Posts by Kyle Matthews
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And there were plenty of us out there who believed S. 59 of the Crimes Act needed to go, but had concerns about the Bradford Bill.
The bill in its original form (just removing section 59) was legally quite clear, not matter how you felt about it. It got turned into a right mess by the Law Commission, who you would have hoped would have had some concern for the usefulness and clarity of the laws they help write.
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Isn't this proposed question, in its wording, just a touch biased?
It's the same question, just or instead of yes/no. People should be smart enough to figure out where they stand on the question, voting in the referendum isn't rocket science.
I have more of a problem with smacking being considered part of 'good parental correction'. If we were to conclude that smacking is not part of 'good parental correction' in the normal course of events, then the question becomes illogical to me.
And I really doubt the referendum is going to make any difference in the world anyway, it'll just give more ammunition to the argument that I doubt is going to change much in reality.
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Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?
Even if that was binding, which it won't be, what does that mean in terms of the mutated section 59 we now have? That parental correction will be added to the list of exceptions?
I remember the 1999 referendum on law and order had two statements that contradicted themselves to me. I voted against it on principle.
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I'd put the odds against a kiwi cop having to shoot someone as well into the "fairy story" realms. Many tens-of-thousands to one.
Well we have less than 10,000 cops, and there certainly are shooting incidents every year, so it's a bit less odds than that.
Not every time a police officer fires a gun is it at an armed offender. Rural cops occasionally use their weapons on livestock, dogs that are worrying sheep etc.
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That's pathetic! Better than nothing, you're right, but come on. An hour?!
Do police stations even have gyms?All decent sized police stations have gyms, but I suspect most of them go jogging. And most cops would do more exercise than that a week, but if we got realistic and said police needed to exercise an hour a day, 5 days a week to maintain good fitness, then you'd be looking at having to increase the uniformed police force by 1000 cops just to cover the shorter work shifts.
The police PCT is pretty average. I did it when I was 17 and it took me exactly two minutes. Short run, jump over a couple of walls, drag a trailer one way, tyre back the other way, etc. It's designed to catch the cops that are fat and unfit, not ensure that they have some sort of high level of fitness.
The test to get into the police is a lot more, but by no means difficult for a fit person.
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If that unthinkable scenario happened here, how would ordinary kiwis feel if our old allies sat round knitting while we got tortured and bumped off?
I think we're all a bit too white and first world for the rest of the world to let that happen.
Plus we have oil now, so any pretense for an invasion.
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I would say that effective in these circumstances would be to take the edge off 'piss easy to steal" making it "hard for the technically stupid", and maybe even eating away at the "mildly ok on a computer but not that great" group, which lets face it is a large part of the computer users out there. If it wasn't as easy as picking it up and walking out the store with it then it would have a great effect on the music market.
I can go to google and search for music and find it really easy. It's much much easier to find and download the illegal music, than the legal stuff.
so shouldn't you be pushing for and making noise to get better quality downloads available via these sources
I think he did in his blog:
I'm pretty much on strike with the iTunes Store unless it's iTunes Plus (ie: it's on EMI or an indie label) -- at 128k the file quality's just not good enough, and aren't we over DRM yet? Digirama is even worse: they only have the album as 128k WMA files I can't even play.
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The police aren't interested in optimising the level of resources committed to policing. They're interested in maximising it. Hence, studies like this.
That may be the case with this study, but not always the case. I've heard senior police officers talk with frustration about how politicians always promise XXX new police officers, when they'd much rather have the money to spend on communication systems, computers, forensic analysis, training etc. Not so sexy on the political soapbox however.
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police hq should cough a few grand a year extra for some additonal ammo, it remains an option
It's not the cost of the ammo that's the issue. Once you require police to meet some higher standard, it's part of their contract and therefore you have to provide the environment and the time for them to do it. Even if it was two hours a month for every police officer, it'd cost millions.
I would guess that it's a cost-benefit situation. There's other areas that they can focus their training on that relate to situations that cops find themselves in every day.
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Don't recall anything about a thesis, but I do recall Laws organised a pro-tour group - called FART - on campus.
Laws' Otago thesis was on the sedition trial of Bishop Liston. He did a masters at Vic, not sure what that was on.
I thought the group was called SCRUM. Students Campaigning something something Movement.