Roger Strong 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: How 'Just Metadata' Helped Ruin A Career Diplomat's Life

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2016 @ 01:19pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Considering how may article titles on Tech Dirt say "Trump"

    Just like the last 50 anti-ACA votes by House Republicans.

    Sarcasm aside, let's be realistic. Just three days after the election Trump was already backpedalling on his promise to repeal the ACA. He'd hang onto popular provisions like "the prohibition against insurers denying coverage because of patients’ existing conditions, and a provision that allows parents to provide years of additional coverage for children on their insurance policies."

    A repeal would cause about 20 million people to lose coverage, and now they could only blame Republicans.

    So yes, the ACA will be "gone." Replaced with a rebranded system that looks pretty much the same. The personal mandate will still be there, but Republicans will return to declaring it to be "about personal responsibility and not forcing others to pay for your healthcare." They can stand under a "Mission Accomplished" banner, and that's what counts.

  • On the post: How 'Just Metadata' Helped Ruin A Career Diplomat's Life

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2016 @ 12:35pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Considering how may article titles on Tech Dirt say "Trump"

    All sides negotiated and came to an agreement. For independent "Senator for Aetna" Lieberman, the public option was removed. For Republicans, states got the right to prohibit coverage of abortion. And so despite Obama having only 58 of 60 votes needed for a supermajority, it was passed with 60 votes. The two independents voted for it, and one Republican didn't vote. Remember to begin with, the ACA was essentially "15 years of Republican healthcare policy up until the moment Obama voted for it." The ACA: a) Mirrors the RomneyCare plan, lauded by Republicans as a private industry success. (It's only when Obama adopted it that it became a commie Marxist socialist failure.) b) Is very similar to a proposal made to candidate McCain in 2008 by the Health Insurance lobby. c) Is very similar to the Republican alternative to ClintonCare - the Republican's Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993. d) Mirrors Bob Dole's plan from the 1990s. Even the "individual mandate" was called for by Republicans for 15 years, by everyone from Bob Dole to Jim DeMint to the Heritage Foundation to Newt Gingrich to Mitt Romney, as the alternative to socialism. For Republicans the individual mandate was all about personal responsibility, by not forcing others to pay for your healthcare. So the Republicans made a deal but kept grandstanding. Get over it.

  • On the post: CBS Sues Public Domain For Existing

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2016 @ 12:00pm

    Re: Re:

    That would indeed be a substantial minefield. Consider Joseph Conrad's 1899 novel Heart of Darkness. The "pointy hat" of the movie adaptation Apocalypse Now is that it moved the story to the Vietnam war. If someone filmed a new "Heart of Darkness, in Vietnam!" film, it's Apocalypse Now they're be accused of ripping off, not Heart of Darkness. The pointy hat would be everything.

  • On the post: How 'Just Metadata' Helped Ruin A Career Diplomat's Life

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2016 @ 09:46am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Considering how may article titles on Tech Dirt say "Trump"

    Hillary, being on a list of lawyers willing to defend low-income clients was ordered by a judge to defend a rapist. Even the prosecutor in the case backs this up. Hillary and several other women also founded the city's first rape crisis center. Was Trump ordered by a judge to grope those women? Was Trump ordered by a judge to walk into the changing rooms of naked teenage girls and then proudly brag about it later?

  • On the post: How 'Just Metadata' Helped Ruin A Career Diplomat's Life

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2016 @ 09:20am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Considering how may article titles on Tech Dirt say "Trump"

    No, Obama did not have a supermajority. Never. Between Republicans contesting Al Franken’s election, Senator Byrd of West Virginia being hospitalized and the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, Obama was always one or two votes short of a supermajority. With Republicans filibustering EVERYTHING as their stated policy - that's NOT "business as usual, BTW - a mere democratically elected clear majority wasn't enough.

  • On the post: CBS Sues Public Domain For Existing

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2016 @ 09:04am

    Re:

    Once Batman becomes public domain, your super-limited, specific expression of the Batmobile becomes public domain because it was a Batman-derived work in the first place.
    Given that a defining trait of all Batmobiles is the flames shooting out the back, I'm surprised that DC Comics didn't sue Ferrari when it unintentionally became a defining trait of the 458 Italia.

  • On the post: Appeals Court Reminds Everyone: Patent Infringement Is Good For Competition

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2016 @ 01:42pm

    Re:

    Reflex Testing: Excellent knee-jerk reaction time.

    By the way, did you know pick-pockets and bank-robbers are good for competition too?
    If you say so. Mike's article didn't imply anything that would lead to that being an intelligent comparison.

  • On the post: UK Police Circumventing Cellphone Encryption By 'Mugging' Suspects While Their Phones Are Unlocked

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2016 @ 12:54pm

    Re:

    If you're describing how to maintain your privacy, the instruction "Use Siri" should play no part in it.

  • On the post: UK's Health Secretary Has The Solution To Cyberbullying & Sexting: Nerds Should Nerd Harder

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2016 @ 11:39am

    Re: Re: The meaning of is

    Speaking of the pizzeria right-wingnut, let's compare the fake news issue with cyberbullying and sexting. Both require similar "nerding" to stop. The delusional nutjobs spreading the fake #pizzagate story include Donald Trump's national security advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. And now after the assault-rifle-wielding "self-investigating" incident, his son is sounding the nutjob clarion call, doubling down on the conspiracy theory. The younger Flynn, who has reportedly served as his father’s chief of staff, retweeted a tweet from Jack Posobiec, special projects director for CitizensForTrump.com, who suggested that the gunman was an actor carrying out a “false flag” operation on behalf of the U.S. government. No amount of "nerding harder" is going to stop false news when the President-elect, his white supremacist Karl Rove and his nutjob national security advisor is spreading it. But it might have knocked offline any real news site that mentioned Trump's "Grab her by the pussy" and other comments.

