Pigs in Zen

Posted: September 01, 2009
9:11 pm Eastern

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A "pandemic response bill" currently making its way through the Massachusetts state legislature would allow authorities to forcefully quarantine citizens in the event of a health emergency, compel health providers to vaccinate citizens, authorize forceful entry into private dwellings and destruction of citizen property and impose fines on citizens for noncompliance.

If citizens refuse to comply with isolation or quarantine orders in the event of a health emergency, they may be imprisoned for up to 30 days and fined $1,000 per day that the violation continues.

"Pandemic Response Bill" 2028 was passed by the Massachusetts state Senate on April 28 and is now awaiting approval in the House.

As stated in the bill, upon declaration by the governor that an emergency exists that is considered detrimental to public health or upon declaration of a state of emergency, a local public health authority, with approval of the commissioner, may exercise the following authorities (emphasis added):

• to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises;

• to close, direct, and compel the evacuation of, or to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated any building or facility, and to allow the reopening of the building or facility when the danger has ended;

• to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated, or to destroy any material;

• to restrict or prohibit assemblages of persons;

• to require a health care facility to provide services or the use of its facility, or to transfer the management and supervision of the health care facility to the department or to a local public health authority;

• to control ingress to and egress from any stricken or threatened public area, and the movement of persons and materials within the area;

• to adopt and enforce measures to provide for the safe disposal of infectious waste and human remains, provided that religious, cultural, family, and individual beliefs of the deceased person shall be followed to the extent possible when disposing of human remains, whenever that may be done without endangering the public health;

• to procure, take immediate possession from any source, store, or distribute any anti-toxins, serums, vaccines, immunizing agents, antibiotics, and other pharmaceutical agents or medical supplies located within the commonwealth as may be necessary to respond to the emergency;

• to require in-state health care providers to assist in the performance of vaccination, treatment, examination, or testing of any individual as a condition of licensure, authorization, or the ability to continue to function as a health care provider in the commonwealth;

• to waive the commonwealth's licensing requirements for health care professionals with a valid license from another state in the United States or whose professional training would otherwise qualify them for an appropriate professional license in the commonwealth;

• to allow for the dispensing of controlled substance by appropriate personnel consistent with federal statutes as necessary for the prevention or treatment of illness;

• to authorize the chief medical examiner to appoint and prescribe the duties of such emergency assistant medical examiners as may be required for the proper performance of the duties of office;

• to collect specimens and perform tests on any animal, living or deceased;

• to exercise authority under sections 95 and 96 of chapter 111;

• to care for any emerging mental health or crisis counseling needs that individuals may exhibit, with the consent of the individuals

State and local agencies responding to the public health emergency would be required to exercise their powers over transportation routes, communication devices, carriers, public utilities, fuels, food, clothing and shelter, according to the legislation.

Local public health authorities will be required to keep records of reports containing the name and location of all people who have been reported, their disease, injury, or health condition and the name of the person reporting the case. In addition, citizens may be subject to "involuntary transportation."

Line 341 of the bill states, "Law enforcement authorities, upon order of the commissioner or his agent or at the request of a local public health authority pursuant to such order, shall assist emergency medical technicians or other appropriate medical personnel in the involuntary transportation of such person to the tuberculosis treatment center. No law enforcement authority or medical personnel shall be held criminally or civilly liable as a result of an act or omission carried out in good faith in reliance on said order."

The article continues with information regarding vaccinations and how they are handled under the proposed Mass. law. To read further follow the link provided [here].

A blank document from the Iowa Department of Public Health has been discovered online, designed to be filled in with the name of an H1N1 virus victim who is required to relocate from his or her home to a quarantine facility.

The form, which began appearing Aug 31 in e-mails and on the Internet, has concerned a confused public already swimming in conflicting reports about the severity of the swine flu and intrusive government measures that many fear may be taken if the disease becomes a pandemic.

The Iowa document, which WND confirmed with state officials is authentic, has done little to calm the public's fears.

"The Iowa Department of Public Health has determined that you have had contact with a person with Novel Influenza A H1N1," the form reads. "The Department has determined that it is necessary to quarantine your movement to a specific facility to prevent further spread of this disease.

