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February 13, 2009 8:00am by David Farrar

General Debate 13 February 2009

Have an accident free Black Friday!

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General Debate

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Jack5

Greenfly, who was Ralston’s guest who tackled Kiwiblog posters?
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February 13, 2009 8:39pm
big bruv

I have an idea, lets give the Pinko’s the south Island and we can have the north, they can form their own government and can “elect” their own President (we know who that will be)

We will agree to pay the going commercial rate for power and we will even give them a lump sum to kick things off, the only conditions are that they do not attempt to cross back into the North Island.

The can create their very own socialist homeland, they can have their generous social welfare payments and they can have their DPB.

On our Island there will be a social welfare of sorts, it will be for a very limited time and it will be in the form of vouchers, it will be administrated by people whose only goal is to get that person back into paid work ASAP.
We will pay for our own health care and we will arrange our own pension plans, we will also fund our kids education, the tax rate will begin at about 23% and steadily drop away to less than 10%, GST will rise to 15% as the lower income tax rate is introduced.

How long do you reckon it will be before the pinko’s in the South Island go broke?, how long before we have to start patrolling cook strait for refugee boats?
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February 13, 2009 8:42pm
wikiriwhis business

A grown man threatning men with his daughter

Who would do that

what a squirrel
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February 13, 2009 8:44pm
Rex Widerstrom

Jack5 asks:

Meanwhile, could a libertarian or lefty please help me with this dilemma? If an insurance company is set up that assesses risk largely through DNA samples and therefore both offers more accurate premiums and better profits for shareholders and then a Government bans such risk assessment, whose liberty is infringed? That of potential customers and other members of the public or that of the entrepreneurs and shareholders?

Ooo ooo I know the answer to this one!! Everyone’s liberty is infringed. Because the obtaining and use of the DNA data by the insurance company would be entirely consensual and subject to informed consent.

You’re surely not drawing a parallel between an insurance company asking me if I’d like to give them a sample in return for a discount (which I would politely decline) and Mr Plod saying “Open wide or we’ll taser you, you shifty looking bastard”?
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February 13, 2009 8:45pm
wikiriwhis business

“How long do you reckon it will be before the pinko’s in the South Island go broke?, how long before we have to start patrolling cook strait for refugee boats?”

How long do you think it will take b4 the southerners demand their civil rights in form of humanitarian aid from the north.

Phils phonies will be alright while the rest are eating grass. We know this because that’s exactly how their red brothers in North Korea conducted themselves while the people subsisted on a bovine diet.
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February 13, 2009 8:49pm
big bruv

wiki

You sound like you have gone soft on them already, no aid from us mate, we are going to look after our own first and foremost.

Anyway, the spare cash we have will be committed to keeping our borders safe from them, a few gunboats and a couple of Fighter jets should do the trick, and won’t it be great to see the US Navy and Air force back here again on official state visits.
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February 13, 2009 8:58pm
wikiriwhis business

“won’t it be great to see the US Navy and Air force back here again ”

Far out yeah!!!!!

We got totally ripped off by the nuclear ship ban

WE lost countless millions in US service money. It would boggle our minds how much we lost. In fact if the public found out how much revenue we have lost and how much over taxation and exorbitant revenue govt has made off Kiwi’s because of those lost millions (which is probably by now hundreds of millions) the Labour govt would never see the light of day again.

Never, never again. No Phil, not in your life time and not in your grand childrens either.
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February 13, 2009 9:14pm
big bruv

So who is going to run the show Wiki?

Not sure I am keen on Key for the top job, I think that will have to go to Collins (or me)
It goes without saying that Sir Roger is in charge of finance, Ruth Richardson is in charge of welfare, Banksie comes back as Police minister and Prebble can run his eye over all govt owned business and ready them for sale.
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February 13, 2009 9:37pm
Jack5

Re my insurance and DNA Question, Rex Widerstrom replied: “You’re surely not drawing a parallel between an insurance company asking me if I’d like to give them a sample in return for a discount (which I would politely decline) and Mr Plod saying “Open wide or we’ll taser you, you shifty looking bastard”?

Rex, the point is that DNA sampling would allow cheaper policies (assuming competition in the industry) for most people but dearer policies, or no policies, for people at risk. It would allow more accurate and increasingly accurate forecasting of more serious inherited illnesses and weaknesses.

