TaboToka 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Supreme Court Hides Behind Ridiculous Procedural Argument To Allow Human Trafficking To Continue

    TaboToka ( profile ), 08 Apr, 2025 @ 08:31am

    Hypocrites

    If a future president decided, under the war powers act, of course, to disappear a supreme court justice to a foreign gulag without due process, I have no doubt the remaining justices would condemn that harshly and rule it unconstitutional. But, I'm willing to gather evidence to test my hypothesis. Perhaps we can test this out on Clarence "Uncle" Thomas?

  • On the post: Amid The Measles Outbreak, HHS Cuts 1/8th Of Workforce

    TaboToka ( profile ), 04 Apr, 2025 @ 03:02pm

    Brain Death

    The Rich who catapulted the current imbecile (and his clown car of incompetence) into office somehow thought the total dismantling of these institutions would somehow end up well for them? It is pretty hard to go out to eat at your favorite (and exclusive) fine dining establishment when the staff has a highly contagious disease, and/or health inspections no longer occur in the kitchens. No matter how much money you have, your towncar getting into a wreck due to (uninspected, uncorrected) shoddy workmanship won't guarantee you'll be able to sue them later if you die in the crash.

  • On the post: How 18F Transformed Government Technology − And Why Its Elimination Matters

    TaboToka ( profile ), 04 Apr, 2025 @ 02:55pm

    Such a waste...and guaranteed to waste even more

    One can take a look at healthcare.gov's design, and compare it with sites not touched by 18F, like weather.gov, the latter looks hopelessly stuck in the early 00s, unresponsive, clunky, and unusable on mobile. State and municipal sites are even worse.

  • On the post: How Does This End?

    TaboToka ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2025 @ 02:27pm

    You're thinking too much

    I don’t understand why people who claim to follow god, can hate the poor for being poor.
    Because it is about their god: control. They will cherry-pick whatever words are needed to appeal to the simple rubes to get their support, and to justify whatever atrocities they want to commit.
    I can’t see how making being homeless illegal helps solve the homeless problems.
    They are woefully incompetent, so they have a simplistic view of a solution: out of sight, out of mind. Certainly if they round up all those undesirables, the homeless will magically go away, ignoring the fact that unless these idiots literally kill the homeless†, they'll have to let them out of jail/prison eventually and now those poor peoples' situations will be worse (try getting a job or assistance with a criminal record). †Even if they were to kill them, newly-homeless folks will take their places, because Late-Stage Capitalism.

  • On the post: Step Aside, Schumer. The Nation Can’t Survive With You In Charge.

    TaboToka ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2025 @ 10:26am

    We need a fighter

    Stand up and fight and the base will rally. The major flaw in our system I see is the Founders never envisioned there would be elected officials who couldn't be bothered to do their jobs. Moscow Mitch, with his declaration the Senate's sole goal was to make Obama a 1-term president, then refusing to hold a vote on Obama's SCOTUS pick(s) was bad. Refusing to even consider removing TFG from office when he was impeached BOTH TIMES is egregious. The Republicans managed for YEARS to gum up the works, even when they were in the minority. The filibustered everything, they made noise, cranked out soundbites, and hammered Dems constantly. I expect the Dems to do nothing less in return. The ones who can't/won't (and party leadership who punish those who do) need to GTFO.

  • On the post: Trump FCC Boss To Destroy Whatever’s Left Of U.S. Broadband Consumer Protection

    TaboToka ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2025 @ 10:18am

    Delusion

    It’s to destroy the country to make it a nice big feud to a handful of super rich people
    Those super-rich folks are dumber than they look. The US is well on its way to convincing the world to dump the dollar in favor of another currency for trading oil and gas. Once that happens, the super-rich will have to convert their now-worthless (worth less) dollars to gold and get it out of the country, where they can join another oligarchy, like Russia or North Korea.

  • On the post: Incoming CBS Boss Jeff Shell Pressuring Underlings To Settle With Trump, Trample Journalistic Freedom, And Kiss Authoritarian Ass

    TaboToka ( profile ), 05 Mar, 2025 @ 07:16pm

    Riiiight

    CBS edited a video of harris so it appeared that she had coherent answers
    Be careful of that strawman, friend. It is so dry it's liable to spontaneously combust.

  • On the post: The UK Government Just Made Everyone Less Safe As Apple Shuts Down iCloud Encryption

    TaboToka ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2025 @ 09:59am

    Lol WUT

    You're linking to the UNITED STATES ("en-US") page of Apple's site. Of course it will show passwords as e2e encrypted, because they ARE in the US.

  • On the post: South Dakota Republicans: Let’s Start Jailing Librarians

    TaboToka ( profile ), 26 Feb, 2025 @ 09:51am

    Easy solution

    All public libraries and museums are designated "Adults-only". K-12 school libraries are closed permanently. Hope those South Dakota universities (and businesses that rely upon knowledge workers) are going to be recruiting from out-of-state, because soon no SD High School graduate will be literate.

