Posts by Stephen Judd
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Ian: your summary of the message is sufficiently inaccurate that it demonstrates the not getting it and failure to listen very well.
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The right to offend is vastly more important than the right to not be offended.
Firstly, offering a threat by stalkerish persistence doesn't fall under a "right to offend" in my book.
Secondly, while some people who insist on their right to offend turn out to be Rosa Parks or Mahatma Gandhi, in my experiencing they're usually enormous tools.
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How can a Trekkie not think of Persis Khambatta in this situation?
Best of luck, follicular and otherwise.
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At home, not here, I have bookmarked somewhere an interview with someone who works with recidivist rapists. They said that offenders prefer to target quiet, withdrawn-looking, modestly-dressed women, judging that they will be more compliant. Which makes total sense and fits nicely with the rape as crime of violence/power paradigm, as opposed to rapists being aroused beyond their control.
I'd try to google it up but I'm at work and afraid of the filth I might retrieve.
Anyway it seems to me that here we have a case of a "duh, it's obvious, use your common sense" argument. Really? If it's that obvious, as opposed to merely being a folk belief put about by uninformed sexists, there should be lots of evidence. Go find me some.
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Craig: link.
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Apropos 3D movies, I'd like to put in a good word for Coraline . 3d was not obtrusive but definitely added to the film. It was also a very successful adaptation as these things go.
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In that case, it stands out to me that the big argument against the case for church tax made here is that the church provides the service as a result of its theological imperatives, hence the quality and range of services is not ideal or representative of what the population might require. The services are not necessarily provided without a catch, or free of propaganda, and they may even do more harm than good because of doctrinal requirements (think abstinence education).
Transferred to the VSM debate, to what extent do student associations have an inherent ideology? In most churches I can't rally my fellow congregants to roll the minister, rewrite the scriptures, or spend the tithes on high alcohol communion whiskey, but student associations are constituted in a democratic and open way.
All organisations embody some sort of ideology, obviously, but I feel the church::student association comparison rather falls down here.
To me the big problem with student associations is that their membership is too transient and immature and these days, too damned busy at assessments and part time work for democratic governance to be secure against determined minorities. The fact that representative functions and service provision functions are united in one body is the historical accident that we should revisit first.
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Yes, I'm trying to figure out which policy (Kiwisaver, perhaps?) is being parodied here.
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I'll tell you what cheers me up, which is that John Key hasn't bent over and promised a law change. I find this cheering firstly because I prefer the status quo, and it seems I'll get it, and secondly because it's not nice having a weasel for a PM and this reduces his weasel quotient.
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Ian: Perseus did this to avoid being turned to stone by the gaze of Medusa the Gorgon.