Posts by steve black
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Shortly after the event I was disturbed to receive this from somebody in the USA on a forum I moderate.
Want to extend my sympathies to your country, you and yours... I know what's going on in this world. As always a Good guy -with a gun- prevented more carnage;
Multiple mosques were targeted during attacks in New Zealand on Friday, and an armed man reportedly fired back at the shooters in the Linwood area of Christchurch.
The New Zealand Herald reports that the local man with the gun fired on the shooters after they unleashed “multiple gunshots” on the mosque in Linwood. The armed man ran after the shooters, firing two shots at them with “a rifle or shotgun” as they undertook their escape. That's never covered with the same intensity in the media
It took me a few minutes via Google to see that it was Breitbart, InfoWars, et al. at work. They turned this into a "pro gun" headline which would bring tears of joy to the NRA.
The Breitbart story has a link to the Herald, but I don't see anything about a "good guy with a gun shooting at the shooter".
I would like any avid Herald readers to let me know what the Herald thinks about being claimed as the basis for this anti gun control meme. I don't generally see the Herald, so I don't know what their initial coverage was, how this relates to to Breitbart claims, and what if anything the NZ Herald has done about that. Did the story get changed? Or did Breitbart just make up their own embellishments? Never let the facts get in the way of a good meme.
Since then I've heard from another friend (in Christchurch) that Rush Limbaugh is already claiming "false flag" and that the shooter was really a lefty who posted the manifesto to smear conservatives. I would have thought that was more an InfoWars thing, but maybe Rush got their faster.
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I've just landed in Queensland for a month and am getting back up to speed with media and politics here. Thank you for letting me know what mischief is going on at home. As soon as I turned on the tellie I was amused to see that the ABC is running a series of ads (well, promotions sensu stricto) on the value of public broadcasting including Sam Neill who waxes lyrical about the ABC.
And a tiny typo: your show met its end, not met its and.
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Thank you Emma. That Chris Cleave address was great.
and White Man Behind a Desk is back...and on target. Go Robbie.
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Nice interview Ben.
The whole use of ratings would seem to be an over reliance on flawed measurements and bogus analysis being used to replace sensible human management strategies. A black box algorithm is no substitute for thoughtful insight. If Uber doesn't get that then they may well launch into driverless cars too early and suffer the legal and technical consequences.
Good luck with the Disputes Tribunal.
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Ralston wouldn’t be terrible if he was elected and had to own decisions rather than idly mock them.
Perhaps, but the first thing which sprang to mind following your comment was Tony Abbott.
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Speaker: Talking past each other:…, in reply to Sacha,
If a substance is harmful, why not ban it rather than taxing it? Sugary drinks have zero nutritional benefit and many proven harms.
The main argument for not banning something outright is that when you ban it you give up pretty much any chance to monitor and regulate strength and purity, labeling, availability (when and where it is sold), and so on. It all becomes unregulated black market. Want to see what happens when the idealized free market takes over? Just look at banned products like cannabis, meth-amphetamine, heroin, etc. There needs to be a well chosen balance between different approaches. Which is why real dialogue between the two factions described in this article should be better than talking past one another. In theory…
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Hard News: Media Take: The Panama Papers, in reply to Sacha,
That could have been entertaining, yes.
And topical. Lest you think the whole Don Brash Iwi vs Kiwi is just history and things have moved on...
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/301222/iwi-vs-kiwi-campaign-slogan-returns
Brash is still ACTing up again in cahoots with New Zealand Centre for Political Research [SIC] run by former ACT MP Muriel Newman. Same old same old.
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As far as I’m concerned Kiwimeter is not proper research. It is “entertainment” intended to increase audience participation for commercial gain, and should be evaluated as such. The approach might be defended in terms of “freedom of speech” but I think xkcd has the right answer to that claim:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/free_speech.png
I would embed the image itself here but I don’t see how.
Since I occasionally get involved in these methodological and social research issues, I’ve actually put up my cv so you can see that when I say "not proper research" I have a bit of experience to back up my opinion:
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If I take a strict reading of what we are supposed to be told in the terms and conditions:
You’ll be told that your communications will be screened or may be screened for cyber defence purposes.
and compare that to the phrasing we've seen so far
may be subject to monitoring.
then the sites found so far are failing to say what use the monitoring is for. What happened to the "for cyber defence purposes" guys?
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I’m wondering how the new CyberBullying law
Herald Article announces passage of new law
might enter into this scenario. As The Herald says (not that they are the ultimate interpreters of what a law means):
New cyberbullying law will create a criminal offence of intentionally causing harm by posting a digital communication, punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment or a maximum fine of $50,000.
So would what Cameron did be seen as “intentionally causing harm by posting a digital communication” if he did it again this week? What is the test of “harm”, and did he do “harm” to the Labour Party? Can you harm an individual? A company? A political party?