"The Department has determined that quarantine in your home and other less restrictive alternatives are not acceptable," the document continues, before listing mandatory provisions of compliance with relocation to a quarantine facility.

According to the CDC, the following states have implemented legal actions in response to the H1N1 virus:

Florida – the Florida surgeon general suspended distribution permit requirements Florida statutes to allow wholesale distribution of Tamiflu and Relenza. The state has also distributed a series of blank quarantine order forms, including a voluntary home quarantine agreement, a quarantine to residence order, a quarantine to residence order (non-compliance), a quarantine to facility order, quarantine detention order, quarantine of facility order, building quarantine closure order and area quarantine closure order.

Iowa – In addition to the facility quarantine order listed above, Iowa has also made available forms for voluntary home confinement, home quarantine and home isolation.

Massachusetts – Massachusetts lists its own procedures for isolation and quarantine.

North Carolina – The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services released a draft isolation order that would provide for imprisonment for up to two years and pretrial detention without bail for any citizen who fails to comply with an isolation order.

Washington – Washington grants authority to local health officers to issue emergency detention orders causing citizens to be immediately and involuntarily isolated or quarantined for up to 10 days.

In addition, governors and health commissioners in the following states have declared a state of emergency since April following concerns about the H1N1 virus: California, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The Future Looks...Prophetable!

By Howard Schneider

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 31, 2009

TEL AVIV - The office door has a steel vault veneer, and Shari Arison -- controlling stockholder in Israel's largest bank and its largest construction company, heiress to the Carnival Cruise Lines fortune and head of a long list of other undertakings -- has a lot to protect.

And as with any proper vault, this one is full of surprises.

Fairy figurines fill a knickknack shelf, and paintings of fairies hang from the soft-toned walls. Statues of dolphins leap from a cream-colored carpet, and goldfish gurgle in a tank just behind a chair. A yard-long see-through candleholder with a dozen flickering votives is angled across Arison's desk, looking like it connects to Kabbalah or the Upanishads or Area 51 or Something Larger Than Us, but which she says is there just because.

But the biggest jolt comes from the woman in the executive chair: Arison -- billionaire ($2.7 by Forbes's most recent estimate), perhaps the richest woman in the Middle East, a major force in Israeli philanthropy -- claims that she can see the future.

This is much bigger than a parlor trick. In her new book published this summer in Israel, the 51-year-old Miami native says she felt the Indonesian tsunami sweeping over the land two months before it happened and sensed Hurricane Katrina pummeling New Orleans. In an interview, Arison says she also "saw the writing on the wall" before the global economic crash. Reading about Arison's extrasensory perception makes you ache for a heads-up, maybe a blog entry or a tweet or a phone call to Brownie or Greenspan or somebody who might have helped.

Arison explains that she has finally dropped the fear that has held her back from doing more about what she has perceived. Armed with the insight gained through work with Florida-based psychiatrist Brian Weiss, a proponent of regression therapy and the exploration of (take your pick) deep memories or past lives, she says she is ready to go public with her visions and bring together her spiritual and business goals.

"Dr. Weiss told me during these meetings that one day I will have a significant role in world peace, but at that time I did not know what he was talking about and I could not cope with the idea," Arison writes in "Birth: When the Material and Spiritual Come Together," published in Hebrew as a hybrid memoir, corporate vision statement and collection of speeches. A possible English edition is in negotiation, according to an Arison representative.

"Over the years I suffered much from the visions, the feelings and these messages . . . I prayed they would go away. They brought much pain to my life. This was the preparation for the current phase, the phase in which I am ready to declare what I know with courage and without fear."

And according to her book, the visions are getting nicer.

"There is still difficulty and pain in them, but they are going and fading away," Arison writes. "If in the past, the visions were always harsh, catastrophic, violent -- recently I can see the new world. The quiet, the calm and the freedom it will have. This is a very comforting knowledge for me because I already know that what I envision materializes."

for the entire article...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/30/AR2009083002473.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/30/AR2009083002473_2.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/30/AR2009083002473_3.html

Again...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/28/AR2009082803270.html

By Mark Viera and Maria Glod

Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 29, 2009

BLACKSBURG, Va., Aug. 28 -- In what has become a sadly familiar ritual, about 100 students huddled together Friday on the Drillfield at the heart of the Virginia Tech campus, weeping and singing hymns as they mourned two slain classmates.

