Posts by Stephen Judd
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Hard News: Crossing the line into idle bigotry, in reply to Scott Chris,
which of us is paving the devil’s road?
I'm pretty comfortable saying it's you. I recognise the rhetorical trope of singling out a minority as an insidious menace bent on control of society, and that rhetoric not infrequently inspires violence against minorities. This is exactly the kind of crap that Breivik was collecting before he went on his rampage. The people who say it and the people who publish it and the people who believe free speech is a right that trumps all other rights rather than being balanced with them all bear that responsibility, including you.
Since all we're advocating is that the Times be held to standards it volunteered to hold itself to, you protest too much.
I cannot help but notice that the most absolutist free speech defenders I know are overwhelmingly not usually members of groups that are not usually targetted. As a Jew, my interest in preserving your free speech rights to vilify my ethnic affiliation is balanced with my fear of a neo nazi eejit being pushed over the edge to put theory into practice. I am completely happy to lean on the Times now about their choice of whom and to publish in order that I don't have to have a softball bat by the doorway later. I imagine Anjum feels the same way and I support her.
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Hard News: Crossing the line into idle bigotry, in reply to Scott Chris,
the newspaper has the right to publish Cox’s opinion
Yes, and I have the right to condemn them for that. Again, the odd conflation of freedom of speech with freedom from criticism.
Newspapers are inherently selective. That's what the job of an editor is, ffs.
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Hard News: Crossing the line into idle bigotry, in reply to Scott Chris,
perhaps their purveyors have the right to be heard.
Why? You have exactly put your finger on it there. Seems to me you're saying that if racists are numerous enough, newspapers are obliged to print racist vilification*. Is that an unfair summary of your position?
* as opposed to leaving them to start their own racist newspaper.
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I don’t get either Scott or Angus’ positions. Cox has no right to appear in a newspaper – no proprietor is obliged to print his words. If they print them, that’s because they wanted to, and if they want to and do so, they deserve all the blame they get.
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OnPoint: H4x0rs and You, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Might give some of the viewing audience a bit more of an view than intended.
Yes, we wouldn't want to inadvertently disclose anything sensitive.
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You'd be amazed how often people go to restore from backup and discover that the media is unreadable, or the backups have been quietly failing for 6 months, or ...
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OnPoint: The Source, in reply to Matthew Smith,
Interesting question, Matthew. I wonder how well designed and implemented MSD's backup procedures are...
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Speaking of sources, what about Barry Soper's claim that the source of GCSB leaks to Shearer "has been revealed" as Fran Mold's partner? The only source I know of for that claim is Cameron Slater. It would be nice if Soper burnt his source on that one, if only because otherwise it looks awfully like Soper just ran a Whaleoil rumour without even attributing the shit.
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to izogi,
Welll.... in my experience, many times when a disaster happens on a senior manager's watch, they get moved to a pointless assignment with no one reporting to them (see the Peter Principle and the "lateral arabesque"). But on a really, truly spectacular public fuckup, resigning so you can spend more time with your family is generally the done thing.
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
calling for Paula Bennett’s resignation? Not top of my to-do list at the moment.
Will you rewrite your list if it turns out she was warned?