Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the not-so-funny dept
This week, both our winners on the insightful side come in response to the White House emailing its talking points to congressional Democrats, then trying to recall them. In first place, it's Stephen T. Stone rightly keeping things grounded in the atrocious reality:
I wish I could laugh at the ineptitude of the Trump administration. Then I remember that several kids have died in American concentration camps. I don’t feel like laughing much after that.
In second place, it's That One Guy with "an added bit of humor" that was too real to get a single funny vote:
'Hey, your boss said it was okay...'
As an added bit of humor the democrats who received the email and the frantic attempt to get it back already have all the justification they need to keep it, from no less than Trump himself.
After all he was willing to say on national television that getting help/dirt on an opponent from a foreign source is perfectly fine by him, and if that's acceptable then clearly getting embarrassing information from your political opponents and using it against them is absolutely fine.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more comment from Stephen T. Stone, this time summing up the reason defamation lawsuits against the SPLC fail:
Coral Ridge claims they are victims of defamation. What they want, however, is to express moral condemnation of others without others condemning Coral Ridge in turn. That isn’t just hypocrisy — it is asking for a special right.
Next, it's James Burkhardt with a thorough response to those who attempt to downplay rising white nationalism:
You appear unaware of white nationalist rhetoric, somewhat strange given the president brought this rhetoric back into the national discourse less than 90 days ago.
White nationalist rhetoric, when they are trying to hide their racism, is to suggest that their opponents should go elsewhere. "Don't like it, just leave" was literally a KKK slogan they put on billboards. Trump's campaign was built on changing things he didn't like to MAGA, referencing an ambiguous past time in which civil liberties for minorities are almost certainly curtailed, but has revived the KKK slogan against his minority critics and then applied it more generally. I won't go into the history of racism in this language, it very much is.
Your commentary also suggests a failure to understand the history of nationalist and ethno nationalist movements and how they define the in group. When these movements need to build power, they open up the in group, for instance allowing in the Irish and Italian immigrants they had previously shunned. They will accept collaborators from the out group - particularly if it allows them to deflect criticism. But as they gain power they restrict the in group to ensure the power isn't diluted. They define 'nationality' or 'ethnicity' in far more restrictive ways. (I.E. how the Irish weren't considered white when famine lead to mass immigration)
The statement that someone who wants the "liberals" to go away made in response to a perceived "liberal" pushing for change while not in power holds deep historical racist connotations (Racism here referencing both ethnic and religious prejudices). But stating that the end goal of that statement is a white ethnostate is not claiming that there are no non-minority conservatives, only in recognition that having excluded "liberals" from the country, those conservatives who sought to exclude will need a new outgroup if they are to keep the reigns of power, and that given the demographics and racist undertones of the language used, conservative minorities (like socially conservative arabs) are likely the next targets of such language.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous commenter with a theory about Charter CEO Tom Rutledge's hatred of streaming password sharing — maybe it's personal:
Sounds like he's pissed his kids are using his password and won't get their own accounts.
In second place, it's another anonymous commenter offering translation services to defuse a debate between Stephen Stone and another commenter:
Sorry Mr. Stone, but it looks like you miss understood what he said.
What he actually said (rendered in American English) was:Behold! My Cognitive Dissonance!
For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with Thad calling back to one of the stupidest arguments of all regarding folks who sue the SPLC:
Bafflingly, one particular anon suggested that Gavin McInnes was "innocent until proven guilty".
The plaintiff.
And finally, it's That One Guy again with a summary that hits home the insanity of a (failed) copyright fight over photos of Picasso works:
Well great...
If people who don't own the rights to pictures they didn't create can't sue people for millions thanks to some garbage called 'fair use' then what possible reason could the long-dead artist possibly have to create more works?
Way to utterly destroy even the possibility of zombie-Picasso making any new works there judge.
That's all for this week, folks!
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Personally I still think this comment is funny as hell.
There really should be a This Week in Techdirt History section for the dumb shit that trolls have posted to remind us of what idiots they are.
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Re:
Reading the comment section already more than manages that, they don't need TD itself giving them extra attention.
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Re:
John Smith bitching about judges that have the nerve to demand registration for copyrights isn't even the worst he's pulled off that's relevant to this week's events, frankly.
Before the EU tried the Google link tax shit, Spain and Germany already tried pulling that off as Techdirt pointed out. Google reacted in the exact same way, and John Smith - posting under the pseudonym "Whatever" at the time - argued that by providing snippets, Google was removing the need for readers to click through to the news sites. Why?
