New Zealand: LPRENT at The Standard is a fool. Farrar out thought you even before you failed to engage your brain.

The Standard blogs

I should make a couple of points. This is a centre left blog And David Farrar runs arguably the best blog in New Zealand certainly the second most read blog. David and I are friends although no one in their right mind would describe Kiwiblog as being anything but a centre right blog. Farrar is well aware of my politics and has always been available to advise me when I ring him despite the fact we play for different teams. This blog is in my opinion one of the worst in New Zealand and that is because they are liars. 

David Farrar badly needs night school

In Kiwiblog this morning, David Farrar appeared to be running a 9th floor pre-pump for John Banks to resign. But I was rather incredulous when I read the following paragraph…

I don’t think the Judge has actually helped the Government by delaying the decision on entering a conviction. Now that it is the Judge’s role to care about the impact on the Government. I’m just saying I think it would have been cleaner to make the decision as the same time as the guilty verdict.

My bold and italics as my jaw dropped to the floor at the sight of a self-professed political commentator being that blindingly ignorant about the relationship between the courts and the executive. Or being so ignorant of the usual legal processes in NZ that they don’t know what a pre-sentencing report is and what it implies.

Lets have a look at that highlighted sentence. " Now that it is the Judge’s role to care about the impact on the Government. " It is to be blunt fucking appalling English. It is in fact nonsensical. You don't become New  Zealand's top blogger with out some understanding of constructing a sentence. So lets look at the Kiwiblog post.

" Nowt that it is the Judge’s role to care about the impact on the Government."

It was a typo. Farrar has corrected it but owned the mistake via a typethrough. I have no idea who LPRENT the author of this drivel is but he/she knew it was a typo, well that is assuming LPRENT has any ability in the usage of English. 

What does he think? That the courts even consider what the government wants has any relevance to a judges decision? What a dumb fool.

At this point without even checking Farrar's post I knew who was a fool, LPRENT you are actually worse than a fool. It took me one glance at highlighted in italics quote to figure out it was a typo and to correct it so it made sense. What I can't figure out is what your purpose was ? Are you a National Party plant, a 5th columnist maybe writing drivel. Is this a right wing subversion of The Standard ? Could the " dumb fool " Farrar  have engineered this ? Or should we all just accept the facts and rename The Standard The Stupid. I am opting for the latter.

But since I don’t know of any civics courses in the 23 remaining night classes that his government has deigned to leave running in this country, we’ll just provide the basics that a decent civics program would provide.

LPRENT I remove all links from external sources. I am pleased however your mum was able to study English as second language trust me there are many courses available still for people wanting to learn English email me I will help get you enrolled in a free one. Given your English comprehension need it badly.

There is no provision for the courts to notice anything from parliament apart from the actual legislation, regulations validly promulgated from that, and the intent of the MPs at the time that the legislation was passed. Even then, generally judges take far more notice of the precedences in local and overseas courts on the same or similar cases to fill out the vast holes that most legislation is.

What Justice Wyllie did was ask for a pre-sentencing report before passing sentence. These typically take between 6 and 8 weeks to prepare and be read. So the judgement was rendered on June 5, and the sentencing date is (surprise, surprise) 8 weeks later.

But to round out the night class for David Farrar, political and legal dunce, and much of the rather badly educated media the pre-sentence report consists of..

This is funny. LPRENT expects us to accept he is an erudite and knowledgeable commentator, even though he can't spot a typo.   

" ...only has to leave Parliament if he gets convicted of the offence he is guilty of (conviction and guilt are not the same thing)." He quotes Andrew Geddis below. The legal dunce " Farrar" makes the same point in his post. We all know what a pre sentence report is why is included in this blog ?

Pre-sentence Reports

Judges routinely order a pre-sentence report where an offender pleads guilty to, or is convicted of an offence punishable by imprisonment. Pre-sentence reports are prepared by probation officers, who also supervise offenders living in the community after receiving community-based sentences or after their release from prison.

Pre-sentence reports contain information about:

• The offender’s personal background and family (whanau) circumstances;
• The lifestyle and other factors which are considered to have contributed to them committing the offence;
• Recommendations relating to courses of training or treatment which might assist the rehabilitation of the offender;
• An assessment of the risk of further offending;
• A recommendation as to the appropriate penalty, including proposed terms and conditions for the offender’s supervision, training and treatment within the community whether immediately or upon release from prison.

