Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the holiday-conversation dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous commenter summing up the motivation behind FOSTA 2.0:
Looks like the ultimate objective is that nobody can publish without the work first being approved by a licensed editor, oh and to keep the copyright cartel happy, and copyright transferred to the publishing company.
In second place, we've got That One Guy responding to Alabama's move to make assaulting cops a hate crime:
Oh so telling priorities...
Because if there's one group that needs even more legal protections in america, it's the police. /s
"Sen. Figures (who does not agree with Ward's assertion that "everyone agrees") may have been responsible for the death of Elliott's previous effort when she added an LGBTQ amendment to his 2018 "blue lives matter" bill. That's the sort of "tacking on" Ward is hoping to prevent here, in order to give cops more protections while leaving more vulnerable residents less protected."
It's telling in all the wrong ways that simply adding an amendment to extend the same protections proposed for police(a job you choose) to LGBTQ people(something you don't choose) was enough to tank the previous incarnation of this legal atrocity.
'We must protect the police from those that might want to harm them! ... but only so long as those same protections aren't extended to those LGBTQ scum.'
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with tom responding to the incident in which cops shot a woman multiple times during a raid:
I always find it interesting that Officers expect that someone that is asleep to fully comprehend what is going on and not take defensive actions toward strangers in her house while at the same time claiming that her actions surprised and/or threatened the officers who had hours to plan the action, minutes to approach the house and assess the situation and many seconds as it unfolds to take cover and deescalate to a safe ending.
Seems like there is a lot of faking of training records going on.
Next, it's Thad responding to the assertion that the New York Times needs to be more "balanced":
That sounds an awful lot like the "view-from-nowhere" approach that has done significant harm to the mainstream US press.
Sometimes, reporting "balanced opinions" merely muddies an issue and creates a sense of false equivalence. We've been dealing with a "both sides" approach to climate science for 30 years at this point; it hasn't worked out well.
If one person says it's raining and another one says it's not, a journalist's job isn't to report both sides, it's to look out the window.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is another one from That One Guy, commenting on our post about the Austrian hotel dropping its lawsuit against a guest who complained about pictures of nazis in the lobby:
Well that was awkward
Claimed grandfather wasn't a nazi and sued to punish someone who said as such. Target does some research and confirms that said person most certainly was a nazi. How's that saying go, 'It is better to be suspected of having a nazi grandfather than to sue and remove all doubt'?
"The owners claimed the person had never been a member of the Nazi party, but rather only a member of the military force controlled by the Nazi government. Checkmate, I guess."
Assume for a second this statement had turned out to be true, that said person wasn't actually a nazi... was literally the only picture they had of him the one where he was in a nazi uniform? Because If it was that would certainly be odd, and if it wasn't their choice of which picture they chose to honor him with is just all sorts of screwed up and basically begging people to respond as the guest did, wondering why exactly they had a picture someone in nazi uniform in a prominent place in the hotel.
In second place, it's Bobvious cooking up a little ditty about Ring:
Eiffel inn two a bern inn ringo phyre ♨
Eye weren't doun, doun, doun
Anderr Flaims when tyre
Ann deet byrns, burnes, bernes
The ringo phyre ♨
The ringo feier♨
(I feel there may be a layer to that joke I'm missing, in which case someone please enlighten me.)
For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with David explaining how the Arkansas food labeling law works:
Well, this is to avoid confusion. You can still call your product a "veggie burger" as long as it contains beef.
And finally, it's an anonymous commenter replying to the assertion that "security theater works":
So do Tiger repelling rocks, so long as there are no tigers about.
That's all for this week, folks!
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Read it out loud. If that doesn't work, try setting it to music. Your mind should be able to cash in on the meaning soon enough...
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ISWYDT
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Obviously it's a play on the song but what, other than "ring" in the name, does it have to do with the Ring doorbell? Where is the joke?
