Carrying A Gun-Shaped iPhone 'Makes It Much Less Likely You'll Catch Your Plane' (cnet.com) 235
HughPickens.com writes: A passenger at London Stansted Airport seemed to think it was a good idea to have a gun-shaped iPhone case in his back pocket as he prepared to board a plane... [T]he police speculated on Twitter that they could proceed with charges against him for either a public order offense or for possession of an imitation firearm in a public place tweeting with the hashtag #dontbedaft that "Bringing this to an airport makes it much less likely you'll catch your plane."
[In 2015] the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey offered this warning on Facebook to potential users: "Please folks -- this cell phone case is not a cool product or a good idea. A police officer's job is hard enough, without having to make a split second decision in the dark of night when someone decides without thinking to pull this out while stopped for a motor vehicle violation..." One Twitter user responded, "On what planet is this a smart thing to do?" But the New Jersey prosecutor has asked their followers on social media to share their own opinions.
[In 2015] the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey offered this warning on Facebook to potential users: "Please folks -- this cell phone case is not a cool product or a good idea. A police officer's job is hard enough, without having to make a split second decision in the dark of night when someone decides without thinking to pull this out while stopped for a motor vehicle violation..." One Twitter user responded, "On what planet is this a smart thing to do?" But the New Jersey prosecutor has asked their followers on social media to share their own opinions.
He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot (Score:5, Insightful)
That is all.
Re:He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot (Score:5, Funny)
He was in London, not Texas.
Re:He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot (Score:5, Informative)
there are armed police at all UK commercial airports now, have been since 9/11.
(source: asked an armed police officer at Nottingham East Midlands Airport last month as I was passing through).
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Armed police were are at the airports in the UK long before 9/11 (or even 11/9, in the UK)
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only at the larger ones such as the London 4, Birmingham International, Edinburgh and Cardiff. Maybe a couple more. The rest used to rely on APOs from local forces.
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And obviously they are far better trained on when NOT to shoot! American cops are taught differently [theguardian.com]
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Actually, American cops are taught differently. They are taught to shoot before there is any threat. We saw it happening last week in Baton Rouge and Minnesota.
Meet Dr William J Lewinski. He is a "researcher" and expert witness for police departments, and he's getting police officers killed by teaching them to execute Americans.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015... [nytimes.com]
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Police should shoot to kill once it becomes clear they are dealing with a violent shithead who is intent on harming them. If someone is willing to violently attack police officers, imagine what they will do to regular civilians. Violent savages don't belong in free society.
Save the taxpayers the cost of a trial and subsequent incarceration. Also, save future victims from being harmed by the shithead who would otherwise be early-released from prison by some liberal parole board.
Re:He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot (Score:4, Insightful)
They took the guy's gun out of his pocket after they shot and killed him.
I don't know if you've seen the videos, but the tazers had done their job. The guy had one arm laying useless and the other in a "Please don't shoot me!" gesture. He was nowhere near pulling a gun.
As I said (and as you can learn from my citation), the police are taught to shoot and kill before they see a threat.
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So, you're saying that The Police all kill people before they see any threats...
No, just the black ones.
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So, you're saying that The Police all kill people before they see any threats...
No, just the black ones.
Really. So in millions of police interactions with people every year, The Police kill all the black people they encounter without there being any threat. That explains why good old fashioned murder of black men by other black men is a vanishingly small occurrence by comparison. Woops! That's exactly backwards, isn't it. Yup.
The point is, there is no such thing as "The Police Killing The Black People" - it's a fantasy. There is such a thing as a police officer shooting someone. Police use lethal force mo
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there are armed police at all UK commercial airports now, have been since 9/11.
But officers in the UK are better trained and less trigger happy.
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The armed police and paranoid security have been going on at LHR for quite some time before the 9/11 events, I think Lockerbie was all it took to put them on edge permanently.
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there are armed police at all UK commercial airports now, have been since 9/11.
There were armed police or army, carrying actual assault rifles, in Heathrow in 1986...
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Police training not gun training I mean - it's very different, far more professional than in nearly every US police force giving them a lot of options other than drawing and shooting at a suspect.
