The brutality of local politics

Entry #459
Wednesday, April 18, 2001

It's been a rip-roaring roller coaster week. At work on Monday, I got a call from some guy from the Sidran for Mayor campaign, informing us about a web site we host that "seriously misrepresents a speech Mr. Sidran gave." On top of that, he told me, it's offenensive to Sidran and to members of his family.

I was pretty sure he was talking about my site.

He used the phrase "because there may be some action on this," noting that it may be libelous. He asked if we have any restrictions on what our users may post and I said we do and gave him the URL for our terms of service. I briefly explained that we don't allow any illegal activity, so if something was indeed libelous it would thus violate our terms of service and we would remove it.

He asked something in legal terms -- I forget exactly what the words were, but basically he was asking if we would take action before a court decision.

I said no. We don't decide what's libelous. You'll have to take it to court.

He never asked my name, so I'm assuming he had no idea it was my site. At first I was a bit concerned about the call, but after a while I decided that I should be outraged at the tactics Sidran is using. Calling up ISPs and trying to get them to pull the plug on anti-Sidran sites. The horror!

I sent it to Kery Murakami at the PI and hopefully they'll do a story about Sidran trying to quietly shut down critical Sidran sites. If Kery doesn't want it, I'm gonna pander it to the Weekly and the Stranger.

Oh, it gets funnier. Grepping through the web logs, I found that Sidran has the fine folks a Perkins Coie (a big downtown law firm) working on the case. Now, when you go to the web site from a Perkins Coie address, this is what you get.

Teehee. Teach those bastards to mess with me.

The ol' mayoral dunking initiative is looking good. We've retained a campaign manager. Check out our press release, titled "Mayoral dunking campaign hires Den Mother." Funny stuff.

Oh, since Isabel has no comment form on her journal, feel free to bash her boyfriend on my page.

Comment on this entry

I think it's fair to say that your web site is a parody, and thus protected from being libelous... It doesn't have to be funny. You're imitating his web site for comic relief or in ridicule. That's parody. You're fine.

Hey, everyone go meet Brenna

http://www.hotornot.com/r/?emid=KYNSGR

(and like Izzy, she too doesn't have a comments section...)

That Marky-Mark guy certainly is an ugly bastard. Tho' bashing his dead mother was a little low, in my opinion.

I forgot to mention his web site (http://sidranformayor.com/), which I basically modified (hence the part about his mom).

And I find it hard to believe you find something a little low.

I generally lay off the dead folks, though sometimes they do look sexy... lying there so cold and silky...

Benjamin, remember when you told me I was getting wiser the other night....well I show much wiser now!! Thank you very much. Remember though, I stand behind you 100%, even though I might not always believe in the same things I do believe in your right to express. Love you Mom

My mom's cooler than your mom. Nan-ee nan-ee poo poo.

pee in your butt !