i'd like to say he's a paranoid lunatic, but you know what? i just think he's determined to fill the national enquirer gap in the new zealand market.

Well, one would hope – but I don't think passing the parcel up the chain…

yes that's the same Hamish. And he won Mastermind as well.

OMG, he was my HERO in sixth form! Awesome!

Hey...that's not the cute guy with the gap in his teeth that won Sale of the Century, is it?

Well, up to you on the cute, but yes that's the same Hamish. And he won Mastermind as well.

I don't know if Russell is going to address this in a future post (personally I can't think about it without feeling sick), but I wasn't awfully impressed by Howard Broad's performance either.

FFS. nobody would mistake me for the Virgin Mary in a line-up – not after a…

Yuck! The crime scene. I don't agree that "weird family" equates to David being guilty of murder.

Didn't mean to imply that.

I heard Karam this morning on Morning Report chiming in with support for Whishart's latest. Whatever Bain's guilt or innocence Karam has some strange ideas.

oh and can we have more of Hamish McDouall?

Hey...that's not the cute guy with the gap in his teeth that won Sale of the Century, is it?

I've just finished reading this book by Ed Maloney a journo and former Northern Editor of the The Irish 'Sunday Tribune' .

The book is basically the story of Gerry Adams role and he is pretty convincing in…

I hope mr Finn writes a song about the big bad witch when she falls ?

Regarding Tony Blair – he is a liar, as F4J did not ever try to kidnap his son Leo.

Regarding the David Bain case. I believe that judicial errors, negligence, malpractice and ill-will have compounded the situation. The judiciary is a disgrace to…

I think it was about 17 judges all told that presided over this case and all found the same.

It has been my personal experience that judges are extremely loathe to rule against another judge. They will contort themselves into pretzels to avoid it if possible

People would be interested to…

re the Law Lords and their decisions ,it is a fact ( thanks for reminding me RB) that they got it badly wrong as far as NZ telecommunications when they upheld Telecom by referring to an American piece of law which allowed…

and by cat ownership i mean those of us who live in a house run by our cats

We are women – preferably wimmin.

not all of us are on the wimmin bandwagon.
and not all of us are that daunted by PA,

it's just that some of us are just far to lazy to bother with agro or semi heated discussions, so we just avoid those threads…

I don't know why the Police are coming in for criticism over Bain (and Watson etc). It's the Crown that prosecute, not the Police.

I have to admit I find it rather odd that the police let the place be burnt. I'd always assumed it was like Gray's place at…

re Music Awards – was also there, and go along with most people on this one. The Brash thing was embarrassing, whatshisface from whatever that programme is called was a complete twat,…

russell you forgot to thank sir humps for their idea and strong support for the addition of comments here ;-)

I like the idea more in terms of emphasising that political blogs aren't all there is to the medium. There are various good little business and specialist blogs that would benefit from the exposure. And you'd be surprised how many blogs there actually are.

I think bloggingtitreal has the "West…

But I ain't going there. I just thought I'd annoy you all.

Fair cop, Russell, and given Mr. Driver's shall we say rather prickly reaction to professional and personal criticism one might think he'd be a little more gracious towards others. As for Mr. Starr – love Outrageous Fortune,…

I don’t think a Hardest Tryer Plaque is aimed at you Damian – c'mon folks have gotta start somewhere........even if they do write in txt.

and as another person said, how can you tell where a judge is from based on their (concocted)…

This is a good blog site, but kind of dominated by testosterone...where all the ladies?

Yeah and I don't want to be like, a pedant, or anything, but I'm pretty sure we have a few female bloggers on publicaddress. It's not us lads fault that they keep on getting busy…

. . . 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.…

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…

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…

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…

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.

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 :-)

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.

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…

although, that joke's a little 70s.

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…

Titled "Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen", it is…

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)…

On ya, Tom! That's the stuff to keep the bad decisions rolling and the innocents banged up.

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?)

