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!

Hide this

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


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. icon
    Toom1275 (profile), 30 Jul 2017 @ 1:09pm

    The whole "Title II hurts investment except when it doesn't" thing reminds me of one particular anti-climate-science sham paper that proclaimed how woefully inaccurate and unreliable satellite measurements were when they showed warming, but then proceeded to turn around and claim that those very same "unreliable" measurements were 100% accurate when twisted to support tthe paper's own cooling predictions.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Daydream, 30 Jul 2017 @ 2:57pm

    In defence of the prosecutor's comments, 'accused criminal' is actually technically accurate.

    At some point, almost everyone in America has almost certainly committed some sort of crime; speeding, or singing a copyrighted song in public, connecting to an unsecured wi-fi thingy, jaywalking, having an out-of-date driver's license...

    It's not 'accused criminal' in the sense that everyone accused is already considered guilty, it's that everyone in America is a criminal of some sort and the prosecutors are picking and choosing who to accuse.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 30 Jul 2017 @ 3:57pm

    Re:

    Then they should include the word alleged, as they are still innocent until proven otherwise, by law.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    DocGerbil100 (profile), 30 Jul 2017 @ 4:45pm

    Heh. I'm quite relieved to find that I'm not the only one who gets Ktetch's name wrong. :D

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    Roger Strong (profile), 30 Jul 2017 @ 5:25pm

    Re: Re:

    "You don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect."
    - Attorney General Edwin Meese , U.S. News and World Report, 10/14/85

    Hopefully the current administration has a better sense of reality.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2017 @ 7:00pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    Hopefully the current administration has a better sense of reality.

    I seriously doubt it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Annonymouse, 30 Jul 2017 @ 9:27pm

    They have their own version of reality just like everyone before him... it is just that he tweets his out for everyone to see.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. icon
    That One Guy (profile), 30 Jul 2017 @ 10:29pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    That quote is as horrifying now as it was the first time I read it, thanks to the implications of it and more importantly who is saying it.

    'If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect' can basically be translated as 'If someone is a suspect then they're guilty', ignoring the fact that it's entirely possible for those investigating a crime to screw up and go after the wrong person, and instead putting forth the idea that if someone's under investigation they're guilty, it's just a matter of finding out exactly how.

    Also, have a funny vote for that second half.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Thad, 31 Jul 2017 @ 11:38am

    Ironically, Yes, I know I'm commenting anonymously is actually commenting pseudonymously.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.