  • On the post: UK Police Circumventing Cellphone Encryption By 'Mugging' Suspects While Their Phones Are Unlocked

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2016 @ 09:26am

    Re:

    It was a Dark Knight when that happened.

  • On the post: UK Police Circumventing Cellphone Encryption By 'Mugging' Suspects While Their Phones Are Unlocked

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2016 @ 09:20am

    Re: So this conversation is now reallity:

    Oh.... what has the world come to?
    This.
    Yes! Now they don't have to destroy everyones digital security and our whole online infrastructure.
    Good point. Still disturbing, but a good point.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2016 @ 09:02am

    Re: Re: Baseless accusations

    several of which are by known troll Milo Yiannopolous (sp?), not Bannon.
    And....? Steve Bannon was the publisher. He was the one in charge, the one ultimately responsible for approving all their racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic material, let alone setting the tone. Still, you highlight an important difference between Nazi apologists and Trump/Breitbart: "It's not their fault; they were just GIVING orders."
    Islam is not a race, it's a religion, an ideology, and a system of government all wrapped up into one giant hate whole)
    The same can be said with equal accuracy for Christianity. There's no shortage of American Christians demanding what could only be described as a theocracy. Ask Cruz, Huckabee or Santorum for details. And indeed the Catholic Church dictated policy to European leaders for over a thousand years. Nor has there been any shortage of hate on the Christian side. Not just hatred of non-Christians, but wars over different interpretations of Christianity. What's your point?

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2016 @ 08:25am

    Re: Re: This post really doubles down on #fakenews

    "A champion of white supremacists."

    • Sen. Harry Reid on Steve Bannon, urging president-elect Trump to revoke his appointment as chief strategist and senior counselor
    Even the right is calling Steve Bannon a white supremacist. Reid isn't alone. In Bannon's defence, despite his actions, his publishing history, occasionally his words say otherwise: “I’m a Leninist,” Steve Bannon told a writer for The Daily Beast, in late 2013. “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” America's enemies are stocking up on popcorn.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 05 Dec, 2016 @ 08:12am

    Re: This post really doubles down on #fakenews

    It's well documented that the US had multiple torture sites in Iraq. Multiple torture sites in Afghanistan including the Salt Pit. Black sites in Eastern Europe, Diego Garcia, Morocco and elsewhere. And of course there's Gitmo. AND STILL they had to farm out torture to places like Syria and Egypt. It's well documented that the US kidnapped more than 100 people from EU soil alone - even a Canadian transferring planes in New York on his way home - and held them for months or years without trial. Many, having been kidnapped and tortured, were later released with an "er, never mind." The USA wasn't just torturing terrorists; they were torturing people just to test vague suspicions that they might have some connection to terrorists. While you're denying it, even the minor involvement of countries like Canada, Britain and Poland has gone to court, and they're paying reparations. So tell us: How many people do they have to torture before you'll call it "mass torture?" How many torture sites to they have to operate before you'll admit that maybe, just maybe, there were more than a couple victims involved? Does it take.... How did British intelligence officers describe it in court? Oh, right; "Mr Mohamed's genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, "is very far down the list of things they did." (Binyam Mohamed was later released with an "er, never mind.") Of course, no doubt you'll label that court testimony "#fakenews" too.

  • On the post: Ahead Of President Trump, The Web's One And Only Backup Wants To Make A Backup Of Itself (In Canada)

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2016 @ 04:31pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    All your link shows is that when the facts clearly prove one thing, an Exxon / Kock Bros. "think tank" can create some highly restricted utter nonsense criteria by which they can claim the opposite.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2016 @ 02:19pm

    Re: This isn't funny

    Where does greater rights exist in the nomenclature of law that allows corporations more rights than individuals?
    That'd be where unlike consumers, corporations can hold $2,700 per plate fundraising dinners for politicians, have hundreds of their friends buy plates, and claim that it's not lobbying "by the definition of the legal term." Setting aside that it's called bribery when individuals try it. Wait.... was that another one of those "rhetorical questions" people keep telling me about?

  • On the post: Every Website Needs To Re-register With The Copyright Office, Who Can't Build A Functioning System

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2016 @ 02:09pm

    Re: So you've got yourself an invalid registration now...

    I threatened to write my senator, and they told me Ted Cruz was also a Canadian.

  • On the post: Every Website Needs To Re-register With The Copyright Office, Who Can't Build A Functioning System

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2016 @ 01:45pm

    Re:

    No, I don't.

    I remember when it was acting like technology would make the worst of the copyright abuses and bad business models go away or be reduced to irrelevance.

    Funny, that.

  • On the post: Every Website Needs To Re-register With The Copyright Office, Who Can't Build A Functioning System

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2016 @ 11:47am

    Re: Same Rules Apply...

    The major publishers might actually love this idea. They have the money and the staff for continual re-registering.

    For them, the internet is a disaster because it levels the playing field. Anyone can publish. So for example they periodically push for mandatory DRM schemes like SDMI to keep out small players who can't afford the licencing and technical costs.

    Disney is known for vacuuming up off-copyright works from the Brothers Grimm to Japanese animation, republishing it as "their own" creations, AND THEN fiercely protecting them with copyright. It might work in their favor to hand the small players the hassle and cost of continual copyright re-registering.

  • On the post: Antigua Says It Will Certainly, Absolutely, Definitely Use WTO Permission To Ignore US Copyright And Set Up A Pirate Site, Maybe

    Roger Strong ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2016 @ 01:25pm

    Careful....

    This act of war could lead to the American invasion of Montserrat.

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