Once again this week, it looks like one comment took home the gold medal in both categories. And it wasn't even close, even if it was on a story that was just published late Friday morning. So step right up Dark Helmet and claim your prize for both most insightful and funniest according to folks here, on your comment about Redskins owner Dan Snyder and his complaint that a photograph of him with scribbled devil markings on it was somehow "anti-semitic":

Ah, I see. Dan Snyder objects to the to squigly lines drawing devil horns and a goatee (by cracky) on his image because they're anti-Semetic. Dan Snyder, you see, is against images and depictions of racist and culturally insensitive nature.

Hey, fuckhead. You own an NFL football team based in the nation's capital called the REDSKINS! Are you kidding me? It's an insensitive term with a stereotypical logo of an American Indian, the gall of which is only supplanted by the fact that the team is located in the home city of the governing body that raped and pillaged their people? Who the hell are you crappin'?

How about some Irish immigrant owning a football team called the New York Porchmonkeys (I'm just bringing it back)? Or that Saratoga Slants? Maybe the Talahassee Towelheads? Portland Pollocks? Ooooh, the Memphis Micks (that one is close to my heart)?

Way to be a hypocritical polesmoker there, D-bag....

I almost feel like we shouldn't even bother looking at other comments after that one, but just to satisfy everyone's curiosity, the next two on the most insightful list were both short and sweet, so I'll include them both. The first was a comment on Egypt's decision to shut down the internet, where an anonymous commenter made a simple point:

If your government shuts down the internet, shut down your government.

And, in discussing the study financed by NBC Universal that showed that the amount of "piracy" online was driven, in large part, by their own failure to provide legitimate alternatives, Marcus Carab pointed out a key point that is so frustrating to so many of us. In responding to another interesting comment about the amount of data in the Library of Congress, Marcus stated the unfortunate truth:

That quote highlights another thing worth noting here: we now live in and age where it's technologically trivial to have the entire library of congress in your room, and yet thanks to copyright, none of us do.

Over on the "funny" side was a rather wry comment from anonymous user, poking a bit of fun at the people who believe that kicking people off the internet will lead to increased music sales. So, when Egypt shut off its internet access, that commenter asked:

I wonder how much music sales went up during this period.

And in third place, thublihnk responded to Feargal Sharkey's complaint that thinking about increasing fair use in the UK was nothing more than "intellectual masturbation" by putting it into the appropriate context:

I know sometimes when I'm alone in my apartment I like to turn the lights down low, maybe light some incense and just think about the proper way to treat intellectual property in relation to content creation and distribution in the interconnected age of today.

Thanks for another week of fantastic commentary.

It seemed like most folks enjoyed last week's post highlighting the funniest/most insightful posts of the week, as rated by the community, so let's keep it up. And, we're kicking it off with the one comment that flat out dominated both categories. It got more votes than any other comment ever on the site, and sits at the top of the charts for both funny and insightful (though, it got about twice as many votes for funny as for insightful). So, step on up Johnjac, you win for this lovely comment parodying the RIAA's threats to ICANN concerning the .music domain:

Billions of children are born with ears every year. What are doctors doing to make sure these ears are not being used to listen to illegal music?

RIAA would love to work the medical professionals to stop music piracy at its source, the human ear. We strongly urge you to take these concerns seriously... we prefer a practical solution to these issues, and hope to avoid the need to escalate the issue further.

Coming in second on the insightful scale was (interestingly) also a commenter taking a letter written by industry folks, and "rewriting" it. In this case, it was commenter stellarwaif, who wrote a rebuttal letter to the letter written by a bunch of companies in favor of censoring the internet, via domain name seizures and anti-due process laws like COICA:

Here's my rebuttal letter. I encourage all innovative companies to read and if they agree, to sign this letter!

