What does a Taiwanese politician do when he finds out about weblogs – and that people are using them to make fun of him? He blames his opponent and then sues him:

Legislator Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) candidate in the key Taipei County commissioner race, yesterday filed defamation and public humiliation lawsuits against the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate, Luo Wen-chia (羅文嘉), for allegedly posting libelous information about him on an Internet Web site linked to Luo’s campaign site.

The offending website is 瑋哥部落格 (or Wiego’s blog), which seems to be a very standard blog which has a grand total of 15 entries since it started last September. Is there any evidence that this is the work of Luo Wen-chia and not some random pro-DPP internet user? Not according to Luo:

In response, Luo yesterday repeated that the blog has nothing to do with his campaign, and criticized Chou for being ignorant about the blog culture that is now especially popular among young people.

“Chou’s accusations only exposed his ignorance of blogs and youth culture,” Luo said. “I can only describe Chou’s reaction using `five noes.’ He has no idea about the law, blogs, young people, or world trends — and he has no sense of humor.”

“As far as I know, a blog is usually written by the type of young person who just doesn’t fit Chou’s political profile,” Luo said. “They use their imagination and creativity to voice their thoughts.”

Unless there is some real evidence linking Luo to this blog, Chou is coming out of this looking like a complete idiot, and Luo as someone who actually understands this new-fangled internet thingy.

Whoever is responsible for this blog (and my money is on someone who is now shitting himself that his little hobby is making front page news and threats of lawsuits), one thing is clear: his website is now massively popular. How popular? Well, my website is the 5th result on a search for a misspelling of his blog at Yahoo (search for 偉哥部落格 on Yahoo!) and I’ve had nearly 500 separate searchers click though in less than 2 days … so 330,000 hits per day looks like a fair figure. Now, how can I convince Chou to complain about my blog?

Update: As mentioned in the comments, the blog author (22-year-old Tseng Yen-wei) has come out to publically say he (along with 99.9999% of other blogs out there) has no links to senior government figures – hardly surprising to anyone with the most basic knowledge of blogs. Unfortunately, the writer of this hilarious article (found via Michael) hasn’t got the most basic knowledge … here’s a sample:

… ahead of next month’s crucial municipal election high-tech blogging designed to draw large numbers of politically alienated voters to the polls …
But this year they have been joined by state of the art computer attacks …
Using high-tech computer programs, the blog ridicules Chou …
… A sleek animation shows Chou blinking his eyes in disbelief

High-tech blogging, eh? I’ve got to get me some of that!