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It was in response to the previous comment by Tom A Sparks
Why do I keep hearing the Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash?
all together now:
robo-copyright activated
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Heh yeah sorry I see that now. Somehow my brain skipped that portion of the previous comment when I was looking, and I was just thinking about Ring issues and not copyright at all. Well played ;) (I was also distracted because it felt weirdly like a Robert Burns poem)
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Of course it felt like a Robert Burns poem.
And it Burns, Burns, Burns...
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The best laid poems of mice and men gang aft agley.
-- original copyright long expired, but beware of copyright on derivatives...
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thanks (I was hoping I was on techdirt's list),
the song's chorus fits the amazon ring shit-storm (didn't realize the song was a love song) and with the impending EU robo-copyright directive the lyrics would have been muted anyway
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Not only that, it was written when Cash was married and falling in love with another woman. Gives the burning a new meaning.
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Oh that was terrible... glorious, but terrible.
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I think he gets that layer, or at least I do. The one I don't get is why they chose to use those particular "alternative" phonemes. Are they that afraid of copywrong?
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That's what I get for not reading the full comment thread...EU copyright directive explains a lot.
Unfortunately, you've probably run afoul of trademark ownership. I'm pretty sure a lot of the replacement words you used are trademarks. /jk
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On a second hand.
I love that we have tons of things to protect cops, but dont allow them to DUCK AND COVER..
Love those great vest's, stiff and wearing, and padded all to hell, and hot to wear. they cant even move enough to get out of the way of a bullet.
It seems Alabama has a problem with 6 cops killed in 2019. Can any one figure out why, Someone has distilled into them, to Stand and shoot...Dont duck. Whats happened to Riot shields and Protective wear...Run in with just a vest, into a situation you dont know, and expect to get shot, but dont take something that could HELP ALLOT and you may not need to shoot back?
Balanced news..is all they got. If they did any evaluation and investigation, they wouldnt be the one in front of the camera. There are FEW, if any investigative reporters, that FIND the facts before they publish it.
FOSTA..
Expectations that those involved in creating laws and regulations, dont understand and arnt smart enough to figure out HOW to fix it either..
Just tell the cops to arrest everyone. Or let the Gov/state take over raising your kids..which Still demands a solution on How to do it.
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wtf
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Yeah, another day, another ECA wtf.
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I thought it was pretty good, and simple to understand..even for you folks.
Considering the gov. is handing out military goods for police protections, Where in the F' are the shields, Masks and helmets..
Why shoot people when we Paid for all that equipment and they only wear Chest Armour.
as to Investigative Journalism, those on TV Arnt. They are anchor, and announcers. They are instant news, and you cant hear the investigation until someone figures out WTF happened. And even then its to late for most to listen to the corrections.
And we know FOSTA is BS. And mostly because the idiot person trying to pass this, has no solution except 'What?'..Arrest people? Who do you arrest? The bill is a waste of time if you dont install something to control or regulate it. and the Cops dont have the Mentality to do it. Making laws with no solution or monitoring, or regulating isnt a good way to make laws.
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Fam, we know the police is BS. We know FOSTA is BS. You could at least not look like darryl from 2013 when writing about it.
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If people don't understand the tiger repelling rocks observation, it's because early humans fought tigers with rocks and it works.
Tigers didn't win and you can still hurl rocks at them if they start stalking you.
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Erm... yeah... you're assuming there's no jungle between people and tigers and a large supply of rocks to chuck at them, AC. Otherwise, you've got a major victim-blaming thing going on there.
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I think it's you who is not understanding the tiger repelling rocks observation.
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Homer was correct.
Hurl it or turn it into an arrowhead.
Tigers don't like people with rocks.
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Tigers mostly don't give a shit about your rock if they took an interest in you in the first place. They also don't care about pointed sticks or bananas.
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What I'm hearing here is, you're interested in buying some tiger-repelling rocks. I can offer you a really good deal on those!
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The operative word being people, while a single person with a rock gives the tiger an opportunity to display its agility.
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