More claims from health professionals that mercury laden flu vaccines are unsafe.

Nutritionists London

Was this a dodgy name suppression order?

I’m no lawyer, but I think that the stated reasons from Judge Grant Fraser to grant permanent name suppression to the famous nameless sicko from Palmerston North, who downloaded about 30,000 pornographic images, are questionable.

Judge Fraser said he granted permanent name suppression to protect the man’s family, his mental state, his wife’s job and his ability to rehabilitate. I’m wondering if that was actually the case. Because the main stated reason appears to be because none of the offending images were of New Zealanders – or the judge was at least apparently told they weren’t.

Therefore publicity in my view is not required to flush out any potential offenders or to enable members of the community to keep themselves safe from you

But if these images were of New Zealanders, would that mean Fraser would have allowed his name to be published? If so, so much for his argument about the man’s family, his mental state, his wife’s job and his ability to rehabilitate. If not, so much for his argument to keep the community safe.

Crown prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk disagreed with Judge Fraser that name suppression was needed to protect the man’s family, saying the man’s children were well informed about the offending. He said this name suppression could be seen as protecting a person in a privileged position. Yet he refused to appeal the suppression order, citing among a few things, the fact that he had children, and that the court knew what the consequences of a conviction were.

[redacted after reading the judgement]

The man is undergoing therapy to treat his paraphilia. He didn’t just download 30,000 images – he transferred some to an external hard drive and distributed them through the Internet.

I’m wondering how well Vanderkolk knew the famous nameless man. And I’m wondering if this famous nameless man has seen his GP recently. I hear there has been a recent shortage in Palmerston North.

Like I said, I’m no lawyer, and have not read any court documents on this case, but would be keen to get any comment from lawyers or law students on the stated reasons for suppression as outlined above.

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Was this a dodgy name suppression order?

I’m no lawyer, but I think that the stated reasons from Judge Grant Fraser to grant permanent name suppression to the famous nameless sicko from Palmerston North, who downloaded about 30,000 pornographic images, are questionable.

Judge Fraser said he granted permanent name suppression to protect the man’s family, his mental state, his wife’s job and his ability to rehabilitate. I’m wondering if that was actually the case. Because the main stated reason appears to be because none of the offending images were of New Zealanders – or the judge was at least apparently told they weren’t.

Therefore publicity in my view is not required to flush out any potential offenders or to enable members of the community to keep themselves safe from you

But if these images were of New Zealanders, would that mean Fraser would have allowed his name to be published? If so, so much for his argument about the man’s family, his mental state, his wife’s job and his ability to rehabilitate. If not, so much for his argument to keep the community safe.

Crown prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk disagreed with Judge Fraser that name suppression was needed to protect the man’s family, saying the man’s children were well informed about the offending. He said this name suppression could be seen as protecting a person in a privileged position. Yet he refused to appeal the suppression order, citing among a few things, the fact that he had children, and that the court knew what the consequences of a conviction were.

[redacted after reading the judgement]

The man is undergoing therapy to treat his paraphilia. He didn’t just download 30,000 images – he transferred some to an external hard drive and distributed them through the Internet.

I’m wondering how well Vanderkolk knew the famous nameless man. And I’m wondering if this famous nameless man has seen his GP recently. I hear there has been a recent shortage in Palmerston North.

Like I said, I’m no lawyer, and have not read any court documents on this case, but would be keen to get any comment from lawyers or law students on the stated reasons for suppression as outlined above.

National is not going to raise GST- is it?

Before the election

National is not going to be raising GST. National wants to cut taxes, not raise taxes

After the election

The coded call for an increase to GST… was rejected by Mr English.

“ We won’t be doing that… it is not our policy,” he said.

( Hattip Gobsmacked @ The standard

Yesterday

The Government is also carefully considering a modest increase in the rate of GST, to no more than 15 percent.

We are acutely aware of the effect that a rise in GST could have on lower income families.

update: Today

I said I wouldn’t raise GST to cover deficits.

[video]

Problem was, that was not what he said.
Rooiigghhtt…

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John P Briffa,
Doctor and health writer
Woolaston House, 
25 Southwood Lane, 
Highgate, 
London 
N6 5ED

Nutritionists London

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MSN Philippines News

Obama to seek spending freeze, more aid to middle class Los Angeles Times His first State of the Union speech will outline plans to cut the federal deficit and provide tax credits and other relief to middle-class families, students and workers. By Christi Parsons and Peter Nicholas Reporting from Washington – Moving to … Obama to seek spending freeze to trim deficitsSan Jose Mercury News Analyst view: Obama to seek 3-year freeze on domestic spendingReuters Obama wants to freeze discretionary spending for 3 yearsCNN International Bloomberg -Kansas City Star all 259 news articles »

Out Of War’s Shadow, Sri Lankans Vote For President – New York Times

Times Online

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MLive.com

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Taliban militants open fire in Kabul – BBC News

The Hindu

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Google to end China censorship after breach – MSNBC
SAN FRANCISCO – Google will stop censoring its search results in China and may pull out of the country completely after discovering that computer hackers had tricked human rights activists into opening their e-mail accounts to outsiders. The change-of-heart announced Tuesday heralds a major shift

Many Casualties Expected in Haiti Earthquake – FOX News
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Identity politics v class politics

One of New Zealand’s best political blogs, Liberation, is running a series examining the controversy of Goff’s ‘Nationhood’ speech, attempting to show how the speech and resulting controversy can best be understood within the conceptual framework of ‘identity politics versus class politics’. It argues that to understand what’s going on in the Labour Party, what Goff has recently pushed for, and indeed what’s happened to the Green Party, is not a case of social liberalism versus social conservatism; nor is it left versus right; but instead it’s liberalism versus leftism – or simply: identity politics versus class politics.