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Yeah, but i europe you only shoot if there are immediate danger, not just because you saw something which might be a gun. Has something to do with people not carrying guns usually, so a immitation is much more likely than a real gun. Unlike texas.
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lol I have no idea on that, what I do know from training firearms authorised police officers in range marksmanship is that the "normal" armed response (airport cops aren't armed response, they're armed transport police) carry Glock 17s, Heckler & Koch MP5SF carbines, custom H&K G3 DSR (designated sniper rifles), Sig SG 516 AR-15 rifles, HK417 marksmen rifles, and Remington 870 shotguns.
Re:He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot (Score:5, Funny)
lol I have no idea on that, what I do know from training firearms authorised police officers in range marksmanship is that the "normal" armed response (airport cops aren't armed response, they're armed transport police) carry Glock 17s, Heckler & Koch MP5SF carbines, custom H&K G3 DSR (designated sniper rifles), Sig SG 516 AR-15 rifles, HK417 marksmen rifles, and Remington 870 shotguns.
They must be very muscular and strong to carry around all those guns!
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Mythbusters proved that it is at least plausible to carry around all your weapons DOOM style, as long as you are in very good shape.
http://nerdist.com/what-we-lea... [nerdist.com]
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Are their bullets still dipped in pork AND beef fat?
You know... If you added some cheese grease to that you could have the fastest bacon cheeseburger death EVER!
Re:He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot (Score:5, Informative)
Police don't expect to get shot by members of the public during every shift they work. Being a police officer isn't even in the top 10 deadliest jobs. Garbage collectors and truck drivers are much more likely to get killed on the job than police.
The 10 Deadliest Jobs: Deaths per 100,000
1. Logging workers: 128.8
2. Fishers and related fishing workers: 117
3. Aircraft pilot and flight engineers: 53.4
4. Roofers: 40.5
5. Structural iron and steel workers: 37
6. Refuse and recyclable material collectors: 27.1
7. Electrical power-line installers and repairers: 23
8. Drivers/sales workers and truck drivers: 22.1
9. Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers: 21.3
10. Construction laborers: 17.4
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Re:He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot (Score:5, Informative)
You can call BS all you want.
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
http://time.com/4326676/danger... [time.com]
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/12... [cnbc.com]
These are statistics from three different years. And being a police officer is still less dangerous than being a taxi driver or janitor.
If you don't like the statistics, you can call and complain to the Washington Post, Time Magazine, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and CNBC.
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It doesn't help just saying believe the statistics. To convince someone it helps to provide background.
Deaths are a rate. There is an incidence number across the top, and there is a divisor across how many people there are. The absolute number of police fatalities may actually be considerably higher than airline pilots, however how many of each profession exist around the world? That can move the rate quite considerably.
There are an estimated 130000 airline pilots around the world.
There are an estimated 300
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These statistics are for jobs in the US.
Again, we're not talking about "around the world", we're talking about the US.
To measure the danger of a job (or the incidence of brown eyes in a population), the .rate
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By the way, the list doesn't say, "professional airline pilot".
It says "aircraft pilot".
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I call BS on professional airline pilot.
If you include all commercial pilots this seems plausible by the time you have included private business jets, cargo transports, crop dusters etc. It's also not clear whether this is just for the US or worldwide. If the later that would include non-western countries where pilot deaths may be higher and non-US countries where police deaths may be far be lower.
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I call BS on professional airline pilot.
Good, because it didn't say "professional airline pilot", it actually said "aircraft pilot and flight engineers".
Which could possibly include the thousands of little planes in Alaska delivering supplies and passengers, search and rescue aircrafts in areas like the mountains/the sea/the forest, firefighting airplanes and helicopters, oil rig aircrafts, UPS/FedEx/cargo planes, new aircrafts currently being tested, tourist/safari/hunting helicopters, little planes used for advertising, crop spraying airplanes,
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How many of those deaths are accidental, how many of them are from being murdered by someone else?
You can be careful, follow safety standards and not die as a logger. Can the same be said of cops?
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If there are police who "expect to get shot by members of the public every shift they work", they need to be taken off the force or at least put on desk duty.
