Posts by Stephen Judd
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That's a terrible slur on juries, Simon.
I've never been on a jury, but my partner recently was - a serious trial for kidnapping, robbery and assault. The jurors took it very seriously. (Interestingly, after they convicted, they were told that the defendant had previous convictions for similar offences).
In any case, if juries were crap enough to reach a verdict just so they can get away, they might just as well settle on guilty as innocent.
Academics and jounalists at least can sit on juries. And you can have valid opinions on things you've never personally experienced. In fact sometimes personal involvement in one episode skews your judgement of things in general badly.
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And ofcourse the Police should have vigourously investigateed these allegations . Particularly since some of their own were involved . This to me is such a no brainer.
Too right. If we think there is a miscarriage of justice here, if there is a systemic failure, that system is police management, and the failures go back to the 80s. If these cases had been tried 10 years ago or earlier we might have seen different verdicts.
There is a crying need to shine an intense light in some dark places in the NZ police. I worry that there is the worst sort of old boys' network, a force within the force, and if so it needs to be ripped out root and branch.
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On the reinforcement thing: the point the animal trainers make is that some things that look like punishment are actually rewards because in certain contexts *any* attention, good or bad, is a reward.
Those of us old enough to remember when Transactional Analysis was popular know that cold pricklies are sometimes better than nothing, even if they are not as good as warm fuzzies.
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"Doesn't it address the most important aspect of such a complaint - the character of those involved?"
What that really amounts to is saying that bad character is valid evidence of guilt.
(What about someone who produces evidence of great character? They'd say "I'm innocent - 'cos I'm a great guy!" Which is how charismatic authority figures try to avoid being caught... arguably the real reason for the ex-All Black testimonty was to try and sneak some positive evidence of Rickards' character in.)
The rule is designed to stop dogs who are given a bad name suffering for it in perpetuity. That's because in our system of law it's the principle that it is better to let the guilty go free than convict the innocent.
This case is a fine example of the unpleasant consequences of sticking to those principles, but it's important to keep the other side in view.
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I have always said that raising a puppy is excellent preparation for having children. For starters anything fragile and chewable is already out of reach...
I am also irresistably reminded of this article from the NYT, which was in the NYT website's top ten most emailed list for many, many weeks:
What Shamu Taught Me about A Happy Marriage
The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.
Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I'd kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.
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Re the bar culture - in every other city but Auckland, it is more practical and cheap to:
a) get into town on foot, bicycle, or bus;
b) get home via same or taxi once completely trollied.Auckland's geography and car-centricity are anathema to a spontaneous alcoholic social life.
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And 100% male...
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When my daughter was five she would have had to ask me what that meant. And I might have explained that "fucking" is a rude word for sex, and that a lot of grown-ups enjoy it, but that it's nothing a five year old needs to know about. (No need to explain sex - midwives' daughters learn about that very early).
However since the Pussycat Dolls are shite the odds of her hearing it in my house are quite low.
And yes, anjum is on to something. In fact I think the feminist-marxist analysis might be that yer "raunch culture" is simply another example of women being co-opted into policing their own oppression by creating peer pressure to conform to a particular kind of sexiness. Or to put it another way, Russell's claim that there is some sort of middle ground is simply a prevarication to avoid the hard conclusion that the so-called middle ground is simply the more acceptable face of an underlying nastiness.
I'm not sure what I think about all this personally, except that in practise I'm policing my child's clothes until such time as she can rebelliously insist on her own.
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The prison psychiatrist asked me if I thought sex was dirty. I told him only when it's done right.
Part of the thrill of porn (and certain other things) is the sense of transgression. Possible conclusions:
- once everything is permissible, porn will lose its savour
- in the meanwhile porn has to get more and more out there to retain its appealReturning to the "as a father" thing, I was far more offended when Farmers (Farmers!) were selling girls t-shirts emblazoned "If you don't like what I'm wearing feel free to undress me". Buying such a garment for your 12 year old girl seems like a mild form of child abuse to me.
Little girls like sexy moves and sexy clothes. They don't see them as sexy - they see them as pretty and grownup. They happily sing the lyrics because they think they're about milkshakes. It's adults and their broader awareness that turns those things into (inappropriately) sexy.
*toddles off to find copy of Shulamith Firestone and tend vision of post revolution polymorphous perversity*
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I wish PA System had some kind of mod point, favourite, or other reward scheme, because then I could give Emma about 15 trillion bonus points.