A range of programmes designed to assist offenders is available. Straight Thinking is a programme aimed at promoting life skills needed to avoid further offending and STOP is a programme designed to address the causes of violence.

Judges may also ask for psychiatric and psychological reports, which are commonly obtained for offenders who have mental health and/or drug or alcohol addiction problems.

It doesn’t appear likely that the court will be that likely to look at a discharge without conviction. See Andrew Geddis and Occassionally erudite for the why.

Andrew Geddis: Banks redux

Fourth, it is true that Banks only has to leave Parliament if he gets convicted of the offence he is guilty of (conviction and guilt are not the same thing). But I really, really hope he doesn’t get discharged without conviction – New Zealand has a terrible record of pursuing and punishing electoral offences (the police still haven’t actioned a bunch of complaints from the last election campaign!), and so to (effectively) let off an MP for breaching electoral law would reinforce the message that these sorts of rules really don’t matter.

Occasionally erudite: John Banks – A criminal, but not yet convicted

Will Mr Banks be successful in his application for a discharge without conviction? Probably not, but what would I know? I was fairly certain he wouldn’t be found guilty in the first place! At least I’m in good company there though, with Professor Geddis…

Mr Banks would have to show that the consequences of a conviction would outweigh the gravity of the offending. I don’t know what consequences Mr Banks intends to put before the Court on 1 August, but to my mind they’d have to be pretty damned serious to outweigh the gravity of attempting to undermine the transparency of our local government democracy. Given that a Pre-sentence Report has been directed that includes a Home Detention appendix, the Court is signalling that it’s relatively serious offending.

Fortunately the rest of David Farrar’s advice from on high (9th floor of the beehive?) is of a better standard.

However politically I think the honourable thing to do would be to accept that a guilty verdict has been rendered, and to resign from the House of Representatives before sentencing and the decision on a discharge. Not doing so would be a significant distraction for the Government, which should be talking about the economy, better schools, more operations, welfare reform etc, rather than having to be defensive on an MP remaining in Parliament after he has been found guilty of an offence which would result in a loss of his seat once if a conviction is entered.

Indeed. This is a pretty accurate statement about why  for the country it would be preferable for John Banks to stay in parliament. Especially considering the actions of John Key in avoiding looking at the evidence of a MP deliberately breaking electoral laws. Or that of the police not making a charge when they clearly had enough for a conviction.

John Banks is an ACT MP, John Key is the Prime Minister and a National MP. Or you accept Farrar's analysis that it would be better for the government for Banks to go as Farrar suggests but blame John Key for not well what ? Banks is not accountable to Key. He is accountable to the courts and to the voters in Epsom. LPRENT is a fucking idiot.

Uganda: With friends like NZ you don't need enemies

Idiot/Savant at  No Right Turn blogs,

                                            Cartoon Damien Glez Radio Netherlands Worldwide

National: Homophobic bigots

At the moment several African governments are progressing virulently homophobic legislation. There's Uganda's"Kill the Gays" bill, which would impose the death penalty for homosexuality and require reporting of homosexuals to the government. And in Nigeria there's similar, though less brutal, legislation, which would (among other things) outlaw LGBT support groups.

Today Labour's Charles Chauvel tried to move a motion expressing Parliament's condemnation of this bigotry:

CHARLES CHAUVEL to move, That this House note with grave concern both the recently retabled legislation in Uganda, that would increase the penalties imposed in that country for certain consensual sexual activity between two consenting adults in private, and the legislation, passed recently by Nigeria’s legislature but not yet signed into law, which would criminalise freedom of association and advocacy for same-sex couples and organisations; and state its hope and expectation that the New Zealand Government will urge other governments to uphold the rights of all people to their privacy and dignity in accordance with international law.

National vetoed it.

I think this tells us exactly where National stands on gay rights. They'll send John Key along to the Big Gay Out, but at their core they're simply bigots, no different from Family First or the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

There are some points worth looking at here. David Farrar at Kiwiblog refutes this  rant by No Right Turn very effectively and points out the move by Charles Chauvel is actually little more than political grandstanding on his part. I agree with Farrar again that Chauvel operated outside the accepted process

Idiot/Savant goes feral and sanctimonious so often, I’m not even surprised anymore. I doubt anyone takes his denunciations too seriously but in case they do, I thought I’d point out how Parliament operates.

