Netcetera the ‘webhosts’ for the excellent Quackometer have bowed under the pressure of the Joseph Chikelue Obi and taken down the Quackometer site with immediate effect. Here we have the worst form of censorship. The Quackometer was one of the best resources around for the debunking of pseudoscience and because of a couple of quacks and charlatans complaining it has been removed. In both cases the complaints of defamation had no grounds, otherwise fellow bloggers, like myself, who mirrored the offending articles would probably be on the receiving end of legal letter by now. If Netcetera actually cared about their customers, or even had a backbone they would have read the offending pages, and those that followed, and realised that both the SoH and Obi were taking a speculative swipe at those who have criticised them.

Thankfully there are some webhosts who understand the idea of customer service. Positive Internet, saviours of badscience.net, are currently working with Le Canard Noir to transfer the Quackometer to there servers. This is how, in my ideal little world, all companies would be run – make you money from big customers and help out the underdog who is being treated unfairly. Long live Positive Internet, long live the Quackometer (once it returns) and all hail those who are willing to fight against the endarkenment and those profiteering of its back.

*Edit*

For those who are looking for shared hosting I though I’d give you a few more reasons to use Positive Internet over Netcetera if the above is not enough (this may display a slight bias).

1. Netcetera is cheaper per month compared to Positive but charge for MySQL storage.

2. Positive Internet host FOSS legend Richard Stallman as well as the mirroring Debian Linux

3. You get full shell access even on shared hosting

4. Netcetera use Windows servers, ’nuff said

Currently I’m using Lunarpages for my hosting who have thus far been excellent. I am tempted by a change to Positive though, full shell access is almost too tempting to resist.

Update: the netcetera quackometer fiasco has now been picked up by ZDNet.

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Filed under: Badscience, Joseph Chikelue Obi, Libel by badchemist
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According to this all us bloggers who decided to defend another’s freedom of speech are shills for the GMC. We are sponsored by them apparently, as were the journalists who wrote the articles referenced by Quackometer, and others, about Obi previously.

When I was told that the Enemies of Alternative Medicine had recruited 5000 (Five Thousand) Bloggers to write rubbish about me 24 hours a day , ( every single day of the year ) , I said OK . . . Let’s wait and see precisely what they will say . . . (Because in my view , it is a perfectly Good Military Tactic to sit back and watch them all come creeping out of the woodwork , so that I know precisely what their capabilities are).

…Now , after speedreading almost everything that they have written , and also carefully analyzing their strategies , I have reached the simple conclusion that their plan has massively backfired ; as all that their 5000 Blogposts have done is provide me with even more ammunition for my Multiple Lawsuits . . . both against the Hosting Company of the Defamatory Blog Itself and the General Medical Council.

Maybe Obi should go and read up about libel and defamation. If those earlier articles are defamatory as stated he’s had several years to take legal action; and should have won if they were. British libel law is renowned for putting the emphasis on the defendant to prove their innocence rather than the complainant to prove their guilt. All the Quackometer and other commentators have done is take those articles in good faith, backed up with information provided on Obi’s own websites. He appears to have provided himself with no ammunition at all, particularly against the GMC who seem completely unrelated other than be the target of one of his campaigns. Being struck off obviously makes you bitter.

I have absolutely no criminal record or criminal convictions whatsover . . . and anyone who implies otherwise should be firmly made to pay the supreme price for their actions. . . and that is why they are all so worried that my Legal Team is going after them all ; because they know that when we do eventually catch them , they will certainly not escape their due punishment.

When has anyone implied that Obi had any prior convictions? To reiterate, Quackometer wrote:

He was being investigated by the police for taking thousands of pounds of a 58 year old woman to in order to cure a long standing illness.

This does not imply that Obi has any criminal convictions.

All Obi appears to have done with this article is further defame those who have criticised him as well as the GMC. Luckily my fellow bloggers and I don’t tend to go in for legal suits and prefer to respond to criticisms rather than try and silence them. For the record I have never had any dealings with the GMC. I am not in the medical profession. I am a research scientist and PhD student in chemistry, but as a scientist I know the difference between quackery and medicine. And I think that anyone will agree that throwing allegations of of racism and corruption can hardly be described as ethical.

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Filed under: Barking, Libel, Medicine and Health by badchemist
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The attempt by Joseph Chikelue Obi to silence the Quackometer really hasn’t helped him much. As a consequence their is a considerable number of mirrors of the original posts and LCN has uncovered some interesting looking info on his business dealings. Joseph Chikelue Obi seems to have experience with defamation suits having previously had one of his (seemingly endless list of) sites removed on such grounds before.

Currently a google search for Joseph Chikelue Obi yields several of the mirror sites or related articles on the front page of hits. According to another of his websites, the whois info gives his name and one address mentioned in the quackometer post, this does not worry the good doctor.

Alternative Medicine Strongman , Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi , has today survived one of the Most Lethal Bloggers Assaults in Modern History , with almost Five Thousand Defamatory Bloggers woefully failing to sink him despite their use of the very latest Internet Spamming Technology.

[Gratuitous use of italics his]

5000 bloggers? The most comprehensive lists of mirrors I’ve seen only have about 1/100th of that many. He’ll also be disappointed to know that the `Internet Spamming Technology’ of which he speaks is simply the same technology he uses to create his site: ordinary blogging software, email and people writing. [Edit: I've just reread that quote - "one of the Most Lethal Bloggers Assaults in Modern History" - even if you take blogging back to the early days of Usenet you're only in the 80s, still modern history. Were there `Bloggers Assaults' before the beginning of the internet? Did Rome fall because of a very small minority of people sticking bits of papyrus on public notice boards?]

Apparently, from the comfort of Belfast, he is quoted:

” Let them drink Bile if they so wish : In the Interim , my Multiple Legal Actions have already started , and will maverickly proceed as planned . . . Come what may “

I’ll look forward to receiving my letter from Tanya then, even though we still have no evidence she is a solicitor.

Yesterday Joseph Chikelue Obi also declared victory over the GMC. His petitions (here and here) have 272 and 64 signatories at the moment, the former has now closed as well. That really is a HUGE crushing blow to the GMC especially considering the 1,000,000+ road-pricing petition was pretty much ignored by the government. He also seems to have made a rather large logical fallacy in his analysis of these petitions.

Preliminary Comparative Analysis of the separate Downing Street Petitions above clearly suggests that 4 out of every 5 people would rather have the General Medical Council comprehensively abolished altogether , instead of trying to patch it up with one particular Investigation or another.

Assuming no duplicates in the two petitions 336 people have signed to date, approximately 4:1 abolishion:investigation. So 4 out of every 5 people would rather have the GMC abolished than investigated in a sample size of <350.

But the profound beauty of the matter is that because we selflessly devoted one full year of Ear-Deafening Mayhem to our cause , over 200,000 Doctors in the United Kingdom will soon be enjoying the Profound Regulatory Benefits of an Absolutely Fabulous year”.

If over 200,000 doctors are going to `benefit’ from the abolition of the GMC you would think a few more would have signed up, especially as they are the people being regulated by this supposedly unethical and institutionally racist body.

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Filed under: Barking, Joseph Chikelue Obi, Libel by badchemist
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