Posts by Stephen Judd
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I thought it was nice of Jeremy to extend the benefit of the doubt to the show's producers. I thought producer guy's language was very carefully chosen.
Baldock made no particular claims about what his "psychics" do. His boldest claim that the show reawakens interest in cold cases and that people came forward to give him information afterwards. He didn't point to one thing that his psychics came up with that was hitherto unknown but then corroborated. I'm sure he would have if he could.
If what he really wanted to do was make a documentary programme that sheds new light on cold cases, he could have done that without the psychic bullshit. He can't credibly claim to be making a documentary or working in the public interest when half the airtime is devoted to misleading the public about psychic powers.
TVNZ's Media7 site says "He has gone to great lengths to ensure the integrity of the programme and the way that it selects and uses the psychics involved in each case." Really? This one of those cases where English is lacking - other languages make it clear when a statement is a reported claim from another person. I would preface that sentence with Baldock says...
I'm afraid nothing would really make me happy other than the show being cancelled, and an equal or larger sum of public money being spent on an expose of psychics and mediums, and maybe the culprits being put in the stocks with a supply of rotten vegetables, but in the meanwhile I'm glad Jeremy had the opportunity to put the boot in.
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You sure as hell don't have any right to caricature my views
Craig, I mean this lovingly, but: your views are hedged with a welter of negations and conditionals and hypotheticals on the one hand, and expressed with florid and vigorous imagery on the other. This means that a) sometimes it's quite hard to be sure what they are and b) no one could exaggerate them any further.
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Joe: here's a primary source! From a University of Auckland faculty member, no less.
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I think there are two senses of "reference" being used here:
something you refer to for more information when you a learning about a topic, and something you cite in a scholarly work. Encyclopedias (with Terence's case as an exception) aren't generally suitable for the second role, especially Wikipedia, but they're just fine for getting you off the ground in the second. -
Matthew: they could start with one degree (suspects' contacts) and make a second request to pursue others that seem worthwhile.
Apropos citing Wikipedia - I'd be showing my students a page (edited 5 minutes before class) showing that, say, I had discovered New Zealand at the bottom of my sock drawer earlier this morning.
Any reference to a web-based resource ought to have a timestamp.
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Listener editor arrested under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.
... would certainly give me conflicting feelings.
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Whatever prosecutions might be secured against the other seven defendants, they do not strike me as the kind of people who would employ the information as "a shopping list for criminals".
Well, that's probably true, but the next time this happens it might not be high-minded anarchists who get your name and address. And of course, if they share a cell or someone stands over them, they might end up parting with those docs anyway... the point is, that's a red herring. The police asked for a lot, and they got it, and then they had to share it. It's sheer chance whether or not the end-recipients are going to be good citizens when entrusted with the results of a police fishing trip.
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Love the insulation idea, and the cheap FHPs. That's the kind of milk-in-schools socialism I can get behind...
Apropos ACC. As noted above I think slarty is right about the effect this has on dodgy employers, but the charge that ACC-hate is "yankee" thinking is a slur. I have never ever discussed ACC with an American who didn't think it was a great idea. And Americans seem to grasp quickly that it's socialised compulsory insurance, and ask why it doesn't apply to illness too. The reason Americans are stuck with the system they've got is that they just can't get there from here.
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slarty, does it need to be an either/or thing? ACC was introduced partly to deal with the case where there was no obvious party to sue, or where that party had no ability to pay.
Now if ACC could recover the costs of treating you from a liable party, wouldn't that be a reasonable way of increasing the risks of negligence?
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Bollard issued warning after warning last year, long before the US sub-prime market went belly-up, to rein in our over-spending and over-use of credit in light of unrealistically high property valuations. The centre couldn't hold, he warned us.
Which reminds me that I would love a retrospective Media7 episode on the media contribution to the housing bubble. ISTR Bollard getting a right castigation in the press for telling the truth, while they were presenting press releases from the REINZ as news and making programmes about doing up and flicking on houses. It would be nice to know what contribution mortgage ads on TV and real estate ads in the paper make to their respective bottom lines...