xmichaelx 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (712)

• On the post: Cops Who Attended ‘Stop The Steal’ Rally Ask US Supreme Court To Keep Their Names Out Of The News

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 23 Apr, 2025 @ 03:34pm

  Additionally, the Trump administration hasn't been shy about naming and harassing private citizens - including professors and teachers, many of whom are public employees - who protest the Gaza nonsense. Once again, cops insist on a different standard of privacy than what the rest of the public (and the public workforce) receives.

• On the post: DOJ Learning In The Abrego Garcia Case That Judges Don’t Like Being Lied To

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 23 Apr, 2025 @ 03:24pm

  The Supreme Court had time to weigh in, genius. This is a Constitutional crisis; it should go faster. Bush v Gore took significantly less time on a much more complex issue. But that's because everyone actually wanted a resolution.

• On the post: AI Crawlers Are Harming Wikimedia, Bringing Open Source Sites To Their Knees, And Putting The Open Web At Risk

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2025 @ 01:47pm

  100% of library websites are affected

  I run (among other things) a large image database, and we've been absolutely hammered by bots, starting about 6 months ago. Finally we caved and are now paying Cloudflare to put a stop to it, which has worked pretty well. AI companies - including Google - should be paying this bill, given that they don't respect robots.txt.

• On the post: Trump Loyalist Judge Smacks Down Trump Admin Over Blocking The AP

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 09 Apr, 2025 @ 12:29pm

  That's not how anything works. Neither of your sentences make any sense from a legal standpoint.

• On the post: The Consequences Of An RFK Jr. HHS Appointment Are Smacking Our Children In The Face

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2025 @ 11:17am

  I came to make roughly the same point. "Skepticism" implies that, given the proper evidence, the skeptical person could be won over. That's not at all the case here, obviously. What Geigner inexplicable calls "vaccine skepticism" should correctly be called "debunked antivax rhetoric." Why Techdirt is following the NYTimes example of soft-pedaling and sane-washing Bobby Jr.'s nuttiness is a mystery. Perhaps Mr. Giegner will weigh in here to enlighten us.

• On the post: Meta, Apparently, Really Wants Everyone To Read This Book (By Trying To Ban It)

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2025 @ 10:53am

  Don't buy the book or get it from the library ...

  ... just pirate it. It's already trivial to find a copy to download. No one who worked for FB as long as the author did is worth giving money to.

• On the post: Trump Claims Boycotting Tesla Is Illegal, Which It Very Much Is Not

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2025 @ 10:36am

  How exactly will anyone become "insolvent" by not buying Tesla stock? That's not how anything works.

• On the post: More Washington Post Staffers Resign Over Bezos’ Mismanagement And Authoritarian Ass Kissing

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2025 @ 09:22am

  Also, nothing says "free markets" like tariffs, right?

• On the post: Trump’s Anti-DEI Efforts Are Stupidly Erasing Aspects Of American History

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2025 @ 01:48pm

  Minor quibble with part of article

  This line isn't as self-explanatory as the author seems to believe:

  Nor was Enola Gay herself, by all accounts, given that she was the mother of the pilot who flew the plane.

  My mother is a lesbian who didn't come out until I was 19 (during her marriage to her second husband). When I was a child in the '70s/'80s, a majority of lesbians over 30 did, in fact, have children. That's how life worked when lying to yourself and others was better than being a blacklisted social outcast. Whether Enola Gay was a lesbian is irrelevant, but the evidence the author offers isn't evidence of anything, particularly given the period in which she lived.

• On the post: GOP Senators Trade Constitutional Authority For Elon’s Phone Number

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 10 Mar, 2025 @ 10:25am

  How could the Dems *possibly* screw this up? /s

  The Dems have been gifted a set of talking points on a silver platter. The Dem wave in 2026 should be a tsunami. Let's see how horribly they can fuck this up in the next 18 months.

• On the post: Trump’s Dept. Of Education Sets Up Online Anti-DEI Bitchfest Portal

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2025 @ 02:38pm

  The Government ultimately decides all Education issues in America

  What you mean to say is that "In sane administrations, EXPERTS working for the government make data-based decision on education issues." And that's true. It's also something conservatives historically believed (prior to Saint Reagan). The fact that you worded it as you did speaks volumes about your non-existent understanding of how good government works, and therefore your political leanings.

