Posts by izogi
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Hard News: Complaint and culture, in reply to Russell Brown,
Could be. He’s been around for years on the local internet. And I’m sure he’s not malicious, just eccentric.
I’ve known Don for about 10 years through the local Wellington amateur science community (though I’ve not been in touch for about the last 5 and now I’m overseas). When Don was first threatened with a fine in December 2010, George Jones (of the Royal Society) sent an angry email around the Science Wellington mailing list, and got back a very positive response.
I’ve never quite understood why Don’s writing comes out the way it does but face to face I’ve always found him much clearer to communicate with. Don’s an okay guy who’s very interested in science and mathematics and the world around him, if he sees a broken streetlight or a missing drain cover he’ll call the council (because otherwise they can’t know to fix it), and he feels strongly about unnecessary and lazy inaccuracies in media reporting. Maybe there’s a medical reason for the written communication, and I don’t know about that, but I’m reluctant to be too critical without knowing more.
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Hard News: Is that it?, in reply to barnaclebarnes,
We used to have a block of 6 rental units where a large majority of the tenants were on benefits and getting the rent paid could be tough.
Sorry if I’m missing something obvious, but is there any clarity over what happens when the sum of someone’s essential bills get higher than their welfare allowance? Will part of this plan be to allocate money to people variably depending on how much electricity they need to stay warm and the cost of their rent? Or do the young and job-less all get forced to live in a small town with a 4-square and a closed meat-works factory, because that’s the only place where rent is low enough for the allowance?
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
Personally I don't see why there is such a drive for marriage
At least for my partner and I, the two driving factors for getting married were easier recognition overseas, and for the parents. Neither of us are at all religious, but the parents are, and both sides saw 'marriage' as more important than simple legal recognition. They also wanted to see a kid or two married off and I think we let our siblings off the hook.
Without either of those two reasons, I'd personally have been happy to just live together as a de facto couple or at most join the Civil Union crowd.
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Hi Emma.
So really, the only way a party refusing to support same-sex marriage makes any sense is if their target voters are old.
I'm nitpicking, but to me it makes perfect sense for a party to oppose same-sex marriage if that's what its members (and donars) want.
Target voters are just a means to an end for a political party, and there are plenty of unrelated reasons why a target voter might support a party irrespective of its stance on same-sex marriage. The only reason for a party to change its policy for voters is if those voters suddenly start making it an issue and saying they'll switch support because of it. I'd guess most voters still don't see it as directly impacting them as much as other stuff, even if they have a clear view.
Maybe the "old people" angle is more a reflection of people who influence and run political parties, and not those who vote for them.
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Our options in the Red Zone are these:
(d) Shift away from Christchurch?
I think I fully understand that not being an option for many, though.
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Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to chris,
11 days in custody is 5 sizes too big for this crime. He's done his time.
Chris, you're right. 11 days in the cell seems excessive for a couple of light fixtures, and maybe that happened for the same reasons as the alleged beating. Maybe it was also that the Police had a whole lot of other things to deal with during a Civil Emergency, and normal procedures weren't working too well, and maybe an apology is owing.
Once in the courts, though, I think it's reasonable to have less leniency as a habit with looters because it's special circumstances that involves taking advantage of masses of vulnerable people in an extreme situation. Probably you disagree from what you've said. In Arie's case there's a good reason not to group him with regular looters, though.
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Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to Russell Brown,
because the police made the remarkable decision to subject the two young men to a “perp walk” for the cameras. Arie was “the face of looting” long before he was the persecuted Aspie. And the police made this decision knowing that the news audience would see his injuries. It’s bloody hard to avoid the view that they were using the media to make a point.
I have to admit that I struggle to know whether I'm more saddened in the Police for doing this, or in the popular media for seemingly not questioning why he had a black eye (yet still making a story point out of it as if it somehow related to the criminal underworld!). When it was such a painfully obvious question, it shouldn't have taken 4 months, constant campaigning by bloggers and lawyers, and eventually a special interest documentary, for it to be publicised in a comparable forum to where he'd been paraded. Lots of people in positions of responsibility have utterly screwed up here and let us all down, and it's not just the Police --- they just happened to be the worst of it.
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Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
So, if people feel strongly about looters, how about people looting the EQC and taking money from genuine claims.
Agreed, in that I think there's plenty of hypocrisy in the calls for harsh-justice-for-looters. We might as well start asking about people who dishonestly identify specific incidents when claiming ACC for cheaper physio appointments. (Given how often I seem to've been led by physios to try and identify things, I'm sure that happens a lot!) There's plenty of dishonesty out there, but I guess you have to start asking where to draw lines in the sand, and it seems that preying on people who are unexpectedly unable to lock down and defend their property, and already being subjected to massive stress, is especially bad... maybe because so many people in Christchurch suddenly found themselves in this predicament.
It's just very sad and disappointing if the Police (both on the ground and in the ranks) were as knee-jerkly affected as everyone else and as the Minister, especially to the extent where long after the events, seemingly nobody's interested in acknowledging and addressing it. Collectively and through selection and training the police are supposed to be more controlled under stress than regular members of the public and have a higher obligation to fix things when they go wrong, which clearly is sometimes hard but that's part of the job.
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Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Her resignation would be appropriate if it turns out that the Police have been engaged in what is effectively a vendetta against Arie, ignoring judicially-provided opportunities to walk away without losing “face”, and especially if it turns out that there was in operation an unofficial policy of dealing out some rough justice on the streets of Christchurch.
Would you think the same if it were shown she'd asked reasonable questions and made reasonable steps to find out, and been lied to or important info had been withheld? Not that I'm suggesting it's likely, or that nothing should be done if it were discovered that were the case....
Those would be significant failings within her portfolio, and resignation is the time-honoured way of a Minister taking responsibility for what happens within their portfolio.
For a decade Helen Clark had a policy of getting resignations out of [other] people at the slightest hint of mis-doings, but that's not habitual for governments and I'm not sure the previous National government did quite so much. After the release Cave Creek Inquiry, Denis Marshall even went as far as quoting something from Geoffrey Palmer's books to suggest that he couldn't be held responsible for everything done under his watch and in his name. (The link I had for this speech is down, but I copied part of it here, search the page for 'November 22, 1995'.) He resigned 5 months after that speech after a hell of a lot of pressure, though.
Not that I expect her to do any such thing.
Neither. I think Judith Collins' standards and expectations, as with several other current Ministers, are different from mine.
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Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to Russell Brown,
Greer McDonald now says on Twitter that Collins’ office told her it is *not* “seeking further advice”.
I briefly checked out the Policing Act 2008 (no formal legal expertise and I'd welcome pointers to other relevant legislation) in which Clause 16(1) states that "The Commissioner is responsible to the Minister for (b) the general conduct of the Police;", which is exactly what I'd expect.
I realise the Minister can't (and shouldn't) be telling the Police what to do for very good reasons (it's all through the Policing Act). Presumably Collins asked the Commissioner if they beat anyone, the Commissioner said No, and she's absolved herself of responsibility unless somebody exposes a clear and obvious lie that wasn't her own. Matter duly swept under the rug or made someone else's problem.