Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the spooky-speech dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is an anonymous response to the warnings that Twitch sent out to users who were hit by RIAA takedown demands, which prompted them to "learn about copyright law":
Yep. I sure learned my lesson about copyright law, alright. "If a copyright holder objects, my content will be arbitrarily removed, fair use notwithstanding." yay!
In second place, it's Stephen T. Stone with a simple reaction to Zoom shutting down an NYU event discussing whether Zoom should shut down events:
Having the right to do a thing doesn’t make it the right thing to do.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we're going to feature a pair of comments that began a thread, because they are somewhat necessary to understanding the second place winner on the funny side that's coming soon — and that means starting with one additional nod to Stephen T. Stone, who had this to say about Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump threatening a defamation lawsuit over the Lincoln Project's billboards in New York:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ivanka Trump:
The truth can only defame you if you feel shame over it.
That comment garnered this anonymous reply:
Dear Mr. Stephen T. Stone, I cannot agree with you. The truth can never defame you. But I could agree if you said "You can only feel defamed by the truth if you feel shame over it."
I do think the power(less, soon, we hope) couple is experiencing far more of a "how dare they" moment than a "that's false" moment.
And so, to avoid breaking the flow, as we move over to the funny side we'll start with the second place winner, which is Stephen T. Stone with a final reply rounding out the exchange:
How dare you improve my axiom with a better axiom crafted through logic.
how dare
That leaves us with the first place winner on the funny side — Deepstateagent responding to our post about Lindsay Ellis and the bizarre legal attacks and conspiracy allegations against her from a wolf kink erotica author:
Come on, the conspiracy should be obvious to anyone, I mean why would two organisations which views on a topic align, come to the same conclusion and do similar actions, even more proposterous would it be to think suchs organisations could work together outside of a conspiracy with a goal to destroy a single person.
And of course such a conspiracy would only target an important person, so saying it would be unlikely that there would be a conspiracy against Cain because she isn't important enough is clearly shown to be false, because there is a conspiracy against Cain.
No no, Youtube and Patreon where clearly created in a conspiracy by the EFF and the OTW at the beginning of time just so Lindsay Ellis could make a video with the clear goal to totaly and absolutely destroy Cain and even remove her from having ever existed.
You'd have to be delusional to come to any other conclusion considering the undeniable and self evident proof provided here.
For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got another brief exchange, this time starting with Glenn and his initial reaction to the Addison Cain madness:
Is there a lawyer somewhere who could sue for defamation on behalf of wolves everywhere?
And finally, in response, it's That One Guy echoing exactly my first thought upon seeing Glenn's comment:
I mean, PETA somehow managed to find lawyers that would do so for a monkey, so it's not impossible...
That's all for this week, folks!
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Addison Cain madness:
"Is there a lawyer somewhere who could sue for defamation on behalf of wolves everywhere?"
..........................
"I mean, PETA somehow managed to find lawyers that would do so for a monkey, so it's not impossible..."
So we're looking for a rabid lawyer who can ape the actions of PETA?
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No, we’re looking for a rabid ape who can act like a lawyer.
Do any of the Prenda guys still have a law license?
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Weirdest part of Techdirt is this Mutual Admiration Society
No one else admires you punks. You're down to half-dozen regulars and about as much astro-turfing.
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Grave Matter Has Arisen: NEW RECORD ZOMBIE! 12 YEAR 1 MONTH GAP!
D or Devang: 26 (<2), 3 Jan 2006 https://www.techdirt.com/user/cleanup_crew
For anyone new (which I doubt): I've a list of around 60 with gaps from three to this record TWELVE years, and that's not even counting many more with 18-month gap after first few.
Here's the previous record, only 3 months shorter:
JGracey or Gracey: 3, (<0.3), 11 YEAR 10 MONTH GAP; Jul 6th, 2007 https://www.techdirt.com/user/jgraceystinson
Yes, TWO accounts from the Bush admin! Now, that's FUNNY!
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Re: Grave Matter Has Arisen: NEW RECORD ZOMBIE! 12 YEAR 1 MONTH
Long gaps in accounts began appearing in 2017 after a Total Password Reset (said to be excess of caution for possible "hacking"), which I deduce was at least in part to give warning just in case a real person returned.
There's also usually a name change, as with "Devang", which avoids the original name being seen at a glance: must check the "(profile)" link.
NONE of the Zombies mention the password reset, changes in the site, being gone for YEARS, or anything that a normal person might; no, they just schlep in as if current, ALWAYS blandly supportive of Techdirt: NONE bring themselves to notice, let alone by disagreeing.
Fanboys respond to them without ever noticing the gaps. Though I've been pointing this up since 2017, not one fanboy has ever even admitted that the gaps are ODD, because know that I've 60 or so, and they'd have to keep admitting to conclude: it's astro-turfing. Techdirt either takes over abandoned accounts and/or many were never genuine.
And another key "tell": Techdirt has never officially noticed this phenomenon.
Now, to be sure, the really WEIRD point is why Techdirt keeps doing this so blatantly! -- You just need to know Masnick: he's an arrogant legalist like Clinton, thinks can get away with anything so long as doesn't admit! -- And, it's to pretend the long gaps aren't odd, besides that if stopped now exposed, that's not only more evidence, but it'd be a win for ME.
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And for ODD don't miss "Scary Devil Monastery"!
After ONE comment on 1 Mar 2013, resumed 8 Aug 2018 to now one of the most prolific, over 5000! https://www.techdirt.com/user/perge74
You can't explain those 3 as anywhere near normal. Knowing that, no one tries. And I list at least 60 "accounts" similarly unbelievable.
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Another funny is Techdirt still has no positive message.
It's all TRUMP, all the time.
Haven't seen any fanboys talk up Biden except for reversing Trump.
Masnick this week even tried to flip the "Trump Derangement Syndrome" while of course oblivious to the fact that he HAS it.
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Your full- and deep-throated love of fascism will do you no good here, Brainy.
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Half a dozen regulars
Then you should be able to name us, and what instrument we each play.
I'm on cowbell.
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Unlike you, Brainy, not everyone feels the need to recount every last minute of their lives that happens between comments. And not everyone feels the need to comment on every article, or to comment multiple times on the same article. And I’m fairly certain you’re the only one who hates this site to the point of self-harm that you’re keeping track of seemingly every registered user on the site.
This is a website that, if you stopped visiting it, wouldn’t affect your life in any meaningful way. Get some help, man.
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Re: Half a dozen regulars
Really? Well, I have a fever…
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You might want to see a doctor about that.
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Re:
See this is what I imagine severe brain damage looks like: whining about how suspiciously the people it's stalking are behaving.
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Re: Re: Grave Matter Has Arisen: NEW RECORD ZOMBIE! 12 YEAR 1 MO
Confirmed - I checked it out. You are right. This whole site is a scam.
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Re:
Your misdirection is so obvious it's pathetic. You really are the shit smearing asshole of Techdirt, Stone. You and you alone.
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Re:
You are godless communist heathens, financed by the Chinese to overthrow America. If you had a single ounce of self respect, you would admit your farce, ask for forgiveness and move your life along in a better direction. Disgusting godless communist heathens, all of you. Get over your love of China, or move there. You deserve it.
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Re: Re:
No, this is what REALITY looks like. He is pointing out REALITY. And HE's RIGHT. You don't dispute that HE IS RIGHT. You don't dispute that Hunter's LAPTOP is REAL. You don't dispute that the BIDEN CRIME FAMILY should go to PRISON. You don't dispute that Mike's great love the tran-sexual TRAITOR should be EXECUTED for TREASON, at least metaphorically. Maybe more.
REALITY is COMING! Trump 2020! EAT THE COMMUNISTS! FEED THEM TO THE OTHER COMMUNISTS! SOYLENT GREEN COMMIES ALL ROUND!
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I wish. At least then, I’d have some gotdamn money in the bank.
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The Truth about Techdirt
Four years ago, I pointed out Techdirt to my friend Rudy Guiliani, the Mayor of New York. He knew right away it was a fraud, so he passed it along to the FBI. Nothing happened. Laws broken, outrageous public defamation, time after time, and nothing happened. We thought it was strange. But then we saw more. Steele Dossier, there is solid evidence that was written by Techdirt, too. Tom Finton talked about it in the latest FOIA docs. Check the records. Impeachment evidence, same, Techdirt again, and their Chinese sponsors and their friends. CIA Op, that's what Rudy thinks, and he's got evidence to back it up. In just a few days, he's going to publish Techdirt articles found on Hunter's laptop. That's why they never responded to Rudy about Techdirt to begin with. They're in a unholy connection - the Chinese, the BIdens, that's just a proven fact. And now Techdirt, and the CIA, and the FBI, and the Chinese. They're all going to go down together in one huge dump of fecal mater, with Stephen T. Stone aka (you know who) publicly identified as a relative of the premiere of the Chinese Communist Party.
Who will you vote for? The Communist Chinese and the Biden Crime Family, or the Savior to White Young Men without a College Education, Donald J. Trump?
Don't answer, you lying commie pigs. You can't talk without lying, and we're all tired of your lying. May your tongue forever be tied. Amen.
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Please seek help for your diminished mental capacity.
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The Russians must’ve paid you well, comrade.
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Re: The Truth about Techdirt
Yawn
At least the SEALs pasta is funny. You couldn't even clear that bar.
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Wait, this isn't sarcastic?
TechDirt is the origin of The Streisand Effect but the Steele Dossier is a stretch. I kinda expect the Communist Manifesto blamed on TD if this line of thought goes too long.
Maybe if you said lying pinko commie pigs I would have known for certain it had to be sarcastic.
Anyhow, while I can't trace the comment to a specific person, it does seem to be consistent with the thought process stereotypical of Trump supporters. At this point it starts to look like symptoms of a neurological condition being exploited by a cult personality.
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Re:
Doubtful, even they have standards and why pay for a lunatic when they'll rant for free?
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Re: The Truth about Techdirt
Damn, I almost wish my life actually was the high-octane international espionage drama that this lunatic thinks it is.
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Is this a flyting attempt?
You are godless communist heathens, financed by the Chinese to overthrow America. If you had a single ounce of self respect, you would admit your farce, ask for forgiveness and move your life along in a better direction. Disgusting godless communist heathens, all of you. Get over your love of China, or move there. You deserve it.
This seems like a post-post modern opening serve of a flyt or rap contest. Like the insult exchange between Rufio and Banning in Hook.
Sadly you're in the wrong house. Some of us are openly godless or heathen and have no disdain for communism. You are a long long way from the tadpole nest.
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Re:
Nah, if they paid well, they'd be paying someone capable of offering a decent argument while also appearing sane. This guy does neither.
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Re:
"...we’re looking for a rabid ape who can act like a lawyer."
I'd say "Liebowitz" or "Steele"...but if I did I'm sure King Kong will file a defamation suit.
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Re: Re:
"Get over your love of China, or move there. You deserve it."
Judging by ANY metric that might be a step up for most americans today - bar civil rights where the US still hasn't manage to erode that last bit of lead.
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Re: Re: Grave Matter Has Arisen: NEW RECORD ZOMBIE! 12 YEAR 1 MO
"Fanboys respond to them without ever noticing the gaps."
For some reason reading your paranoid comments about how everyone's a sock puppet out to get you still just makes me see that Weird Al video of "Foil" all over in my head.
Every responsible platform performs passwords resets on a regular basis, and has since "frape" and "identity theft" became a thing back when Facebook and Apple first got roasted over being sloppy with their account handling.
Pro tip, bro...If you want to find out whether someone's a sock puppet or astroturfer the best litmus test is still to compare their past history with their current one and compare the tells.
It's how we can tell you're still the same deranged moron who's been haunting these forums for years.
"...the really WEIRD point..."
...remains the way you keep pointing at perfectly normal behavior and concoct a conspiracy theory out of nothing but your fevered desire that Mike somehow willingly spends 24/7 of his time to get you in some way.
I usually lament about the way so many people define themselves only by what they hate but it takes a very special kind of pathetic to define your entire concept of self-worth around the fantasy that a tech blog owner spends all his time finding ways to undercut you on his blog.
But you do you, Baghdad Bob. You do you.
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Re: And for ODD don't miss "Scary Devil Monastery"!
"You can't explain those 3 as anywhere near normal. "
...except by assuming that people who aren't you happen to have a "real life" - weird concept, I know.
Yeah, I took a hiatus from online because sometimes when you rearrange the fixtures in your life you have better things to do with your spare time than beating some forum troll over the head with his own shitty arguments.
That I spend more time today online when the world as a whole is on lockdown isn't exactly a conclusion requiring an Einstein either to some up with either. I'm guessing the same might apply to everyone else currently closed up at home.
But hey, I'll admit that explanation is boring as all fuck compared to the theory you have where apparently some murky puppetmaster sees it as gainful use of their time to build a massive sock puppet army just to be able to refute you on a blog.
Not exactly rational but I'll give you this - it sure is a lot more interesting.
It would take a lunatic to assume that Mike is so keen on putting you in your place he'll go to the effort you describe just to "win" a screaming match with the dribbling hysteric you keep turning out to be when the simple solution would to just do what Torrentfreak did and not allow anonymous commenting anymore. You'd be gone in seconds.
Because we both know that between you and Masnick there's exactly one guy who got caught on multiple occasions building one-man sock puppet armies before he learned how to hit the Tor "refresh" button. And it isn't Mike.
What's the term..."Every Accusation, A Confession"?
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Re: Another funny is Techdirt still has no positive message.
"...Haven't seen any fanboys talk up Biden"
Except for the long, tiresome comments when the Techdirt community kept discussing Biden's old role as the most bought crook the democrats produced in modern time, eh?
Seriously, Baghdad Bob, at least try not to lie about the shit which can be found with a quick search, eh?
Trump is such a shit-show you could literally take a dump on the oval office and present that offer as the next dem candidate...and it would still beat Trump in most areas.
Yeah, we talk about how bad Biden is a lot. That you don't understand English and can't read is not our problem, frankly.
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Re: The Truth about Techdirt
That's some ripe full-on conspiracy theory right there. But the end of it gives a bit of a hint;
"Who will you vote for? The Communist Chinese and the Biden Crime Family, or the Savior to White Young Men without a College Education, Donald J. Trump?"
You forgot the /s. And next time you try to parody the resident forum troll/trumpers do bear in mind the regular alt-right shies away from being quite THAT obvious.
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Re: Re: The Truth about Techdirt
"Damn, I almost wish my life actually was the high-octane international espionage drama that this lunatic thinks it is."
Who wouldn't? I mean, the way Baghdad Bob describes it you appear to have the resources to deploy an army of highly trained maskirovska specialists for years just to rebuff a single forum troll, the influence to make the FBI, CIA, and half a dozen major international intelligence agencies march to your tune, and generally appear to have full control over the top three or four nations in the world.
...and of course, by "you" I naturally refer to the lizard overlord posing as Mike Masnick, Leight Badon, Timothy Geigner, Xi Jin Ping, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
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Let's hope you-know-who speaks like this in real life too. Making Trump's followers look like deranged lunatics is a great way to convince people to vote against him.
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Re: Re:
You honestly need for your trolling addiction.
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Re: Re: Re:
"Need help for your trolling addiction."
I really should make sure the sentence is complete before post, but that's what I get for posting early in the morning
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Re: Re: Re:
I dispute that the laptop is real. And even if it was, everything you Trumpster blame Biden for has been done by Trump in triplicate. There's no way you GOP idiots is ever gonna be on the moral high ground again after letting King Midas of shit touch everything.
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And then Billy Mitchell would follow suit, for some reason.
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Re: Re: Re: The Truth about Techdirt
you forgot 'space', it's "space lizards" that the 'resistance' is fighting.
I've not seen any evidence to suggest a high degree of overlap between copyright maximalists and ... w/e Baghdad Bob is. but 'conservation of conspiracies' (which is totally a thing, and I didn't just make it up now /s ) suggests that they are probably the same conspiracy. Also they are equally full of crazy.
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Re: Re: Re:
Shiva Ayyadurai didn't invent email, Hamilton.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
If you switch to decaff and refrain posting for perhaps 3 days, you might (stress might) find that pre-coffee period does not hurt as much.
Unfortunately, the trolls will still be there, and you might find yourself armoring up with caffeine again. So, yeah. Probably not worth the bother.
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Re: Re: The Truth about Techdirt
Robert Sheckley: The Game of X ; and the movie Condorman.
It's worth a read.
After all, you really might be an action hero after all!
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Re:
Look like lunatics? The man has had them chanting about firing Fauci even though ignoring his advice has cost 200k American lives, at rallies where they were left stranded and being treated for hypothermia, because Trump didn’t pay the bus companies that were meant to be getting them home (at 3 separate confirmed events so far)
Anyone fully supporting Trump at this point is insane. I can understand not liking Biden or thinking he’s the lesser of two evils (though I strongly disagree), but the full fledged cult members at this point in time are just not dealing with any form of reality.
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As if there's anything funny or insightful about the comments at techDIRT.
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Re:
Is that, in the end, all you've got?
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Re:
If you think the very name of the site means there won’t be such things here, why did you choose to come here, let alone comment?
Meanwhile the irony of a comment that is neither funny nor insightful complaining about other posts lacking those things is noted.
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Re: Re: The Truth about Techdirt
It's really fucking sad that almost half this country thinks getting a college education makes you a communist and that not getting one makes you patriotic. Given the state of our education system I can see how that would be the logical conclusion but damn.... Liberals are quite literally fighting a battle of wits with the unarmed conservatives.
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Re: Re: Re: The Truth about Techdirt
Unarmed?? I though it was the conservatives that most often insist that the second amendment means that they can be armed at all times.
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Re: Re:
Apparently, you know nothing about God, communism, China, this site, its common audience, or astroturfing.
God (as Jesus) espoused views that are pretty darn liberal (give everything you have to the poor, for example).
Nothing espoused on this site has come even remotely close to support of communism.
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Re: Re: Re:
About the account activity? No, we don’t. He’s probably right about that much, and it’s easy to verify. About the conclusions he draws from that? Yes, we most certainly do because they don’t logically follow from the premise. There are many alternative explanations for the account activity being observed. About the “Great Password Reset”? I don’t know; I wasn’t there for that, it doesn’t really matter, there’s no record of it, and I don’t care.
That it’s really Hunter’s laptop? Yes, that is most definitely in dispute. Why would Hunter Biden go all the way across the country to a computer shop owned by a guy with a known anti-Biden bias and a predilection towards conspiracy theories, leave his laptop there, and then never pick it up? How would anyone else have obtained the laptop to deliver it, and (again) why choose that specific computer shop? Why would he take screenshots of or save such (potentially) incriminating emails onto his laptop to begin with? Why would the computer shop owner contact Giuliani about it? And if the emails were authentic, why is it that the discussed meeting never actually take place (as public records demonstrate)? None of it makes sense unless the laptop is a fake.
This is also irrelevant to this discussion.
We very much dispute that 1) there even is a “Biden crime family” and 2) the Biden family should go to prison. They haven’t broken any laws (or at least there is not even close to sufficient evidence of such), so why should they?
Actually, are there even any accusations against Biden’s wife at all? Why do you even want her in jail?
And this, too, is irrelevant to this discussion.
First, what “transsexual traitor” are you even talking about? That’s a new one, I admit.
Second, treason has a very specific definition under the Constitution, and I don’t know of anyone in the past few decades who has fit that definition. As such, I highly doubt that I would agree with that statement, especially since I’m opposed to the death penalty.
And, finally, this, too, is just as irrelevant to the topic of this thread as the previous two points.
The rest just makes me think you’re just a troll and don’t actually believe a thing you just said.
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Re: Re: Re: Grave Matter Has Arisen: NEW RECORD ZOMBIE! 12 YEAR
Or they just aren’t the type to comment very often. Nothing suspicious about it.
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Brainy there is referring to Chelsea Manning using two separate slurs: “transsexual” (the correct term would be “transgender”) and “traitor” (Brainy thinks a U.S. citizen exposing U.S. war crimes is somehow a treasonous action). See, Brainy believes anyone who isn’t a straight White cisgender Christian male isn’t an actual person (and therefore isn’t a citizen of the United States), and anyone who dares to criticize or question the United States government in any way is a traitor.
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The sad thing is, he probably thinks that insult is cutting to the point of causing actual bleeding from reading it. Dude literally hatereads the site and he thinks he’s hurting the site by telling us as much.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, I don't exactly drink coffee or caffeinated beverages on a Sunday. Friday and Saturday, yes, but no other days than that.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The Truth about Techdirt
Hence the current cultural impasse... they think that being armed with violence is equal to being armed with knowledge.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
“ That it’s really Hunter’s laptop? Yes, that is most definitely in dispute”
Nothing about this story makes any sense logically. The son of a prominent figure travels to the other side of the country to drop off a laptop for repair filled with incriminating evidence, to a legally blind person who can’t identify him. Then, he neglects to collect the laptop, and the repair guy just happens to mention that to someone who gets it in the hands of someone associated with Rudy Giuliani who doesn’t do anything about it until just before the election. Oh, and the FBI has had a copy of the data for months but hasn’t done anything about it...