Leftists would argue that DNA-based insurance is wrong. They already seek reduction of so-called discrimination against groups with shorter longevity than the main population. Yet discrimination on risk is the basis of insurance. Social welfare is the opposite. Society needs to debate where to the draw the line on this.

True Rex, even if you are healthy you would be free not to take a policy from a DNA-using insurance company. But the point is DNA code is going to be widely used and widely available. I can’t understand the fear about DNA sampling. It has so much to offer society. Fears that it will lead to some sort of totalitarianism seem greatly exaggerated. This is wrong, irrational, and almost superstitous. It’s a reverse cargo cult. The pessimists are sitting on the jungle airstrip waiting for doom.

As for the police. We are in a tide of rising violent crime, and if DNA technology will help police subdue this, let them use it.
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February 13, 2009 10:05pm
wikiriwhis business

“Not sure I am keen on Key for the top job”

Second time I heard that today. apparently John is too inexperienced, yet he’ll win a second term.

Are you really serious about selling the govt off?

We actually need politicians like we need a bullet in the head.

We have Laws, police, courts. we just need a bigger and well equipped military. We need youth turned from criminals to service men. We don’t need SIS, consultants and bureaucracies.

btw, BB,, when you say ‘me’ am I to allude you’re a cabinet minister?
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February 13, 2009 10:14pm
big bruv

Wiki

I like Key as a guy its just that he is a bit “left” for me.

Yep, deadly serious, less govt is the answer.

Lol..not me, I could not stand working in the place, I am to busy having a life to get involved in that crap.
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February 13, 2009 10:18pm
wikiriwhis business

Oh ya, just to say,

not midnight yet, but I had a great day, black friday.

and the weather’s coming right too. 🙂
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February 13, 2009 10:49pm
wikiriwhis business

“See Ian Wishart has been threatened with a writ if he publises a TGIF article”

wow,

I hope this goes to court. I hope Wishart wins. No one will go after him again.

This could be serious paradigm media change.

Damn those liberal Masonic judges
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February 13, 2009 11:00pm
Rex Widerstrom

Jack5:

I’m not opposed to the use of DNA in any scenario where there is informed consent and a potentially beneficial outcome for the donor – be that lower premiums or some health advance.

But the collection and storage of DNA by Police meets neither of those criteria, and is not justified. Whereas you say:

We are in a tide of rising violent crime, and if DNA technology will help police subdue this, let them use it.

that is based on fallacious intepretations of the data – often made wilfully. The Sensible Sentencing Trust makes these sorts of claims to advance their own bizarre agenda and they seem to be accepted as fact. However the actual facts are that violent crime accounts for only around 10 percent of all crime and many categories – particularly serious assualts – are actually decreasing.

One of the problems is the way in which the statistics are gathered. The SST relies for its hyperbole on reported crimes, and there are a myriad of factors that can explain a rise (or fall, for that matter) in these. One thing which has led to a marked rise in reporting is the commendable improvements in the way Police handle complaints of domestic violence, which in turn has given women the confience to report it. As Statistics says:

More than half of all serious assaults were assaults by males on females.

So this is not merely random assaults on strangers that’s on the rise, it’s assaults (or possibly the reporting of assaults,or possibly both) in a domestic environment.

And while intimidation and threats are undoubtedly serious they are not “violent” in the way that is understood by most people (If you apply that definition then Jacob van Hartog has been the victim of “violence” in this very thread!!) they are counted as violent crimes – and it is this category which shows the sharpest rise. [ref: Statistics NZ, “Crime in New Zealand”].

We are not awash in a tide of violent crime. New Zealand is 52nd (out of 60) for homicides per capita and according to “International Comparisons of Recorded Violent Crime Rates” (Ministry of Justice) [pdf here] New Zealand’s reported rate of violent crime (adjusted as much as possible for differences in categorisation) is:

– Four times less than that of the USA.
– Thirteen percent lower than both England’s and Wales.
– Nearly 44 percent lower than that for Canada.

And, for some reason, 10 percent higher than that of Australia, though Australia is 43rd out of 60 for homicides so again, it could be that New Zealanders are reporting more domestic violence, more likely to threaten others – or some other cause.

It truly saddens me that New Zealanders feel more unsafe in their own streets and homes, fearing their neighbours and strangers, just to further the agendas of the likes of McVicar and the politicians who try to win votes in the “law and order auction”.

