Hard News: The People's Choice
144 Responses
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WH,
I always liked Tony Blair. He always came across better than his detractors, although in many cases this wasn't saying much.
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Um, what 'balance'? It would be fair comment to say Steve Maharey isn't exactly a universally adored figure in broadcasting circles, and there's some very heated debate around the government's broadcasting policy (or lack of, depending on your POV). None of which, in my prissy opinion, makes being an obnoxious arse - and a wee bit of a bully - any less objectionable.
This was the Recording Industry...not the Broadcasting Industry...their needs and political targets could not be more divergent.
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(belated) congrats RB et al!
PAS is da besT! -
merc,
Rob, where the hell is The Script?
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And a little hint from the Lobbying 101 playbook: Most people don't find being urinated on in front of a large audience endearing. Something to keep in mind if you're trying to make friends and influence people around the corridors of power.
The music people were horrified by what happened to Brash, for that reason and out of sheer courtesy. IIRC, RIANZ publicly apologised.
The perps were actors: Oliver Driver and Anthony Starr, who was particularly boorish.
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Oliver Driver? 'Nuff said!
Oh, and BTW: congrats to RB, et al. (even tho' I feel stupid for saying it)
(I know I know: what kind of back handed compliment is that?) -
Tom Semmens: We should be mature enough as a nation to stand on our own two feet without running off to Mummy England's courts.
On ya, Tom! That's the stuff to keep the bad decisions rolling and the innocents banged up.
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What has outraged me though has been the very fact a bunch of British judges, who may not have even ever stepped foot in New Zealand, presume to pass judgment on our legal system.
In the same way that judges sitting on the European Court of Justice (based in Luxembourg) and the European Court of Human Rights (based in Strasbourg) who may never have set foot in Britain, pass judgement on the British legal system. The McLibel case and the "right" to beat and (essentially) torture IRA suspects being held without trial in British prisons in the 1970s are two examples of this.
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Sorry to have hijacked this thread a little. But if you want a scoop on what the GOVIS folk will be hearing in a couple of hours take a look at this video of Hans Rosling's presentation.
Titled "Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen", it is a work of genius.
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GOVIS turns me into a criminal. It's a funny old world.
The URL wouldn't paste into Windows Media Player and I couldn't save the movie via Flip4Mac - but what I could save was a file called GenerateDynamicPlaylist.aspx, which did launch the stream in Windows Media Player. With sound!
Why are they doing it like this?
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merc,
Ollie's v/o of teh Whare Rouge TV ads is a real show case of his talent. Blog Boost(TM) will not be using him though, because yes folks, thanks to Milo Vulture we have our first rushes coming through from Burkino Faso! Click on through to the Flashbacks thread, I must say it's been a struggle, but we seem to be back on track.
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these threasds get hijacked so often rb shoudl change the name to public address: el al.
although, that joke's a little 70s.
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merc,
Che, leave it Blog Boost (TM) OK?
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i am an emulation of a bad machine.
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Perhaps Blair was using Northern Ireland as a template for Iraq? Have terrorists in your own back yard (or the threat thereof), show a bit of military steel in their own backyard and then force the situation into a healthy conversation. Just a thought...
To quote some body whose name I can’t remember, “All politics is local” so templates don’t usually work.
That Rosling presso is superb (although it has been around the net for about a year)
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And whilst I am stomping over the thread (thanks Che for the encouragement) the tools used by Rosling are available at Google Tools. Whether you are a stats junkie or not this is great stuff.
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Tony, yes but he is about to lecture government IT folks right here at 5pm. If you can get a pass, hurry along :-)
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To quote some body whose name I can’t remember, “All politics is local”
Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Tip O'Neill.
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Tony, yes but he is about to lecture government IT folks right here at 5pm. If you can get a pass, hurry along :-)
Cant make 5pm but which pub is hosting the after match :-)
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Andrew asked:
This is a good blog site, but kind of dominated by testosterone...where all the ladies?