Heidi Childs, 18, and David Metzler, 19, bright and promising students who were active in Campus Crusade for Christ, were found fatally shot Thursday morning in a national park about 15 miles from campus. Police said Friday that they had no suspects.

The deaths of the young couple, which took place during the first week of classes, shook a community that has endured a string of tragedies. In April 2007, it became the site of the worst mass killing by an individual in U.S. history when a troubled student fatally shot 32 people and himself. In January, a student was decapitated in a campus cafe, and a classmate was charged.

"It's more disbelief," said Olivia Kasik, 19, a sophomore from Woodbridge. "It happened again. You can't really wrap your head around it."

At Burruss Hall, the administration building, flags were lowered to half-staff. A wreath bore the names of Childs and Metzler. Some professors took time before class to talk about the shootings.

In a letter to the campus community, Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger urged students to seek support and solace from one another or counselors.

"Once again, this community is visited by senseless violence and tragedy upon aspiring young minds from our campus," Steger wrote. "I know that many of you likely have complex feelings about now. How can this happen in this area, at thi time, to this community?"

Montgomery County sheriff's officials said a passerby at Caldwell Fields, a popular hangout for Virginia Tech students in Jefferson National Forest, found the couple dead in the parking area about 8 a.m. Thursday. Metzler was in his car, and Childs was outside the car.

Lt. Brian Wright of the sheriff's office said the pair apparently went alone to the remote area, where people camp and picnic. The students, both sophomores, were last heard from Wednesday night. He said no guns were found at the scene.

Wright said investigators have not found links to any other crimes and are asking anyone who had been in contact with the couple to call.

"You have two real good kids just trying to have a nice evening, and they were killed for apparently no reason," Wright said.

Childs, of Forest, Va., was the daughter of Virginia State Police Sgt. Donald Childs and was studying biochemistry. Metzler, of Lynchburg, studied industrial and systems engineering.

Kent Gregory, youth pastor at Heritage Baptist Church in Lynchburg, said the teenagers, who were deeply faithful and read the Bible daily, met through the church when they were in middle school. He said Childs had been home-schooled and Metzler went to a public school.

Both were close with their families, Gregory said. He said Childs was one of eight children and Metzler had three older sisters.

Gregory said the teenagers, who played guitar in church praise groups, began dating about two years ago. In summer 2007, they went on a missionary trip to New Mexico and helped run a vacation Bible school.

"They just loved the little kids," Gregory said. "They got down and played with them."

At the sprawling campus Friday, many of the 30,000 full-time students who had moved in only days earlier went about the business of starting the school year. Students expressed sadness, but some said the slayings had not received much notice because classes had just begun and the shootings did not occur on campus.

But for many, the killings hit hard.

Larry Hincker, a university spokesman, said Friday that he attended a meeting to discuss how to assist students, faculty and staff, many of whom are still reeling from the April 16, 2007, rampage. One of the people in the meeting, he said, was Jerzy Nowak, founder of the university's Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention. Nowak's wife was slain in the mass killing.

On Friday, the university released a list of numbers for counseling and other services. "We are a strong community and, as we have before, I urge you to care for each other and seek help and support whenever necessary," Steger wrote.

"It's a huge moment again," said Brian Covington, 21, a senior from Herndon. "It seems like something happens every single semester here. I don't want to say we're numbed to it or used to it."

Stay tuned for more...in the meantime Loren Coleman is on the scene!

http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2009/08/vatech09.html

The Man Who Spoke with His Mind

I first heard about this aspect of the story from Richard Metzger of Disinfo fame and now "Dangerous Minds"...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/28/california.missing.girl.blog/index.html

ANTIOCH, California (CNN) -- The man accused of abducting an 11-year-old girl in 1991 apparently maintained a blog in which he claimed to control sound with his mind.

The blog now has profanity-laced responses from people outraged over Phillip Garrido's alleged actions.

Police say Garrido confessed to abducting Jaycee Lee Dugard at age 11 and fathering two children with her. Police say Dugard and the children, now 11 and 15, were kept in several enclosures hidden behind his home in Antioch, California.

Garrido and his wife are in police custody.

Garrido's blog entries are posted by "THEMANWHOSPOKEWITHHISMIND." He refers to "God's Desire," which is a church based out of his home in Antioch, according to CNN affiliate KCRA of Sacramento.

