Posts by Mark Harris
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Besides, why have a dog and bark yourself? ;-)
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I've got to tell you guys everything, and it's not even my first language.
Ah but it's that Renaissance style and way with words you have.
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I think I'll add "piplloried" to my lexicon, it has a nice ring. Not sure what it means yet but I'm sure someone can supply something appropriate
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For the umpteenth time, it really bugs me the way apparently intelligent people to the right of centre can ignore all this stuff and buy into the craziness of the modern Republican party. David Farrar, for one, is cheerily surfing along with the Palin nonsense and he should bloody well know better.
That's not the way Farrar and his coterie work. DPF, more than any other in the NZ blogosphere, must carry the can for this whole divisive left/right problem. "My party, right or wrong" makes as much sense as "my mother, drunk or sober"* but they keep pushing the party line anyway. Why? Because they don't have to think. Thinking is hard. Finding solutions is hard. Character assassination is easy, in comparison, and by copying the crap memes from abroad they can post quickly and frequently, and therefore pour more (copies of) content onto the net so that their crap will bubble higher in searches. IMHO, people like Farrar and Rove (who he idolises BTW) just want to win. There is no ideological basis to their stance - they just enjoy playing the game.
But I share your bugged-ness, even if I understand the cause
*(which is not to say my mum's a lush, cos she's not, for those of you with a literal state of mind - it was metaphorical, mmkay?)
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I'm aware of that, and I see the merit in insulating the police and prosecutors from the crime of slander when they happen to get it wrong.
But you seem to be arguing for a position where police can't search for evidence unless they already have enough to convict, which seems a little arse-backwards to me.
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Or to put it in a way that will keep Angus happy:
Sarah Palin's performance and behaviour as Mayor of Wasilla and Governor of Alaska is in the public interest
Sarah Palin's children is what the public are interested in
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There's a difference between "things in the public interest" and "stuff the public is interested in". Brangelina's babies fall into the latter, IMHO, just so you understand where I'm seeing the boundary. Things that are in the public interest might include tax decisions, government business, tsunami warnings etc. - stuff the public needs to know that they might not actually enjoy.
The MSM, it its efforts to garner eyeballs for their advertisers, have conflated the two areas as entertainment. The erosion of the opportunity for a fair trial has gone.
Myself, I favour a system of suppression of all details before the court (including names) until the accused is found guilty. If aquitted, name suppression remains, as that person is innocent. It's up to them to reveal who they are if they want to.
It won't work, of course - NZ is too damn small and half of us are related to the other half, so word gets around. But we have to redress the balance around a fair trial.
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@ Stephen
Couldn't agree more.
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Just spotted at onegoodmove.org
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BTW the "poor mug" can also be a sick bastard but more often is someone who is curious. The law treats them the same, and enforcement regards the imagery as a precursor to physical paedophilia, on the basis that "all the paedophiles we catch have child porn on their systems". They have no statistics on whether all the people who have looked at child abuse images have gone on to molest, but regard it as an article of faith that they will.