Tuesday, 25 May, 2004

Alexander: Parole Board lunacy

United Future's Marc Alexander today joined with the Taxi Federation in slamming the release from prison six months into the four-year sentence of a man who stabbed a taxi driver 17 times with a carving fork.

"They're dead right. The Parole Board has clearly stated what it thinks a taxi driver's safety and well-being, if not his life, is worth. Stab him 17 times and walk out the prison gates in six months.

"It's a sad joke - but unfortunately it's an old joke too. This level of stupidity happens regularly, but good on the Taxi Federation for jumping up and down about it," Mr Alexander, United Future's law and order spokesman, said.

In his book Justice With Both Eyes Open, released earlier this month, Mr Alexander called for transparency and Parole Board accountability.

"And when you get a decision like this, the question really is what planet are these people on?"

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>