In a post on August 14, he writes that during a "powerful demonstration" in July in Pittsburg, California, "the Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world."

"You too can witness what the world believe's [sic] is impossible to produce!" he writes, providing an e-mail address. "DON'T MISS OUT!"

Several news outlets, including The New York Times, have reported on the blog since the case started making international headlines Thursday.

In an interview from jail with KCRA, Garrido repeatedly asks the interviewer to retrieve legal documents he said he recently gave to the FBI, specifically for the news media, that he said will reveal "the most powerful, heartwarming story."

After listening to the excerpt of that interview, forensic psychiatrist Helen Morrison said Garrido's "grandiose" statement sounds similar.

"It sounds like so much like so many people that we hear about who have changed their lives because they've been visited by something to make them see the ways that they were bad in the past and now they're perfect," she told CNN's "American Morning."

It may be what he told his alleged victim in an effort to brainwash her, Morrison said. And that could make it difficult to prosecute him on criminal charges.

"If she's led to believe that this is suddenly become a caring, wonderful, lifesaver, when they have her on a witness stand, they're going to have to be prepared for some very difficult defense cross-examination," she said.

In another blog posting last year, Garrido claims to have a "new insight that has the potential of helping people who hear voices to possibly stop and reexamine their thinking before committing a violent act on themselves and/or others."

This technique, he writes, could help prevent tragedies, such as the woman who threw her three children into the San Francisco Bay in 2006 and later claimed to have been following directions from the "voice of God."

"This tragic act could have been avoided if my findings were made public before she found herself being led by a powerful internal and external [hearing] process that places the human mind under a hypnotic siege that in time leads a person to build a delusional belief system that drives them to whatever course of action they take," he writes.

He also posted several "declarations of affirmation" from 2006 allegedly signed by six witnesses "to affirm that I Phillip Garrido have clearly demonstrated the ability to control sound with my mind and have developed a device for others to witness this phenomena."

Timothy Allen, one of the six people identified as a witness, said Garrido forged his signature on the "declaration."

Allen -- who owns a glass shop in Pittsburg, California -- said Garrido printed business cards and letterhead for his company for 10 years.

"I had no personal contact with this guy outside of the front counter of my business," Allen told CNN. "He's got a lot of weird stuff going on, that guy ... I would have never in a million years thought it was anything dangerous or bad."

Allen said Garrido would come into the office with two young girls when he would drop off printing orders.

http://voicesrevealed.blogspot.com/

His blogging profile also reveals that he had four other blogs created although only one of them contains any actual content. They are titled as follows: Charging the angels with error, The Truth Will Set You Free, (another titled) Voices Revealed, and Exposed.

The blogsite The Truth Will Set You Free aka "Boast about This" contains the following message...

JEREMIAH 9:24 "But let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," 2 CORINTHIANS12:1 I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. 2I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows. 3And I know that this man--whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows-- 4was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. 5I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses.

Sticks and Stones II

http://peeringthrough.blogspot.com/2009/08/sticks-and-stones.html

(CNN) -- Blog fans in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, saw PittGirl as their masked superhero -- a comedian and local commentator who jibed the mayor without reserve and ranted freely about her hatred of pigeons.

But despite her effort to keep her real name secret, people started to figure out who PittGirl was.

Feeling pressure to take control of her identity before someone else outed her, PittGirl on Wednesday posted pictures of herself on her blog and introduced readers to her real-world self: Virginia Montanez, a 35-year-old married mother of two who worked in the nonprofit sector.

"My friends and family call me Ginny," she wrote on her blog. "But you can continue to call me Your Majesty, because I've grown accustomed."

On Thursday morning, Montanez was fired from her job because of her online persona, she said.

Montanez's and other online coming-out stories highlight the complicated way people view anonymity on the Internet and the high stakes that come with trying to keep up an online persona.

The reasons people want to be anonymous online vary. Political whistle blowers fear retribution; employees want to separate the personal from the professional; artists want their work to stand up without an attached biography; and some writers like Montanez take on a sort of Everyman quality by keeping their real names off their posts.

But there also are reasons why a person with an online persona might want to come out of the closet.

