If there was ever a time for the Fighting Progressive Headbussa Brigade to hook up the bayonets and battle, now is a perfect time. One of our greatest strategic assets has been stricken from us suddenly, and the time is urgent.
I just discovered this sudden and frightening email from K over at Bitch | Lab enclosing some horrible news:
Hello,
Our host is kicking us off, telling us that we burn up to many bits and bytes.
RIP, to Bitch|Lab. We are trying to move it elsewhere, but we can’t afford
dedicated hosting fees.
That means the lists will all have to go away.
Very sorry about this.
K
For those of you who may remember, Bitch’s site was the subject of a nasty denial-of-service hack attack a coouple of months ago from someone who couldn’t quite accept her criticism of the likes of Ann Bartow, the radfem professor and creator of the Feminist Law Professors blog who basically threatened to out Bitch publically as a phony and a fake scholar who was "bashing feminists and feminism" (especially the kind Bartow supported).
Well..it turns out that the hosting company for Bitch’s site — hell, why not out them, HostM.com — basically attempted to blame and persecute the victim of the attack (namely, B|L) rather than actually go after the perpetrators….and decided to charge Bitch for all the overhead. Apparantly, this became too much for them, and today they unceremoniously and without any warning pulled the plug on Bitch’s entire domain (pulpculture.org); thusly killing not just the Bitch|Lab site, but also the three mailing lists (Kickingass, Squeeze, and Sexpos) that B|L had formed under that domain account.
She did say that she would attempt to reform the blog under another host, but due to the expense of dedicated hosting, she would not be able to afford to totally rebuild the site.
Obviously, this is such horrific news, since B|L’s unique combination of scholarship, theory, and biting humor has sustained a viable and important Left critique for such a long time.
I’m not sure what she will ultimately do, but I happen to think that those of us (Blackamazon?? Nubian?? Kactus?? Kevin?? Belledame?? Renegade Evolution?? Sly Civilian?? Do I have to go down the roll here???) who have been enriched by B|L have an obligation……hell no, a FREAKIN’ DUTY….to give back a little. What I am offering is that some of us should donate either some spare change or some of their bandwidth to allow B|L to reform her site and her blog…or else, donate the funds to allow her to find a suitable and adequate web host. I personally nominate my own host, LaughingSquid.com, which has served this ‘Dog quite well, is relatively cheap, and is totally reliable enough that their record of handling hackers is renowned. I am even willing to put up some of my own bandwidth, including space on this blog, to enable her to keep her message online.
Whatever it takes, whatever is neccessary, and by any means neccessary…we will revive Bitch|Lab to its rightful place. Or die trying.
OK…what say thou??? Say it with words..but mean it with action. Bitch|Lab deserves nothing less!!!
[Written by one verrrrrry pissed off 'Dog]