...Yeah, John Smith at one point argued that showing snippets was akin to showing enough of a news article that you don't have to read it.
As an aside response to TOG, I'd argue that calling back to troll posts does have its value. Not the sort of 2011 "ignorant motherfucker" post that gave out_of_the_blue a permanent twist in his strapon panties. Just the ones where the trolls get completely destroyed by rationale.
Readers deserve to witness the kind of single-celled paramecium who plead for things such as "infinite copyright".
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Re: Re:
We'll have to agree to disagree.
I'm not sure anything can top John Smith starting at "I shouldn't need to register my copyrights to threaten grandmothers" and devolving to "I really wish I could stalk Masnick's family and show them how much I loathe the fact they exist"...
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Re: Re:
No, he got it right, I only go to sites when "I really want to know more." Isn't that how it works? Why would I visit a site to read an article I don't care about? I am certainly not visiting every site to see what they have and if any of it interests me
He just thought he was saying something else
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Re: Re: Re:
You've pretty much misinterpreted what he said.
This is how it works, but John Smith was claiming that Google snippets were discouraging the desire to find out more, because a snippet was apparently enough of an article substitute. Which was a horseshit argument, and one that the Spanish news eventually realized after their traffic tanked without Google News. It turned out snippets encouraged users to "really want to know more", who would've thought?
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Re: Copyright non-registration, and the GPL
Be careful what you wish for...
The (GNU) GPL uses Copyright as the first blow of a one-two punch to get its work done: The Berne Convention declares that all works are instantly copyrighted upon creation (held by the author, or, if a work-for-hire, held by the entity that commisioned that work). Copyright was chosen as the Berne convention is a fairly level playing field across most countries in the world, (at least to start with; length of copyright has obviously diverged over time).
This first part asserts, simply as per the Berne Convention, that third-party users have very limited rights to deal in the Copyrighted work. Looking at Wikipedia, which seems to be the Source Of All Truth And Knowledge (but could improve its gallery of Cute Cat Pictures), relatively few exceptions are explicitly acknowledged by the Convention itself (a "teaching excemption" apparently is one; "fair use" is not explicitly named in the Convention). [And for all the US-centric readers out there, "fair use" has a history probably older than the concept of Copyright itself, and so it's not surprising that it's explicitly (US) or fairly-implicitly (many other countries) come into the Copyright domain.]
The second part then builds on the first part: Given that an end-user has no rights to simply rip-off others' work, the License part of the GPL then kicks in, and lays down the Terms and Conditions upon which a work may be used. This is done via an explicit choice by the author of the work (explicitly choosing to apply a GPL or equivalent Copyleft-like license to the Work). These terms demand that, if you publish a work based partially or wholly on a GPL-licensed work, you must publish your changes with the same GPL Copyright/License conditions granted to any downstream users that pick up your publication. Share and Enjoy (and the wider community experiences Benefits).
Requiring "Either you explicitly register each work, or else you have no Copyright rights in that work", would smash the foundation that GPL is built upon -- and there are people who would stand to benefit from that change.
Registration is explicitly not required by the Berne Convention, and the US has ratified that Convention, so any Registration-required law would certainly be challenged in the courts.
-- recherche
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Re: Re: Copyright non-registration, and the GPL
So next time, don't shit on the bed you lie in by haphazard copyright enforcement.
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I’m glad some people got the Pokémon reference with my comment on the EU Directive
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Re:
Never toot your own horn. It's childish and ugly.
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You kids STILL don't grasp that Geigner's unprovoked comment:
"There are white people, and then there are ignorant motherfuckers like you...."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110621/16071614792/misconceptions-free-abound-why-d o-brains-stop-zero.shtml#c1869
revolts normal people! All that's necessary is for it to be seen. I've caused it to be seen thousands of times more than Geigner intended.
The instant, instinctive revulsion from normal people will never lessen.
Besides that you fanboys look nuttier every time, and the practical fact that all of you together haven't succeeded in running me off!
And now, you'll try AGAIN for perhaps the twenty-thousandth time...
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Re: You kids STILL don't grasp that Geigner's unprovoked comment
Ah, what the hell. I'm in a thirst for crass entertainment. Time to tune in to the "blue balls screams that he'll get us, his pretties, and our little dog too, news at fucking 11" channel again!
Revolts how, exactly? "Ignorant motherfucker" is not nearly the nastiest epithet you can throw at someone. And clicking back on the original article, you liberally spammed the comments section for hell knows what reason, insisting on calling him a racist among other things. Now I'm not saying Dark Helmet is the epitome of politeness or courtesy, but here's something you apparently haven't grasped: being insulted is not something most "normal" people lose... how long has it been? EIGHT years of sleep over?