Some anonymous bloggers, like PittGirl, worry their veils of anonymity will be pulled back against their will, and plenty of news events validate their fears.

Earlier this week, for example, a New York Supreme Court judge forced Google to reveal the identity of a blogger who had been posting rants about onetime cover girl Liskula Cohen on Blogger.com, which Google owns.

No true anonymity

That case, and similar ones before it, send the message that the cloak of online anonymity easily can be lifted, said Judith Donath, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

But it's difficult to say whether the Web is becoming more or less anonymous, she said.

"What's increasing is the range of forums and the types of anonymous environments people have to choose among," she said.

Some sites, like Facebook, encourage people to give lots of information about their real-world selves. Blogs are more of a mixed bag, she said, where many people write under assumed names or put their words in the mouths of invented characters.

But such split identities can easily be merged -- either through the judicial process or by using technology.

Courts have set general guidelines that a plaintiff must meet before forcing a person out of online anonymity. But the rules are still in the making and are up for interpretation, said Daniel Solove, a law professor at the George Washington University Law School and author of "The Future of Reputation."

On one end of the spectrum, a court could out a blogger simply because a legal action is filed against the person. That's troublesome because any good attorney could leverage the courts simply to expose a person's identity, he said.

At the other extreme, a judge could say a plaintiff must prove the blogger defamed someone before forcing a company like Google to reveal the person's identity.

Technology also can be used to unmask someone.

Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for the rights of anonymous speech, said there are tools people can use to try to hide their footprints online. But none is 100 percent effective, he said.

That leaves some online writers who use pseudonyms in the stressful situation of not knowing if or when their real names will be revealed.

Blogging waiter wants publicity

For Steve Dublanica, a New York City waiter who ragged on his customers for years through a blog called Waiter Rant, the tension of being outed gnawed at his stomach like a bad cheeseburger.

Dublanica said his boss and co-workers knew of his blog. But as his site got more and more popular, people started having contests to figure out who he was.

He valued his secrecy because he says it afforded him creative freedom and access to good material. "If [the customers] know you're going to write down what they're saying or what they're doing they tend to act differently," he said.

Dublanica didn't out himself because of the stress of keeping the secret, though. He got a book deal. And he wanted the publicity and recognition that came with it.

"The nice thing about not being anonymous is I can take credit for all the work I do," he said. "The bad stuff ... was that it was terrifying in the beginning. You just didn't know how people were going to treat you."

Alaska blogger outed by politician

Jeanne Devon, a 43-year-old political blogger in Alaska, had her identity revealed after a state legislator published her name in a newsletter.

Devon, who blogs on a site called The Mudflats, says she has mixed feeling about being forced out of the closet. In one sense, she says, she was able to be more herself while writing under an assumed name.

"There are things that you know, or that you feel sort of in your heart of hearts, that you might not want to put out there in a public way" with your name attached, she said. "If people always spoke without filters, we'd learn a lot more."

She also says she has felt more support from her readers and her community since her real name was published.

Some bloggers who post under their real names say that those who write under pseudonyms have something to hide or don't want to be held accountable to their audiences.

Getting 'dooced'

Heather B. Armstrong, who was fired from her job after her employer discovered her blog, Dooce, where she posted under her real name, said there are few valid reasons a blogger should veil his or her identity.

"I think if you're doing something anonymously you've got some issues going on," she said. "There's a reason that you're hiding."

People now use the term "dooced" to refer to being fired because of a personal blog.

Armstrong, who writes about her family, says she's received all kinds of hate mail -- from people who call her kids ugly to those who tell her she's an unfit mother and should have her children taken away from her.

Being honest about her identity has helped Armstrong get through those criticisms and through other hard times.

"I credit my audience with saving my life back when I had postpartum depression because of all of the encouraging e-mails they sent me," she said. "The good far, far, far outweighs the bad, and my life has been incredibly enriched through the Internet."

Hero unmasked

Montanez, the fired blogger in Pittsburgh, said she's trying to find an upside in what's happened to her. Her former employer, the Negro Educational Emergency Drive, did not respond to CNN requests for comment.

She doesn't like the idea of being in the public eye. She describes herself as shy and said part of the reason she wanted to remain anonymous was so she wouldn't draw attention to herself. She also feels like her larger-than-life persona has been somewhat deflated now that readers know who she is.

