Dan Gillmor's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the abuse-of-power dept

Sun, Nov 10th 2013 12:00pm — Leigh Beadon

This week, we could easily replace "insight" with "outrage," plenty of which was generated by the shocking story of gross violations by the police in searching David Eckert. Both of this week's top voted comments were responses to that post. First up, That One Guy with some suggestions for the police:

This is a perfect example of why a growing number of people see the police force as a whole as no better(if not worse) than the criminals they are supposed to be around to deal with.

You want to repair your rep with the people, even if a bit? Start calling, vocally, loudly, and most importantly publicly for criminal charges, jail time, and immediate firing(none of that 'paid vacation/suspension' crap, the facts are abundantly clear here) of those thugs/'officers' involved.

Hide behind the infamous 'blue wall of silence, and stay silent on this case, and you do nothing more, and nothing less, than show why more and more of the public are coming to view the police force as no more than thugs with badges.

Trailing just a couple of votes behind, we've got Ninja expanding on Tim Cushing's initial statement that the story rendered him nearly speechless:

I share the feeling. I believe most readers will agree. These officers must be jailed and stripped of any authority. And the doctors should be severely punished too but I'm not sure how.

I'm guessing people would rather be stopped by muggers now than interact with the police in the US, no? I know that feeling quite well unfortunately.

For editor's choice — though it's a little unfair to give one to someone who already won — it's worth highlighting That One Guy's reply to Ninja's second place comment, thus rounding out the top three on that post:

A mugger? He can rob you, maybe rough you up a bit, and if you honestly think your life is in danger, you can fight back to protect yourself.

A cop though? He can rough you up, throw you in jail or ticket you on some trumped up charge, and if you think you're in danger and try and defend yourself you're likely to get tazed, pepper-sprayed, beaten, possibly shot, and then (assuming you survive)to add insult to injury you'll be charged with 'resisting arrest' and 'assaulting a police officer', likely leading to massive fines if not jail time.

Yeah, I'd take a mugger over a cop any day, the mugger is far less of a threat.

(And to those that inevitably will chime in with 'not all cops are like that', that's nice, but how are you supposed to know before your face eats asphalt that the cop you're dealing with is a sociopath, and what, other than hope you don't set them off somehow, are you supposed to do if the cop is a nutjob on a powertrip?)

The illustrative irony is that, if faced with a mugger, you would generally be happy if a cop turned up — but if faced with an abusive cop, you have nowhere to turn.

For the second editor's choice we'll move to a different post in the same vein and highlight a reply from Trails to the TSA's latest abuse and weak PR response:

Protip: If you have to tell people you're the good guys, you're not the good guys.

Over on the funny side, we start out with the post about a new We The People petition demanding UK-style porn filtering on ISPs. The petition included the bizarre assertion that a Google search for "cat" turns up porn, when in fact it mostly turns up... cats. One anonymous commenter had an explanation:

Yes, but most of those cats are naked!

In second place, we've got Ima Fish with a humorous misreading of our headline about Apple's latest aggressive move:

I misread the title and thought Apple killed off its own sales website. I assumed that Apple was so hip and exclusive that it refuses to sell its own products.

For editor's choice on the funny side, first we've got one more comment from our post about the anti-porn petition. Arsik Vek provided a quotable rejoinder to such nonsense:

Porn is a standard feature of my ISP in the same way that milk is a standard feature of my car. I can use it to go get some.

And finally, in response to the news that trademark law may be used to get the controversial slur out of a football team's name, an anonymous commenter offered details of the story as he heard it:

I heard the Washington Redskins were contemplating a name change that would remove "Washington" from their name because it was embarrassing.

Zing! That's all for this week.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

16 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2013 @ 2:52pm

A cop though? He can rough you up, throw you in jail or ticket you on some trumped up charge, and if you think you're in danger and try and defend yourself you're likely to get tazed, pepper-sprayed, beaten, possibly shot, and then (assuming you survive)to add insult to injury you'll be charged with 'resisting arrest' and 'assaulting a police officer', likely leading to massive fines if not jail time.

Don't forget they have the power to make you the subject of an ongoing investigation and have others keep harassing you along with now taking the tools of the surveillance state to examine what was done by you in the past and change you with that.

Along with giving a "tip" to another branch of enforcement and see what crimes they can slap you around with.

How many muggers have a gang? How many muggers have other gangs they can call on to keep on mugging you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2013 @ 3:50pm

Simple solution for Washington Redskins
Change their mascot to a peanut!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Prick, 10 Nov 2013 @ 5:14pm

A POS system...
To whomever wrote the POS system advertisement. POS doesn't mean what you think it does. When I see POS I don't think "Point of sale" is think "Piece Of Shit". The Piece Of Shit System that does everything you need of it is a seriously less than inspiring title. Techdirt is always writing about how content is advertising and advertising is content. Could you PLEASE up the quality of your addcopy and catch little absurdities like this so that we don't wind up snickering behind your back like naughty little schoolboys?

Because if this is techdirt's idea of content, I am honestly underwhelmed. Step up your game.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2013 @ 7:41pm
  
  Re: A POS system...
  if you've worked in retail in the past 10 years -- and certainly if you're in a position to be setting up a retail checkout system -- then POS as Point Of Sale is an everyday term and one that's necessary to your job
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2013 @ 3:43am
    
    Re: Re: A POS system...
    Even in the restaurant industry the cooks & servers need to deal with the POS system and troubleshoot it from time to time. It's not by any means an esoteric term.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2013 @ 7:50am
      
      Re: Re: Re: A POS system...
      This is true, and in the restaurant both definitions apply.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - The Prick, 11 Nov 2013 @ 7:29am
    
    Re: Re: A POS system...
    Not everyone has worked retail. As should be obvious I have not worked retail or as a waiter/waitress. So to me, when someone says POS, only one phrase leaps to mind.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - John Fenderson (profile), 11 Nov 2013 @ 8:56am
      
      Re: Re: Re: A POS system...
      I always hear that acronym as "piece of shit" as well. I have to remind myself what they intend for it to mean.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 12 Nov 2013 @ 7:06am
      
      Re: Re: Re: A POS system...
      Right, then the ad is not directed at you.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - John Fenderson (profile), 12 Nov 2013 @ 9:32am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: A POS system...
        It may not be aimed at normal people, but normal people see it.
        
        POS (meaning Piece of Shit) dates back to at least the 1950s and is still going strong. POS (meaning Point of Sale) goes back to the early 1970s. From the first time I heard it used to mean Point of Sale it amused and confused me -- why would any marketing people go with an acronym that makes your product sound, well, like a piece of shit to most ordinary people?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 12 Nov 2013 @ 3:37pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A POS system...
        Because they probably don't care what people outside their target audience think. Can you even name any brands of POS software? (Point of sale, that is. We can all, of course, name several brands of piece of shit software!)
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2013 @ 10:19pm
  
  Re: A POS system...
  You got in trouble with the IRS because of one didn't you?
  
  LoL
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2013 @ 1:22am
  
  Re: A POS system...
  You have no idea what you're talking about.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2013 @ 2:31am
  
  Re: A POS system...
  Child.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2013 @ 1:54pm
  
  Re: A POS system...
  In the business world POS is a pretty common abbreviation for Point of Sale so given the target audience for the ad, it would be understood correctly. However, it is kind of funny to read the way you read it.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
ahow628 (profile), 11 Nov 2013 @ 6:28am

Washington Bullets
When the Bullets were contemplating a name change, a similar joke was thrown around: "The Washington Bullets are contemplating a name change - the term "Washington" is considered too violent."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]