Alright, let's consider that of all the comments you spam, a link back to this comment from 2011 is not particularly frequent in your diatribes. The amount of people who can be assed to click back to a comment from that long ago, with no context or motivation, is not going to be high.
Couple that with the fact that you've been constantly gloating that Techdirt has been losing visitors year after year, even before you started linking back to the comment... so what, exactly? You seriously think this one throwaway comment is what's driving lowered readership? On a 2011 article you would sooner gleefully claim nobody reads?
Fam, I got news for you, nobody is interested in running you off. I think a few bottles of champagne were popped open when you pissed off in 2014 but nobody is under any delusion that you'll do it again. Sure, some like That One Guy and Wendy Cockcroft have suggested not feeding you but we all know that any action taken just emboldens you for some bizarre reason. Personally I take an approach I consider more interesting: I callback to other places where you demonstrate your idiocy and remind other posters why you should never be taken seriously.
You can continue pissing in the wind here all you want. It's not going to make you look any less of an, as others have appropriately termed you, "ignorant motherfucker".
I think I'll just drop this gem from bhull242, because he honestly puts it a lot better than me on why your misguided crusade was fucked up from the get go:
So here, blue. Since you expected it, have an Article 17 vote, brought to you by your heroes of copyright!
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Alright, let's consider that of all the comments you spam, a link back to this comment from 2011 is not particularly frequent in your diatribes. The amount of people who can be assed to click back to a comment from that long ago, with no context or motivation, is not going to be high.
Along those lines anyone who does click to see the context will see Blue making a colossal fool of themselves(again) by losing what remains of their mind over Dark Helmet quoting Obama at them, something which has been explained to them countless times and yet they either still don't get, or are playing dumb on(either of which are possible given Blue). There's something ever so funny about the fact that the only person who comes out looking ridiculous from that link is the same person who insists on posting it for years now.
Sure, some like That One Guy and Wendy Cockcroft have suggested not feeding you but we all know that any action taken just emboldens you for some bizarre reason.
To clarify while I'd prefer people just flag trolls like Blue and move on my primary objection is people sinking to their level in their responses, doing nothing more than just slinging insults back and forth. Your comment here for example I've got no problem with as it's productive and well written, it's the people who respond to the garbage of the trolls with more garbage that I'd rather see knock it off, as TD already has more than enough people like Blue slinging childish insults, and in no way needs more of that.
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I almost wish blue would link to the Nunes memo thread he's threatened to spam the most comments on. Partially no because it'd risk enabling him even more. Partially yes because if we needed proof that copyright supporters were fucking depraved, that thread would be Exhibit A...
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Re: You will always be an ignorant motherfucker
It was most certainly provoked bro. And well deserved.
And you know what bro?
If you bring it up a couple more times I’m going to screen cap it and start a cafepress store.
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So long as you fanboys blather, boast, and hide all dissent...
... steady opposition wins.
Anyone looking in without severe bias sees a few clowns shrieking with random nutty and vicious ad hom that practically guaratees a look at the alleged cause, and then when it's mild dissent well within that on other sites, "normal people" almost instantly decide they don't care for the site and never return.
What you're doing over and over is visibly destroying the site! Yet you still keep attacking and then crowing that you're winning!
No one has to actually troll this site, only comment outside the VERY narrow anti-Trump, pro-pirate, pro-corporation orthodoxy. This is THE most narrow-minded intolerant site I've run across.
That I'm "winning" the war of attrition is easily seen by comparing with five and ten years ago: the number of commentors has gone WAY down and aren't being replaced with new. -- Oh, a few, but they add only noise and rarely stay.
You can't hold onto let alone gain readers with noise, kids.
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Your tears are delicious.
We're not going to stop.
Have a DMCA vote. After the stitch in my sides goes away I'm going to unhide your comment, undo my DMCA vote, so I can do it again.
You ignorant motherfucker.
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Re: So long as you dare yo darken this doorstep...
Sorry bro it’s just us 27 Bangladeshis names Gary.
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Excuse..
Excuse me but on a totally unrelated topic of what ever u are talking about. Why is it that some people think that I should be subject to a public beating to death of and a ceremonial oven roasting? Just because i occasionally feel the need out of rather disgust. To say one little word that begins with an n and ends in an are u serious!
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Yes because Black Nationalism States
have done so well in the world .
Easy to blame others for your problems
instead of facing up to your own failures
As Kane West said If after 400 years.................
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