Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the think/laugh-laugh/think dept

This week, we wrote about the Albuquerque prosecutor who was extremely unhappy about respecting the accused's right to a speedy trial, leading one anonymous commenter (going by Yes, I know I'm commenting anonymously) to win most insightful comment of the week by cringing at the way he used a key phrase:

When the prosucuter talks about "accused criminals", he is not fit for the job because `innocent until proven guilty'.

We're going to go slightly out of order today and slip in our first editor's choice for insightful in here, since PaulT replied to that comment to expand on it and how how meaningful it is:

Yeah, it's kind of a litmus/Rorschach test - how do you read that phrase and apply it to your job? If you read it as "people accused of being criminals" and act accordingly, you're fine. If you read it as "criminals who have been accused", you're not fit for the job.

In second place on the insightful side, we've got an anonymous response to the Winnipeg man who had his ASIMIL8 license plate recalled by folks who thought it was about racism, not Star Trek's Borg. One commenter suggested that the Borg counts as a race, but another saw it very differently:

Correction, multiple species. There were very inclusive of any sentient species. Very, very inclusive.

(It says something about Star Trek fandom that this comment racked up far more votes for Insightful than it did for Funny).

For our second editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got a comment from TKnarr with his ideas on how to move forward with the FCC on net neutrality:

I think what Senator Wyden needs to do is to call for open hearings to "fully document the problems Title II classification has created for the broadband industry and to provide a solid foundation for the FCC's rules changes". Don't phrase it as trying to cut Pai off at the knees, phrase it as if you're trying to get the evidence he claims is there completely and clearly in the record.

Then when the broadband people are done saying how it's hampered their investment in expansion and upgrades, pull out their own statements to investors and read out the relevant sections with the text projected clearly. Ask them whether, given the discrepancies, they've lied to investors about their business situation and plans or not and to provide good reason why this matter should not be referred to the SEC for prosecution. Don't involve the FCC here at all, just use the results the next time he tries to trot out his "hurt investments" line to counter him with "But the broadband companies themselves said before Congress that it didn't hamper their plans at all.".

Over on the funny side, we start out with what appears to be the conclusion of the Olive Garden/All Of Garden legal spat, with the former apologizing and blaming its IP enforcement contractors. But Anonmylous won first place for funny by wondering if the saga still has an epilogue:

Is no one else wondering about Branden? He is now completely silent on this and that worries me. Did they fire him? Transfer him to Janitorial? Has he been kidnapped and sold to slavers in Southeast Asia never to be heard from again, his family left to wonder why he never came home, little Susie Forcements left to grow up without a father?

What have you done with Branden, Darden?

In second place, we've got a comment from Rapnel, who was tripped up by the wording of our headline about Arby's response to a Twitter troll:

I came here for puppy sandwiches.

...

I left disappointed.

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous comment about the Hungarian teenager who was arrested after he found and promptly reported a website security flaw that let him buy train tickets from the Transit Authority at any price we wanted:

This doesn't sound like hacking. It sounds like haggling. Not his fault that the developer made the site a bad negotiator.

And finally, we return to the post about the Borg license plate, where K`Tech asked an excellent question:

Was it on a Nissan Cube?

That's all for this week, folks!

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