trouble with the law

so i got a call from a Extremely Angry Reader this morning... apparently, he has the same name as his uncle -- but his uncle has been up to no good and his name (well, their name) showed up in police beat for speeding, passing in a no passing zone, no proof of insurance and driving while his license was revoked. [ed: we print all the juicy details from the police reports in the paper every week. people eat that shit up]

so anyway, this guy says he wants to go down to the probate court and take out a warrant for slander. i explain to him that we'll be happy to run a clarification (since we made no error, we wouldn't print a retraction -- just an explanation that there are two people by the same name and that the charges apply to the older one, not the younger one). the caller wasn't too happy about that so i asked him what he wanted us to do about it. he responded, "i want to go down to the probate court and take out a warrant for slander."

never mind the fact that it's called LIBEL, not slander, you assclown, and you CAN'T TAKE OUT A WARRANT FOR LIBEL. sure, you could try to sue me in civil court, but you would have to prove a) that the information we printed was incorrect; b) that we KNEW it was wrong and made no attempt to correct it; and c) that we printed it with malicious intent. maybe you should take the matter up with your good-for-nothing uncle since HE is the one giving you a bad name.

some people.