Bloggers

WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said yesterday that he was offended by the provocative messages two of his campaign bloggers wrote criticizing the Catholic Church, but he's not going to fire them. Edwards issued a statement and answered questions about the fate of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, two days after the head of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights demanded they be fired for messages they wrote before working on the campaign.

Cathy Young professes to be shocked because a blogger for the Chronicle of Higher Education was sacked for dismissing as "left-wing victimization claptrap" black studies dissertations which she admitted she had not read ("T he academic left's intolerance ," Op-ed, May 12). Would Young be equally shocked if a reviewer for Daily Variety was booted for savaging a film he hadn't watched? If the Wall Street Journal fired a writer who excoriated a company's business practices without studying its financials?

By Gary Dzen, Globe Staff Several of the best Celtics and NBA bloggers in the business were kind enough to join me for a roundtable to discuss the upcoming NBA season. They are, in no particular order, Jimmy Toscano of Celtics Blog , Jay King of Celtics Town , Ethan Norof of Bleacher Report , Jeff Clark of Celtics Blog , Steve Alexander of Rotoworld , Jon Duke of Celtics Stuff Live , Jessica Camerato of CSNNE.com , Brandon Paul of CLNS Radio , and John Karalis of Red'sArmy.com . This is the sixth and final installment in a series previewing the...

CAMBRIDGE — Seattle food blogger Michael Natkin is demonstrating a dish from his new cookbook. It's an appetizer of goat cheese with sauteed grapes. "If you blink, you're going to miss it," he says — and he's right. The author of "Herbivoracious: A Flavor Revolution, With 150 Vibrant and Original Vegetarian Recipes," is in the new test kitchen of How2­heroes, the cooking videos website. To make the dish, he sautes a bunch of red grapes, which are cut in half ("the only way you can screw this dish up is if you buy grapes with seeds," he says)

PITTSBURGH - They wish he’d done more in his first eight months, but the liberal bloggers who helped propel President Obama to the White House are far from giving up on him. “He’s making some strides . . . but I think there needs to be more action,’’ said Lisa Derrick, a Los-Angeles-based blogger and one of those gathered in Pittsburgh for the annual Netroots Nation convention. Rumblings on the left could spell trouble down the road for the president and for other Democrats.

Emily Vanek is not buying up a bunch of LeapPad Explorers herself, but she may be at least partly to blame for some stores selling out of the $99 children's tablet this holiday season. "The LeapPad is incredible," the Denver mother of three boys wrote to the 6,000 readers of her ColoradoMoms.com blog. "Not only do kids get to have a toy resembling their parents' tablet, it's durable and my favorite part?! It's not just mindless games they are playing. " These days, mommy bloggers don't just gab about spilled milk and poopy diapers.

Mexico's hyper-violent Zetas drug cartel appears to be launching what one expert calls a "frontal offensive" against people who post crime reports on an Internet chat room. It's an apparent bid to control information about Mexico's drug war. Residents of the border city of Nuevo Laredo say a man's decapitated body was found there, laid atop a banner suggesting he had been killed for posting on the web site "Nuevo Laredo en Vivo. " Experts said Thursday users of the site are probably vulnerable to such attacks, and that the Zetas could be tracking them from clues...

PARIS — No more plugging of Twitter accounts or Facebook pages on French broadcast airwaves. France’s audiovisual authority says that TV and radio stations that promote their sites on the two gargantuan social media services on air are actually engaging in secret — and unfair — advertising. Some French bloggers, bemoaning that their country seems out of touch with the Digital Age, pilloried what it considered an antiquated stance. On May 27, the Superior Audiovisual Council said that broadcasters could legally point viewers or listeners to their sites...

(Globe Staff file photo / By David L. Ryan) Could there be a monster living beneath the serene waters of Jamaica Pond? By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent State officials released some 1,150 fish into Jamaica Pond last month, saying the bounty would feed the imaginations of local anglers as winter gives way to spring. However, some speculate that the annual hefty stock of trout and salmon could feed a different hunger: a mysterious monster that lurks beneath Boston's largest body of freshwater.

Emily Vanek is not buying up a bunch of LeapPad Explorers herself, but she may be at least partly to blame for some stores selling out of the $99 children's tablet this holiday season. "The LeapPad is incredible," the Denver mother of three boys wrote to the 6,000 readers of her ColoradoMoms.com blog. "Not only do kids get to have a toy resembling their parents' tablet, it's durable and my favorite part?! It's not just mindless games they are playing. " These days, mommy bloggers don't just gab about spilled milk and poopy...

