Kiwiblog

The Herald reports:

AP report:

A US teen convicted of using Facebook to blackmail dozens of male classmates into sex has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Nineteen-year-old Anthony Stancl of New Berlin showed no emotion as the sentence was handed down on Wednesday.

Stancl pleaded no contest in December to two felonies, including repeated sexual assault of a child.

He apologised during sentencing, saying he has learned to understand what his victims went through.

He had faced a maximum 30-year sentence.

Stancl is accused of posing as a girl on Facebook and tricking more than 30 male classmates into sending him naked photos of themselves, then using the photos to blackmail them for sex.

You know if I was 16 and  a guy gave me a choice of him releasing a naked photo of me, or having sex with him, it would not be a difficult decision. I’d choose the embarrassing photo over well, coerced sex.

It seems he coerced 7 out of 31 classmates into sex over having the photos released. Amazing.

Trevor Mallard hits back at Metiria Turei after she highlighted how he had unfriended her on Facebook:

Last night Metiria Turei used my status to attack Labour. Of all things it was on our record on the minimum wage – probably one of the best areas of progress the last government – but the subject doesn’t matter.

As I said above I’m new to facebook.  I regard my page like my home. I chose who is there. While there are lots of discussions initiated by constituents I decide whether they run or not. But the idea of politicians using the comments section of my status to attack me just doesn’t seem right.

Good God. If you are an MP and you use your Facebook page to try and score political points, it is rather precious to then ban people because they disagree with you. Let alone the co-leader of your own remaining friendly party.

Metiria herself is an avid user of social media and on Twitter (for example) people often disagree with her on an issue. She normally responds constructively, and all is fine.

ps   I found Rod Donald and Sue Bradford good to work with (and Jeanette but only for a short time) – so its not a green allergy.

Ouch that makes it worse. He is saying it is personal with Metiria. And consider his earlier comment:

Not much real help from you guys esp since Russel started cuddling tories.

So Trevor is slagging off not one but both co-leaders of the Greens. Way to go.

I really wonder if Phil Goff is in control of his own caucus.

Metiria Turia blogs:

Trevor Mallard defriended me on Facebook last night and I have to tell you the story. He also defriended another person for asking the same questions I did. Not terribly sporting, I would have thought.

Metiria’s sin was to point out the gap between Labour’s rhetoric on the minimum wage and their record.

And Trevor got so annoyed he unfriended her!! Seriously – just like a teenager does when they are in a huff.

I love Labour’s strategy for making friends and influencing people.

First Shane Jones insults a priest at Ratana, and them declares war against the Maori Party.

And now Trevor Mallard defriends on Facebook the co-leader of the Green Party.

What next? Will Annette King call Jim Anderton a authoritarian tyrant, to get rid of their one remaining friend?

Damien Christie has set up a campaign to convince John Key to grow a moustache for Movember. Now personally I am not sure it is a good look for NZ to have a PM who looks like a paedophile (I think most men with moustaches look that way) and that it is a bit undignified, but Damien has made the point that going on Letterman wasn’t exactly dignified, and this is for a good charitable cause.

Anyway Damien has set up a Facebook group called I’ll (at least consider) voting for National if John Key grows a Mo’

So if you want to join the campaign to have John Key do Movember, join the Facebook group and promote it to your friends.

The Daily Telegraph reports:

Council staff have been stopped from using Facebook during office hours after they ran up 572 hours, the equivalent of 71 working days, in one month.

Sounds awful doesn’t it. But then further on:

Portsmouth City Council introduced the organisation-wide ban on the popular website after the figures emerged under Freedom of Information rules.

Current internet usage rules allow staff to access Facebook during lunch breaks and after work, but now all 4,500 council employees will have to justify having access to the site.

On average this is seven and a half minutes a month on Facebook. They would be better to do what one Wellington firm does – restrict access during work hours but allow it during the lunch break, plus before and after work.

What if everything you knew about politics came from the internet?  What if people based their vote on which politician was the most popular on Facebook or Bebo?  It’s unlikely and a bit of a nightmare scenario really but on-line sources of information are becoming increasingly important for voters. 

To test my vague theory in New Zealand politics, I searched on Facebook for each party leader and examined the groups supporting and, in some cases opposing, them.  Here are the results:

John Key (National) – 14,388 supporters.  Interestingly the “I HEART John Key” and “Scientologists for John Key” groups have exactly the same number of members.  I’m presuming they are the same people.

