Posts by Grant McDougall
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grant i'm not against abortion, I'm a long time supporter of abortion,
Well then in that case, you should have no qualms with a woman's right to choose then.
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Do we have a christian right in this country? if so, where has it gone
Well, Density Church exist, so we do in a minute way. Otherwise, where has it gone, you ask? Vanished into thin air since Graeme Capill got sent up the river, I suspect.
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I think this issue is going to blow over pretty quickly. "Moral" issues don't have much political traction here, unlike in the US.
I think both Labour and National won't make a big issue of this on the hustings, they'll be focused on the main issues. Also, while the Nats are conservatives, I reckon Bill English, as a practicing Catholic, might be the only of them to have any interest in this as an issue. But I suspect he'll be more interested in the bigger picture than getting diverted by this issue.
Mark Taslov, as yourself this: would you be as fervently against abortion if men could get pregnant? I suspect not.
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Now we need a bunch of graduands at Vic's next graduation to find Ron Mark and start rapping at him and tag his office.
I reckon the powers that be at Vic will happily settle for that than the VUSA president wearing his "I love my penis" t-shirt again. :)
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Congratulations, then, to Marie Dybergh for having the fortitude to stick up for the separation of powers as she did today on Morning Report.
Agreed - she was completely correct. But, it's somewhat ironic that this is the same lawyer reminding us of the right to silence when only a few years ago she threatened a NZ Herald court reporter that she'd better not write up certain aspects of a case, or else, despite there being no supression of the aspects.
Of course, the threat ended up being a story unto itself and Dybergh had to swiftly back-pedal over it.
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...the private members bill to limit the right to silence...
I think the proposed bill is merely that MP (Geoff Braybrooke? I know it's one of the Hawkes Bay ones) thinking out aloud. Such a bill hasn't got a snowball in hell's chance of becoming law.
I suspect he's just trying to make it look as if he's being active on law and order, always a popular political football, during election year. At most, it's kite-flying and I expect it'll get little more attention.
The right to silence has been a long-established right for centuries. Just because it was used in a high-profile case is no reason to get rid of it. -
...but hasn't Three News and Campbell Live been finding recently that dumbing down is doing it no good in the ratings?
I've been baffled by Campbell Live's recent dip into dumbed down articles as well. Campbell himself looks uncomfortable presenting them; he puts on a facial expression that suggests he knows it's a crap story, but that it's been foisted on him and he knows it's crap, but has to just trudge on stoically.
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Yeah well..*.shamelessly lifted from The Standard* Peters' post budget address...:
Did you know that John Key himself in his Wellington parliamentary office employs has 36 people?… they cost the taxpayer, every year… over seven million dollars… Teams of PR people and spin doctors and policy advisers and what for? There is no policy! …
Hmm, so John Key's happy to promise to slash the number of beaurocrats, yet also be surrounded by dozens of flunkies? I doubt he'll put his money where his mouth is and cut the number of people on his office staff.
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I'm a "sinister" leftie as well. I also write left-handed, too (b-dum-tish!, thangew, thangew...).
Back in 1981, my Form 2 teacher tried to get me to have a go at writing right-handed, in an attempt to improve my already messy, somewhat illegible, hand-writing. It lasted about a week, then I just went back to being a leftie.
I generally don't find any inconveniences to being left-handed. I suspect I may in fact, technically-speaking, be ambidextrous. I write left-handed, but hold a spoon in my right hand, for example. Sports buffs may also wish to know that Richard Hadlee bowled right-handed, but batted with his left.
I also recall seeing a shop specialising in left-handed goods (including, presumably, can-openers ;) ) in Bath, England, 10 years ago. I expect it was more successful than Ned Flanders' left-handed shop as per an episode of The Simpsons a while back.
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Simon Sweetman looks like he's too young to remember the "bad old days" of New Zealand music, when there was no airplay, even for insanely popular bands (Screaming Mee Mees, Blam Blam Blam, Toy Love, etc) - and when Crowded House had to get airplay overseas before they got played here. Mainstream radio may play the Exponents and the Dudes nowadays, but they sure didn't when those songs were originally released.
Good call. I remember when the utterly mainstream DD Smash (Dave Dobbyn's '80s band) had a #1 album in about '82 or so. Commercial radio wouldn't touch them with a barge pole, despite their popularity and very mainstream sound.