timmaguire42 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (206)

• On the post: James Comey To Congress: About Those Hillary Clinton Emails I Mentioned Last Week? Meh, Forget About It, Nothing To See

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2016 @ 04:55am

  Two thigns ot come out of this

  1. Early voting is a dumb way to run an election.
  
  2. You know Comey's getting a lot of pressure from above to bury this and he's getting a lot of pressure from below to bring down the hammer. It's no easy task he's been assigned, but he has come up with an elegant solution that infuriates everyone equally.

• On the post: If You Want To Believe This Country Is Falling Apart, Just Ask Those Who Are Supposed To Be Keeping It Together

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 02 Nov, 2016 @ 06:52am

  The incentives are all wrong

  As a couple people here have pointed out, the incentives are all wrong. As I found when I used to do immigration law, there is no downside for the examiner to refuse a qualified person, but there may be severe consequences for allowing someone who later turned criminal. The incentive is not to do your job to the best of your abilities, but to exaggerate the dangers.
  
  Bonus that it helps your department get more money. In the score-keeping world of bureaucratic government, money is prestige. Getting more means you're more important.

• On the post: The FBI Seems To Be Leaking Like A Sieve Concerning Details Of Clinton Email Invesgitation

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2016 @ 11:41am

  Re: Re: Re: I am not racist but...

  They both suck hard, but they suck in very different ways. Your own preferences and values can inform the calculated risk you choose to take.

• On the post: The FBI Seems To Be Leaking Like A Sieve Concerning Details Of Clinton Email Invesgitation

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2016 @ 10:56am

  Re: Re: Re: I am not racist but...

  you might have a point about the hate most others will have keeping him in check.
  
  I'm actually banking a lot on that. I find the idea of a president Trump scary, but a president Clinton is unthinkable. All the institutions that would enable Hillary will contain Donald.

• On the post: The FBI Seems To Be Leaking Like A Sieve Concerning Details Of Clinton Email Invesgitation

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2016 @ 09:51am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: I am not racist but...

  That's a reform I could support--if "none of the above" wins a plurality, the election is reheld and none of the previous candidates are eligible for the next round.

• On the post: The FBI Seems To Be Leaking Like A Sieve Concerning Details Of Clinton Email Invesgitation

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 01 Nov, 2016 @ 09:49am

  Re: I am not racist but...

  While I agree that it is either obtuse or disingenuous to claim no bias, you shouldn't need Mike to tell you what his bias is, if it's there, you can figure it out without his help.
  
  My bias? Equality before the law is a fundamental value. We do not have an aristocracy. Yet. President Hillary Clinton would represent a significant undermining of our status as a republic. I care about the values of the Enlightenment; therefore, I am not "with her."
  
  If you want honest government, vote Trump because our institutions will be on him like white on rice. As secretary of state, the president himself couldn't say no to Hillary. Who's going to say no to her when she's president?

• On the post: Arsenal, The UK Football Club, Sues Arsenal Cider House, The Pittsburgh Bar, Because Of Course It Would

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2016 @ 05:23am

  Re: Re: Football clubs sell advertising

  Exactly. If the Arsenal Football Club wanted to get into hard cider using their name, they should have done it first. But they didn't.

• On the post: Arsenal, The UK Football Club, Sues Arsenal Cider House, The Pittsburgh Bar, Because Of Course It Would

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2016 @ 05:21am

  Re: IP Lawyers in pursuit of OPM -- Other People's Money

  How about going a step further to put the blame exactly where it really does belong--with the laws that the legal profession uses to advise suit. If the law didn't punish under-policing, you wouldn't see so much over-policing.

• On the post: Australian Teen With Wacky Mullet Sues The Media For Making A Meme Out Of His Haircut

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2016 @ 10:05am

  I could have saluted him, but I won't

  It's no mean feat to stand next to a girl like that and have the discussion be about him. Why did he get that haircut if not to generate attention?

• On the post: Arsenal, The UK Football Club, Sues Arsenal Cider House, The Pittsburgh Bar, Because Of Course It Would

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 28 Oct, 2016 @ 05:19am

  90% of Trademark law is bollocks

  Trademark differs from Copyright and Patent in that Copyright and Patent protect new things, whereas Trademark takes already existing things out of the public domain and hands them over to private entities. In theory, the public is compensated through economic gains from business advantage, but all too often, specific applications have no public benefit.
  
  Strong protection should be reserved for Trademarks that truly are new--invented words that have meaning in the public mind solely through the efforts of the company using the word. But the Arsenal Football Club did not invent the word arsenal. They did not popularize the word arsenal. Closer to the truth to say that they are free-riding on a word popularized through great military effort and public expense.
  