A motion by a individual MP is basically never scheduled for debate or voting on. To have an MP’s motion considered, you need to seek permission of the House, and it takes just one individual MP to object to leave being granted. So if you want your motion voted on, then there is a process in place to ascertain in advance that the Government is happy for it to be put (so long as without debate). Basically you discuss it with your party’s whips, they discuss it with the Government whips, and they check with the Leader of the House. This process is widely known and is there precisely so opposition MPs can get non-controversial motions considered. The Government has actually been very accommodating of the rights of the minority through things such as negotiating extended sittings rather than forcing urgency on the House.

That of course fairly much sums it up from the New Zealand perspective. Political grandstanding by Charles Chauvel and followed by a stupid rant from Idiot / Savant. but there is of course a Ugandan perspective to the story. I commented at Kiwiblog.

" A couple of observations. Chauvel and Idiot / Savant are both grandstanding the legislation has been sitting on the Ugandan Parliaments inbox for ages. The Speaker who is a silly bitch picked it up and then went further and deeply offended the Canadian’s who suggested it was a bad idea. Incidently the bill as it now stands does not proscribe the death penalty  it has been reduced to life in prison not much of a improvement. Ugandan President Museveni has made it very clear Uganda won’t be dictated to on this issue by the West and in the same breath said it was not a legislative priority. I think that it is safe to say Uganda has taken the view that aid money is more important than homophobic legislative stupidity.

" Uganda's president has said gay people should not be killed or persecuted, as MPs continue to consider a controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

In his first public comments on the bill for some time, President Yoweri Museveni also said that homosexuality should not be promoted.

The original version of the bill stipulated the death penalty for some homosexual acts but this has reportedly been dropped."

Now Chauvel should have been aware of both the reduced sentence and the position of Museveni and given that Shearer ( NZ Leader of the Labour party and leader of the opposition ) should be an African expert I am amazed this was ever contemplated.

Uganda might well decide that it has no choice but to demonstrate its independence if parliaments / parliamentarians around the world follow the Chauvel example."

That was very much written with a New Zealand audience in mind but it would seem to me that the correct place to do this is in forums such as the Canadians did.

" At the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in Quebec, Canada, Ms Kadaga was involved in an altercation with that country’s Foreign Affairs minister, Mr John Baird, after the latter accused Uganda of trampling on human rights."

The Parliament of New Zealand should think very hard about passing motions condemning governments for having a bill on the books, if the Bill became law then the situation would be different but at this point in time had Chauvel's attempt succeeded we would be in the strange position of having offended a friendly fellow commonwealth nation for actually trying to balance democracy ( make no mistake this bill would get through the Ugandan parliament and it would be supported by the majority of Ugandans ) with human rights in  difficult circumstances.

Idiot / Savant of course object to Farrar's  analysis and blogged 

So, it looks like my calling National on its bullshit yeterday has struck a nerve. According to DPF, National's MP's aren't bigots - they just think proper Parliamentary procedure is more important than doing the right thing.

Well, that makes everything alright then (/sarcasm).

But the fact is that there was no infringement of proper Parliamentary procedure. Standing Orders give any member the right to raise issues in the manner Charles Chauvel did. And when they do, I expect the case to be assessed on its merits (which in this case are fairly significant). DPF OTOH seems to think deference and hierarchy and grovelling to the right person are more important and that anyone who doesn't do this to the satisfaction of those in power should be dismissed out of hand. Which is after all what National and other conservative parties are all about - but its a pretty shitty worldview, and the idea that its more important than doing the right thing is simply ridiculous.

If National's members and MPs are upset at being criticised for this behaviour, then they have an easy course of action available: change that behaviour. They need to talk to the Leader of the House and their whips and make them aware of the reputational damage their bigotry and dismissive attitude are causing. Alternatively, if they're sick of their reputation being damaged by their more bigoted associates, then maybe they should end that association, and find better friends, rather than whining about being held responsible for the company they keep.

My problem here is that it is becoming very clear that this isn't an issue about Ugandan Human rights but rather about New Zealand politics with Chauvel and Idiot / Savant using the Ugandan situation as a political football. New Zealand will probably pass legislation this year legalising gay marriage so there is no way that Idiot / Savants allegations stand up. Farrar responds.    

" Standing Orders gives an MP the right to get up and say “I seek leave” for anything at all. But anyone who is not a moron would understand the desirability of actually giving people advance notice of your intention to seek leave. This is nothing to do with hierarchy, and everything to do with whether you wish to grandstand or actually achieve something.