Alternatively, Trump is desperate after the figures are coming out about record breaking turnout for early voting, attempts to suppress the vote are failing and they need to try something else.
Occam and his razor tells me which it more likely.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That the whole story is filled with more holes than a net makes the fact that there are a higher than zero number of people who fell for it all the more pathetic/horrifying, because if someone can fall for that then they can fall for anything.
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Space lizards
I guess they're shape-shifting (or well disguised) extra-terrestrial reptilians, like the ones in V (The 1983 TV series) or so the hypothesis goes according to David Icke. I always thought they could come from underground from the hollow earth and could be a subterranean mole species. (not to be confused with mole people who create dwellings in urban infrastructure.) Like the lavamen.
I suspected Dick Cheney for his propensity to go long periods without blinking. Seriously, the man does not blink.
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Re: Re:
average_joe has seriously let himself go. Then again, considering the company he associates with...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The story is an obvious desperate move, one among many from an administration that's realising that their efforts to suppress the vote are not only not working, but are encouraging people to vote in record numbers. What's sad about this is that it's just a repeat from last year's playbook. On the most recent episode of the Knowledge Fight podcast, they decided to cover an old Infowars episode from just before the last election, and it was notable that not only did they try telling a similar story about Clinton, but the source for that was also supposedly Giuliani. They're not only bad and obvious lies, they're not even original.
Here's hoping that things go the way I'm hoping when the results come in, but I'm a lot more nervous than I would be if more people were treating the above as the nonsense it is.
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Re:
Ah, the guy who holds the world record in "not quite Donkey Kong"?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The Truth about Techdirt
"I've not seen any evidence to suggest a high degree of overlap between copyright maximalists and ... w/e Baghdad Bob is."
It's pretty obvious. Moreso back on Torrentfreak when his arguments were all about the evil pirate terrorist sympathizers who would all get PUNISHED.
Bobmail/Jhon/out_of_the_blue, etc just likes to flail his rageboner almost at random at anything and everything he hates. Anything pertaining to freedom - of speech, communication, good jurisprudens, burden of proof - tends to set him off in long hate-filled rants which somehow all boil down to how everyone is out to get him because if they weren't this fine and very competent expert in technology, law, business and sociology would have made MILLIONS using that mailing list evil pirates uploaded to TPB or that shady book on tax evasion or card counting sunk by horrendously bad reviews.
I coined the moniker of Baghdad Bob for him back on Torrentfreak simply because of his resemblance to Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf (comical Ali) in how every argument he made was so manifestly false it was hilarious.
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Re: Re: Re: The Truth about Techdirt
"Liberals are quite literally fighting a battle of wits with the unarmed conservatives."
That's a worry of mine. Trump isn't, after all, a prime mover. He's a symptom.
I recall once speaking with an american about the way their preconceived notions about tax, education, public health differed from that of us europeans. It was very enlightening, because what he said could be summarized as:
In europe if you give a politician a hundred dollars and tell him/her to get something to eat then that politician takes that bill and orders expensive takeout from a restaurant with a fancy name and not a lot of consumer satisfaction; You get to eat but it's not your favorite dish and the cook is barely fit to man a hot dog stand.
In the US you give a politician the same money and the same order and he drops half of it in some pork barrel project for a colleague and gives the other half to a glue-sniffing nephew in exchange for a slice of stale bread. Then he feeds that bread to a flock of pigeons. You get the warm feeling of doing the "right thing" and will have to go shoot one of those pigeons for your dinner.
Similar stories about education, where there is ample reason to mistrust state or government authority which before and during the cold war saw fit to use classrooms to push indoctrination and propaganda.
Now compound the problem - with the 180 degree switch in ideology between the republicans and the democrats following the New Deal and the Southern Strategy, and it's suddenly the same people and ideology which abused the system the worst within the party which has the nominal principle of opposing that sort of shit. It's a perfect shitshow of twisted morality where the foxes are now tasked to guard the henhouse they themselves plundered and are all too happy to blame all the dead chickens they bit to death yesteryear on the farmer's mistakes and the shoddy construction of the henhouse.
Fact is the US citizenry has a long history of not exactly being able to trust their government and a myth of of the small community doing better without the feds tromping in whereas in europe we think it's way better to have a large semi-functional government which is at least held to task on the nationally important issues than to have the sort of disorganized anarchy where your tax money might as well be distributed to campaign financiers directly because it sure as hell doesn't end up doing much public good.
That problem US liberals are facing is that they're naíve. They believe the system works - which it manifestly doesn't - and believe talk and debate will solve everything. They are civilized.
Their opposition isn't. Liberals have spent decades trying to debate screaming barbarians who believe in guns, god, glory, and that the end always sanctifies the means. That's why the whole US has slid so far to the right that today there is NO actual political faction left of the center. Because whenever the republicans go another step to the extreme right, liberals follow just so they can talk about it. The "moderate" position has become one of not denying extremism but one of appeasing it.
It's no wonder black people have fought for centuries to get equality and Malcolm X once stated he feared the ignorant well-intentioned liberal more than he did the naked aggression of the Klansman. US liberals aren't the opposition to the KKK and the nazis. They're the guys quietly not making too much of a mess. The guys who when the KKK wants to lynch uppity black folk say "Look, no lynching, but we'll keep a blind eye to beatings and harrassment".
Trump is just that symptom of the blinders coming off. At some point "liberals" are going to find that every debate they had, every rally and feel good congregation was for nothing, because the other side will not stop. At some point US liberals will either find that they have compromised away everything, to the point where they have become like the silent bystanders of the reich - or they draw a line in sand, fucking finally saying "It Stops Here".
And that's when the republicans storm Fort Sumter again and the second civil war kicks off.
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"I can understand not liking Biden or thinking he’s the lesser of two evils (though I strongly disagree)"
Well, to be fair, Biden is indeed the lesser of two evils. His career was dead in the water until the dems needed to chain a young dynamic president to a stolid democrat-in-name-only whose major contribution to politics had been to backstab his own party while carrying water for the credit card industry and wall street. He's the very archetype of the shady crooked politician.
The thing is that even if Biden is likely to peddle the right to dictate executive orders on e-bay he's still less harmful than Trump. And he's canny enough to understand that no matter how relieved people will be to have a Not Trump in office, there will be a LOT of persistent scrutiny in his deals.
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"And he's canny enough to understand that no matter how relieved people will be to have a Not Trump in office, there will be a LOT of persistent scrutiny in his deals."
He's canny enough to understand that if he wins, the right will spend the next four years screaming bloody murder and blocking everything he does no matter what it is, just as they did with Obama - and that's if we're lucky and the cult don't actually devolve into outright violence (and signs are not good about that from where I'm sitting). If there's still a McConnell type in office in January, anything he tries will be faced with stonewall opposition, and if not (or they manage to get enough of a majority that such games don't have any effect), then I dare say that there will be some extra degree of scrutiny from a party that got him as their best choice, not their ideal choice.
He's also canny enough to understand that he's unlikely to be able to spend a full 8 years at the helm, and needs to spend some time laying groundwork for his successors, rather than trying to push through everything he wants while he can claim full credit.
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"He's also canny enough to understand that he's unlikely to be able to spend a full 8 years at the helm, and needs to spend some time laying groundwork for his successors, rather than trying to push through everything he wants while he can claim full credit."
On the bright side he'll be able to hold his end-of-term speech with the rare pride of having fulfilled the one campaign promise which had everyone swinging for him. "And as has been observed, I have Not Been Trump for my entire time in office! I'm proud of this, my crowning glory and greatest achievement!"
...and there was much rejoicing.
"...the right will spend the next four years screaming bloody murder and blocking everything he does no matter what it is, just as they did with Obama - and that's if we're lucky and the cult don't actually devolve into outright violence (and signs are not good about that from where I'm sitting)."
Of course they will. What really bugs me is the way so very many americans seem prepped to; "Vote Trump out, celebrate the system works, fall asleep for the next decade as Truth and Justice carried the day".
Until the US somehow manages to rid itself of the cancer which is a third to half the population being anti-science creationist doom cult members hostile to the very concept of education and clinging to racism and bigotry like alcoholics to a bottle of gutrot...there is no future.
I think every nation in europe has been where the US is at now, once or twice in recorded history. It doesn't end well.
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In that case, I’d say there’s a great deal of disagreement with the claims that Chelsea Manning actual fits any of the description given, that she is guilty of treason, that she should be executed (metaphorically or not) for treason (or even at all), and that any given “transsexual traitor” who is actually guilty of treason should be executed for it. So yeah, we do dispute that, and it also has nothing to do with the discussion or the article.
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