(Globe Staff file photo / By David L. Ryan) Could there be a monster living beneath the serene waters of Jamaica Pond? By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent State officials released some 1,150 fish into Jamaica Pond last month, saying the bounty would feed the imaginations of local anglers as winter gives way to spring. However, some speculate that the annual hefty stock of trout and salmon could feed a different hunger: a mysterious monster that lurks beneath Boston's largest body of freshwater.

A Chinese blogger is seeking compensation for a one-year labor camp sentence he served after posting a brief poem mocking now-disgraced politician Bo Xilai, in a test of the legal system's willingness to examine scores of alleged abuses committed under his rule. Retired civil servant Fang Hong said he filed an appeal Tuesday at the No. 3 Intermediate Court in the mega-city of Chongqing where Bo held extensive powers until he was recently sacked as municipal Communist Party chief and suspended from other posts in China's biggest...

1/The Street Styler MARTINI SEVERIN / 34 beyondbostonchic.com BLOGS ABOUT Stylish folks she scouts on the street, everyone from Australian hipsters and chic Parisians she photographs on her travels to locals on Boston Common. "I very much look for people who have their own voice. " SHE'S WEARING Ganni dress from Anthropologie, Elk wood bead necklace from Australia, glasses from See. SIGNATURE ITEM "I have quite a collection of necklaces and bangles from my travels.

NEEDHAM — They slip into the poshest kitchens for gorgeous buffets laid out in their honor. Public relations pros court them. Chefs line up to serve them. They are not scouts for the next Food Network star or critics from Zagat. They're not even particularly well dressed. They are bloggers who brunch, smartphones in hand and cameras around their necks. And they are in demand. Since 2010, Boston Brunchers has grown from an informal group of scribes meeting monthly over the leisurely meal of the week, to a 150-member powerhouse that's become one of the most influential groups in town.

BEIJING - China will expand nationwide a trial program that requires users of the country's wildly popular microblog services to disclose their identities to the government in order to post comments online, the government's top Internet regulator said yesterday. The official, Wang Chen, said that registration trials in five major eastern Chinese cities would continue until wrinkles were worked out. But he said eventually all 250 million users of microblogs, called weibos here, would have to register, beginning with new users.

Here's Vancouver Sun blogger Harrison Mooney on Saturday's game and the "uninformed" Bruins crowd. It's not surprising that [Henrik Sedin] dislikes the Boston faithful. They can seem...uninformed. (Of course, when you consider where they get their information, you can't blame 'em.) For example, Cory Schneider got the start in this game, but the crowd jeered Luongo five times. Ridiculous. Only once did they get it right, chanting "We Want Luongo," proving that their relationship with him is akin to a kindergarten crush.

NEEDHAM — They slip into the poshest kitchens for gorgeous buffets laid out in their honor. Public relations pros court them. Chefs line up to serve them. They are not scouts for the next Food Network star or critics from Zagat. They're not even particularly well dressed. They are bloggers who brunch, smartphones in hand and cameras around their necks. And they are in demand. Since 2010, Boston Brunchers has grown from an informal group of scribes meeting monthly over the leisurely meal of the week, to a 150-member powerhouse that's become one of the most influential groups in town.

WASHINGTON - The Federal Trade Commission will for the first time try to regulate blogging, requiring writers on the Web to disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing products. FTC commissioners voted 4 to 0 to approve the Web rules, which take effect Dec. 1 and carry fines of up to $11,000 per violation. Bloggers or advertisers also could face injunctions and be ordered to reimburse consumers for financial losses stemming from inappropriate product reviews.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is fighting on behalf of a blogger with apparent Occupy Boston ties who has been subjected to a subpoena that authorities filed through a social media site. Peter Krupp, an attorney from Lurie and Krupp LLC, who is working on behalf of the ACLU, said the ACLU has moved to have the subpoena, sent to Twitter, quashed on First Amendment grounds. A hearing has been continued to today in Suffolk Superior Court. Krupp said the ultimate target of the subpoena is a blogger who calls himself Guido Fawkes, and who goes by the Twitter handle @P0isAn0N.

CAIRO - A prominent Egyptian blogger accused of attacking soldiers during deadly clashes was released yesterday after nearly two months in detention, during which he became a symbol of the prodemocracy activists' struggle to end military rule in Egypt. Alaa Abdel-Fattah's first stop after he was freed was Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in February. The square continues to be the focus of the campaign against the military, which took power after Mubarak's ouster.