It is entirely unreasonable to expect MPs to decide within two seconds whether or not they agree with a motion being voted on. And it is blatant smear tactics to label people bigots because an MO failed to notify other MPs that he would be seeking leave that afternoon. Idiot/Savant has become the boy who cried wolf. The list of people he has never called a bigot is probably a very small one."

Again we have Farrar pointing out what happens, MP's get 2 seconds to decide. Now I would definitely need more than two seconds to reach an informed decision on Uganda if I wasn't aware of the situation so my inclination would be to decline but having probably more knowledge than most of my fellow New Zealander's I would decline on an informed basis that by supporting such stupidity I would potentially be making the situation for gay people in Uganda far more precarious. Chauvel as a gay MP should have made the effort to become more informed.   From reading No Right Turn it would not surprise me if Idiot / Savant was also gay. Regardless they both should have known better, they should have bothered to get themselves informed, neither did or if they did they are bigger fools than they currently appear.

Neither Farrar or I are gay but I suspect that both us would put the Ugandan human rights situation into perspective before charging off like wounded bulls. If Chauvel had any integrity he would admit he was saved from a potential fuck up that came about as a direct result to gain political points in New Zealand at the expense of gay and lesbian Ugandans.

Gingerism threat to monarchy

The Dailymash reports

It had better not be ginger, Queen warns Harry

IF Kate Middleton’s baby has red hair there is going to be big trouble, the Queen has warned Prince Harry.

As the royal brood mare’s first offspring was announced, the Queen demanded to know

 Prince Harry’s whereabouts around 12 weeks ago.

The Queen said: “This family has a history of mysteriously ginger babies and I’m sick of it.

“I know Harry likes those sisters and I know he’s a randy little sod. We have to be sure.

“The public isn’t going to buy that ‘it’s a rare recessive gene that can skip generations’

 nonsense. There are limits to their idiocy.”

It is too early in the pregnancy to tell whether the foetus might be a carrot top. In the

 meantime, Prince Harry is checking through his text messages.

Prince Harry said: “There is one here from a Kate M, saying something about how maybe we

 got too drunk together after the polo. But I know a lot of Kate Ms.

“There’s Kate…M…anyway there’s loads of them.

“Yeah. It’s fine. I think it’s fine. It has to be fine.”

Hat tip DPF 

Sex. Enjoyment and Robots

The NZ Herald reports

People enjoy sex, dislike Facebook - study

Having sex and partying are two of life's most enjoyable activities, according to a University of Canterbury research project.

Wow ground breaking research. People enjoy sex.

Spending time on Facebook and texting, on the other hand, are much less fulfilling.

You could add blogging to that. That is not a confession.

Postgraduate psychology researcher Carsten Grimm used mobile-phone text-messaging to survey what people did during the day and how they felt about it, a technique called "experience sampling".

"I texted people three times a day over a week and the response rate was really high. People are never far from their cellphones these days," Grimm said.

If I was having a shag I wouldn't be stopping to do a cell phone survey.

"People replied to on average 97 per cent of all text-messages, and texts were sent at random times, so there is a really rich sample of everyday life to look at."

Unsurprisingly, Grimm found "sex or making love" ranked first in the four categories measured in the survey: Pleasure, meaning, engagement, and happiness.

Drinking alcohol or partying ranked second in the pleasure and happiness stakes, but was rated much less meaningful.

Actually alcohol and partying and sex sound like a great combination.

Instead, caregiving or volunteering, and meditating and religious practices were seen as more meaningful to respondents. They also ranked highly in happiness.

At the other end of the scale, washing, dressing and grooming ranked last out of the 30 behaviours surveyed, and being sick and receiving healthcare ranked 30th for happiness.

Surprisingly, Facebook was seen as the least meaningful, and also rated poorly in the other three categories. Texting and emailing also rated poorly in the pleasure and happiness categories.

Happiness and wellbeing are increasingly being used alongside traditional economic indicators like GDP in policy decision-making, Grimm said.

"Treasury is now including well-being measures - life satisfaction - in its higher living standards framework, so governments are into this well-being stuff," he said.

Yes as DPF observed

" Now this has potential. Treasury is now going to focus on measures such as well-being and life satisfaction. And this research has shown sex is what we rate highest for well-being. So I want to see Treasury do some policy proposals on how to increase the amount of sex New Zealanders are having."

And in the comments,....

