has not been updated since October 30 and some reports outside Iran said he had been arrested on November 1 shortly after arriving in Tehran on a private visit. A conservative Iranian website said in November that Derakhshan had been arrested over suspicions of spying for Israel.

The Big Question: Is Hazel Blears right to accuse political bloggers of undermining democracy?

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:42:36 -0800

Ed Howker | Nov 6

The Independent - Why are we asking this now?

Communities Minister Hazel Blears made a speech to the Hansard Society yesterday in which she criticised political bloggers in the UK. "Political blogs are written by people with disdain for the political system and politicians, who see their function as unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy," she said. Conservative grandee Lord Baker has described the comments as "extraordinary". He said: "She needs to tune into the modern world. People have a right to say what they think and if she doesn't like it she can blog back". However, Blears maintains that: "Until political blogging adds value to our political culture, by allowing new voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair."

interesting points are raised, that also apply to US bloggers and press

More lawsuits trip up bloggers on Internet

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:12:47 -0700

Dan Margoglies | Oct 13

Kansas City Star - Local blogger Dan Ryan has never been sued for his postings, although one commenter whose anti-Semitic ravings he deleted accused him of slander and threatened "to own my house."

Even so, Ryan, whose daily musings about politics, homemade beer and whatever else strikes his fancy appear at www.gonemild.com, said he was not overly concerned about getting sued.

"I have the benefit of being fundamentally judgment-proof — like most bloggers," he joked, referring to his relative lack of wealth. Also, he said, "I try to avoid anything slanderous or anything that would be actionable."

Ryan's caution may stem from his training as an attorney. Most bloggers, though, are less attuned to the niceties of the law. An increasing number are finding themselves on the wrong end of a lawsuit.

Blog growth slows; more bloggers are bringing home the bacon

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:19:15 -0700

Jacqui Cheng | September 24

Ars Technica - It's the second half of 2008, and contrary to some doomsday predictions, blogging has yet to reach its peak. The blogosphere has continued to expand, according to Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2008 report, and we are now beginning to learn more about what powers the blogging community. Though growth has slowed, bloggers are apparently becoming pretty savvy at making money while pursuing their blogging interests.

133 million blogs have been tracked by Technorati between 2002 and now. This number is almost double the 72 million tracked as of March of 2007, and quite a bit higher than the 35 million from spring of 2006 and 8 million from 2005. Though blogging in general is still on the upswing, the growth rate has clearly slowed in recent years—a trend that we noted last year as well.

more, with some interesting analysis...

Creationist campaigner has Richard Dawkins' official website banned in Turkey

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:59:43 -0700

Riazat Butt | Sept 19

The Guardian -

A Turkish court has banned internet users from viewing the official Richard Dawkins website after a Muslim creationist claimed its contents were defamatory and blasphemous.

Adnan Oktar, who writes under the pen name of Harun Yahya, complained that Dawkins, a fierce critic of creationism and intelligent design, had insulted him in comments made on forums and blogs.

According to Oktar's office, Istanbul's second criminal court of peace banned the site earlier this month on the grounds that it "violated" Oktar's personality.

Oktar, a household name in Turkey, has used hundreds of books, pamphlets and DVDs to contest Darwin's theory of evolution. In 2006 his publishers sent out 10,000 copies of the Atlas of Creation, a lavish book rejecting evolution on every one of its 800 pages.

Dawkins, one of the recipients, described the book as "preposterous". On his website the British biologist and popular science writer said he was at "a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content".

Good Citizenship

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:43:32 -0700

I believe in being good blog-world citizens. With that in mind, give this post at Corrente a read and help out if possible. Legal threats like this are simply stupid.