Posts by Russell Brown
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From experience, trying to source help for a (now) 15 year old, I know it is extremely difficult. You might consider yourself an excellent parent, but as far as the authorities are concerned, a 'problem' child or teen is the result of bad parenting.
When I think of the crap we had to endure along those lines versus what we know now, it does make a bit angry, yes. Frankly, I think many people in the system simply don't understand autism spectrum disorders.
And options for ASD adolescents pretty much don't exist.
though I'm pleased to say he is happier and native wit & intelligence will go a long way (I hope).
Yay. Rock on with that native wit and intelligence.
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Anything that can be framed as a long standing screw up favours Obama. His negative inexperience becomes positive freshness if it can be seen that McCain has spent his long Senate career helping to create the conditions for this recession.
I was thinking about this this morning. The scale of the problem is such that it demands an intellectual heft that I think is simply beyond McCain, whatever other qualities he might claim.
Obama has much more of the intellectual grunt and, importantly, the quality of advice (see the list of Obama's economists ) to address the problem.
Whether you "blame" McCain, or regard him as tainted (or for that matter, his opponent as "fresh") is just the same old infantile politics that the Republicans have been trying to make campaigns about. That's not the issue. The issue is who's better equipped to take on a problem in which the world has an interest, and that's very clearly Obama.
Of course, that all requires Americans to stop voting for the person they think they'd like to have a beer with.
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Argh, that last story from Finn brought tears to my eyes. It was so hopeful.
Yeah. You can imagine how I feel about it.
What does the high-functioning person have to do to get an "official" label of Aspergers or autism?
I honestly don't know -- in some parts of the country it's hard enough to get your kid diagnosed. But my hunch is that most adult diagnoses are self-diagnoses. That doesn't mean they should be ignored.
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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, as I say, it pays to be right.
Sure, but the only way of discussing how wrong or right the police were would be to assess the evidence. And even when it finally gets to court in 2010 or something, an important part of the evidence won't be presented.
This is sort of the point I was trying to make. Assuming that everyone's not sick to death of it by 2010, I'd be all for an official inquiry into it that could take account of all the evidence.
The police may have acted badly, but you can't really argue that without knowing what they knew or believed at the time of their actions. At present, all we do know of that is what's been (allegedly) published in contempt. And I'm not keen to test the patience of the solicitor general by further discussing that.
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Could somebody explain to me very slowly how seeking evidence against somebody under the Terrorism Suppression Act does not tar that person with the suspicion of being a terrorist?
The police had cause to believe there were potential offices under the Terrorism Suppression Act and the Arms Act. In order to obtain warrants to investigate those potential offences, they were required to cite both acts, both to the court that granted the warrants (on the basis of the affidavit) and to those named in the warrants. It's called legal process.
I think we should drop the subject. The only place to go from here is a discussion of the suppressed contents of the affidavit, and there's already an editor in court for doing that.
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By the way hunters in NZ use silencers on rifles to avoid scaring the other targets eg rabbits.
Cool. What do peace activists use them for?
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Okay, perhaps "railing was excessive"... I'll continue my struggle towards a more perfect English. But he does talk about it a lot, that's how he frames the problem - rather than referring to solo parenthood. A search of "out of wedlock" and "audacity of hope" should get you the bit in the book.
Yup on page 256 of his book, he argued that encouraging black girls to finish high school and stop having babies "out of wedlock" is "the single biggest that we could do to reduce inner-city poverty". This passage has generally been invoked by left-wingers to argue that he's a closet conservative.
He does use the "out of wedlock" phrase occasionally on the stump (discussing abortion rights), but I really can't see where he's bashed Palin with it, anywhere. I'm struggling to see his offence.
OTOH, google "Obama" and "wedlock" and you'll encounter a river of bile from conservatives.
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However: the one who is actually railing against "conception out of wedlock" (bizarrely worked, and would include all of my children) is Obama,
Uh, not that I'm doubting you, but you got a link for that railing?
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@Tussock
OTOH, what I'm definitely not OK with is a police force that rounds up all the local dissidents and slanders them all as terrorists when it's just done an extensive investigation proving they're nothing of the sort; what with us not having any actual terrorism at all, other than perhaps that anti-apartheid crowd back in the day and their flour bombs that stopped a rugby match.
I'm not sure we can discuss this much further without really risking the ire of David Collins (and your mind's made up anyway) but my view remains as ever: that a few people -- however righteous they seemed to themselves -- were doing things that absolutely warranted the attention of the police.
I think you'll find that the police didn't "slander" anyone as a terrorist, and in fact carefully avoided using the term. They were obliged to advise people that warrants had been issued in relation to potential offences under the Terrorism Suppression Act and the Arms Act.
In my view it was reasonable to suppose that there were potential offences under both. As it happened, Collins denied police permission to proceed under the TSA (which means some of the evidence gathered in support of the original warrants will not be admissable), largely because the law was too difficult to apply, but noted that the investigation had halted "very disturbing activities".
It may be that what was going on was largely bullshit, and/or that the police mishandled their inquiry. But if someone takes your bullshit insurgency playacting seriously on account of there being real weapons involved, I believe your scope for complaint is somewhat limited.
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I don't think anything much was going on and bugger if I can find evidence agin that proposition.
Call me crazy, but the accumulation of weapons kinda did that for me.
When self-styled radicals start acquiring silencers for their rifles, I start to get more relaxed about them being under surveillance. I mean, seriously, are you okay with that?
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