Stupid Plagiarists

North Dakota’s most insipid blogger, Ryan Gustafson, managed to find a copy of a recent column I wrote about North Dakota’s Indian reservations (“The Appalling State Of Our Indian Reservations”) on some Canadian “progressive” blog with a completely re-written conclusion.

The conclusion on the “progressive” Canadian National Newspaper website (which is included in Google News) blames racism among North Dakotans for the Indians’ problems (this is the newspaper’s home page):

So how is this happening in North Dakota? A state that is thriving economically right now? A state where the unemployment rate is so low that employers are practically screaming for workers? I know why it’s happening, but not a lot of people are going to want to hear it — institutionalized racism which has been perpetuated from the days of U.S. expansion into what American colonist perceived to be against ’savages’. The Civil Rights movement has yet to reach many parts of America, and notably ‘Indian Country’ in North Dakota.

My conclusion blamed the appalling state of the reservations on big-government, liberal/socialist policies:

Our government has tried to take care of the Indians for decades now, and all it has resulted in is rampant crime, rampant unemployment, rampant substance abuse and poverty. It is cruel to perpetuate the current system simply because the idea of removing assistance from these people seems cruel. What is cruel is putting them in a situation where there is no impetus to succeed. Now is the time to shift the responsibility for making it in the world to the Indians themselves. Not only to help them, but also to end the mean charade of the status quo.

There were other changes made to my column in the plagiarized version aside from the conclusion, but you get what they were trying to do: Completely change the meaning of my column.

I’ve left a comment on that blog, emailed the blog owner and emailed the company which hosts the blog asking for the column to be taken down.

Update: You won’t believe the email I got back from these idiots.

This is what I sent them:

Someone on your site is plariarizing my work. This “Rob Tross” article:

http://www.blog.agoracosmopolitan.com/?p=274

Is a modified duplicate of a column I wrote for my blog and a local magazine:

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/the_appalling_state_of_our_indian_reservations

I would appreciate “Rob Tross’” version of my column be taken offline and an apology put in its place.

I will await a reply within 48 hours after sending this. If I don’t receive one I’ll be taking legal action.

This is what I got back:

Dear Mr. Rob Port,

Many of you Americans seems to be always seeking a quick way to make a fast buck, by trying to abuse your legal system with vexatious claims, eh.

Our legal system in this country, does not tolerate such vexatious claims, and a matter of fact, often places heavy fines on such abuses of the legal system.

The cited article which is now DELETED was received as a “Letter to the Editor” from the email (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). on May 1, 2007, and was published in good faith, to support public awareness of human plight on U.S. Indian reservations. There was no attempt to “plgararize”.

It is apparent that your interest is not Native-Amercians, but you own apparent mis-guided ego.

Rest assured, that any further attempts to harass us with your vexatious claims, will published to warn Native-Americans, and other Americans, of your apparent greed-driven mischief.

Office of Peter Tremblay
Legal Department

The Canadian National Newspaper

Gotta love that. They print plagiarism, and I’m “harassing” them and causing “mischief” by alerting them to it.

Excuse me for taking plagiarism of my work, especially plagiarism that completely misrepresents my position, seriously.

For the record, I’m pretty sure that plagiarism is actually illegal in Canada, and legally actionable for someone like myself as well. Of course, I’m not Canadian so maybe plagiarism isn’t illegal up there. Regardless, my point here wasn’t to profit. My point was to stop people from plagiarizing and misrepresenting my work.

The post on the Canadian National Newspaper blog I linked above has been taken down, but here’s Google’s cached copy of it.

Update by likwidshoe, May 15th 2007:

This is what I had sent them:

This:

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/05/04/01539.html

is blatant rip-off from here (with only the ending changed to suit the
guilty liberal conscience):

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/the_app/

Please take care of this.

This was before they had erased the post. After they had erased the post, I sent this:

Nevermind. It’s taken care of:
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/stupid_plagiarists/

This is what they sent back:

We expect the following part of your website to be also deleted, otherwise your blog will immediately be outed for defamation:

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/stupid_plagiarists/

Office of John Stokes
Legal Affairs

The Canadian National Newspaper

Amazing, isn’t it? I kept it short and sweet after that and informed them that, “The truth is a defense against your claims of defamation. The post will not be deleted.”

Update by likwidshoe, May 15th 2007: just received this at 10:42 pm Eastern time:

Firstly, your website is not the “truth”.

Anyways, we have better things to do that do try to prosecute against individuals who act consistent with being a bunch of Ugly Americans.

Ugly Americans are known internationally to be a bunch of ignorant individuals and bigots anyways.

Your website just further proves that.

Office of John Stokes
Legal Affairs

The Canadian National Newspaper

Update by likwidshoe, May 15th 2007:

After that last bit of tomfoolery, I had sent them this e-mail:

The whole world is seeing this foolishness of yours:
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/stupid_plagiarists

Keep talking as this makes for good blogging.

Which in turn got the response: