Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the we-need-to-talk dept
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Rekrul with a comment (which also racked up a lot of funny votes) on our post about the end of ownership and how big companies are trying to turn everyone into renters:
"Dear company, here is my payment. I hereby grant you a limited license to use said payment as you see fit for as long you provide the given product/service to me. I reserve the right to terminate your use of said payment at any time for any reason. In the event of such termination, you will immediately return said payment to me in full."
In second place, it's That One Guy with a comment on our post about the NYPD getting sued for illegal use of sealed arrest records:
'Only we're allowed to do that!'
Adding to the gross hypocrisy the NYPD objected, strongly and in court(to no avail thankfully) that releasing disciplinary records of police was a terrible thing that should be blocked because it might give people the 'wrong' impression of the goons they employ, so not only are they perfectly willing to violate the law when it benefits them they are downright eager to flip their own argument right around when someone tries to employ a little 'transparency' on them.
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with one more comment from That One Guy, this time about the "apology" from the New Hampshire PD for "inappropriately" listing qualified immunity as a job perk in a recruitment ad:
'We deeply apologize for our temporary honesty.'
Yeah, that's not much better honestly as all he really seems to be saying is that it shouldn't have been openly mentioned as a perk, not that QI is at all problematic itself(which it absolutely is). You do not openly advertise QI as a job perk unless that idea is widely accepted at the department in question, which doesn't exactly speak well for that department and the 'community support' it claims to enjoy.
Next, it's James Burkhardt with a good (despite some typos) comment about the latest example of an anti-piracy group seeking a takedown of 127.0.0.1:
Listing 127.0.0.1 as containing an infring should be expressly be a Prima facie admission that no good faith inquiry was made. Not evidence, its an admission of guilt that they did so little inquiry they didn't even exclude their own "legally obtained material" used as refrence.
Over on the funny side, our first place winner is an anonymous letter to a certain politician:
Dear Representative Taylor Greene,
Recently, a colleague of mine sent a letter to Governor Spencer Cox asking that worthy to change his name based upon public pressure. This was quite the eye opener for me! Such a concept had never even occurred to me before. But now that I am aware of it, I have my own request to make.
Much like Utah, we the citizens of Georgia, and of the United States in general, do not want sick jokes running rampant in our civil institutions. Your initials have been popularized as "MTG", which besmirches the reputation of a fine game that enjoys a - heretofore good - reputation worldwide.
Therefore, I hereby request you change your initials so they do not cause further confusion between the game's fantasies of plane-traversing wizards battling each other with cosmic forces and those you have been espousing. Frankly, ma'am, your fantasies are of a much inferior and less believable quality.
Respectfully yours,
Anonymous
In second place, it's K'Tetch with a comment about the Louisiana and Alabama Attorneys General's hotline for reporting social media censorship:
Ok, so who's with me on filing complaints about Parler?
For editor's choice on the funny side, we've got a one-two punch on our post about the 127.0.0.1 takedown, starting with a comment from Bobvious:
Hey, that's my home. Leave it alone. If Google delists it, I'll never be able to sell it. That of course, and my noisy neighbours down the street at 192.168.0.1.
...and continuing with a reply from MightyMetricBatman:
Is the name of your neighbor Robert Router by any chance?
That's all for this week, folks!
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still want to know
Who gave the corps Personal rights?
Would love to see the bill that was passed, and note all the names to pass around.
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Re: still want to know
For that one, you're gonna have to go all the way back to the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868. The Supreme Court has been ever-more closely defining it's intent since 1870.
The Congressmen and State Legislators of back then, or the Supreme Court starting in 1870 and continuing right up to *Citizens United" of a few years ago.... pick your choice as to who you wish to invite to your "rubber hose room" session.
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Re: Re: still want to know
I would contest Cit United with the thought that a single person has not the resources of a corp. Let alone the ability to Purchase Advert time enough to influence more then a few people. And a Corp using its money as a presentation of those Employed, has no standing in Any logic.
"The ruling effectively freed labor unions, trust funds, and corporations to spend money on electioneering communications and to directly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates. In his dissenting opinion, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens declared that the Court's ruling represented "a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government.""
This is as bad, as CBS doing the olympics, let alone the Power used by the Olympic committee.
CBS got the rights, but if More companies had been allowed to record and broadcast the Olympics, we could of had Allot more choices of what we wanted to watch. And you shoiuld read up on what the Committee is and does to the area, as well as around the world. They are closing the market on Everything, they want to be the only Seller of goods and service for the event.
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Re: Re: Re: still want to know
ECA, I do agree with your assessment of how bad the decision of Citizens is, but it's now the law of the land, and can be overturned only by an act of Congress, or another USSC case that reverses it. Neither of which is likely at this point in time.
