Posts by Lucy Stewart
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That's... I... But... Good Lord. Do pedophiles only operate effectively more than 60feet in the air?
Suddenly, the moral panic around superhero comics in the fifties makes *perfect sense*. Batman was always brooding around on top of tall buildings, after all.
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Please note that this step is purely optional and can be avoided with a liberal application of Parliamentary Urgency.
It also helps if you don't give the politicians time to read it before they vote. This way, any tendency to logical analysis they have hiding deep within their souls will be overriden by the emotional screeching.
I also suggest that your shit law should always punish someone for something, preferably with a long jail sentence. If you're not punishing people, you're not doing it right. Any talk of rehabilitation is right out. Muttering about the sad demise of capital punishment gets you bonus points.
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Especially if they're brothers, and they end up in the same prison ;-)
Now, now, we promised Emma we wouldn't go there again.
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That would still be my major gripe - two relatively serious offences, then you commit a more minor offence with maximum sentence of three years and you're off for 25? Clearly you're a nasty bugger but that still seems mainfestly unjust.
That's why I found the inclusion of some of the weirder sex offences strange - yes, you'd still have to commit two other crimes first, but as it stands you could still end up imprisoned for life for a (icky and indicative of some really weird psychological shit) consensual sex act between adults. In what way does this help society? Really?
What I'd actually like to see is some statistics on how many people are committing two crimes with 5+ year sentences and then going down for a third serious offence AND getting a non-custodial or light custodial sentence. There would have to be some fairly large numbers involved here for me to concede that a law change like this is necessary and useful.
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* incest
* compelling indecent act with animalI find this kind of bizarre. Surely people guilty of these are more in need of intensive psychiatric treatment than 25 years in prison? Especially given that all the various permutations of statutory rape are included separately.
My major problem with the bill is that it seems intended to make people feel better about crime without actually addressing any real problems. Okay, that and the fact that David Garrett and his posturing about the crime wave we're supposedly drowning in irritates me extensively.
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So it bloody well should be. IMHO, you shouldn't even be allowed on the plane with a BMI of 35 unless you buy two or three seats.
Bad experience talking here? And you're generalising somewhat; it would be entirely possible for someone with a BMI of 35 to be portly, but still perfectly pleasant to sit next to on the plane.
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Love the order. 1. Could be unsafe. 2. Could get third-world-itis. 3. Might not come back. 4. Oh and that political thing that we couldn't do when Rod Donald raised it a few years ago, but can do now.
Do you think he knows *how* you get cholera? The precise reason that it's appalling Zimbabwe has an epidemic is because it's a disease of poor sanitation, rather than being contagious. It's representative of the breakdown of infrastructure. It's not lurking in the streets to molest unsuspecting cricketers, FFS.
*sigh*
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Also, on Rush, isn't it funny how Right-wing Americans always want to escape to New Zealand, as if it's some kind of libertarian paradise. I once spent a fascinating afternoon reading a popular survivalist website, and one of the preferred sites for their private fortresses was in New Zealand. None of them have twigged to the dim view the New Zealand Police take of people stockpiling automatic weapons.
I think it's more that *all* Americans (who have heard of New Zealand) seem to think of it as this distant, mostly-white paradise with exquisite scenery, friendly natives, and all the comforts of the First World without the unpleasant bits of America. The prickly bits - and, evidently, the bits that indicate we're a hotbed of socialism, in American terms - aren't reported in the US media, and so don't register.
Plus, we're far enough away that threatening to move here can be understood as an indication of one's anger rather than involving an actual desire to, say, move somewhere.
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Finally what bozo designs a toll road and doesn't put in toll booths - the stop and pay toll machines were broken much of the time (and not wheelchair accessible!) - anyone without a credit card or an internet connection (maybe half the country over 60?) has no other way to pay
The same bozos who set up an unsecured webpage for everyone to hand over their crediir card numbers on?
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Many things -- but strategic incompetence, political naivete and deep denial about the nature and consequences of same is not among them
So what he means here is "no, nothing really."
</tounge-in-cheek>