Helen Clark (United Nations) – 5, 408 supporters.

Phil Goff (Labour) – 1,112 members of a group wanting him to be Prime Minister in 2011 and 3 in a quite different group who think he is a DILF.  Look up what it means at your peril.

Rodney Hide (Act) – 719 supporters.

Russel Norman (Green) – 567 supporters.  His on-line presence grew significantly when I spelled his first name correctly in the search field.

Metiria Turei (Green) – 339 supporters.

Winston Peters (Retired) – 236 supporters for Prime Minister, 11 supporters for next year’s Dancing with the Stars.  Both quite terrifying prospects really.

Jim Anderton (Progressive) – 17 supporters, much higher than expected.

Pita Sharples (Maori Party) – No Facebook groups supporting him but a couple which are worryingly opposed (and in apparent breach of Facebook policies).

Tariana Turia (Maori Party) – No Facebook groups supporting or opposing her.  There is one offering to be a support group for Mrs Turia going back to school but the tag is “just for fun – outlandish statements.”

Peter Dunne (United Future) – Mr Dunne does not have an official supporters group.  The group “I lost my phone drinking in London – numbers please!!! (Peter Dunne)” is almost certainly not him.  Peter Dunne does not strike me as the kind of man who, under any circumstances, would use three exclamation points.

Got sent this by email. Very good. Especially like the fake dinosaur fossils album.

From The Standard.

Someone has designed a Facebook quiz on Which National MP are you?

I got:

David took Which National Party MP are you? quiz and the result is Murray McCully

You make Machiavelli look like an amateur. You are crafty, scheming and a world champion greaser. There is no lengths you wont go to, not to be in power, but to be the power behind the throne. You are a survivor. But look out, you also have a list of enemies growing by the day…

Jordan Carter commented that he was not surprised by the result

Interesting NZPA article:

A High Court judge today approved the serving of court papers via Facebook, the popular social network web site, in what is thought to be a New Zealand first.

The High Court in Wellington was told that Axe Market Garden is trying to sue Craig Axe who is alleged to have taken $241,000 from the firm account.

Counsel for the company Daniel Vincent said the plaintiff was effectively Axe’s father John and there were difficulties in serving papers on his son.

Craig Axe was known to be living in Britain but his exact whereabouts were not known.

Mr Vincent said Axe had corresponded via email and was also known to have a Facebook site.

He asked associate justice David Gendall if he would take the unusual step of approving a secondary service order on Axe via Facebook and email to avoid him frustrating his client’s court action.

Justice Gendall did not bat an eyelid in the court room when approving the order after being assured that newspaper adverts could not be effectively targeted.

Good to see the Judge being flexible. Will be rather funny when someone checks their Facebook messages to find legal papers!

The HoS editorial approves of a new service:

Every so often an invention comes along which is so brilliant that we wonder how we ever got on without it. Fire is an excellent example. Ditto the flush lavatory and sunglasses.

A new reminder service established by an enterprising American might not beat, say, child immunisation as a contribution to human civilisation, but it has to be reckoned a contender.

PMSBuddy.com, a website on which you can sign up to be sent an email alert that someone in your life might be approaching a particularly tricky time of the month, has received more than 100,000 enrolments. Men who enter the date and length of the last menstrual cycle of up to five women, will receive timely messages like “She’s on yellow – tread carefully, fella”. The founder of the free service, 28-year-old Jordan Eisenberg, says he hopes to launch it as an iPhone application soon – presumably a must for subscribers who don’t check their emails regularly.

Rejoicing in the slogan “saving relationships one month at a time”, the website should prove a boon for men who lose track of time while trying to work out what they did wrong two weeks ago.

This reminds me of an incident at Otago University. One day, one of my good friends, Jo, snapped at something I said or did. I was, as usual, being provocative and deserved it but normally Jo was very placid and never responded to my stupidities. I was surprised she did and cracked a time of month joke. She responded that it was in fact that time, and that might be why she was cranky.

Anyway I said that it is more fun when she bites back at my hassles, so I wrote up on my wall planner her cycle dates, so I would know when to best hassle her. Jo was there when I did this, and was laughing. We were good mates, but totally platonic.

