huh?

todays scandal du jour

the bit that has worried some people is this:

"Why are we fighting whakapapa against whakapapa? There's so much enemy that is not brown."

was the minister of maori affairs really advocating that gangs start a race war?

or is the result of lazy journalisim that forgot to publish what he meant or the full context of the quote.

i suspect the latter, or else the headline would have read "KILL WHITEY SAYS MINISTER"

this was discussed on natrad today with criminolgist (and ex-con) greg newbold. he suggested that the summit wouldn't make a difference to the supply of p and the gands are essentially anarchic. whatever committments the gang leaders make will be largely ignored by the rank and file

stillit makes it look that sharples is at least trying to do something

honesty is subjective?

Dishonesty is not the clear-cut concept the criminal courts assume because it can vary from person to person and situation to situation, according to one of the biggest-ever surveys of public attitudes to deceitful behaviour.

Women are more likely than men to categorise some behaviour as dishonest, although men are more likely than women to convict someone of a dishonest crime in a court of law, the study found.

Older people more readily judge someone as being dishonest than younger people, although the situation is reversed for certain youth-oriented offences such as cheating in exams or prying in someone else's email account.

The online study analysed the attitude of some 15,000 participants to 50 different scenarios in 10 categories that involved varying degrees of dishonest behaviour, from claiming for an expensive insurance fraud to eating grapes in a supermarket without paying for them.

The research was carried out by two academic criminologists who wanted to test a central thesis of what constitutes dishonesty in law, namely that dishonesty as a state of mind is based legally upon the "ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people".

"The law is based on an assumption that the majority in society hold the same views about what conduct is dishonest," said Stefan Fafinski, a criminal lawyer at Brunel University, who carried out the study.

"Our research challenges that assumption. We found a great deal of disagreement, even upon very basic situations," Dr Fafinski said.

The study found 31 per cent of people thought it dishonest for someone to keep money found in the street, yet only 8 per cent would convict someone of theft for doing that if they were prosecuted.

Nearly two thirds of people said they had taken stationery home from work, but 82 per cent thought it dishonest, according to the study, released at the British Science Festival at Surrey University, Guildford.

Big discrepancies were found between online crime and physical crime.

Nearly 97 per cent of participants said taking a DVD from a shop was dishonest, yet only 58 per cent thought it dishonest to download pirated music, and 49 per cent said it was dishonest to buy a pirate DVD.

Only 43 per cent of people called it dishonest for a carer to try to persuade an elderly person to change their will in their favour (twice as many thought it dishonest to wear a dress before returning it to the shop). Only 21 per cent would convict a carer of such an offence.

Some 98 per cent of women considered it dishonest for a man to conduct an online romance behind his wife's back, but only 74 per cent of men agreed.

"Women are more likely to categorise a person's conduct as dishonest but less likely to convict that person of the offence," said Dr Emily Finch, a criminologist at Brunel University.

"Female participants are more likely to excuse conduct by reference to the circumstances or character of the person involved."

- INDEPENDENT

interesting. its like one of those irregular verbs

i am pragmatic
you are immoral
he is a criminal

a confused post on bullying

Further to my post on the car driving into the IRD and Taniwha’s response that this could be seen as an extreme case of workplace bullying.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it.

Firstly, I must reiterate that I know nothing about the dispute between the driver and his manager. I am also assuming that his actions were a deliberate plan, rather than something that seemed a good idea at the time and then rationalized later.

I think that driving the car through the lobby could be seen more as protest. It was done at a time when no staff or public were near and it seemed to indicate that his problem was with the organization as a whole.

If he had driven his car through his manager’s (or human resource person’s house)…well, firstly, it wouldn’t have been as funny and secondly, it would have personalized the issue and put other people into danger.

The nearest equivalent I can think of is the local father’s group. They started off protesting outside the family court (and IRD, because of child support) chanting and waving placards. An annoyance, yes, but still a legitimate protest.
Then they started the same action outside the private homes of family court judges and solicitors. THAT, I would consider as bullying. it’s the difference between protesting against an organization/policy and protesting against a person.

The other issue, I guess, is the money that it will cost the IRD to fix the building. Again, I guess you could call this as bullying, but this is an increasing method of protesting. For instance, the latest protest against Hell Pizza involves not only protesting outside its outlets, but clogging up its website, and costing them money by ringing their 0800 number and not ordering.

