Posts by Kevin McCready
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Hard News: Te Reo Māori in schools:…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Actually Bart I fully support teaching science in Maori. It's a great way to update Maori. If we are serious about saving Maori we have to acknowledge that it will evolve like all languages. For me it's another of those tradeoffs where the trade involves a value judgement.
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To understand Rape Culture a simple place to start is David Lisak's portrait of undetected rapists (pdf).
Next are the extremely powerful SCRIPTS of how to talk to a Rape Culture man and his friends.
I've also blogged about being a Lucky Male Feminist.
And I never read the Rape Culture whaleoil blog though I admire those with the guts to stomach this sick sad individual and his Rape Culture bullies. -
The stuff report (now with a correction about the earlier claim that Jon said it was a revenge attack) says "US military had already confirmed that gun sights on their helicopters malfunctioned during that mission and an unintended target might have been hit. " I find it very hard to believe gun sights malfunctioned. Any info on this?
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Thanks Moz, hope the bike collection is booming. Joanna and I just sold our recumbent greenspeed tandem trike. Yeah I'm very familiar with the arguments and your X question at the end, but I still disagree strongly for a heap of methodological, cultural and public health reasons. Methodololgy first. The 'perceived risk' argument is real and true but it would be madness to say we can overcome it by saying it's OK not to wear a helmet. We could better say that the safety culture has to change so that wearing saftey gear is not a marker of degree of danger, but a marker that there is an acknowledged and real risk. Safety is habit, as I tell my charges on the Spirit of NZ. Make it a habit to wear your life-jacket, put on your seatbelt, wear your helmet. The saftey culture of drivers has to change too - so that the dickhead drivers who come within 1.5 metres of cyclists stop it (this is where the Henry Marsh argument based on flawed analsis of the UK 'car distance from cyclist' survey, breaks down - some drivers will invade your space knowing full well and having seen you full well). Though I've noticed in Auckland in the past few years that drivers are a lot more understanding. The culture of cyclists has to change too so that they learn NOT to ride in the door zone. Unfortunately this is harder to change in my experience because the greater fear, unfounded I think, of being hit from behind as you occupy your lane. And public health, cost to the budget? Yes I know the arguments that if x number of people cycle there will be y reduction in fat and heart attacks. My answer, as someone a little versed in statistics? Crap. There are so many alternative hypothesis and confounding factors in any such statistical tweaking that to argue for a reduction in helmet wearing as SERIOUS policy response borders on religiosity. As a responsible person, when I take younger people riding I insist they were helmets (as it appears does the lecturer in your vid), so why shouldn't we do the same as a society? Speaking more of effects on the health budget?. Two words - brain injury. I could go on and on but this is not the forum and I have other fish to fry.
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I wasn't going to comment on this story, but now I'm all riled up again. So I hope Rusell will indulge me on a matter of safety culture amongst cyclists. Patrick Morgan of Cycling Advocates Network (CAN) is at it again today in the links within a CAN email I still get, despite resigning. Patrick has his own take on helmets and safety and cherry picks the data and experts (the flawed Henry Marsh conclusions most recently) for anything he can find to support his personal view. In the past CAN has told him to pull his head in and apologise for presenting his views as CAN's. (see my blog again). Throws hands into air in despair.
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Ah for a NZ version of Hugh McKay, whose specialty is small, focus-group type research. Hugh is a great human being. And I think the reason the news likes to focus on currencies is that they see it as part of "the economy" which we all know doesn't exist and which Rod Oram and I have agreed is a silly term (see my blog post )
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Hard News: The Big Chill, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
Good questions Lucy. but I can't agree on your interpretation of law/jurisprudence. Have a look at Hart, H L A, The Concept of Law (1961) or Lisa Strelein’s book, “Compromised Jurisprudence: native title cases since Mabo” Aboriginal Studies Press, 2006, She shows Australian judiciary contradict themselves and turn themselves in knots in their judements. A decent first year law course will cover these issues. The law is what judges say it is. It's a convoluted elaborate pin dance behind a veneer of respect for parliament. Anyone who pretends otherwise is fooling themselves. You can see I belong to the Realist school of jurisprudence.
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I just wish the ACT party, SST and other psycopaths (I use the term correctly according to my understanding of neuroscientist Sam Harris of 1% of humans genetically unable to feel empathy for other human beings) would at least try "intellectually" to understand why mandatory sentencing fails them, fails victims, fails convicted people and fails the whole community.
http://kmccready.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/sensible-sentencing-trust-sst-mandatory-sentencing/ -
Hard News: The problems inherent in the system, in reply to Steve Barnes,
No point abusing Bob. He's driven by his genes and experience.
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Bob wants people to die because he seriously believes the human gene pool would be better off without people like that. I have met two people in real life who have told me face to face on the drug issue that that is what they believe. When you try to point out that removing biological diversity from the gene pool (ie people more inclined to addictive behaviour) does no one any good, you get back to the fear and hatred response. The conservative mind fears and hates what it doesn't like or doesn't understand. I spoke about some of these related genetic determinants of behaviour in a 15 minutes talk once on Radio National Australia when I was living there.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/science-and-prisons/3312258#transcript (click on the transcript button)