Posts by Matthew Poole
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Graeme, how does that square with the use of that defence having to be tested in court, though? I guess it's just the semantics of "innocent until proven guilty", right?
Steve, URL for your blog entry?
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saying you're not making smacking a criminal offence (they were, and it's now illegal, when it wasn't before)
Well, to be truly pedantic, it was illegal before, of the nature of assault. There just happened to be a defence, which has now been removed.
And as Tom says, FF et al used disgraceful levels of bullshit. They danced prettily around some of the awful abuses that were exonerated courtesy of s59. I know quite a few people who think that the repeal is excessive meddling, but they're almost universally stunned when I point out that people got away with using riding crops, and fence palings, and lengths of bamboo to discipline their kids. Many say that assault was always illegal, and then I explain just what juries have let people get away with. The usual reaction is stunned silence, followed by some sort of stammered rebuttal about bad juries, etc. People just don't want to accept that s59 let people get away with blatant assaults on their kids.
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Part of the contract of all police officers is that they get one hour a week for maintaining their fitness. It's not a lot, but it's something.
That's pathetic! Better than nothing, you're right, but come on. An hour?! I guess I'm just used to the FS model, where PT is part of every shift, be it at the start of a day shift or during the evening on a night shift. Probably helps that they have more "down time" available, and also that it's much easier to go from exercise clothes into bunker gear (which can just be pulled over the top) than to a police uniform in the event that a call comes in.
Do police stations even have gyms? Before the Fire Service brought in the annual "physical competency assessment" (which is pretty brutal) every station got fitted with a gym.There's no such time set aside for shooting for most cops. A lot of cops would go a decade without firing a gun in anger. I guess it's just not a priority, which is a nice thing to be able to say.
A decade? Most cops in the US go their entire career without ever firing a shot in anger. Some never even have to draw a weapon. I'd put the odds against a kiwi cop having to shoot someone as well into the "fairy story" realms. Many tens-of-thousands to one.
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Those things for sale.. they aren't vases..
Yeah, because using a bong just instantly makes it safe to inhale the fumes from burning shit, right? No matter how you do it, smoking stuff is bad for your lungs. Bongs filter some stuff, but a very quick hunt around found several pro-pot sites that warn that although bongs may be safer than a joint but they're far from perfect.
If anyone of virtually any age wants to get hold of pot they can already, admittedly sometimes after a bit of faffing around.
It's that faffing around that keeps some quite irregular users from becoming slightly-more-regular. They can't be fucked finding their own source, so they just toke up when an obliging friend is around and happens to have some. It's probably not a significant number, sure, but it won't be zero or even particularly close to it.
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Matthew compared cannabis to tobacco, not a joint to a cigarette. Comparing a cigarette to a joint is about as useful as comparing either of those to the kg of LSD mentioned in the report.
Oh, so you want to argue on semantics? In which case, which method of tobacco consumption? Chewing? Snorting?
When one talks of consuming tobacco, for most the first thought is a cigarette. Similarly, a joint is the first thought for most when discussing pot. Sorry if I didn't make myself sufficiently clear. -
The analysis that shows (smoked) marijuana to be more harmful than tobacco contrasts a joint with a cigarette - the carcinogen level of the joint is around 20-30 times (don't quote me) that of the cigarette, etc. (in part caused by the lack of filters in a joint).
That was part of it, yes. Also that pot smoke is held in the lungs for longer, which increases the absorption, and that pot burns hotter which has other negative effects. I suspect that a lot of it is because joints, as you say, aren't routinely smoked with filters, but that's still a harm-causing behaviour.
James, if you really want me to go and hunt for it, I'll try and track down the article, but Graeme's summed it up pretty well.
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To what point do Police take responsibility for their own skill level?
If you're too fat, go for a run before work, if you can't shoot straight, go to a range one day a month.Unless they're on a duty that requires high levels of firearms proficiency, which is limited to AOS, Special Tactics Group, and Diplomatic Protection Squad, their access to range time is very limited. Going for a run doesn't need any special location or tools, it just needs appropriate clothing. For officers outside centres with an AOS presence, there quite likely isn't any kind of range for them to use. I'm not even sure that the AOS officers get all that much "recreational" range time. They refresh more often, but I don't know if they can go to the range when they feel like it. Dunno if DPS officers can either. STG almost certainly can, but that's the nature of their assignment. AOS officers aren't even doing it full-time, it's just an on-call role aside from their key duty.
Individual officers have very little responsibility for their firearms proficiency. The national standards have been set, and that's all there is to it. They go to Porirua or wherever they're sent to once a year, fire their rounds, qualify, "Well done, see you next year."
The Piggy back on Army ammo is interesting. How long before Greg O'Connor calls for 50 Cals?
Given that I wasn't correct on that recollection, maybe never? They're just not practical, anyway, unless you want the cops driving around in Humvees with post-mounted machine guns on the roof? Might do wonders for gang behaviour :P
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I do wonder what would happen if pot were, at the least, decriminalised and thus its use became a lot more prevalent. It's demonstrated to be physically more harmful than tobacco, but in part that harm is minimised because of its legal status and subsequent lowered consumption.
As I said in another thread, sure tobacco costs waaaaaay more than pot in terms of cancers and other illnesses, but that's because pot isn't used as widely. Remove the legal sanctions on its consumption, and watch the related harm figures soar.
Of course, if that were grounds for banning things then tobacco would be long gone!
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after the taser trail report debacle
Oh, oh, scandal? Didn't hear about that one. Or are you just talking about how it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that they would be recommended, and the trial was mostly a façade?
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includes Methamphetamine AND Ecstasy, and nowhere are harm figures broken down between the two.
I haven't read the Herald yet (it's my lunchtime reading material), but the headline and opening line on the website caught my eye. Apparently E is a hard-core drug, and was listed alongside a bunch of class A narcotics. The only class B in the list, in fact. Obviously it's just under-classified.
From all the reading I've done about E, the only harm I've been able to find is in chronic users where it can totally fuck with one's serotonin production/uptake systems. That's it. Oh, and the idiots who drown themselves but that's not directly E's fault.