Posts by Kyle Matthews
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I would have felt a lot more comfortable about the Lisa advert if it had focused more on the male. "Here's where alcohol might take a person who would never do this when sober, but under the influence of alcohol they do something horrible to another person." As Emma and many others have been pointing out, the ad seems to be attacking a symptom (dangerous men) rather than the problem (what's causing men to be dangerous - probably not actually alcohol deep down, so possibly outside ALAC's sphere of interest).
I seem to recall a series of adverts (maybe drink driving) a while ago which explored the same scenario but with two adverts where a different decision was made at some point and one advert showed a bad result, one a good one. The ALAC adverts seem like a good candidate for that. Maybe if the guy stays in control and doesn't get tanked up on booze he and Lisa get it on with consent?
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Where did I make that jump?
Here:
When you pit yourself against 88% of people who could be bothered answering, then you've got a problem. I totally disagree that issues of morality should be decided by experts, I have never had the slightest time for this point of view. There are no moral experts. When you make something a crime, it's become an issue of morality, rather than practicality.
Ben your argument (majority decides moral issues) feels like the same argument that slowed down law changes that improved the lot of every minority group in history - slaves, homosexuals, womens rights, indigenous people. It feels distasteful.
Sometimes if law makers showed initiative and were ahead of popular opinion, the result would be better and history would shine a brighter light on them and the affected people.
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Carol: I'd say the same thing to North Shore Mayor Andy Williams -- when it comes to cabals of middle-age, middle-class beige men (and the occasional vag), you can't do better (worse?) than the NSCC.
I missed a train jumping tracks somewhere. How is the North Shore Mayor responsible for the ACT party list?
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Someone pushed it further with no luck.
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And while PJ deserves props for getting the film made (and working his arse off promoting it, which probably had a lot to do with the extremely impressive US$37 million opening weekend in the States) how about the actual writer/director Neil Blomkamp getting some more ink? :)
Wee story here, including that they're already talking of doing a District 10.
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I totally disagree that issues of morality should be decided by experts, I have never had the slightest time for this point of view. There are no moral experts. When you make something a crime, it's become an issue of morality, rather than practicality
I fail to see how you can jump from 'morally right' to 'the majority'. As James points out, the majority is often wrong, including on issues of morality. 30 years from now this debate will be dead, smacking will almost universally be a thing of history.
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It's all William the Conqueror's fault!
He wasn't very Celtic was he?
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You may be aware that usury was once outlawed in Judaism. Indeed the good Book of Leviticus says "Thou shalt not give him money upon usury nor exact of him any increase of fruits".
I think Craig's point was that because the bible says this (in England at least), the Crown and the Church got together and said "good Christians shall not lend money, the nasty Jews will have to do it".
And then when the Jews did actually do it and started making money both the Church and the Crown and the ordinary people didn't like that and took out their frustration by being generally anti-semitic and hateful. Large numbers of Jews were harassed, many died at the hands of good English Christians. Dozens were massacred in one incident that I read about by a mob while the law looked on.
Eventually they were banned for decades from England and had to flee to the continent. All for doing something that the Crown and Church had told them to do.
While the dictionary definition is quite clear on what it means, applying it to a person of Jewish descent perhaps requires a little awareness of history and thought.
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The right not to be subjected to torture is absolute.
I can't think of an exception which proves that the right to torture isn't absolute. That being said, it certainly doesn't make the right to free association absolute, as you've conceded.
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Where does one get that sort of information Russell? I'd be very keen to see the viewer numbers for the ice hockey on Sunday on Sky Sport 3.