Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Keeping our heads on "bath salts", in reply to Ian Dalziel,
When did we get on to coffee?
” – )<coat>
</building>Well, quite.
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I suspect any family that has let Margaret Mahy’s books into the home has a particular book that characterises childhood reading time: ours is The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate, whose vowels and consonants tumble and repeat like waves.
How many times did we read that book? I have no idea. When I met Margaret briefly in the 1990s, I told her that her book had taken over our lives. She looked briefly startled until I reassured her I meant that in a good way. I might also add that she was exactly how you’d want her to be – delightful and kind.
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Hard News: Keeping our heads on "bath salts", in reply to Bart Janssen,
So what, if anything, is the right approach to allowing people to have fun without harming themselves or others?
The new regulatory regime allows for a novel substance to be declared "low risk" and permitted for sale with restrictions. The political messaging was all around the word "safe", but that doesn't work because no psychoactive substance can be declared completely safe. Certainly, alcohol and tobacco aren't.
It's actually a huge step to permit the sale of a psychoactive substance that has no recognised therapeutic use -- but which people simply wish to take -- but I think it's the only sensible way forward.
A major flaw in the new regime as it stands is that no substance currently scheduled in the Misuse of Drugs act can be unscheduled. The MoDA's analog provisions are extraordinarily broad -- anything deemed chemically similar to a banned substance is also banned, even though it might be considerably more benign than a substance that escapes the analog test. BZP wasn't illegal because it wasn't illegal, but methylone was banned because it was too similar to MDMA.
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Hard News: Judge Harvey: My part in his downfall, in reply to Sacha,
it was legal for citizens in New Zealand to hack DVD region codes to watch disks designed to be restricted to other countries
Heh. Hacker nation.
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Hard News: Judge Harvey: My part in his downfall, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
I think the Herald’s decision to lead with this story (and deliberately mis-interpret the context?) is as ill-judged as Judge Harvey’s quip. Oh, the irony!
I'm a bit torn over this. Yes, what was reported was what was said. But did the Herald story go for a more sensational angle? Yes also.
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Hard News: Judge Harvey: My part in his downfall, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Russell said “he is us”. Judge Harvey said “he is [the] US”.
Judge Harvey said "he is us"
I tweeted "he is us", quoting him.
And then he made a pun: "he is U.S."
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Hard News: Good Intentions, in reply to James W,
Did someone actually say that?
Um, yeah.
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Hard News: Good Intentions, in reply to Hebe,
Congratulations on a reasoned response Russell. Giving the fingers must have been awfully tempting.
I got myself introduced to Fairfax NZ CEO Allen Williams after the speeches, just so I didn’t walk away without saying anything. These guys want to do the right thing and they deserve to hear about what they’re getting wrong.
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Hard News: Judge Harvey: My part in his downfall, in reply to artig,
Isn't the TradeMe operations manager Mike O'Donnell (MOD), not O'Connell?
Duh. Typing errors in effect. Fixed now.
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Nat Torkington argues that Harvey shouldn't have had to stand aside and strongly faults the Herald's reporting of the comments.
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