• On the post: People Who Can’t Get Books Banned From Libraries Are Now Hiding Them Or Throwing Them In The Trash

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2025 @ 01:55pm

  Common for decades

  Christians hiding/throwing away books was common when I worked in a bookstore in the '90s. We also had a Muslim guy who would reshelve the Religion section so that Korans would be on the top shelf. Religion is never, ever a net positive.

• On the post: Big Telecom Is Terrified Of New State Laws Demanding They Make Broadband Affordable To Poor People

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 03 Mar, 2025 @ 10:42am

  Your comment would make sense if Trump's various EOs and calls for legislation didn't explicitly attempt to preempt state action. But since many do, you just look like an idiot. Republicans HATE States' Rights when states use those rights to do stuff they don't like. This has always been the case, all the way back to the Fugitive Slave Act (which Texas is desperate to resurrect with regards to abortion).

• On the post: State Plaintiffs Lose A Disappointing Battle, While Musk And DOGE Get Closer To Losing The War

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 20 Feb, 2025 @ 11:40am

  I don't think this is the right question either. The Court's ruling about presidential powers is more in line with what we're likely to see: a vaguely worded missive in which immunity is granted for "official acts," where it's up to SCOTUS to decide which acts are considered "official" enough. IOW, this'll be another power grab by SCOTUS, while also letting Trump/Musk get away with murder.

• On the post: Democrats And The Price Of Protection

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 14 Feb, 2025 @ 10:32am

  You're clearly either a high school senior or college freshman. Take a few econ classes and come back to talk with the grown-ups, sport.

• On the post: No, The People Didn’t Vote For This

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 10 Feb, 2025 @ 08:17am

  The economy was too strong

  Trump inherited an economy that was pretty great by any measure, so he needs to knock it down a bit in order to point a finger at Biden and claim it was bad. And republicans, being stupid, will eat that shit up. When his dumb tariffs cause massive issues (just like in his first term) he'll whine about Biden and Harris and Obama(!), and his followers will clap like wind-up monkeys as they pay more for everything while the wealthy pay less taxes and laugh at them. We've seen all this before. Every republican administration since Reagan has ended with an economic crisis.

• On the post: Broadband And TV Customers Continue To Flee Charter And Comcast As Ridiculous Merger Talks Percolate

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 07 Feb, 2025 @ 08:12am

  Sprint/T-Mobile merger reminder

  Just a reminder: Trump was 100% against the Sprint/T-Mobile merger ... until Legere spent ~$200K renting out floors of the Trump hotel in DC. Then suddenly it was a great idea. The corruption was flagrant, and illustrated how cheaply one can buy the President.

• On the post: But Her Emails Redux: Team Trump Makes CIA Send List Of All Recently Hired Employees Over Unclassified Email

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2025 @ 01:46pm

  Valerie Plame

  I'm old enough to remember the Bush administration outing a covert CIA operative (Valerie Plame), costing tens of millions in blown covert businesses and contacts, and potentially putting American lives in danger. Republicans have always been traitors.

• On the post: Spam Emails, Spam Lawsuit: The GOP Tries To Break Gmail By Court Order

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2025 @ 01:40pm

  postal costs don’t seem to deter postal spammers; remember AOL?

  You definitely failed your 8th-grade logic class. By definition, anyone who's been "detered" by costs has never sent you junk mail. Is it your supposition that, if postal mail were free, we'd have the same amount of junk mail? Because that's a very stupid supposition. In fact, we'd have MOUNTAINS of junk mail. Infinitely more than we have today. Every day. Forever.

• On the post: M. Night Shyamalan, Apple Evade Copyright Lawsuit By Filmmaker For The Most Obvious Of Reasons

  

  xmichaelx ( profile ), 31 Jan, 2025 @ 08:56am

  Last line is dumb and false

  I do know that the truth about The Truth About Emanuel is that it wasn’t copied for Servant.

  There's no possible way for the author here to know this, despite any court ruling.

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