Bitch, PhD has walked headlong into a hornet's nest. The apostrophe is correct. There's only the one hornet: one nasty, irate commenter on Bitch's excellent, popular blog. Coturnix is providing the best running commentary on the conflict.
The conflict is framed loosely around the question of "How much freedom of speech do bloggers have?" and "How much freedom of speech do commenters have?" (Look at my post on Dryden Democrats about Frameshop and the Iraq war for more information about how to reduce an issue to its simplest factors.) Is freedom an absolute? Can you have more freedom or less? Is it something like having enough rope to hang yourself?
Anyway, Bitch and the bloggers who've joined the conversation are among the best of the bloggers I read. I should list them all in my sidebar when I get around to it. Rana, at Frogs and Ravens, has a great viewpoint. There's a enormous amount of variety in the blog world. We tend to read the ones we like. I like the ones that help me figure things out. If you're not telling me something new, don't waste my time. Controversy is welcome in good blogs. But it has to add to the discussion, not block it. The degree of courtesy required varies but is entirely at the discretion of the blogger.
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