It's as if every Macbook user expected to have his battery burst into flames every time they turn the laptop on.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think his point is more to the order of the difference between a strict gun law country verses a liberal gun law country. Kind of in regards to the comment about it being London not Texas. The shift was ancillary.
However, I think if cops are actually scared that they will get shot on any shift, they need to find another profession. There are tactics and procedures you can take to avoid being shot at and if you are not called to a live fire incident and are still scared, the training didn't stick and they
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A really good phone sex session?
I'm surprised that still happens with the internet and all. I would like to know the ring tone used.
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Nah, British police aren't anywhere close to that trigger happy. The only ones who are allowed to carry firearms are specifically trained firearms officers who deal only with people with weapons. Maybe if he'd been in the US he would have had that issue.
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Nah, British police aren't anywhere close to that trigger happy.
Jean Charles de Menezes [wikipedia.org] might disagree.
Re:He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that it wasn't a tragedy, but you had to go more than a decade back to find that example.
Re:He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure there are flaming assholes in every country, profession, demographic but UK cops, compared to America's Finest, have shown phenomal restraint under some dangerous situations.
For example, when 2 Nigerian terrorist knocked down offduty soldier Lee Rigby with a car then beheaded him with a cleaver, the unarmed cops didn't shit themselves but set up a cordon and guided passerbys away until the armed unit showed up and took both assailants alive, only shooting to wound, despite being rushed by both assailants with weapons in hand, performing 1st aid on one and getting them medical aid.
By contrast , Officer Brelo of the Cleveland PD fired 49 shots ( his fellow cops fired a total of 90 more ) into the car, windshield and bodies of 2 African-Americans. His final 15 bullets were discharged WHILE HE WAS STANDING ON THE HOOD - but he claimed to be afraid for his life???
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How many unarmed cops were there? Would the result be the same if there just two unarmed cops or if the Nigerians were carrying guns?
Re:He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot (Score:5, Informative)
"They hid! While Lee Rigby was having his head chopped off, they were staying on the other side of the crowd"
Bullshit.
Unarmed officers showed up 9 minutes after the emerg call at 14:20h by which point Rigby was already dead and been dragged into the road.
Armed unit took another 5 minutes to arrive.
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he was a: cuffed and b: subdued. The cop kicked him, walked away, came back then kicked him some more.
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Why? You can't bring a gun or even an assault rifle to the airport it seems. It's almost like living in East Germany.
I had to listen to my 7 year old crying for an hour because they confiscated his H&K MP5. Ridiculous.
You people are a bunch of boot lickers.
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... and, "You can't say bomb at the airport."
"Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb,... BOMB!"
Seriously though, what a lack of common sense. "Honey, I am going to airport with my cellphone case that looks like a gun... i'll be back in 5 - 10 years..."
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However. In the USA, there may be reasons for wearing a gun - for example if you have the right carry permit and are simply confused as to what state/... you are in, or if you can wear it in the airport.
In the UK, merely carrying an imitation weapon, never mind a real one, is illegal. (in some cases, carrying a rifle or shotgun may be legal).
This rather changes things.
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If you are confused as to which state you're in, or don't know that you don't pack heat in an airport, you are too dumb to own a gun.
Show of hands: How many people here don't know that you don't pack heat when you're going to an airport? You have to be NFL defensive lineman stupid to think you can bring yo
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Question 2: How many here have ever been confused as to which state they're in? I drive all over the country, and I've never found myself thinking, "Am I in Texas or Oregon? I can't tell."
Come on. It's easy in the American NE. You can sneeze twice and go entirely through Rhode Island.
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I'm in Connecticut and I sneeze a lot. I still manage to see those big signs at the border (NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE WELCOMES YOU, MOTHERFUCKER. YOU BETTER HAVE BROUGHT SOME DONUTS).
But since the gun laws around here are pretty much all the same, you got nothing to worry about unless you're running shine in your big-block Dodge out on the back roads.
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Drive 350 miles between Montreal and Providence, and you'll pass through four states and one province. An extra 60 miles and you could add another two states to that. 7 states/provinces in 410 miles. Damn straight I've said aloud "What state are we in?" while driving in New England.
