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Michael Crichton Reaches A New Low...An Incredible Low

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Bark Bark Bark Donating Member (572 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 01:28 AM
Original message
Michael Crichton Reaches A New Low...An Incredible Low
Courtesy of Crooks and Liars...

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/12/14/the-cowardice-of-michael-crichton/

...but sourced by TPMmuckraker:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002156.php

Global Warming Denier Michael Crichton Fictionalizes Critic as Child Rapist

This March, Michael Crowley wrote a cover story (sub. req.) in The New Republic hitting blockbuster novelist Michael Crichton's very public denials that global warming was a proved phenomenon. That was the last he'd heard from Crichton until he picked his latest novel, Next. Here's what he found:

"Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. ...

"It turned out Crowley's taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but --as was his custom--tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child's mother as "fantasizing feminist fundamentalists" who had made up the whole thing from "their sick, twisted imaginations." This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley's penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler's rectum.)"

In an article posted to the New Republic's Web site today, Crowley responded:

"The next page contains fleeting references to Crowley as a 'weasel' and a 'dickhead,' and, later, 'that political reporter who likes little boys.' But that's it--Crowley comes and goes without affecting the plot. He is not a character so much as a voodoo doll. Knowing that Crichton had used prior books to attack very real-seeming people, I was suspicious. Who was this Mick Crowley? A Google search turned up an Irish Workers Party politician in Knocknaheeny, Ireland. But Crowley's tireless advocacy for County Cork's disabled seemed to make him an unlikely target of Crichton's ire. And that's when it dawned on me: I happen to be a Washington political journalist. And, yes, I did attend Yale University. And, come to think of it, I had recently written a critical 3,700-word cover story about Crichton. In lieu of a letter to the editor, Crichton had fictionalized me as a child rapist. And, perhaps worse, falsely branded me a pharmaceutical-industry profiteer."


Unfuckingbelievable.

One of the commenters at TPMM left this flawless comeback:

Reminds me of the story of hack fiction author Mikhail Crichton, who offered me $20 and a signed copy of "Jurassic Pork" if I'd let him suck my dick in the Port Authority restroom.

That story, of course, is pure fiction.
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CC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 01:32 AM
Response to Original message
1. A reason among many why I
do not read him anymore.



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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 01:36 AM
Response to Original message
2. I wouldn't stoop THAT low...
Okay, so I MIGHT create fictional super-villains based on the public personas of certain people, but I'd never turn them into a child rapist.

That's sick.
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MnFats Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 01:36 AM
Response to Original message
3. lawsuit time! HUGE lawsuit time!
Crichton has clearly gone out of his way to libel Crowley.
This is stupid on his part.

prediction: a huge judgment or a huge settlement.
what an asshole.
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LastLiberal in PalmSprings Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 02:43 AM
Response to Reply #3
7. Bring the action in Great Britain
From the claimant's side, the U.K. has much better libel and slander laws than ours.

Here's part of an article from the International Freedom of Expression eXchange:

Writing in "Index on Censorship," Professor Marcel Berlins says England's libel laws are particularly friendly to claimants, who don't have to prove that the libel allegedly committed against them is false. Rather, the burden of proof is on the defendant, who must prove that what was written was true. In contrast, laws in the United States place the burden of proof on the claimant.

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longship Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 01:45 AM
Response to Original message
4. At 6' 9", Crichton has to stoop pretty low to be that low.
Sorry. Couldn't help it.
He's still an ignorant jerk.
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Kiouni Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 02:56 AM
Response to Reply #4
8. how come they always show
a pic of him when he was in his 30's? He's like 65 now!
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Kiouni Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 01:53 AM
Response to Original message
5. Damn,
Edited on Fri Dec-15-06 01:56 AM by Kiouni
I've read almost all of his work and most of it is ok. The state of fear book was kind of stupid. It had a good point though, to question what you are told. I think most of the reviews that dog his book as right-wing propaganda didn't finish the book. He clearly spells out that he isn't against global warming theories but simply encourages people to be skeptics of what comes out of the science committee on both sides.

By the way having the guys name as the villain is a little too far. Reminds me of the seinfeld were jerry goes to that ladies work to heckle her and she looses a toe! funny but pretty twisted.
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MaineYooper Donating Member (555 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 03:17 PM
Response to Reply #5
11. questioning is good- that's what scientists do on a daily basis.
Edited on Fri Dec-15-06 03:18 PM by MaineYooper
But while you're thinking about questioning both sides of this debate, please include the motivation/source of funding of the various parties involved.

Most of the scientists arguing for models of human driven (or at least affected) warming are driven by three primary desires: learning something new, publishing papers, and getting grants funded. Peer review is not a perfect system, but on the whole it has served us well, and currently, this system is weighing in quite heavily in favor of models with a human effect.

On the other hand, the great bulk of the work arguing against human effects in climate change has been driven and funded by a small handful of companies with very real financial stakes in the outcome of the research and the debate. The biggest transgressor is Mobil/Exxon, but they're not alone.

Crichton has managed to focus his defamatory ways this time by picking a specific person to attack. In State of Fear, he arguably defamed most of the scientific profession, since he purports that all scientists who support the human-affected model are driven by some global conspiracy.

I am a professional scientist in a non-profit research institute, and I can tell you that the majority of my colleagues are driven mostly by the desire to get things right, and learn how things work. Of course, we necessarily have to stay employed, pay our staff, etc, but that is not the driving concern. If it were, we wouldn't be working in academic research...
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tblue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 02:37 AM
Response to Original message
6. He'd better watch it. Instant Karma is a mofo.
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izzie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 05:57 AM
Response to Original message
9. I believe Crichton believes what he writes about him self.
It is fun to be a great hero like Hemingway I guess. Not that their books are not good. Maybe it takes that over developed ego to be a pretty good writer but they are just people who wrote books.
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dorkulon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-15-06 09:25 AM
Response to Original message
10. Jurassic Dork (pic)
Made me think of this graphic I saw a while back...



http://www.buffalobeast.com/86/jurrassicdork.htm
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Crunchy Frog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-17-06 12:50 AM
Response to Original message
12. Michael Crichton's had a hard life. I can't really blame him
for being an angry person.

It was always his lifelong dream to be a doctor, but he was forced to quit very early in his career. I can't say that I blame him. I would have done the same thing if I'd accidentally amputated a leg when I was supposed to remove a gall bladder.

Then there was that suspicious business in the hospital morgue. Not that anything was actually proven, but... The fact that he was discovered cowering naked in the corner, coupled with the freshly deposited semen found in the dead woman's corpse... Well, let's just say that I can understand why he decided to abandon his medical career.

Hell, I may even write a novel about it. :evilgrin:
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Joe Bacon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-17-06 12:01 PM
Response to Original message
13. Has he contracted THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN yet?
Or is Gene Simmons still chasing him with those funky missiles?
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