Posts by Russell Brown
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From their own slightly crazy website:
Family First Comment: Schools and classrooms becoming more violent? But we thought that's why politicians banned corporal punishment - to stop that trend. Violence begets violence, and all that stuff - the very same arguments we heard for criminalising parents who smack!
Notable Quotes:
* “Corporal punishment in schools should be abolished because it is the single most significant reason for N.Z. being violent.” – Dr. John Dobson, Director of Community Psychological Medical Services, Christchurch, TV2 News 7th August 1984.
* “The continued existence of corporal punishment was responsible for the upsurge of violence in the community.” – Ian Mitchell of C.A.V.E. (Campaign Against Violence in Education) N.Z.Herald, 10th September 1984
* “Teachers who use corporal punishment are incompetent.” - Russell Marshall, Minister of Education, Radio N.Z. News 4th October 1985 -
RE: Breakfast
My how I laughed when they announced that Kay Gregory was taking over as the female frontperson. She was a 'weathergirl' for gawdsake! But it turned out I was ageist -- I thought she was great, the perfect foil to smarmy (but watchable) Paul Henry.Now, according to the Herald the two didn't have any chemistry and something had to give.
Having shared a couch with the both of them every third Wednesday, I can confirm that you are right and the Herald is wrong. The paper always bangs on about how the two of them have "no chemistry" and it's not true - her mumsy style makes a nice foil for him. You don't have to be shagging each other to have "chemistry", you know.
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The underlying message from Family First is of an entire society to lazy to to be bothered to think beyond reflexive violence and to self-righteous to look in the mirror. A peculiar provincial narrow mindedness seems to be a hallmark of our society, and it just depresses me.
Like I said, read Fretful Sleepers.
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Just realised that the Herald's story is NZPA-sourced.
But here's the original Family First release. And yes, they are similar.
Stuff, at least, qualifies the statement Rising violence in schools blamed on discipline changes by noting the source in its intro.
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This is priceless. Family First has now released two press releases on its Five Point Plan for Action in which it calls for "establishing a non-political Commission of Inquiry comprising community leaders who are working with at-risk families to identify causes of child abuse and effective solutions."
That would be the likes of Save the Children, Barnardos and EPOCH - the very groups that Family First spent months this year slagging off for their views on "smacking".
Some of the looney blogs that championed the "Timaru Lady" are now listing assaults against children that don't seem all that different different from what she did to her children - and demanding that something be done about it. Go figure.
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The founder of the Fundy Post talks about disbelief, science and why he's still reading that stuff so we don't have to.
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Does it really represent security risk if a Dubai-based company company buys Auckland Airport? Craig smacks Winston Peters.
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I'm writing this on my spiffy 20" Intel iMac loaner. It's quick.
And all praise to the migration tool: I hooked up the Firewire cable and started my sick G5 in target disk mode, and an hour and three quarters later I had a new computer with everything that was on my old computer: passwords, settings, Office email, the lot. It just works. And World of Warcraft is running real nice.
And this is after being unable to even create a backup of the G5's hard drive with two different tools this week.
Testify.
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So capturing free content streamed off the TVNZ on demand site is now forbidden. go figure
Plus, if your friends come around, you can't show them the programmes you've time-shifted off the telly.
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Oh, and also, the select committee seems to have missed the point on the silly ban on time-shifting programmes for which there is an on-demand alternative. So it looks like the bill will go forward with a provision that would outlaw using your PVR or VCR to record much of the schedule on TV One and TV2. Note that TVNZ specifically said in its submission that the measure was unrealistic and unnecessary. Go figure.
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