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I'm in Connecticut right now. I often find myself in Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, while just looking for a slice of pizza or a sandwich.
But I still manage to notice those gigantic "WELCOME TO MO
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Believe it or not roads aren't the only way to travel from one state to the next. I've been camping near a state border before and there was no indication of where one state ended and the other one began. Hunting/Camping trips are a very good example of situation where someone might have a firearm and end up unknowingly cross a state line. Sure you should try to be aware of your surroundings but when the only thing around you for miles are nondescript trees and rocks shit happens.
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I hadn't thought of that. I wonder if park wardens are more understanding of gun owners in those situations than highway patrol or state police would be of a driver on an interstate. I'd hope so.
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If you're seeing "WELCOME TO MOTHERFUCKING NEW JERSEY, DOUCHEBAG" at every border, while visiting NY, VT, and Pennsylvania, you might be a little confused as to which state you're in. I know I would be.
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Drive 350 miles in Western Australia and guess what... You're still in god-damned Western Australia. :-)
Whoah (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment but even I think this is foolhardy at best and insanely stupid at worst.
And trying to board a plane with it these days seems like a terrifically stupid thing to do, despite the fact that it's not actually a firearm.
Re:Whoah (Score:5, Funny)
It's part of an ans amble. There's a matching vest with wires and color coordinated blocks of clay and smoking shoes.
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Those aren't blocks of clay, they're portable chargers and battery extenders.
I once had a smoking jacket, but never smoking shoes. Sounds intriguing though.
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It's a bit like chef and puppet.
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there's no Second Amendment in the UK.
(Stansted is in Essex).
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there's no Second Amendment in the UK.
Yes, I know. I mentioned that so people wouldn't get the idea that I'm just having as knee-jerk reaction to guns in general.
Location (Score:2)
So, where is Essex?
East of Wessex and north of Sussex but strangely not south Nossex since that anglo-saxon kingdom didn't last long enough to leave it's mark on history.
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I'm a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment but even I think this is foolhardy at best and insanely stupid at worst.
Even if the second amendment applied in this case (they've already lost their right to bear arms on that side of the pond) there's no right to freak people out and fuck with security personnel in anyone's constitution, that I'm aware of.
In theory we have the right to tell them what we think of them in either country, but in fact we're denied that right in the USA, and I'm imagine they're stuffy about it over there as well but I have no personal experience.
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This is why our militia always hires a private aircraft.
Our military just has planes lying about, and when they want to move men around, they put them on them. They also don't use the same airports, so people aren't really aware of troop movements at all unless they're in the process of being deployed or released.
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Officer! It's just a phone that has a funny shape! (Score:2)
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I explained that we went through a lot of crap to get our friend sober and this was a keepsake for everyone involved. It had a lot of sentimental value. He didn't care. It was "paraphernalia" and therefore "illegal" (it wasn't).
It depends on where you are. In Texas, and I believe California, if it doesn't have any drug residues then it's not paraphenalia. However, at least in TX, last I heard if you had 10 pipes and 1 had residue you had 10 counts of paraphenalia. I asked a roving glass vendor while at Eeyore's Birthday one year.
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I bet there's a good story that goes with that. Maybe someday when the statute of limitations have passed, you can post a journal entry about it.
Do you live in Texas, drinky?
Just wear one of these (Score:2)
http://rlv.zcache.com/im_the_b... [zcache.com]
What the FUCK? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong. I'm the first to defend anyone from overreaching, overzealous and trigger-happy "must-fight-terrrrrrism" idiots shivering in their boots because they assume that everyone and their dog wants to blow them to kingdom come. But how STUPID do you have to be to bring something shaped like a GUN to an airport?
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...how STUPID do you have to be to bring something shaped like a GUN to an airport?
Looking at the photos of the entire case, it looks like it would be rather awkward to make phone calls with the phone while it was still in the case. It seems like an item whose only use would be a stupid prank like this.
