Archive for August, 2010|Monthly archive page

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Objectively Wrong: Fun Facts With Lindsay Perigo

In Rory MacKinnon on August 30, 2010 at 7:33 pm

There is a thing in ideological debates called the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. It usually shows up when something embarrassing happens which undermines one person’s argument; and it goes like this:

“Look at these Sassenach louts drinking and fighting and mugging old ladies! No Scotsman would do such a thing. Well, no true Scotsman.”

I mention this because a funny thing happened today on the way to the blogosphere. Matt McCarten in the Herald On Sunday:

ACT was founded on the odious principle that human greed is the driving force of human progress and is to be celebrated as some sort of religion. The cultists worship at the altar of their prophet, Ayn Rand, and delude themselves if everyone only focuses on getting what they want, then somehow this is good for everyone. Read the rest of this entry »

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Inside The Sensible Sentencing Conference

In Rory MacKinnon on August 26, 2010 at 7:20 pm

So many; I had not thought death had undone so many.
-T.S. Eliot

It’s my first time at a Sensible Sentencing conference, but there’s a distinct sense of deja vu as I wind my way across the Beehive’s banquet hall to my seat. I put it down to all the familiar faces; faces I’ve seen a hundred times before with a slight phosphor blur outside dozens of High Courts.

Eva the publicist has assured us we’re welcome, but a greying man in Sensible Sentencing merchandise – cap and khaki polo shirt – eyes me warily. The family of Karen Jacobs, killed by a partner with mental illness in 1997, are sitting directly across from the press table but avoid eye contact altogether. We are, after all, the Liberal Media. But I’m here today – just like the politicians and police and judges and defense lawyers – to hear Sensible Sentencing’s supporters firsthand and find out what they want from our justice system. If only it were that easy. Read the rest of this entry »

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OIAs & NZ’s “Assistance” In Afghanistan

In Rory MacKinnon on August 20, 2010 at 5:47 pm

The reports on New Zealand’s connection to a notorious Afghanistan prison all came and went in the space of a day, but it’s been on my mind a lot this week. Not the war itself, mind you, or the moral dilemmas of detainment – but the Government’s assurances back in February that it would be more candid about New Zealand’s operations in Afghanistan; assurances which six months on are hard to see as anything but a broken promise.

That infamous photo of SAS corporal Willie Apiata in February supposedly sparked a seachange in the Government’s PR policy. It is a fact, Prime Minister John Key told us, that “New Zealanders deserve to know what our forces are doing overseas on location”.

Yet the response from both the Prime Minister and the New Zealand Defence Force on the issue of arrests has revealed a continued and deliberate campaign of obfuscation and omission. Read the rest of this entry »

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