But now that she's out, she figures she might as well try to capitalize on her newfound openness.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/21/outing.anonymous.bloggers/index.html

The Power of Suggestion.

Are UFO Sightings linked to Sci-Fi Films?

from BBC Monday, 17 August 2009 14:58 UK

In 1996, the Earth was under attack from an alien mothership. Do you remember?

Fortunately, Will Smith was on hand to save the planet. This did happen. At least in cinemas.

Independence Day was the blockbuster film of the year, but the fiction it portrayed may have had an impact on the real world - a huge jump in the number of reported sightings of UFOs.

Documents from the Ministry of Defence released by the National Archives show the department recorded 117 sightings in 1995 and 609 in 1996.

This was also the year when television series The X-Files, about attempts to find extra-terrestrial life, was at the height of its popularity in the UK.

David Clarke, an expert on UFO sightings based at Sheffield Hallam University, believes there is a link between sightings and science-fiction.

"The more that alien life is covered in films or television documentaries, the more people look up at the sky and don't look down at their feet.

"Maybe what they are seeing is ordinary, like an aircraft, but because they are looking for a UFO, they think it is one."

It's difficult to prove, he says, but there is a correlation between films and what people are reporting as strange objects in the sky.

The year with the most sighting was 1978, when Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released in the UK, although the year that ET was packing people into cinemas, 1982, was a year when sightings dipped.

"The lows are also interesting. After 9/11, there were a few years when everyone was distracted by what was going on elsewhere in the world, and then the last couple of years there seems to have been more sightings, possibly due to Chinese lanterns being released at weddings and festivals."

The MoD figures should be treated with some caution, he says, because in later years they only refer to sightings passed to it by other authorities like the police, RAF or coastguards. So they are vulnerable to being distorted if one person or one group of people makes multiple reports.

Before 1973, the cases were investigated and in the preceding 14 years, 223 of the 2,310 sightings remained unexplained, which is one in 10.

The vast majority were discovered to be aircraft (960), satellites and debris (378), celestial objects like planets and stars (221) or freak weather (176).

'Anti-science'

Of the cases that remained unexplained, says Mr Clarke, most were difficult to investigate with accuracy because they happened long before the investigation.

"But within all this noise, there is a genuine unexplained phenomenon. I don't think it's aliens but there is something peculiar."

Possibly what people are seeing are atmospheric phenomena like ball lightning, he says, which are still little understood.

And maybe having mysteries like these is a good thing for everyone, because it generates an appetite for discovery.

"A lot of people believe in UFOs and want to believe in them as a reaction to scientists, who can now explain where we come from and the beginning of the universe.

"UFOS have become an anti-science symbol that people can rally around. Some things are unexplained and people love that mystery."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8205424.stm

Sticks and Stones

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6801213.ece

From The Times

August 19, 2009

A Vogue cover girl has won a precedent-setting court battle to unmask an anonymous blogger who called her a “skank” on the internet.

In a case with potentially far-reaching repercussions, Liskula Cohen sought the identity of the blogger who maligned her on the Skanks in NYC blog so that she could sue him or her for defamation.

A Manhattan supreme court judge ruled that she was entitled to the information and ordered Google, which ran the offending blog, to turn it over.

Ms Cohen, a tall, Canadian blonde who has modelled for Giorgio Armani and Versace, went to court after reading the wounding anonymous comments on Google’s Blogger.com.

“I would have to say the first-place award for ‘Skankiest in NYC’ would have to go to Liskula Gentile Cohen,” the blogger “Anonymous” wrote in one posting. The blog, since removed, ridiculed the former Australian Vogue covergirl as a “40-something” who “may have been hot 10 years ago”, when she was actually 36.

Justice Joan Madden rejected the blogger’s claim that the blogs “serve as a modern-day forum for conveying personal opinions, including invective and ranting”, and should not be treated as factual assertions.

The model was looking forward last night to discovering the identity of the alleged acquaintance who insulted her. “Everybody is waiting to see who this coward is,” Steven Wagner, her lawyer, said.

Andrew Pederson, a Google spokesman, said: “We sympathise with anyone who may be the victim of cyberbullying. We also take great care to respect privacy concerns and will only provide information about a user in response to a subpoena or other court order.”