Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the make-you-laugh-make-you-think dept

This week, both our top comments on the insightful side came in response to the story of police utterly destroying a house while in pursuit of a shoplifter. One anonymous commenter won first place by summing up the fallout of these kinds of incidents:

This is part of what turns citizens, who once believed police were protectors into believing the justice system is both rigged as well as corrupt. It's pretty evident the cops went completely berserk, the city doesn't want to be responsible for the damage, and everyone in authority is ducking and dodging making whole the injured home owner.

This home owner and many more who read about this will now believe the justice system is something you run from and attempt to protect yourself from, not call for help from... ever.

After another commenter suggested that people should exercise caution in calling the police in the first place, a second anonymous commenter chimed in and won second place:

It should be pointed out that this is not the case anywhere else in the civilized world and the only reason this seems normal to you is because you have lost control of your police force and allowed it to become an anti-citizen paramilitary organization.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from Frost on the same post, expanding on the problem of militarized police:

The military-industrial complex are no doubt thrilled that they can sell even more stuff to the nation for grotesquely overinflated prices, but when you give the police military equipment, they start thinking they need military equipment. Against a lone drug use who shoplifted?

If the ACTUAL military used tactics like these they'd be censured or prosecuted, most likely. But apparently cops can do it at home with impunity.

American policing is incredibly broken. And this is just one facet, another would be the for-profit policing where the cops are literally armed bandits who stop citizens and drain their cash cards on the spot now in Oklahoma. Highway robbery, by any definition.

Next, we head to the story of the New York Times attempting to charge hefty fees for the fair use of quotes, where TheResidentSkeptic suggested that turnabout is fair play:

So then..

... everyone ever quoted in the NY Times is immediately owed $2.70 for each word of their quote. After all, if it isn't fair use to quote the times, then it isn't fair use for the times to quote others.

(leaving the NYT with 10% profit...)

Over on the funny side, our first place comment also comes from the story of out-of-control police, where one commenter noted that the only surprising thing is that the cops didn't actually kill the shoplifter, leading yet another anonymous commenter to cook up an explanation:

It was an unfortunate fluke. They were playing Angry Birds with the house, trying to kill the man by bringing the house down. They barely made it to one star.

In second place for funny, we've got DannyB with a loose summary of the Oracle/Google saga:

Let me see if I've got this right:

Oracle: Waaaaaaah! Google used a freely available open source Java implementation to build Android and made huge money! We want it! And Google didn't even use OUR java, they used an independently developed Java from the Apache Foundation! Waaaaaah!

Judge Alsup: No. Your copyright is not infringed.

Oracle: Bu, bu, but... Google used our APIs!

Judge Alsup: APIs are not copyrightable. I even learned some Java programming in order to better understand this case.

Oracle: Appeals court -- Waaaaaaaah! -- Google used our API, and they are making a Gazillion dollars, and we are only making a Jillion dollars! Waaaaaaaah!

Appeals Court: Oh, poor thing! Of course APIs are copyrightable! If it looks like some computery stuff that I don't understand, then it must be of immense value.

Oracle: Judge Alsup, we want a jury trial!

Judge Alsup: Ok, you got a jury trial.

Oracle: Waaaaaah! A jury did not agree with us. They unfairly sided with reality, common sense, and with what every single person says who knows anything about computers. Waaaaaaaah! Ignore the jury! We want money NOW!

Judge Alsup: No.


Perhaps next . . .

Oracle: Mr. Trump, we didn't get the money we wanted! Waaaaaaaah!

For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got a pair of responses to the long list of laws Web Sheriff thinks we violated by reporting on their DMCA abuse. First, GMacGuffin spotted some omissions:

These guys do everything half-assed

They didn't mention the Berne Convention, Rome Law, or Magna Carta anywhere! (Every Facebook user knows these are important ...)

In response to that, an anonymous commenter expanded the list even further:

Techdirt probably also violated the Code of Hammurabi, Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, the Ten Commandments, and the third law of thermodynamics. The Furies and the Faith Militant are probably coming after Mike also.

That's all for this week, folks!

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