The difference, you could argue that these actions are all legal, whereas driving a car through a building is not. I agree and while I may sympathize with his actions as a protest, I am pleased that he has had to face the consequences of his actions in court.

the question

got my referendum question in the post today and have three weeks to decide which way to vote. the qestion is, of course

should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in new zealand?

i have all kinds of problems with this question. first of all, it assumes that a smack is a part of good parental correction. isn't this, in part, what the debate is about?
the battle over the repeal of section 59 of the crimes act began because parents were beating their children and getting away with it.
rather than trying to fully stop the cases of child abuse in new zealand, sue bradford was actually trying to send the message that new zealanders do not tolerate violence against children.
unfortunately, this was not the message that came across.
itt was hijacked by people who claimed that the governement was trying to tell them how to raise their kids, and the claims that a smack on the hand or a swat on the bum was exactly the same as bashing the kids head in with a piece of 4 x 2, did not help.
it was one of those issues where dealing with serious child abuse was so difficult that the easier thing to do was to make everyone feel guilty. so the message received was that nz parents cannot be trusted not to beat their kids, so the governement reserves the right to imprision them if they get it wrong.

this proves the fundamental factor of communication. its not what you say that is important, its what people hear.

in the meantime, people on both sides of the argument ae getting shriller and shriller.

given that the question is stupid, the referendum is non binding, and the prime minister has already announced that he will not be making a law change no matter what the esult, this referendum seems particularly pointless.

as i don't have children, and probably never will, the whole question is rather academic to me, but as i beleive in democracy, i really should vote. shouldn't i?

inevitable

LOS ANGELES - An openly gay teen has been voted prom queen at his Los Angeles high school in a campaign that began as a stunt but ended up spurring discussion on the campus about gender roles and popularity.

Sergio Garcia said he felt "invincible" when he was crowned queen of the Fairfax High School dance at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Prom is a formal spring dance that is a tradition for American high schools.

Days before the dance, Garcia told fellow students that he was "not your typical prom queen candidate. There's more to me than meets the eye".

He also promised that he would be wearing a suit on prom night, but "don't be fooled: Deep down, I am a queen."

And he made good of that promise on Saturday, wearing a grey tuxedo topped off with the prized tiara.

Garcia, 18, said he saw fliers advertising the prom and the election but they didn't specify that the queen must be female. He thought the role would suit him better than prom king.

"I don't wish to be a girl," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I just wish to be myself."

Senior class president Vanessa Lo said she and other students were initially against the idea but became convinced he wasn't just an attention-seeking clown.

"It just goes to show how open-minded our class is," Lo said.

Unique Payne, 17, said she voted for Garcia because she supported the gay community.

Although many students were supportive of Garcia's run, others were upset and didn't understand why Garcia chose to run for prom queen.

"I'm not really happy about that," said 17-year-old Juan Espinoza. "He should've run for prom king."

- AP

and i agree with jan espinoza

when i first read this, i thought it was mildly amusing, but on reading it again, i started to think

the fact that he ran for prom queen comes across as a bit of a joke, especially as he says that he doesn't want to be a woman. fair enough, but i think it would have made more of a point if he had gone dor, and won prom king. if elected that would have shown that his fellow students accepted him for who he was-a gay male

n.b. did you notice the name of one of the students? unique payne. i wonder if she has a sister

plants need to be watered

WESTERLY, Rhode Island - A Rhode Island Democratic lawmaker says he'll donate $100 (NZD$164) to charity for every second former President George W. Bush withstands waterboarding.

State Rep. Rod Driver also included former Vice President Dick Cheney and ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in his offer. He sent letters to all three.

Bush's administration allowed the interrogation technique, which simulates drowning, to be used on terror suspects. Driver says that, if Bush is so confident it isn't torture, he should try it for himself. His offer was first reported Thursday in The Westerly Sun.

A spokesman for Bush didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Cheney has defended waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, saying they yielded important information.

-AP

i think that its been a long held dream of servicemen that the leaders who put them in harms way should have to suffer the same privations as those on the ground.
american soldiers were waterboarded in world war two, and the japenese interogators were later tried for torture

i'd rather see cheney rather than bush waterboarded as i think that cheney was actually the giy in charge
sadly, i can't see any of them taking up the challenge
if they do, i hope its televised

FOR GOD'S SAKE, PANIC

its now quarter past six on a monday eveing and all 6pm new bulletin so far has been about the swine flu. the story has, of course dominated news throughout the day.

the goverment have asked that anyone who has been to mexico lately and are showing flu-like symptoms are to wander along to their g.ps and get tested

an expert from WHO has said that while there is no need to panic, this new strain of flu could decimate the human race

and yet, people seem remakably unconcerned. after all, the millenium bug, sars, bird flu, muslim terrorists and robot cockroaches from venus were also supposed to kill us all. the reaction to this new threat is being greeted with a sardonic "yeah, right"

after all this flu hasn't killed any new zealander yet. 14 people died in car accidents this weekend

there is always someone ready to be offended

one thing that annoys me is the way some people say "its political correctness gone mad". its increasingly being used as a replacement for "i'm not racist, but..." as a preamble to saying something extraordinarily stupid.

nonetheless, there are times when a complaint just makes me roll my eyes and go "sheesh-get a life"

this week a canadian tourist made a highly publicised complaint about the marshmallow lollies known as eskimos. apparently eskimo is now an offensive word as it means something like "cannabilistic meat eater" given that the lollies are vaguely human shaped, its kind of understandable how the cannabalistic implications could be offensive. on the other hand, what does that say about jelly babies?

the race that used to be known as eskimaux (grammatically correct plural) are now known as innuits.

"how would you like it", she said, "if we made sweets called honkies?" (well, i'd try one)

it just goes to show that you can never do anything these days without considering the socio-policitacal ramifications of your actions. annoying, isn't it.

pscall (who make the lollies) are not planning on changing the name, but i understand the green party are asking that the lolly ggets a more appropraite name. they are suggesting "vaguely human shaped marshmallow, pumped full of sugar and terribly bad for your teeth."

he's frank (slight return)

its been really interesting watching a genuine military dicatorship right on our doorstep.

in december 2006, commodore frank bainiarama staged a military coup in fiji, ostensibly to root out corruption in the government and to improve racial equality between the indigenous fijians and the indian population.

nz and australian kicked up a fuss and starting pressing him to restore democracy, but frank was steadfast that he would not.

the former prime minister took frank to court and last saturday, the court found that frank's government was illegal

frank stepped down, but the president of the company sacked the judges, suspended the country's constitution and appointed an interim prime minister. go on, guuess who it was. yep, thats right, frank was out of office for less than 24 hours.

there has been a media crackdown, all foreign media have been expelled, all local media have been told that they are only to write positive stories (do journalists know how to do this?). the fijian media are used to this-after the initial coup, any journalists who wrote things that displeased frank were arrested, taken to an army camp and forced to exercise.

frank has also been quoted this week as saying that free speech is not condusive to getting a new constituion in place. on being asked whether he thought that a free press was crucial to civilised society, he responded "no, just ask me the questions and i will answer them"

on the other hand, he has also devalued the fijian dollar, so that holidays there are now cheaper

what he said

from the nz herald

Questions over extra $94m in AIG bonuses
Wall Street fights to protect bonus culture
Worldwide fury at runaway corporate salaries in a time of mass corporate meltdowns has more to do with unfulfilled shareholder greed than a moral failing on behalf of corporate executives. It's the corporate, capitalist model that is the real villain in this piece.

To understand the reason for this, it is necessary to understand the reason for the hefty pay packets of company heavyweights. Accountability and responsibility is severed when you decouple decisions about payment from ownership.

Individuals generally make prudent, rational decisions about their expenditure because the money is coming from their pockets. That's why people employed by sole traders or partnerships never get paid above the odds.

Okay, law firm partners often get paid over the $1 million mark, but that is only because they personally generate at least twice this amount. When it comes to setting corporate salaries, it's a free for all because the money comes from shareholders who are effectively excluded from the salary determination process. It is a luxurious position for company executives to be in, knowing that nobody who has a direct interest in the money they will be milking sets their pay.

A fundamental constant in life is that all human action is referable to one of six desires: power, fame (ie. status), love (including loyalty), fear, sex and money. Fame, love and sex (Friday drinks aside) are absent in the corporate setting. That leaves open the scope for an unbridled pursuit of money and power.

Thus, given that the owners of the money don't have much direct control in decisions relating to how their money is spent, it is inevitable that corporate executives are going to award themselves large salaries.

But are they above the odds? This requires an assessment of the worth of human labour. From a functionality and utility perspective of human activity, the people that rate the highest are those who provide others with the necessities of life.

In descending order, these are health, food, security, shelter and education. Thus doctors, farmers, police, builders and teachers should be at the top of the pay mountain.

Yet, there are other elements to the pay matrix. One of them is supply and demand economics and the desire by consumers to make their money go as far as possible.

