Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Cranks, self-seekers and the mayor, in reply to
Is there any industry body who can take them aside and remind them of the basics of their profession?
Yes. The Press Council. Oh, wait, APN are members of the Press Council. Scratch that.
Nope, I've got nothing.
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Hard News: Cranks, self-seekers and the mayor, in reply to
Brewer was trumpeting the corruption angle quite loudly until his own failure to declare gifts was reported.
Except that a subsequent article revealed that he had, indeed, declared the trip; he just said he hadn’t because he got cornered and couldn’t be sure of his own recollection.
Moreover, the declaration was public bloody record and Granny ought to have found that before printing a big article about the supposed hypocrisy of Brewer. -
Hard News: Cranks, self-seekers and the mayor, in reply to
Orsman’s just tying himself up in knots with all this.
Orsman ought to be fired for his inability to demonstrate anything vaguely close to impartiality when it comes to Brown, non-sprawl growth, or anything else that looks like a deviation from the Auckland of the last fifty years. Won't happen, of course, because there's nobody else senior who's any less blatantly partisan, but it's a nice thought.
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Hard News: Lowering the Stakes, in reply to
trains that run up to 600km/h! Imagine how cool it would be to have trains like that running Auckland to Wellington and Picton to Invercargill!
I think we'd settle for trains that could run at 100km/h between those centres! Right now it's not even 50km/h average between Auckland and Wellington.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to
the term is preventive detention
Fair cop. I even knew that.
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Hard News: Lowering the Stakes, in reply to
A fairly damning graphic showing how much Auckland is not spending on cycle infrastructure.
All the more damning in the face of a projected $60 billion transport spend for the region over the decades to 2040.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to
No, I'm not a lawyer, or even the holder of an LLB.
In positing a construct with a legal outcome, not knowing the law meant your scenario looked ridiculous and withstood no scrutiny. You don't know what preventative detention is used for or how it operates, but you're against it. You don't know the difference between murder and manslaughter. You concocted a bizarre psychopathic parent who would somehow manage to kill their children three separate times before finally being sentenced to preventative detention, clearly without having the slightest understanding of the law that applies to unlawful death; particularly the law that applies to the unlawful death of children.
Don't shoot the messenger. You've been furnished with all the necessary links to read the legislation. Educate yourself. -
Hard News: Cranks, self-seekers and the mayor, in reply to
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but nobody is entitled to present it as news reportage.
Unless one works for el Granny as senior editorial staff, in which case the entitlement runs deep.
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Hard News: Cranks, self-seekers and the mayor, in reply to
I’m sure my 68 year-old partner who has been drafted into pulling on the high-vis vest occasionally will be delighted to learn he’s a “heavy”.
You've been giving him tips on how to be a bovver boy, I take it?
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to
Is there some legal subtlety that makes murder so distinct from “culpable homicide” that it’s impossible to commit the latter just by beating children to death?
Murder is a form of culpable homicide, along with manslaughter, and distinct from infanticide where there is accepted to be a “disturbance of the mind” which moderates (or completely negates) the culpability. There is no offence of "culpable homicide", merely a set of facts which lead to murder: did it and meant it; or manslaughter: did it but didn't mean to do it; or infanticide: did it but was affected by childbearing/childbirth/childrearing so wasn't of right mind. Beating one’s children to death would tend to be murder or infanticide, depending on the circumstantial niceties, though I suppose one might accidentally beat them to death and thus be convicted of manslaughter; juries tend not to deliver that verdict too much in such cases, however.
What one would not expect to find is that one beat one’s children to death more than once but was only convicted of manslaughter the second time around. Your ridiculous, convoluted scenario really doesn’t withstand any scrutiny whatsoever.