We run companies large and small that represent diverse aspects of America’s intellectual property community. While our employees live in different regions of the country, and work to produce a variety of goods and services, they have several important things in common – they work hard, they are committed to quality and innovation and they welcome competition. However, allowing a small group of companies to prevent fair competition in the marketplace cannot be tolerated. Supporting draconian intellectual property laws and punishing consumers for freedom of choice diminishes the market’s ability to freely innovate and build upon past successes and failures, and cannot be tolerated. In order to protect our free enterprise system, and the standard of living it has contributed to our nation, it is critical that we multiply our efforts to encourage development of new marketplaces, identify and break down the barriers created from unsustainable business models, and provide even greater freedom to consumers for what we create and produce.

Thus, we are appalled by the effort and energy behind Operation in Our Sites. The actions dictated on November 29, 2010 once again demonstrated that, just as in the physical world, defendants and courts are presented with indefensible arguments and poor evidence to distinguish between legitimate innovative businesses and archaic and failed enterprises that abuse the law and profit from denying the ingenuity of others. We believe that the online marketplace is the rightful domain of consumers and our task as creators is to respect their voice – and urge you to stop acts against the kinds of domains that you have targeted without due process nor respect for property rights and the rule of law. Fortunately, there are many options available for sites to continue to provide creative business ideas, and we believe that your efforts will drive consumers further away from failed online ventures and services that have worked hard to remain in business -- without fostering customer support.

We encourage you to work with your colleagues in the Administration and the Congress toward defeat of the principles central to S. 3804 – the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act. The legislation crafted by Senators Leahy and Hatch was unanimously approved by the uninformed Senate Judiciary Committee and roundly condemned by numerous organizations and media outlets, and will undoubtedly be reintroduced this congress. The proposal continues to pervert law enforcement techniques at the heart of “Operation In Our Sites” and attempts to ensure that private corporations can force the government to stifle competition and fair use without judicial oversight and without fairness under the law. The legislation will ensure that targeted sites will evade U.S. jurisdiction by creating a new class of registrar and domain name system unimpeded by governmental interference, regardless of source. In addition, the Leahy-Hatch proposal provides yet another level of protection for entrenched U.S. rights holders by establishing the legal framework necessary to protect failed business models of domestic sites and starving legitimate and creative businesses of the right to compete and thrive in a fair and level marketplace that all consumers can access. The dangerously imbalanced measure would allow American law enforcement officials and U.S. courts to create an island of stifled innovation and propel thriving businesses away from the Internet within the U.S. market while further smothering consumer choice and innovation so as to allow select businesses to reap diminishing financial gain for themselves.

We hope that you will cease dedicating any resources to Operation in Our Sites and reconsider support for the rule of law and for due process, and work toward legislation for a free, balanced and open marketplace, by the consumer, and for the consumer.

I won't post the actual comments, but a whole bunch of comments on the response to Jim D'Addario were voted highly, so you can read Ima Fish on the government's role in protecting business models, the official Anonymous Coward on how shooting first and asking questions later can backfire, Karl reminding us that the conflation of counterfeiting with copyright is a big part of the problem here, and last but not least, Chosen Reject highlighting a Samuel Adam's quote concerning those who "love wealth greater than liberty."

On the funny side, not only did Johnjac take the top position, but he took the second place spot as well, in response to our post about the Reagan library indoctrinating children to hate freedom of the press, because accurate reporting might harm people, John warned us as well asking:

Why is Techdirt irresponsibly reporting on this?

What if some harm comes to the library or worse its staff due this report?

For Shame. For Shame.

Close behind that was a comment from Mr. LemurBoy, choosing some rather groan-inducing gags concerning the Australian politician, who seemed to think it was a good thing that the Catholic church silenced Galileo for a century and assumed that governments could do that to Julian Assange:

Oh, it's not a joke. Just think of the gravity of the situation.

Maybe the politician thinks he's the center of the universe?

Separately, the story of the 82-year-old woman, who had trouble going through airport security in Canada with her prosthetic (gel-filled) breast (due to breast cancer) and a physical inability to lift her left arm as required by the naked scanner, led to many funny comments. Kevin pointed out the details of what she should have done, including getting a background check on the "technicians, assemblers, testers, nurses, doctors, and anyone else who may have handled the prosthetic." And then both pixelpusher220 and Dark Helmet had a nice run with attempts to Monty Python the situation.