Posts by Steve Parks
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The joy of comics (as I've recently rediscovered after a 10+ year absence) is that under the surface of the arrested adolescent explosions and robots and wizards, is some very savvy exploration of media, culture and politics.
As an example from the most mainstream of the mainstream, the central plotline currently running in the Marvel Comics Universe has a former supervillain becoming a Rumsfeld-esque figure with a disturbing level of control over the US government and its enforcement agencies. He gets there by having a masterful understanding of media manipulation and being seen doing and saying the right things at the right time.
There's plenty of explosions and spandex, sure, but there is also a critical examination going on of how the Bush administration used the media and the fear of terrorism to manipulate the public into giving up their freedoms.
It's not high-level political/social science, but it shows that the medium has depth, even at its most commercial and mainstream end.
Gosh Mark, you're an even bigger comics geek than me if you've been following the Marvel U that closely lately. Which villain is it?
I also had a hiatus from comics and have recently developed a newfound interest in them. But in terms of mainstream stuff there was really just Joss Whedon's take on X-Men and Mark Miller/Bryan Hitch's version of the Avengers (called The Ultimates, a really fun imagining of the uberman/fascist power fantasy aspect of superhero comics) and other stuff here and there. Mostly, it has been non-mainstream work that's got my attention.
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Off slightly but relevant, the police seem to think so.
Most people seem to think violence can be a legitimate resort when defending oneself or others from violence or threatened violence. All I know about the Mokaraka shooting is what's been in the media so far, but based on that I doubt it's especially relevant to what Matthew was saying.
Anything can now be considered a weapon.
I don't think it's much of a stretch to say a meat cleaver and knives can be considered weapons.
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From Scott's blog:
But the "PC nonsense" theme doesn't really work for this story. O'Sullivan writes that Weatherston is clearly mad and shouldn't be in prison. This despite no evidence ever being presented during trial that Weatherston didn't know what he was doing, or that what he was doing was morally wrong (i.e. the legal definition of insanity).
So O'Sullivan's suggestion that Weatherston's personality disorder should have earned him a stay not in the slammer, but in the house with bouncy walls, is surely about as "PC mad" as you can get.
Well put Scott. I am surprised at O'Sullivan's line on this one. Although I'm not surprised to see her throw the "PC" label around in an utterly pointless fashion.
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I found it impossible to understand the meaning of your post, uroskin.
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I'm not on Wordpress and my shabby little blog does just fine.
Quite.
And what did Lance mean by this: "...and it [wordpress] makes it trivial to buy and host the site on a personal domain name"?
You can do that with Blogger really easily. Well, I did it, and I know nothing about the internet or computers. Maybe I'm missing his point.
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Lance's post just made me go all 'really? You're complaining about that? REALLY?'
In some cases, yeah. Especially the complaint about the '.net address. What's that about??
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A feature I'd love to have (which wordpress would provide) is 'new posts since your last visit' highlighted. Then when I revisit the site I can just click the highlighted links to update myself on what people have said, instead of trying to remember when I last checked.
Yep, good idea.
And the edit button, obviously. Though I'd like the system to report that a post has been edited (like wordpress does), so people can't go all "NZ Herald" on us.
Yes, I strongly agree. Like IMDb where the time of the edit is noted.
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That's a fairly narrow definition of insanity, and many people over the years have criticised here. In the Weatherston case a lot of people (well, me, anyway) would agree that the defendant is mad as a snake, but the legal defence of insanity was not available (google up M'Naghten rules).
Neither should it have been. I understand the view, as others have also said, that someone can't really be considered "sane" when they do something like this - but that's a "day to day" sense of the word. Legally, someone being considered insane means that they are held not to be criminally responsible.
I've seen nothing in this case that suggests that Weatherston should not be held responsible for his actions.
Between this trail, and the recent case involving "gay provocation" I'm tending to agree with those wanting the provocation partial defense removed (other than as a mitigating factor at sentencing).
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Anyone of a certain age (say, 30s, early 40s), who liked Freaks and Geeks
Loved that show. Will check out Adventureland.
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Was lil p's last incarnation ("complacenta" or somesuch) banned? I missed that.
Anyway,
If homophobes don't to feel rejected then perhaps they should get out of the rejection business. If they're offended then, now they know how it feels. And this is done with humour.
Tim provides the counter to Michael's "preaching to the converted" argument. No one who's going to dig their toes in over this sort of thing would be persuaded by reasonable argument anyway.
So fuck them.