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…

Will go off and hunt down some DRM busting codecs now.

GOVIS turns me into a criminal. It's a funny old world.

The British public aren't being quite so hard on him as some here -…

Except it looks like they're using an audio codec that isn't supported by Flip4Mac.

Oh good, I was thinking it was just a Linux thing. Will go off and hunt down some DRM busting codecs now.

Che, if I had been there I would certainly have said hi. Chris Daish…

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.

Well, your outrage is based on ignorance, obviously. It has been convention for decades that the…

While many figures played important roles in the process, notably David Trimble, Bertie Ahern and Gerry Adams, I believe Blair’s commitment while PM kept the process alive and progressed it to this weeks formation of a “power sharing” government in Belfast.
That will be his legacy

Agreed. What happened this…

While many figures played important roles in the process, notably David Trimble, Bertie Ahern and Gerry Adams, I believe Blair’s commitment while PM kept the process alive and progressed it to this weeks formation of a “power sharing” government in Belfast.
That will be his legacy

True to a point,…

Bain....yes always been an odd smell from that one. But we have a few, and if Arthur Thomas showed us anything…

Sir Howard is a silly old twit, full of his own self importance and has been for years, who made some vaguely embarrassing records a long time ago

You need to see Don't Let It Get You.

Morrison is fantastic – you will wonder what on earth happened after that.

But upheld the rule of law.

I don't remember a lot about the case, but believe, whilst a decision the other way might have been objectively better, it would also have ignored the law.

Except, unfortunately, we seem to be the only country that actually had to live with the…

Neil...why in hell's name didn't he just shut up. The first quotes from RG got people talking, why did he need to come back and revisit. Sir Howard is a silly old twit, full of his own self importance and has been for years, who made some…

Also, I can't find an interweb reference for this, but…

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.

But didn't we borrow our one from their one?

And in answer to an earlier question:…

Yes, so far as I can tell it's not possible to hotlink to any particular video, and if you try, you link will go to the wrong page altogether.

try this

What has outraged…

Does anyone know/remember if David Bain chose for it [burning down the house] to happen? I presume it was his house so he must have consented.

No, it was the father's sister I believe. Yes, very strange – surely David was the heir?

Big thing here in Wellington is GOVIS and I know Che and others presented there.

Some videos posted at on the GOVIS site. See Tibby, Green and Lane in the flesh.

Eeek! Way not to make rich media available. That link will only get you to the most recent clip;…

90soemthing% of the time they get the right person.

I think it is reassuring to believe that. Although for those cases where there is a niggling doubt... I would prefer if those doubts could be explained away.

For instance, Lundy's sub-3 hour round trip – the cellphone calls placed him…

He basically said "The guy is guilty, we know he's done this, he's just done a bunch of things to remove evidence (cleaning and painting the boat etc) so it's going to be hard to convict him."

. . . but if it were that simple, if they "knew" Watson…

OTOH, the Privy Council did us no favours at all in the Clear vs Telecom interconnection dispute. It overruled our Court of Appeal and gave Telecom what amounted to a monopolist's charter. That decision hurt New Zealand.

But upheld the rule of law.

I don't remember a lot about the…

Hey, my weird-o-meter started glowing when the Bain house was torched. I'm no legal eagle, but you do have to wonder whether any appeal is ever so slightly hampered when the crime scene is reduced to a pile of ash.

Yeah, seeing it on the news last night reminded me…

Nobody Important: S.O.P — whassat?

Standard Operating Procedure!

this case smacks of detectives taking a look, deciding who the murderer was, and then building a case to convict him.

(me) ~ S.O.P

While I would not belittle the upper echelons of the NZ justice system, not only are the Law Lords extraordinarily smart people, their isolation from NZ makes them far more "blind" to external influences and more independent than any NZ court could ever be.

OTOH, the Privy Council did us…

where do i sign?