There ain't no ladies here. This is the last place you'd find a lady.
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Jonty said: "...On ya, Tom! That's the stuff to keep the bad decisions rolling and the innocents banged up..."
Bad decisions? Or perhaps you are indulging the very cultural cringe I am talking about? What says the local interpretation is automatically inferior to our Lords and masters from across the seas? How do you know it was a bad decision? Because someone from overseas told you so? I don't know or care who has made the right decision. But I have to observe that I find it hard to believe that people with zero knowledge of our judicial, political and social culture automatically make better calls than people who actually live here.
Gabor Toth: Brussels is less that 175 miles from London. New Zealand is on the other side of the world.
stephen walker said: "...Well, your outrage is based on ignorance, obviously. It has been convention for decades that the top judges from an overseas case's home appeal court sit on cases at the Privy Council..."
hmmm.
Lord Bingham of Cornhill,
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry,
Baroness Hale of Richmond ,
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, and
Sir Paul Kennedy.I don't know where Sir Paul comes from, he could be a successful farmer from Taihape I suppose. But I would wager a crisp fiver the others are British.
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Tom -- I'm not sure about Stephen's opinion that top judges usually sit with the Lords. However, names can be a little misleading. After all, withouth prior knowledge , who is to say that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Cooke_of_Thorndon" target="_blank">Baron Cooke of Thorndon wasn't from Thorndon in Suffolk. Also bear in mind that while NZers get to pick a spot in NZ to Lord of, they also have to have one in the UK as well. Thus, he was also Baron Cooke of Cambridge. Incidentally, the first and last Baron of Nelson (Ernest Rutherford), was also Baron of Cambridge.
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Brussels is less that 175 miles from London. New Zealand is on the other side of the world.
Distance is not relevant. Being a NZ'er who has lived in the UK and also spent a reasonable amount of time in Brussels, I can honestly say that our legal system (along with many other things) has a hell of a lot more in common with that of the UK than that of Belgium (or Strasbourg or Luxembourg - pointing out that neither the European Court of Justice or the Court of Human Rights are actually in Belgium...).
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WH,
But I have to observe that I find it hard to believe that people with zero knowledge of our judicial, political and social culture automatically make better calls than people who actually live here
Its an interesting debate. Our legal fraternity has a lot of respect for the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords and the Privy Council, and I wouldn't characterise this as cultural cringe. Its part of what makes the PC's finding that a "miscarriage of justice" occurred in this case so interesting.
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. . . but if it were that simple, if they "knew" Watson had done it, why couldn't they just use that -- i.e. how they knew -- as evidence?
My understanding (and I could be getting this wrong) was that he had been around and cleaned the entire boat. And not given it a tidy up and a wee wipe, cleaned it like someone does when they're trying to remove every scrap of forensic evidence. Bleach and several hose downs, and a repaint. The story of why he'd done these things didn't match common boat-ownership sense from memory.
So by 'knew' I think the police knew because he'd done everything you do if you're trying to remove all the evidence of a double murder. You can't take 'there was no evidence so he must be guilty' to a court room however, hence the need to eliminate other potential suspects, and leave him as the only one who could have taken the two of them away. Then link that to the 'evidence of disposing of evidence' and hope the jury leaps between the two, and gets past the lack of bodies.
He didn't get everything however - particularly the fingernail scratches on the inside of the hatch, which I assume would have required a new hatch to cover up. I think the things he missed, plus the elimination of any other potential suspects was enough to convince the jury.
The police officer used to work in prosecutions, and he talked about a study that was done with juries that convicted criminals in serious crimes. He said it was amazing, no matter how much work you put into leading a jury through a trial by the nose, and how much work you put into painting the picture that you knew as a police officer - even when the jury agreed and convicted, if you interviewed them afterwards about what they thought had happened, lots of them came up with a scenario of events which not only didn't match the one that the police were trying to paint, but one that which was not supported by evidence and was often indeed impossible.
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