Keep an eye out for it.

R v Internet – or was it journos v lawyers, and where is the horse?

I was at the R v Internet seminar today. It appears journalists and internet people were outnumbered by legal people and public servants.

It was an interesting forum, with everyone recognising that the Internet makes name suppression of celebrities redundant, and can threaten an accused’s right to a fair trial. Some such as Victoria University Professor Tony Smith, considered that many problems were to do with the unregulated blogosphere. Steven Price, himself a blogger, as well as a university lecturer with legal and journalism credentials, was more realistic about what to do when suppression is breached. In short, the genie is out of the bottle, the horse has bolted, and there’s nothing you can do. However, judges should direct juries to enable fair trials by advising that information “out there” may not be reliable.

Deputy Law Commissioner Warren Young, in talking about the recent Law Commission report, Suppressing Names and Evidence [PDF] explained how the Commission wants to tighten laws around suppression, particularly those of celebrities. Young did not consider the ” horse had bolted”, and made an analogy between suppression and shoplifting. Namely the fact that while lots of people know the name of a certain celebrity does not mean that suppression should be done away with just as many people who shoplift does not mean that shoplifting should be decriminalised. Yet there’s a distinction: Many people consider that suppression – particularly of celebrities – should not be against the law, whereas most believe shoplifting should be illegal.

Judge David Harvey spoke in the afternoon and livened things up. He thinks the Internet can be regulated, and pointed to China as an example of regulation. But when asked about sites like Facebook and Twitter, he was out of his depth. He doesn’t appear to have heard of platforms such as ping.fm where you can simultaneously post an item to Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, blogs and other social networking sites. Rather than ” the horse has bolted” he appears to think that the horse has briefly wandered out of the stable, and on a leash, but is unsure how long that leash is.

Canterbury University Associate Professor Ursula Cheer was very good on the legal side of suppression and contempt, but admittedly less clear on the tools of the Internet. She emphasised the truth that many legal people are not as clued up on social network programmes as they would like to or need to be, just as some bloggers and social networkers are ignorant of the law surrounding what they can and cannot publish. The former group don’t think the horse has bolted – the latter think the horse bolted some time back. Bernard Hickey brought up what I thought was a good suggestion in that the two groups get together informally and discuss some of the issues raised, believing that the legal people and the technically savvy people, including online journalists, were “talking past each other”. The question they should work towards agreement on is this: Where is the horse?

David Farrar also spoke. He was the only speaker who was not a journalist or a lawyer. He started off by discussing the prominent entertainer whose name was suppressed, and how he has seen the name on TradeMe, Yahoo Answers, and MSN NZ. I also found it on the front page of a certain Twitter search. As Farrar was talking about this suppression, and how angry he gets when people get away with breaching suppression on blogs, what did he do… he breached suppression to those with eagle eyes after telling everyone how he viewed the man’s Facebook site. Oops. He also raised good points regarding what is actually a breach – a link to another site, a hint, a pointer to another site that the name is accessed. Many in the legal fraternity believed that nearly everyone under the age of 30 know who this person is, not so many over that age. I spoke to two law students during the lunch break, both were internet savvy, both were interested in Internet issues to do with suppression and contempt – both under 30 and both had no idea who this entertainer was.

The entire forum was videoed and will be available. You should be able to find it by googling it sometime.

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All state integrated schools must obey the law

Last night, Campbell Live had a story about a girl that got kicked out of school because she had a baby, while her boyfriend, whom she is engaged to, was defrocked from his position as 2010 deputy head boy.

The school, Evangelical Rangiora New Life School, is a christian school, and has certain beliefs about sex, swearing, alcohol and the like. But it is also a state-integrated school, and receives the same Government funding for each student as state schools but their buildings and land are privately owned so they charge attendance dues to meet their property costs.

The schools handbook has no mention of policies on sex, although swearing and alcohol are forbidden in school grounds, as are piercings for males. As No Right Turn correctly states the school has can discriminate on the basis of religious belief, but not on the basis of family status.

But it is unclear whether the school is discriminating on the basis of family status, or whether they are discriminating on the basis that certain views on sex before marriage conflict with religious beliefs, therefore condoning such discrimination, as the school won’t talk to the media. Whatever, the law is clear. The schools board can’t be punitive and expel kids and because their christian principles do not agree with kids having sex.

Although the school won’t want to be dictated to, it should be told in no uncertain terms what its legal obligations are under the Bill of Rights. To address the legal breach, it should welcome the expelled student back to school and reinstate the boy as the deputy head for 2010. Given that the school board of trustees apparently knew that the boy was about to be a father when they discussed his selection as deputy head boy, it may well explain its christian principles in its sudden U-turn with no additional information.

Night at the Patch

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