S.O.P.

i'm sure on is needed, but it appears as if the police have ignored or discounted important evidence because it did not meet fit their picture. that tends to open them to accusations of "framing" bain, doesn't it?

and don! if you were there you should have said hi!…

Big thing here in Wellington is GOVIS and I know Che and others presented there.

Some videos posted at on the GOVIS site. See Tibby, Green and…

this case smacks of detectives taking a look, deciding who the murderer was, and then building a case to convict him.

S.O.P.

maybe Blair is going to try to do an Al Gore to reinvent himself as something else entirely

Span, The Beeb said last week that he might be going to become a roving person for religious tolerance. Getting churches talking to each other and such. Some unkind people might make…

Best quasi-autonomous blog collective?

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

Checking my comment count, I'm pretty sure I already have been.

Best quasi-autonomous blog collective?

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

I spend far to much…

Pfft. Best Blog? I mean, congratulations and all, you know I dig your site Russell, but Public Address still isn't a blog. Hard News is a blog.

Correct. Not much I can do about it though. They could fix it by calling the category "Best Blog Site".

I did however…

Pfft. Best Blog? I mean, congratulations and all, you know I dig your site Russell, but Public Address still isn't a blog. Hard News is a blog.

Best quasi-autonomous blog collective?

(And my hunch is that Hard News is what 90% of the folk that voted for "Public Address" were actually voting for.)

this case smacks of detectives taking a look, deciding who the murderer was, and then building a case to convict him.

A la Scott Watson — no alibi? Tough luck. Mind you, when the media and the public are baying for a suspect and the police are under pressure…

the privy council indicate clearly that important evidence, like robin bain (allegedly) raping his daughter, shortly followed by an incestuous relationship wasn't introduced to the trial. the daughter had threatened to out the relationship shortly before the murders occurred.

they seem to find it strange that robins mental state…

span, i think al gore didn't quite have the past that blair does (largely because…

...judged blog awards...

I've been told someone once ran web awards such that users rated rather than simply voted. Probably wouldn't work so good on the small scale, but still.

Congratulations, of course.

I think Neil feels he was stitched up by Labour over the proposed Youth Radio Network

What about when he (perhaps allegedly) went to Parliament to talk to Bolger who was PM at the time about it, and was greeted with a "And you are?" Wouldn't that be more annoying,…

you actually have paid employment??? please tell me where, cos i want a job like your's (or riddley's or craig's or ... well you get the point)!

oh and congrats from me too russell. well-deserved.

re blair, he can put his hand on his…

I think an NZ blog awards thingie would be good and I seem to recall some initial discussions about it a few years ago, or maybe I…

Having said that, Russell, perhaps The Herald could find a (marginally) less obnoxious and ill-informed rentaquote than Sir Howard Morrison – and, yet again, nice to see the Your Views column remains a shining beacon of thoughtful and temperate debate. "Mean-spirited"? Christ, Finn has much to learn...

Fair point. I…

and I don't have much of an opinion on the former. Probably I should have, but its just not a case I've paid particular attention to over the years

I placed a lot of stock in the opinion of a lawyer friend of mine who read Karam's book and followed…

Having said that, Russell, perhaps The Herald could find a (marginally) less obnoxious and ill-informed rentaquote than Sir Howard Morrison – and, yet again, nice…

umm.. remember a couple of christmas' back i said that if you kept winning you'd likely have to share those awards with writers past and present?

any chance of flicking me the 2005 one?

[che notes: chance of winning slight on account of getting half of tze…

As for Bain and Blair, I've already expressed my loathing of the latter (don't let the door hit your arse on the way out, you murdering war criminal), and I don't have much of an opinion on the former. Probably I should have, but…

:)

A range of blog awards would be no bad thing. It is odd that one of the most important parts of Internet should be represented by one award, while there are legions of sponsored awards…

this case smacks of detectives taking a look, deciding who the murderer was, and then building a case to convict him.

now, i'm no expert on policing, but you'd think that they would compile evidence, then decide?

as it is,…