Posts by Stephen Judd
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Oh, as to the urban legend thing, the article quotes a police inspector thus:
Inspector Brigitte Nimmo, police welfare co-ordinator, said today the antics of some media groups were “despicable”.
“It is very disturbing that the media can behave in this manner and I have seen first-hand the effect it is having on the families.”There was a lot of anger towards the media from many of the distraught family members, she said.
“When they are approached by media, they tell them ‘no’. However journalists keep insisting. What they have been doing is selfish and disrespectful, to say the least.
“We have had multiple complaints from the families who are well enough to complain — it is totally unacceptable.”
Mrs Nimmo said the trauma counsellors were in Greymouth to offer a service and help those who were not coping with the strain.
“This has been abused by some media agencies and is in very poor taste.”[my bolding of verbatim quote]
So I think the poor behaviour of the media in Greymouth is better sourced than mere rumour.
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I think it's human nature to want to draw a lesson, and perhaps in time we will. For now, I just want it not to have happened. Those men, I can't stop thinking about them. Or their families.
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Scum.
Pushy journalists in town to cover the Pike River Mine disaster have tried posing as Air New Zealand victims support workers, just to get a foot in the door of the homes of distressed families.
I hope those fuckers get tarred and feathered and run out of town.
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Ross, I've seen helmet-mounted mirrors for sale at Capital Cycles in Wellington.
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I have a mirror mounted on the right of my handlebar and I can't believe it took me so long. I believe it's making me much safer as I can see cars coming from behind before I even consider turning right. I highly recommend them. Mine cost about $30 from a local bike shop.
Like Sam, I give a happy wave to people who do the right thing by me when I'm on a bike. I also make sure I signal left turns and give way ostentatiously to right-turning drivers.
In the six years I've been regularly bike commuting in Wellington and Auckland, I've had exactly two malicious incidents, both involving carloads of teenagers. One lot slowed and yelled out the window "Learn to drive!" as they went around the Basin, and the other tooted at me as they passed me climbing Mt Vic, seemingly in an attempt to try and make me fall off. Little shits. But all the other near misses I've had seem to have been genuine absent-mindedness, and to be honest, I screw up sometimes too.
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Hilary, I kill them as soon as I land them.
Like most people who fish I've managed to hook myself and on the scale of pain I have felt it doesn't rate. I am confident it's a lot better than being progressivly chomped alive by a bigger fish.
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Hilary: catch and release is just torturing fish for fun. I really enjoy fishing, definitely for the thrill of the hunt as well as all the bullshit about solitude and nature and the water, but fishing for food is the only way I can justify it to myself.
Anyway, every story I read about the decline of fish stocks and imminent emptying of the oceans ruins my pleasure in it and so I rarely go fishing these days.
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Kahawai take about 4 years to grow to 30cm long and be "mature". A 60cm kahawai might be much older. It doesn't take many big kahawai being caught to create a situation where numbers crash.
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How do you think other members of society might think about that proposition? Again, I'm talking about competing claims, not about whether there's a basic right to reproduce or about what makes a good parent.
I feel fine. Next!
Slightly more seriously, we do a lot of things that might be seen as creating a sort of moral hazard -- treating smokers for lung cancer gratis, paying ACC to rugby players who break their necks -- because it's easier to administer and no more unfair than the likely outcome of some sort of micro-managing rigour. An excessive focus on fairness can actually create worse outcomes for everyone.
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Why would any particular family need to have 8 children in this day and age when they're all likely to survive into adulthood?
To look after me when I'm old, because my ex and I and our new spouses have exactly one child between us, and she's going to be pretty busy.