Because it’s simply not true. Sadly, like sexual assualt and child molestation, it’s far more likely to happen in the home with the perpetrator being someone known to the victim.
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February 14, 2009 1:49am
georgebolwing

Excellent Rex. I comment every Kiwiblogger to follow your read an season their assertions with some facts. And a link to another blog doesn’t count.

In relation to the most serious class of crimes, homicide, the Stats NZ report is telling:

“The low numbers of homicide offences recorded make it impossible to identify any trends in the offence rates for any types of homicide over the period.”
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February 14, 2009 11:03am
Jack5

There’s no point in diverting the argument about DNA into a statistical morass which you (Rex) and George can interpret as differently as you want from the SST.

The key point is we have a newish technology which has already identified several violent serial rapists, and freed some innocent prisoners.

The question is not whether it should be used, but what safeguards should be in place to ensure as high accuracy as possible in its application, and security of the storage of information.

Rex, you feel sad people feel unsafe in their homes. You must live in a leafy suburb and mix chiefly with folk-dancing greenies or the equivalent. I doubt you even live in a city street used as a playground by boy racers.

Working people suffer most from crime, while middle-class liberals (which you and George may or may not be) coddle criminals almost as a substitute for spoodles or the other currently fashionable dog pets. If your lifestyle cocoons you from violent riff-raff you can get a feeling for what’s going on by reading Theodore Dalrymple.
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February 14, 2009 12:09pm
Rex Widerstrom

Jack5:

So I rebut your emotive assertion with statistics – which clearly and unambiguously show downward trends in most categories of violent crime, with a sharp rise only in threats and intimidation.

And you rebut that by suggesting I read Theodore Dalrymple?! I’ve read more than enough emotive spluttering from that source… you might as well suggest I read McVicar.

My “lifestyle” includes having been in prison (have you?) and now working with prison issues every day with the Prison Reform Group. And I live in an apartment in the CBD, not in the suburbs.

I’ve had my home in Australia (in a “leafy suburb” at the time) burgled twice, and was burgled a couple of times in NZ. I’ve been assaulted badly enough to be hospitalised twice. I’ve had my car windows smashed and stuff stolen. And I’ve also been ripped off by a few people with white collars. Not sure if they were liberals or not.

I don’t need Dalrymple – or McVicar – to tell me the realities of life. I’ve lived it as both victim and accused. Have you?
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February 14, 2009 2:19pm
chiz

Rex:And while I’m aware that the DNA databases don’t store the actual sample material, what’s to stop the police doing so?

Cost. In any case it appears I wasn’t clear in my explanation. DNA databases don’t just not store the actual DNA sample, they also don’t store the DNA sequence. They only store the DNA fingerprint information. The rest of your DNA sequence is not there. You cannot use DNA fingerprints to predict sexual orientaion or eye colour or hair colour or disease risk even though that information is in your genome. The fingerprint differentiates you from others and shows your relationship to others and thats that. If someone looked up your fingerprint in a database and then paid $$$ for a sequencing machine and then synthesized some DNA based on your fingerprint they would end up with a stretch of DNA vastly less than 1% of your actual DNA.

A DNA database, if samples are collected and administered by Police, will be misused.

Yes but how? If the police don’t have ready access to, say, Guthrie cards, they can just break into your place and steal your toothbrush or haircomb and get a DNA sample that way. In what way can a DNA fingerprint database lead to abuses that can’t already happen now?
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February 14, 2009 3:41pm
Jack5

Rex: I accept that you don’t live in a leafy suburb any more, and respect you for apparently bouncing back from time in prison ( I assume you weren’t a warder).

However, I can’t see how your having been in a prison and now working for prison reform gives you any qualifications above the rest of us in an argument about the use of DNA to identify offenders.

Dalrymple is still a damn good read. And his experience as a prison psychiatrist gives him at least as good a background as yours on justice issues.
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February 14, 2009 5:19pm
Murray

I’ve been burgled 6 times including being cleaned out twice, assulted badly enough for it to be treated as attempted murder, but no fucking over comes close to that carried out by white colar crims and two government departments that are entirely above accountability.

Pardon me if I don’t entirely trust them with the pwoer to decide exjudica what I am or am not guilty of having seen them in action already.

Haven’t done prison time though and not looking to.
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February 15, 2009 1:29pm

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