  • On the post: The Real ‘Gulf Of America’ Is Between The News Outlets That Cover This Administration

    TaboToka ( profile ), 13 Feb, 2025 @ 03:34pm

    Riiiight

    The Gulf of America only includes US coastlines (about half of The Gulf of Mexico borders).
    That's not how names of international bodies of water work at all. I suppose King BabyHands could rename the Eastern costal waters to "American Ocean" and the Western coastal waters to "USA Ocean" but only where it includes US coastlines, right?

  • On the post: Court Blocks DOGE’s Treasury Access, Adding Credence To CFAA Claims

    TaboToka ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2025 @ 10:12am

    How low will they go?

    Thanks to Trump v. United States (2024), the President is basically a King, not subject to the constraints of law. The magic words "national security" have been joined with "official duties" to excuse any and all actions taken by the office-holder of the President. Any court injunction doesn't apply to TFG. That leaves his minions as subject to fines and jail, except TFG would pardon them all as long as they're doing President Musk's bidding.

  • On the post: Musk Shows Us What Actual Government Censorship On Social Media Looks Like

    TaboToka ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2025 @ 06:32am

    Citation needed

    (as demonstrated by the Biden/Harris administration)
    Name one, with a link to an actual credible source.

  • On the post: Biden’s TikTok Flip-Flop: President Rushes To Undo Ban He Championed As Backlash Grows

    TaboToka ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2025 @ 09:42am

    Loopholes for me, but not for thee

    Well, I’m going to suggest that he who asserts must prove, and “National Security” is not a magic challenge coin that renders the question moot.
    "National Security", "Reckless Driving" and "Disorderly Conduct" all all charges that the authorities use when they don't have a specific law they can charge an actor under. Those three are basically, "you're doing something I don't like, so I'm going to shut you down." And thus are vague enough they don't have to justify their application. National Security has the extra bonus of being unavailable for any of the "little people" to review, being too secret to let the defense see the evidence against them.

  • On the post: YouTube TV Raises Prices Again, Days After Hinting It Wouldn’t

    TaboToka ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2024 @ 10:19am

    Expectations?

    Why would anyone expect them to stay much cheaper over the long term?
    Mmmmaybe to avoid the proverbial meteor that killed the dinosaurs the last time? Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two-sided market", where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them. — Cory Doctorow, 2022

  • On the post: YouTube TV Raises Prices Again, Days After Hinting It Wouldn’t

    TaboToka ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2024 @ 10:15am

    And other idiotic practices

    “Short-term profits over long-term customer retention and satisfaction” is the modus operandi.
    Exactly this. No public company can make a multi-year investment that reduces quarterly profits. Even if the investment is virtually guaranteed to pay itself off and increase future profits, provide a competitive advantage and/or set up the company for long-term success, Wall Street will have none of it. Too many quarters of "missed analyst predictions" means you're out, regardless.

  • On the post: YouTube TV Raises Prices Again, Days After Hinting It Wouldn’t

    TaboToka ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2024 @ 10:09am

    Excuses are not necessary

    I don’t provide the company with any excuse for making current laws worse.
    Oh my sweet summer child, I hate to break it to you, but the only excuse they need to raise prices is the quarterly rerun of increasing shareholder value. Whatever you do or do not makes no difference. The excuse is there and they will use it each and every time.

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

    TaboToka ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2024 @ 10:26am

    Not a "fix" but a step in the right direction

    Please, someone more clever and intelligent, tell me (and the 49%) how we can get a leader who will lead us in positive directions.
    I believe you need four foundational elements to even begin to approach a solution:
    1. Eliminate radical gerrymandering and draw the maps to make districts represent the population. In other words, there shouldn't be districts that look like the alien autopsy of Tennessee's district 5.
    2. Replace first-past-the-post with ranked choice voting, to incentivize parties to align more with what people want and give 3rd parties more of a voice.
    3. Repeal Citizen's United, and implement strict ethics laws for all three branches against any government official accepting emoluments (looking at you, Clarence).
    4. Circumvent or eliminate the electoral college, so 1 person = 1 vote.
    If we fail to do the above, we won't move much further away from where we are now.

  • On the post: Brewery Settles Lawsuit Over ‘Big Juicy’ Brand And Rebrands To ‘Juicy Big’

    TaboToka ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2024 @ 11:33am

    Gah

    (I meant trademark)

  • On the post: Brewery Settles Lawsuit Over ‘Big Juicy’ Brand And Rebrands To ‘Juicy Big’

    TaboToka ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2024 @ 11:32am

    $$$ Opportunity

    Quick! Someone patent:

    • Big, Big Juicy
    • Juicy Big Juice
    • Juicy Big Big
    • Juicy, Juicy Juice

  • On the post: The 1912 War On Fake Photos

    TaboToka ( profile ), 04 Oct, 2024 @ 12:21pm

    First Amendment Fire

    Like Tim Walz said, you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater
    You CAN yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater is not protected speech:
    "...it is a fact that a man in a crowded auditorium, or any theater, who yells “fire” and there is no fire, and a panic ensues and someone is trampled to death, may be rightfully indicted and charged with murder, ..." —E. S. Wertz - Debs v. US (1918)

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