Now what I didn’t consider was how people might react, without knowing the context of it being a joke between Jo and I. Anyway the next day we were having a party in my room, and suddenly one of the attendees asks whether Jo and I are sleeping together.  We both basically call him crazy and say how in hells name led him to think and ask that. He then pointed to my wall planner and asked why did I have Jo’s cycle marked on it for the rest of the year.

We both looked at each other and burst into hysterical giggles. This made everyone more suspicious until we explained. I’m still not sure everyone believed us!

Anyway back to the main topic of PMS alerts, I was about to joke that there is probably a Facebook application that allows you to notify certain friends of your timing. And to my astonishment, there actually is. It has 791 users!

The stupidity award goes to the 21 year old alleged burglar in Queenstown who removes his balaclava while trying to break into a safe, giving us his picture on the security camera.

The smartness award goes to the Queenstown Police for putting the photos up on their Facebook page to see if people recognised him. They did and he was arrested.

Lots to cover in brief. First the Australian political party leader who told off his 17 year old daughter on Facebook, exposing her drunken party photos to the world! Also wonderful is the conversation between two of Alexander Downer’s children on Facebook about why he was so pompous in a photo

Bernard Hickey complains (as I often have done) that we are paying $79 million into TVNZ6 and TVNZ7 yet they won’t make them available on Sky TV. He quotes former TVNZ Head of News Paul Norris in support – they have a reponsibility to make them widely available and could extend them with a flick of a switch to 700,000 households overnight.

Andrew Bolt has a fascinating exchange with an academic over the “stolen generation”. While there certainly is much in Australia’s past that was deplorable (as in NZ), it is apparent that certain portions of it such as the “stolen generation” have been over-hyped. He cites the example of one Aboriginal leader who claimed to be part of the “stolen” generation who was “taken from my family” but in fact was put up for adoption by her father who could not cope with five children.

Lindsay Perigo writes a moving account of his last face to face meal with Anna Woolf, who is dying of brain cancer. Even just reading his account makes the eyes water – I can’t imagine how hard it is for those who are close to Anna, let alone Anna herself.

The Telegraph points out that if Michael Phelps was a country, he would be coming 5th on the Olympic medal table – ahead of Italy, Russia, Australian and Great Britain.

Frog Blog joins Nick Smith on wondering why DOC is spending so much money on a new corporate brand, when it has just laid off 60 workers to save money.

Liberty Scott exposes Sue Kedgley’s scaremongering over cellphone towers. Good God, this debate was settled over a decade ago in terms of science. I’d be more inclined to take Sue’s campaign against the towers seriously if she’d give up her cellphone.

Lindsay Mitchell covers the launch of a second Maori based party. The Hapu Party is led by David Rankin, and three policies to date:

1. To have Maori eligible for the pension at age 56, because of the lower life-expectancy of Maori
2. To introduce a flat rate 18% personal tax and GST rate.
3. To immediately allocate all treaty settlement money directly to hapu and marae

They have me with policy No 2. Policy No 3 is between Iwi and Hapu to resolve in my opinion, and Policy No 1 has no chance. Worryingly for the Maori Party, Rankin also talks of financial irregularities with a Maori Party MP and a SFO complaint.

For those who are on Facebook, you can join the Kiwiblog Network on Facebook.

Barnsley Bill blogs on the 35 kg stone which was flown first class to China as it was culturally insensitive to have it in the hold.

Frog Blog has a look at parties on Facebook. Frog has even found a Winston for PM group – but with slightly less members than the Bring back the Good Night Kiwi group.

American Thinker mentions NZ’s Trevor Loudon, and his work on Obama’s past.

Dim-Post looks at the options for Labour with the ETS:

1. Rush the hastily amended, highly complex legislation into law by buying off the Greens and Winston Peters, paying a high political price now and ensuring at least six months of dire headlines as horrible mistakes and unintended consequences in the law are bought to light repeatedly embarrassing the government right in the middle of an election campaign they’re already losing.
2. Admit the bill is dead and face a couple of days bad news focusing on the failure (which you can mostly blame on National).

And his prediction:

Scenarios like this are when Clark’s ultra-competitive personality undermine her own self-interest and that of her party – she’ll press for a parliamentary victory even if it is spectacularly pyrrhic one.

No, no don’t let it happen. Microsoft is hinting it may wish to buy Facebook, after their bid for Yahoo failed.

I do not want to have to have a MSN Passport to use Facebook!