Teachers, builders and even doctors aren't paid over the odds simply because there are lots of them and market forces drive down the amount they can charge for their services.

The reason why there are lots of these types of professionals comes down to one or more of the six motivators for human action. Thus, people often become doctors and teachers because they think it will give them status and it is the way to make money consistent with their interests and skills.

So where does that leave corporate salaries? By any measure they are large. For example, the top 10 CEOs in Australia in 2007 averaged more than $15 million annually.

Those types of figures might be justifiable to people with rare, nearly unique skills and insights whose management profoundly catapults a company. But you see, there are no true geniuses. Even those that at the right end of the bell curve of human capacity normally fail to implement their talents in a manner that is commensurate with their acumen.

In truth there is nothing that a $15 million executive can do that the next bloke or lady couldn't do just as well for $200,000.

Still, in judging the ethics of executive salary, you need to look at the whole matrix and in this context the white elephant is the public company structure. The executives aren't taking from the poor; they are taking from the shareholders. This raises for consideration the degree of concern that shareholders are entitled to.

There is one sole reason that individuals turn into shareholders and buy small parts of big corporations: to make money. Moreover, they don't want to do anything to make their money. It is a purely passive investment. By and large shareholders don't care how the corporation makes money, so long as it is successful in this pursuit.

Shareholders only get angry when corporations start losing money and hence the sudden revolt against executive pay. Shareholders and corporate executives are cut from the same cloth. They share a fundamental desire to make money for the sake of it. They differ not in nature, but simply in the extent to which their activities can enrich them.

Hence the current fury towards executives is hypocrisy at its capitalist finest. Never in the history of the free market have shareholders complained because their shares increased too much.

In the end, the fury about corporate salaries is simply an expression of unfulfilled greed - this time not by directors, but by shareholders.

This is an interesting take on the current AIG situation. One I only agree with in part. Truth is may shareholders were already beginning to grumble about high executive salaries even before the recession.

Most of the current anger is coming from US taxpayers who are being asked to pay for these salaries when they themselves are losing their jobs and himes. Nobody minds sahring the pains, but it seems that the guys who actually caused the meltdown aren't feeling any pain at all!

The comment that got me nodding was the one that said "In truth there is nothing that a $15 million executive can do that the next bloke or lady couldn't do just as well for $200,000."

What, exactly, does a CEO do that generates an income to enable that sort of pay packet? Is it the right mission statement? A classy corporate brochure? Is that the individual person giving an aura of trustworthiness and reliability?

I note that the AIG bonuses were not done on the basis of performance, but of retention. And yet these were the people who made the company insolvent. Twice. Why would you want to retain them?

I also note that seven of the bonuses went to people who had already left AIG.

The latest is that all bar five have agreed to give the bonuses back. You can see why there is anger.

banking on the public's generosity

a couple of left wing bloggers have beeen going incadescent with fury over a report from the independant.
a number of british banks have needed to be bailed out with governement money. the government have asked that the "bonus culture" of the banks be curtailed.

the bankers have responded by saying that if they can't get the bonuses, then their flat salaries will need to be doubled, or even tripled.

there was also the news that the inital u.s. bailout of banks was spent on providing bonuses to their staff.

just because they caused the recession, doesn't mean they should suffer from it.

on the other hand, the message to me from my funder is to not expect any pay rise any time soon and the funding for day to day expenses (in terms of staff and training) "will not increase in your lifetime."

i think that if bankers need to be bailed out, there should be an expectation that their income reduces. the arguement they make is that without the high pay and large bonuses, they won't get the people to do the job. market forces.

well, at the moment, governements are the only people willing to invest in tehir busienss. and as such, gthey have the right to dictate pay rates. if the bankers disagree, they are welcome tto turn down the money and try to attract other investors, or put themselves on the open market and see if anyone else is willing to pay them what they think they are worth.

"hi. I was the ceo of a large company that lost 48 billion dollars last year. if you employ me, i will require a total pay package of $10,000,000 per year, full use of the company jet and my own mansion"

same story, different angle

having spent a day listening to the largely right wing views on the report about decreasing intellegence, the issue was picked up by a largely liberal panel on national radio.

they referenced the flynn report, but rather than emphasising the decrease in iq, they noted the increase in violent behaviour and promiscuity

i noted yesterday how the righties saw the report and what was to blame through their world view. well, it was exactly the same from the left. rather than too much pc, it was the fault of the evil corporations, advertising junk food to children and putting violence on tv.

