Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the say-it-with-me-now dept

This week, three of our four winning comments came in response to the ACLU's amicus brief filing in Bob Murray's lawsuit against John Oliver. First up, our winner of most insightful comment of the week is TheResidentSkeptic giving Murray some advice:

Dear Bob

When you realize that you are in the process of digging yourself into a hole, there are 2 approaches to consider.

1) STOP DIGGING
This is known as the "sensible" approach, and is recommended.

2) DIG HARDER, DIG FASTER, DIG DEEPER
This is known as the "Carreon" approach, and we request that you refrain from using it as we are nearly out of popcorn.

Thank you.

Later on that post, a commenter accused us of attacking or harming the miners by opposing Murray's position in this lawsuit. Roger Strong won second place for insightful with his response:

John Oliver made a point of sticking up for the miners; documenting Murray's opposition to black lung regulations, his dishonest reaction to the mine collapse that killed several miners, and more.

In fact the "Eat Shit, Bob" originated not with Oliver, but with one of those miners. It was written on a cheque returned by an employee, which was shown in the show. A $3.23 cheque sent to the employee in return for accepting increased production over safety.

Likewise Mike Masnick's articles on the subject can only work in favor of the miners, helping to end Murray's history of barratry to avoid responsibility for miner safety.

I'd label you a liar, but it's hard to accept that your apparent level of incompetence is real. Your lies are well-documented as such, in both text and video in links at the top of this page. You casually dismiss the sins of a coal mining corporation - which include $millions in political funding to influence government, but dismiss its critics as "globalists." Is this some kind of performance art project?

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with an anonymous response to UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd and her anti-encryption comments, pointing out that politicians benefit from encryption too:

UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd,

There are two reasons you want end-to-end encryption, even if you don't realize it:

1. Encryption helps to ensure you are talking to the person that you believe you are talking to. It's not a guarantee, but it's the closest thing we've got. Without encryption, you might think you're talking to your mum, but you're really talking with an NSA agent. Or ISIL.
2. Encryption helps to ensure that the things being said between you and your mum remain between you and your mum. Otherwise, the Daily Mail can easily see everything you type each other and put it on the front page every day, if they so desire.

Now you know!

Next, we've got a comment from That Anonymous Coward on the court ruling against official government social media accounts blocking/banning members of the public:

Those with power seem to forget that being offended isn't a crime. If your job is to represent everyone, you have to take the good with the bad.

A much saner person might have tried to get to the bottom of his complaint, or if they felt he was unhinged ignored him. The fact is rights were violated, even if only for a few hours (most likely before someone who understands the basics of the laws of the land pointed out you fucked up) they were violated.

While we have allowed "free speech zones" & tried to pass laws to make it a crime to make elected officials feel bad, hurting someones feelings isn't a crime. The job includes praise & unhappy comments.

Had this been her personal personal page, she would have every right to tell him to use the offical channels & if he persisted ban him. You made this page your semi-offical page & issues work related statements, I'm sorry if the digital town square you picked allowed people to call you out, but its the job.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner comes from Baron von Robber in response to the psychiatrist who filed a lawsuit over a wordless one-star review. Perhaps you can guess what the comment was:

*

In second place, we've got our third comment on the ACLU filing in the Bob Murray lawsuit, and it's actually a response from Machin Sin to our first-place-for-insightful advice about knowing when to quit:

You do realize your telling the head of a mining company to quit digging right?

For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got a pair of comments from a thread on the post about encryption and the UK Home Secretary. One commenter reiterated the important point that terrorism is nowhere near as big a threat in real terms as fearmongering often makes it out to be, to which one anonymous commenter sarcastically retorted with a classic reference:

Well, obviously the reason that there are no bears stomping through the middle of the city is that the Bear Patrol is doing its job!

Not to be outdone, however, TechDescartes had another suggestion:

Actually, no, it's because they are using end-to-end encryption, so you can't see them.

That's all for this week, folks!

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