Posts by Russell Brown
-
Hard News: Here's one I prepared earlier, in reply to Deborah,
Battery hens were happy and healthy?
Calvert’s statement – delivered as if it were known fact – was wrong in basically every way it could be wrong.
- It’s battery hens that get the antibiotics – not only to prevent disease, but as a growth promoter.
- NZ FREPA guidelines prohibit the use of antibiotics in free-range chicken.
- And bird flu is a virus. Antibiotics would have no effect on it at all.
Calvert is like the perfect expression of the Actoid philosophy, where facts are the product of ideology, rather than evidence or observation.
Mind you, I was disappointed that Sue Kedgley didn’t seem to know any of this when she got a opportunity to respond.
-
Hard News: Here's one I prepared earlier, in reply to Matthew Reid,
Immunisations often cause fever. MoH tips following immunisation. Condolences Russell.
And the nurse only told me there might be a unpleasant reaction after the shot. Between a bigger dose of a different antibiotic and the jab, I was feeling pretty munted even before I went to bed that night.
Still, good to be coming right.
-
Hard News: Introducing: The New Zealand…, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
It’s a shame be cause there are hundreds of those old videos that aren’t available online. The songs that people remember and love get digitised. It’s the weird little bands that have faded from our digital memory.
At every board meeting, I try and make a point of asking Brenda whether she has secured a copy of this classic video, which holds a special place in the hearts – or somewhere – of a generation of NZ males:
Sadly, there does not seem to exist a master, or even a good-quality VHS recording.
-
Hard News: Here's one I prepared earlier, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
Best thing about the Colin pic – the foot in the lower left-hand corner. It doesn’t seem like it should be there, and yet it’s the perfect place for a cat’s foot.
Glad you noticed. I had exactly the same reaction.
-
Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
Russell, when was the last time a couple of underage teenagers went through the courts for underage sex, I know it is still on the books but I am not aware of it happening in my neigbourhood
It's only been possible for both to be charged since the 2004 amendment bill removed all the gender anomalies. Till then, only males could be held responsible.
Age of consent breaches are rarely prosecuted when the age gap is narrow. The 2004 provision was intended to provide a formal basis for that practice -- it's always better to have the thing you want done supported in law rather than rely on prosecutorial discretion. And that's all it did.
The Star Times deliberately and deceptively misrepresented it as "lowering the age of consent to 12", purely to sell newspapers. Sometimes I really have misgivings about being part of journalism when that's what it becomes.
-
Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Deborah,
So if 13 or 14 is ” way too young”, then almost certainly, there is no issue with the current age of consent, with perhaps a margin of one year. And perhaps where children are engaging in sexual relationships before 16, the answer is education, not prosecution.
And the establishment of the defence in the amendment bill was intended to provide a means for doing all that. I do understand your initial reaction, and it was that kind of reaction the Star Times played to with its shock-horror story. But it's just a shame what happened.
There's a French-made documentary about the sickening and awful lengths the "moral" and criminal approach has reached in the US, called Outlawing Indecency.
Some counties are saddling kids with mandatory 25-year listings on state sex offender registers, at the age of 18, for age of consent breaches. I was basically incandescent with (futile) rage the first time I watched it.
-
Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Che Tibby,
Which seems way too young to me.
-
Otherwise I just don’t see what’s any more magical about a two year gap, than there is about our current age of consent. Why is a two year gap acceptable, but two years and one day is not?
You might as well ask why 16 is okay when 15 and 364 days is a matter for the criminal justice system. The age of consent is a boundary.
-
Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Deborah,
I’m not happy about the idea of tiered consent, or more specifically, with the idea that a two year age gap necessarily makes it okay. I really, really, seriously want my 14 year old daughter (well, she’s 12 now, but she will be 14 in time), being pressured by some 16 year old to have sex because, “it’s legal.”
Would you be happy to see her dragged through the courts if that was to happen? The amendment bill removed various gender anomalies in the law, meaning that if two 15 year-olds have sex they are both liable for prosecution. That’s what made the need for the defence so obvious and acute.
And do you think the availability of a defence under the Crimes Act would actually be a major factor in adolescent decision-making? Bigger than education, empowerment or parental love and guidance?
The New South Wales Commission for Children and Young People put it this way:
“There is no evidence that age of consent legislation influences young people when they make decisions about when to begin sexual activity. Most young people make their own decisions about when they are ‘ready’ to have sex, regardless of legislation”
Deborah, I really disagree with you on this.
-
Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to bmk,
Perhaps the ideal would be a two-tiered consent age. A lower consent age but a limit on age separation ie. a 16 year old and a 14 year old is ok but a 14 year old and a 25 year old is not ok.
This is basically what the Labour government was doing in 2004 – by establishing a narrow age gap as a defence in cases under the age of consent law, in the Crimes Amendment (No 2) Bill. It was a sensible, sensitive thing to do.
Sadly, the Sunday Star Times led a howling moral panic – based in part on facts that just seemed to be made up – that quite quickly forced a backdown.
I ranted about it at the time.
Still, the rest of the bill was largely well-considered and backed by evidence. It went some difficult places, including the sexual rights of the intellectually disabled. I miss those evidence-y days.