The fine art of blogging!

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post, "The art of begging!"

Terry (Belhumeur) is a likeable enough man, but a bit (descriptive deleated) who got caught up in things he didn't understand. I feel sorry for him. He had nothing to do with the petition. I still don't know why is he being sued?
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Dear Anonymous:

Thank you for writing. At all material times Terry Belhumeur was the exclusive, registered owner of www.CyberSmokeSignals.com. The day after the petition was posted he was advised by e-mail so to claim otherwise is to admit he didn't read his in-box nor view his website - possible but highly unlikely.

A point you may be missing is under Canadian law the owner of a site is responsible for everything published whether they wrote it or not. As part of that, they control entry through the Username and Password. Besides, factor into the equation the Manitoba Metis Federation leadership's fear of Blogs especially critical ones.

You'll notice we're careful to remove expletives and questionable statements from e-mail we receive which is why we deleted your colourful descriptive.

CyberSmokeSignals' original name was www.manitobametisfederation.com which Mr. Belhumeur had cybersquattered (registered as its owner because it had been left unprotected - rookie MMF mistake). He'd also done the same with several other Aboriginal sites. Presumably, the intention was to sell them back at a profit or possibly built new sites. This would seem to suggest while your descriptive may be colourful it might also be inaccurate.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk