Is it censorship season or something?

Hard on the heels of the Turkish blocking of all Wordpress accounts, because one Adnan Oktar didn't like what bloggers had written about him, (see my post for links), comes this: a crackpot so-(self)-called scientist, Stuart Pivar, sues PZ Myers for libel.

Because he didn't like PZ's book review. Because PZ called him a "classic crackpot".

That's it. He didn't like the assessment, so he goes ahead and proves that it is appropriate; he acts like a "classic crackpot."

Blake Stacey has the story, updated as new comments come in from other blogs.

PZ, in one of his two book reviews (first edition, second edition of the book), shows a sample of his "research": an illustration of the development of a spider.

Here it is; you be the judge.

I had never seen before a spider with 10 legs. Here's a real spider, with all those legs clearly visible:

8 (eight) (4 per side) legs

Pivar's spider is not as accurate as this one (from an IIDB post):


At least they got the number of legs right. And, by the way, the number of legs is the first piece of information in any definition of the word, "spider".

From Encarta, for example:

spi·der plural spi·ders
noun
Definition: 1. eight-legged animal that spins webs:

Stuart Pivar is a crackpot.

Turkeys!

Remember that insult? My kids and their friends were using it back in the 1980s, to mean something akin to "stupid". I thought it was unfair, sometimes to the birds, and sometimes to the targets, usually other friends.

It may come back, but now with a slightly different slant.

Turkey (the country, not the bird) has blocked all wordpress blogs because one real turkey, in the 1980s sense, by name Harun Yahya, complained that bloggers were "defaming" him. (Read, "telling the truth about" him.)

Read more about it on Bug Girl's blog, microecos, Thoughts in a Haystack, Pharyngula, etc.

I'll quote a section from Pharyngula.

That fanatical nitwit wrote in to wordpress to brag about his accomplishment and demand that blogs that offend him be shut down, such as this one, and by the way, he'd also like all these blogs censored:

http://adnanoktar.wordpress.com
http://adnanoktarveislam.wordpress.com/
http://fitikado.wordpress.com
http://oktarbabuna.wordpress.com
http://adnancilar.wordpress.com/
http://adnanoktarveislam.wordpress.com/
http://whoisharunyahya.wordpress.com/
http://adnanoktargercekleri.wordpress.com/
http://quiestharunyahya.wordpress.com/
http://harunyahyaarabic.wordpress.com/
http://safsataciharunyahya.wordpress.com/
http://savsatalaracevap.wordpress.com/

It sure would be a shame if someone echoed all those urls, and these anti-creationist blogs got more publicity and attention because of a stunt by Adnan Oktar, now wouldn't it?

And now, I guess, poor Adnan Oktar, a.k.a. Harun Yahya, will have to go back to court to have Blogspot and Scienceblogs blocked, too.

Turkeys!