Cthoniid – excellent suggestion. Clearly we need some sort of Fucking Commission to fund and collate such research and promote the results. Where’s Peter Dunne when we need him?

"I am currently researching how to add to that understanding. So far governments around the world and media have focused mainly on life satisfaction in the discussion about well-being; it turns out happiness is a far more complicated topic.

"One of the areas I'm researching - orientations to happiness - looks at whether there are different ways of going about seeking happiness. Psychologists have proposed that individuals may seek to increase their well-being through three main behavioural orientations: via pleasure, via engagement, and via meaning."

Grimm is to present his research on Wednesday as part of the University of Canterbury's showcase lecture series.

That sound appropriate.

"The results have implications for what psychologists have called 'the full life'. Those who tend to be high on all three orientations to happiness not only score high on life satisfaction, they also tend to have higher experiences of pleasure, meaning, engagement and happiness in their daily lives," he said.

"This means that being able to seek happiness in different ways may enrich your everyday experience and increase your overall well-being."

The research was supervised by Professor Simon Kemp.

Top activities that make you happy:

1. Sex/making love
2. Drinking alcohol/partying
3. Care-giving/volunteering
4. Meditating/religious activities
5. Childcare/playing with children
6. Listening to music/podcast
7. Socialising/talking/ chatting
8. Hobbies/arts/crafts
9. Shopping/errands
10. Gaming/video-games

Lowest-ranked activities:

1. Sick/healthcare
2. Facebook
3. Housework/chores/DIY
4. Studying/working on education
5. Texting/emailing
6. Lectures/class/lab
7. Paid work
8. Commuting/travelling
9. Internet/on computer
10. Washing/dressing/grooming

The comments also directed me to this. 

The Huffington Post reports

Sex Robot 'Longevity Orgasms' May Help Extend Human Life Spans, Futurists Suggest

                                                                         Roxxxy

Could sex with robots help extend human life spans? Some futurists seem to think so.

Called Roxxxy it / " she " has the ability to talk.

A Nov. 7 article on the futurist websiteTranshumanity argues that robot lovers could help extend life spans by giving users mind-blowing "longevity orgasms" far superior in quality to those from human "meat-bag" partners.

Warning: Graphic Descriptions Follow

Actually nothing to worry about.

The link between orgasms and health is not unexplored. Some have argued that orgasms have significant health benefits, and "The Longevity Project," a book about an eight-decade study of long-life factors, observed that women with higher frequency of orgasm during sex lived longer.

But assuming robots can do it better than humans, is there necessarily a correlation between the quality of orgasm and longevity? Or is frequency of climax the most important factor?

If the latter is the case, then a sex robot's superior skills in the sack might be less of a game changer than the fact that a sexbot will never be too tired or unwilling to get it on.

I have been here before.

Still, the futurist scouting report on longevity orgasms sounds pretty complex.

Transhumanity elaborates: 

"[Sexbots will] be more desirable, patient, eager, and altruistic than their meat-bag competition, plus they’ll be uploaded with supreme sex-skills from millennia of erotic manuals, archives and academic experiments, and their anatomy will feature sexplosive devices... They’ll offer us quadruple-tongued cunnilingus, open-throat silky fellatio, deliriously gentle kissing, transcendent nipple tweaking, g-spot massage & prostate milking dexterity, plus 2,000 varieties of coital rhythm with scented lubes."

At the moment, it appears humanity will have to wait and see if "shrieking, frothy, bug-eyed, amnesia-inducing orgasms" administered by sex robots provide the key to longevity.

But it won't have to wait too long. A scenario envisioned by Victoria University researchers plots the rise of robot prostitutes by 2050, the Dominion Post notes.

Mid-century was also the sexbot timeframe given by artificial intelligence expert Dr. Robert Levy in his book, "Love and Sex With Robots," which postulates that it would be entirely possible for humans to fall in love with their robotic partners.

A simpler world ?

Sterilising our killers, not killing our kids

AFP reports 

WASHINGTON  - A Texas judge has sentenced a mother who superglued her toddler's hands to a wall to 99 years in prison, local media reported.

                                                                                     Elizabeth Escalona

During the September 2011 assault on her two-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Escalona also beat the girl into a coma, according to The Dallas Morning News.

The 23-year-old mother of five had pleaded guilty in July to felony injury to a child.