But the thrust of your question was, who's responsible for this calamity? And I pointed out that the 14th Amendment was the fundamental villian at fault. Quite a few of the Supreme Court decisions since then that expand the "meaning" of 14A have not been universally met with satisifaction amongst either lawyers or the public at large.
<rant time>
One has to admire the Constitution, the very document where the Founders said "... of the People, by the People, and for the People. They then immediately let us elect people to only two of the three branches of government. I understand that a Justice should not have to fight to get re-elected every so often, but back then, most older white males tended to retire when they felt the urge to spend their golden years looking out over the lake/pond/valley/what-have-you, and not try to be hyper-ego, "look at me, I'm still capable" senile old white men.
My one regret is they didn't insert a clause that would've allowed us to recall a senile idiot, or an obviously political choice that has no business sitting on that particular court. One way to institute that would be a petition of, say, 50,000 signatures each from at least a simple majority of the States. That would force Congress to impeach the so-and-so (unless he resigned "for the good of the country"). If the Senate said "No, he's good", then another petition of 100,000 signatures each from a simple majority of the States would be an automatic "Strike Three, Yer Outta Here!", and the President and Senate would have to go back to the drawing board. (Barrett might or might not survive such a challenge, but can you imagine Kavanaugh doing so, given the number of women voters in this country?)
Seems doable to me.
</rant>
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Re: Re: Re: Re: still want to know
Problem here is that the folks we least want to see in charge will be the ones most likely to organize and collect the signatures. Think of your least favorite party apparatus and remember that they have offices and strong ground organizations in all the states.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: still want to know
I can get all that, but also understand that the People have forgotten.
WE' are the people.
They have Murdered our education system over many years. Even the Civics classes are no longer there. They have broken up Any groups that had even a Bit of power/backing. And it dont matter Who is in charge, the Cults of democrats and Republicans, keep aiming to do the same BS.
They have stacked the deck and made things so Weird, anyone getting into the system of politics, has to do as those 2 groups suggest/say or get run out of office.
Could go into how we get bamboozled, fooled, confused, brainwashed. Just ask people how many ran for president in this nation. Anyone with a guess over 500 is fairly knowledgeable.
I would love to find 14A, and see if its debatable. But we can go back in history about an assumption Iv made. That After this nation created itself, those Old things that made most people come to the America's Followed us. And we lost control, slowly and over time, the same problems have come to this nation and many do get fixed and decided. Except the area that most of us are restricted. Would love a Congress redesign that 1000's of people can WATCH, and participate, just as any sport.
I love the thought that the USA runs around creating Democracies, that hardly ever last. And those that do, have better democracy then we do, in that They dont have 2 sides of opinion, they have Many groups debating a problem. They throw shoes and punches Trying to get their opinion heard.
I love how this nation has create Key words to upset and piss off everyone, but in this country our schools have never taught What those other politics are and how they work. Ask 99% of the people what IS Communism or Socialism. They dont know that they are not Political, they are economic, and reasons a Capitalist will fight you, even tho allot of this country was built on those ideals. As you cant show many Major projects that did not have backing by the Gov.
I wont go on, this country has gotten confused, with allot of help over the last 60 years.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: still want to know
I should have emphasized that a quite strong scrutiny would be necessary in order to correctly ascertain the will of the people. As to collecting signatures, I'm not sure who you refer to as "the people in charge", but I'll take the liberty of assuming that you mean one of the two parties. That said, the party heads in each state would have to do the grunt work in the field, as the national heads already have their hands full, trying to convince the House to do an impeachment.
And do recall that I said "50,000 in each of a simple majority of States", which means that states that are predominately one party or the other will tend to have an easier time finding people to sign the petition afffecting the opposing party. And therein lays a rub - this could easily mushroom into a never-ending cycle as one party assumes the mantle of power, then the mantle swings to the other party. Some kind of criterion would have to be instituted to prevent abuse, to be sure. Equally a sure thing would be that I'm not the best candidate to be makingd any such decisions on the why's and wherefore's and all that.
But at 26 States times 100,000 signatures, that's 2.6 million people who'd like to be heard on the matter, not a small number I'm sure you'll agree. Perhaps a larger percentage of States to make the grade.... That would mean that the required number of signatures would pretty much have to include States that lean in both conservative and liberal directions. (At least as things stand now, and quite likely for the near-term future.)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: still want to know
Works out to 2.6M out of over 300M population, or less than 1%. Given an effective party aparatus, you can have that in a few days. Indeed, 100,000 signatures is required just for a citizen amendment to our (Volusia) county charter, and we are far from the biggest in the state. So, 100,000 from an entire state does not strike me as difficult.
That might be a challenge if you have to get them from Wyoming or Vermont where the populace is spread about great bunches of mountains. However, there are enough urban states that getting so many signatures from half would be no problem. We would have a constant oscillation as the two parties each remove the other's choices.
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