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There's plenty of blame to go around. It seems silly to file charges. I'm not sure what takes so long about emptying his pockets for him, accidentally dropping the phone and congratulating him for winning the jackass of the week award.
But, as for the passenger, he truly is a depressingly stupid jackass.
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It seems silly to file charges.
Does it? We laugh it off in your scenario as giving someone an award for being a jackass. Next time it turns into wide spread panic along with shots fired and some one dies. The chargers here are public order offences, a fine not exceeding 1000GBP. Seems perfectly reasonable for insane stupidity which could cause disruption and panic in an international airport.
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Yes, it really does. Surely the natural consequences of his action have given him good reason not to do it again.
Why must every small slight, real or imagined, demand a pound of flesh?
If you want to play the game of worst possible consequences, go ahead and assume he causes an international incident leading to global nuclear war. Surely we must soak him in gasoline and light him up in a public square.
and another thing (Score:3)
"Please folks -- this cell phone case is not a cool product or a good idea. A police officer's job is hard enough, without having to make a split second decision in the dark of night when someone decides without thinking to pull this out while stopped for a motor vehicle violation..."
And further: do not make it so that to unlock the phone, you have to activate its voice recognition and then scream into it, "I'm gonna GIT you mothahfuckah!"
Just sayin'.
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to unlock the phone, you have to activate its voice recognition and then scream into it
No, to unlock the phone you have to pull the trigger.
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Even better point at your face (for face recognition by the camera in the barrel) and then pull the trigger to unlock.
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Airport security lines are well lit, and move slowly. Plenty of time for even the dimmest of agents to determine that it's a phone case.
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But this does not mean, that they think it's funny.
Gun shaped phone? How about a phone shaped gun? (Score:2)
This company [idealconceal.com] makes a phone-shaped gun. This is not a novelty item. It's a real gun.
American obsession with firearms is inspiring. And creepy. And... other things.
The only thing... (Score:4, Funny)
The only thing that stops a bad guy with an iPhone is a good guy with an iPhone.
Well ... No shit. (Score:2)
Captain Obvious strikes again!
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Excuse me, dummy, but do you think Donald Trump's freedom of speech has been somehow infringed? I find that a little hard to believe.
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That's one more thing you got wrong.
What they did was not hitting themselves on the head, what they did was standing up and rejecting once again the idea of a unified Europe under German control. This is called the right to self determination, but of course you're against it, just like you're against letting a politician speak his mind unless you share his opinion.
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Jokes with a political bias are only funny when:
1) the reader shares your bias
and
2) the target of the joke is not already ridiculed on a daily basis by comedians sharing your bias and being immensely funnier
So you failed. What you did was the equivalent of spelling Micro$oft with the dollar sign, it stopped being funny a long time ago.
Pro tip: If you want to go for the low-hanging fruit expect some competition.
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If you ask me, the highest price society has to pay for Twitter is seeing their illegitimate CEO prancing around on tv and web clips as if he was a real businessman.
see: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
Funny enough they've started to use the words "active devices" instead of "users", like that lame java installer from Oracle (one billion devices!). So they probably know that most people now post using scripts or services like buffer without ever reading themselves what other people post.
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Typing "Micro$oft" isn't supposed to be funny, you lunkhead. It is an insult and a pithy description.
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Freedom of speech is for everyone (Including idiots like Trump and you) or it is for no-one. Once you start making exemptions because "he doesn't think the way I do" you are no better than the NKVD, the Gestapo, the Stasi, the SAVAK, etc.
Re:Only one good reason to do this ... (Score:4)
Hold on a sec. We recently had an Italian mathematician who had his flight grounded and was taken off and questioned, because some stupid American lady thought the math symbols on his notepad were "terrorist code". I'll bet this woman would consider herself a reasonable person.
I don't think you necessarily want "would cause a reasonable person to panic" to be the legal standard, because you might have trouble finding any.
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The mathematician was taken off the plane and questioned. The flight took off two hours late because of a crazy Trump supporter, acting the fool.
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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Anyone doing this is a fucking idiot who deserves all the above plus more.
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Then if they're black you fire a few warning shots into their chest.
Unfortunately, that's what US police are being taught.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015... [nytimes.com]