the one thing both sides agree on (and picked to discuss) was the influence of peer pressure, as in "my kid is ok, its those other ones who are dragging the down".

at last, consensus! the real reason kids are more violent, more promiscous and less intellegent is OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN.

i have the feeling that if i really want to figure out what is going on, i;ll have to track down the original report

intellegence defecit

a report came out yesterday from professor james flynn that the average iq of british 14 year old children has reduced by 6 points in the last 20 years, or as the newpaper put it, CHILDREN ARE BECOMING DUMBER.

my first thought was that if this trend continues, i'll be able to fund my retirement by selling buildings i don't technically own to young people.

naturally, there has been some discussion over this. most people do believe that kids are beoming dumber-this includes stories about how one person needed a calculator to figure out how much change to give for a fifteen dollar bill from a twenty, listening to rap and so on.

there have also been a number of theories as to why the iqs have been dropping; the two most common being the modern politically correct education system which bans winners and losers and the rise of welfarisim (aka dumb people having dumb children)

interestingly, most people commenting noted that their children were bright enough but were being let down by other (presumably poorer) children

flynn himself, according to the newspaper article, blames youth culture, playstation and television. however, when you dig down what he actually says is that tv etc has replaced imaginative play.

the idea that imagination is related to intellegence makes sense. after all, an iq is just a number, its what you do with it that counts

anyone can learn and regurgitate facts, but the people who can move from "what is" to "what could be" will be innovators and geniuses of the future.
i'm not going to bad mouth tv, i watch a lot of it, after all, but i have to admit that the shows that spoon feed you far outweigh gthe shows that ask you to think for yourself, or spark a train of thought.

if tv and video games are part of the problem, so to is the tendency by some parents to keep their children safe from everything. . yes,its understandable-it is a dangerous world, but in the ability to explore, or to theorise about the world around them can only benefit children in the long term. real life will become mundane soon enough-why not imagine that that house on the corner is haunted or that unicorns live in the forest.

for a chilling (and occasionally funny) view of the future, may i point you in the direction of "idiocracy", a movie made by mike judge of king of the hill and office space fame. luke wilson plays a soldier who is sent by time machine into the future where, thanks to a long regime of anti-intellectualisim, the world is populated by morons

the never ending story

waitangi weekend having just finished; there has been some discussion, as there ususally is, on the state of race relations and the place of the treaty in today's society.

one thing that most people seem to have agreed with is that things are going pretty well. the two people who jostled john key have been dismissed by idiots by pretty much everyone-even though the point they were trying to make was valid-that without the protests of the past, there would be no kura kaupapa, no kohanga reos and so on.

key has gotten a lot of goodwill over inviting the maori party into a coalition when he didn't need to. its a good result for national. if maori don't reap the benefit from this, the blame will fall on the maori party for becoming sell outs-not from national because there are such low expectations on them

it is interesting to note how the messaging has changed. national's core belief of self-responsibility seems to be mirrored by maori leaders as self-determination.
phil goff has tried in vain to point out how much labour has delivereed to maori over the years, but this is being depicted as labour ruling with a kind of benign paternalisim, trapping maori into victimhood. one academic on this weeks "focus on politics" noting that labour had promised a lot, but hadn't actually delivered.

the policies that national have delivered have been spun as being beneficial to maori-the 90 day probation bill being presented as a chance for maori to increase getting employed (whether it actually works out that way remains to be seen).

then there were the changes to the resource management act. the maori party objected to the notion of removing the need to take the principles of the treaty into account, but to a lot of maori didn't. when asked why they weren't concerned about overdevelopment, one maori leader responded "now we're the developers, bro"

the proposed tax cuts will not benefit maori, but i heard an interview with one of the ngai tahu elders say that his ambition was to raise maori incomes to a level where they do care about tax cuts.

all of this is, i guess, positive, but isn't there some negative news? well yes, and it all comes back to the changes in nz society.

while there have been several large settlements overr the years, the benefits of these have not filtered (or should that be trickled) down to street level and some people are starting to grumble.

another dimension is that while the treaty is, to a large extent, predicated on a bi-cultural society, nz is increasingly a multi-cultural society. maori tv screened a debate on waitangi day with the proposition "this land is may land". it had three teams debating-maori, pakeha and others. in one of the debates high points, mai chen objected to the nomenclature of her team. she wasn't an "other", she was born and raised in new zealand.

its an interesting point that the first generation of non-pakeha (asian, african etc) children of immigrants are coming of age (if you see what i mean). who this will impact on the sociological future of the country will be interesting to see.