  I don't see any justification for giving them any rights at all to the word except as explicitly referring to a soccer team somewhere in England.

• On the post: Car-Freshener Wields Little Trees Trademark To Bankrupt Non Profit That Helped Ex-Cons And Recovering Addicts

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2016 @ 07:50am

  Re: Re:

  Yes, one would think. But where the incentives are screwy, at least some behavior will be too.

• On the post: Facebook's Arbitrary Offensiveness Police Take Down Informational Video About Breast Cancer Screening

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2016 @ 05:11am

  Re:

  I'm avoiding Facebook for the election season and would happily avoid it for the rest of my life if my idiot friends and relatives would stop using it to make major announcements.

• On the post: Why Wikipedia Is Worried About Global 'Right To Be Forgotten' Delistings

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2016 @ 11:23am

  But which Tim Maguire is me?

  Just for fun I just googled my name--tim maguire and timothy maguire--and searched through 4 pages without finding a single entry that is me.
  
  So suppose I get a court to order Google to delist me. How are they to make that happen when there are so many other tim maguires out there? How is Google to know which ones are me?

• On the post: Facebook's Arbitrary Offensiveness Police Take Down Informational Video About Breast Cancer Screening

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2016 @ 05:10am

  Can we drop lines like "[a]s a private company, Facebook is of course allowed to follow its own whim when it comes to what is allowed on its site," from these stories? It's offensive that we're supposed to apologize and qualify perfectly reasonable objections to objectionable behavior.
  
  As for Facebook's credit for putting the video back up. Very little credit is deserved. Actual credit should be reserved for when they start doing a better job of avoiding these problems in the future.

• On the post: Car-Freshener Wields Little Trees Trademark To Bankrupt Non Profit That Helped Ex-Cons And Recovering Addicts

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 27 Oct, 2016 @ 04:58am

  "Car-Freshener's trademarks very likely are invalid. But, Car-Freshener has a history of trademark bullying"
  
  Those two things are probably related. There is a kernel of truth to Car-Freshener's argument--companies police their own marks and can lose them if they don't. So the law does encourage trademark bullying, even if some companies take it to extreme.
  
  But note how the incentive plays out here--a weak mark will need to be "protected" more aggressively for the very reason that it is weak. It is more likely to be lost if they don't keep a high fence around it.

• On the post: The Clinton Campaign Should Stop Denying That The Wikileaks Emails Are Valid; They Are And They're Real

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2016 @ 11:02am

  Tell the truth and move on?

  Sure, after all these years, maybe Hillary will stop being Hillary.

• On the post: Zuckerberg Momentarily Curbs 'Hate Speech' Moderation Stupidity At Facebook To Reinstate Posts By Donald Trump

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2016 @ 09:32am

  Re:

  They're not that new. The Democratic Party has been the party of the super rich and giant corporations for at least a generation. That equity and equality stuff is just baubles they wheel out when they need to to get the rubes to the polls.
  
  The Republicans at least have the advantage of not being able to figure out who or what they are. The country does a pretty good job of running itself, with most important issues being handled at the local level. A useless federal government is the best most of us can hope for.

• On the post: Zuckerberg Momentarily Curbs 'Hate Speech' Moderation Stupidity At Facebook To Reinstate Posts By Donald Trump

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2016 @ 09:27am

  Re: Free Speech is a societal value

  In fairness, I should note that Zuckerberg deserves credit for standing by Peter Theil's free speech rights in the face of partisan criticism. But Facebook as a whole has some work to do.

• On the post: Zuckerberg Momentarily Curbs 'Hate Speech' Moderation Stupidity At Facebook To Reinstate Posts By Donald Trump

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2016 @ 09:24am

  Free Speech is a societal value

  The first amendment applies only to the government, but free speech, the idea that the best antidote to bad speech is more speech, is a vital cultural norm. There is no need for quotes just because Facebook is a private company. They have taken a stand against free speech; the fact that they have done it on their own dime is irrelevant.
  
  The fact that they have successfully put themselves in the position of playing a key role in public discourse is irrelevant to the free speech question, but relevant to why it matters.

• On the post: Appeals Court Says Government Doesn't Have To Disclose Contents Of Its Secret Terrorist Organization List

  

  timmaguire42 ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2016 @ 05:43am

  Am I reading that right?

  The government argues that terrorists will be more forthcoming about their terror plans if they aren't publicly labelled terrorists?
  
  And the court buys that argument?

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