"I hit her, I kicked her constantly, and she didn't deserve that," the newspaper's crime blog quoted Escalona as saying in court last week. "Only a monster does that."

Crimes of this nature are all to common fortunately this case didn't end up with a child dead. What is interesting is the sentence, David Garrett in a thoughtful guest post at Kiwiblog discusses the child abuse punishment options from a New Zealand perspective. with specific reference to Nia Glassie this from the NZ Herald.

" She was in hospital, on a ventilator. Her brain injury, left untreated for 36 hours, was so severe parts of her brain tissue had died.

Another child tells how they spun Nia on the clothesline as fast as they could. Her voice is soft and shy.

They put her into the drier, too, she says.

The drier is in court. A Simpson with a small round door, 28cm in diameter."... 

Who did this, a kindly woman asks the girl, about the drier.

Wiremu and Michael Curtis, she says. But it was Michael Pearson's idea.

She said to Michael Pearson, don't do it.

Why did you say this, asks the woman.

Because she's just a little kid, says the girl.

Michael Pearson told her to shut up.

We listen in appalled silence.

The defendants don't look appalled. Perhaps they're bored. Though, sometimes in court they laughed and whispered and often they tried to stare down the reporters covering the trial.

It was hard to read the stares, but certainly there was challenge in those largely blank eyes; even in court it seemed they were making lame attempts to be menacing.

That was until they listened to each other's statements as told to police when it happened, when they were all so quick to blame each other.

Then their body language changed dramatically and the main offenders, the Curtis brothers, had to be separated by guards."

                     Micheal Pearson, Lisa Kuka, Oriwa Kemp and Micheal and Wiremu Curtis

The Curtis brothers got life with a 17.5 year non parole period. Pearson just three years and was out in 14 months although he is thankfully and predictably back inside again Lisa Kuku Nia's mother got just 9 years and is eligible for parole. Oriwa Kemp a mere 3 years 4 months and is already out. This from NZ Herald last week. 

One of the women convicted of abusing little Nia Glassie is pregnant and expecting to give birth before Christmas.

Four years ago, Oriwa Kemp was convicted of assaulting the 3-year-old. Kemp was released from prison in 2009, and the 21-year-old is now believed to live a transient lifestyle between Morrinsville, Auckland and Northland.

A female juror who deliberated on the Glassie murder trial wants the baby removed at birth and Kemp to undergo sterilisation.

She is on Facebook here 

 DPF comments on Garret's post.

" My instinct is to execute, not sterilise, all those involved. But more rationally I can’t bring myself to support compulsory sterilisation (or execution)  - even for those who deserve it. I just can’t defend the precedent it creates in terms of power of the state."

I agree with DPF's instinct. But the real question is if we can't prevent child abuse on this scale should the state have greater powers ? The judge in Texas  had a 99 sentence year option and 30 year minimum parole.  Escalona is not getting out until she is at least 53 thus sterilisation is not really an issue but it is also a total waste of Escalona's life, how about a voluntary sterilisation option and allowing her out after 15 years should she take it. She would be 38 and still be young enough to actually have a life. For the record I think her sentence is to harsh.

Oriwa Kemp is a time bomb. her ludicrously light sentence and therefor increased risk to society is now compounded by a pregnancy. What about a 12 year sentence with an 8 year non parole period reduced to 3 years if she was voluntarily sterilised ? I see no reason that the sterilisation procedure could not be reversed with the courts consent should she sort out her life and cease offending.  

According to the blog, the abuse -- which resulted in bleeding of the girl's brain -- appeared to be over potty training.

Before handing down the sentence, Judge Larry Mitchell said Escalona needed to be punished for savagely beating her child "to the edge of death."

The daughter survived and, according to testimony referenced by the blog, is doing well.

The Los Angeles Times website quoted Debbie Denmon, spokeswoman for the Dallas County district attorney's office, as saying Escalona "wasn't sorry for what she did. She was sorry for herself, not the child she tortured."

How often have we thought that ?

Escalona will have to serve 30 years before she becomes eligible for parole, Denmon told The Times.

David Garrett has been demonised in New Zealand with some justification at the time. (If you feel the urge to abuse him please don't do it here ). He is also associated with the lock them up and throw away the key brigade which I think is unfair. The reality is we are killing our kids and it has to stop. Giving greater flexibility in sentencing and the serving of the sentence strikes me as not a bad option and when Garrett talks on this issue it is worth listening. Go to Kiwiblog ( link above ) and have a read.