Justice Betrayed, Victims Forgotten...

I am truly disgusted with New Zealand's justice system. If we cared more for the victims of attacks, we would have justice serving them and not the attacker, we would believe that justice is relevant only to the actions committed, not by who the people are who committed them, or what their future prospects are. In the end, we all have future prospects, we all have career possibilities - does that also mean that anyone who has a contract that can bring in money to an organisation will get away with brutally attacking four individuals and gloating over the bruised and battered bodies afterwards just like Losi Philipo did in October of 2015?

A human being must be held responsible for the actions they have committed and therefore deal with the consequences of those actions – did nobody teach this to the Judge who presided over Filipo’s case? To allow a human being to get away with four assault charges on four other human beings is quite simply not asking the perpetrator to be responsible for their actions, and thus not to truly deal with the consequences of those actions. It is extremely shameful to see Losi Filipo “say” that he he is remorseful yet commit to no actions that would be evidence of remorse – does Filipo have enough guts to step down from playing rugby for the same length of time that his victim is unable to play rugby? Even more shameful that he has not expressed this so called remorse himself in public as far as I'm aware, and had a spokesperson to do it for him. Is this the example of our future rugby players - cowardice?

Let me ask some other questions:

• Will Losi Filipo's contract with the Wellington Lions pay compensation for any surgery, therapy, etc., of the victims?

• If Losi Filipo is truly remorseful will he volunteer to give back to the victims what he took away in whatever way is suitable?

A question for New Zealanders:

• Will we stand by and do nothing as our Judge's make exceptions for celebrities and sports stars?

These victims are brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters – they could be family to any one of us. If we allow the Justice System to continue committing miscarriages of justice, then we allow the potential for further assaults to be committed without any consequence.

Are we going to ask the Judge to step down from duty because he has not served the interest of the victims first, the community second, and the aggressor third by demanding that they receive the full force of the law and deal with the consequences of their actions?

Does the NZ Rugby Union care only for money and ratings to allow an aggressive abuser to continue playing with the audience of many young and impressionable children and teens watching?


What are we the parents, educators, and caregivers to children and youth supposed to say when it is clear that if you are a sports star, you can get away with brutal assaults on other New Zealanders?

I would like some answers please, because I don't know what to do. I don't know what I can do. And I certainly don't know how to tell students to be responsible and deal with the consequences of their actions, when case after case is presented where perpetrators of assault don't have to do the same.

All the Slender Ladies: Body Diversity in Video Games

Adulthood

We still labour under ridiculous concepts of the past, from virginity, to intellectualism; but nothing can bring a person into true adulthood except their own sense of self and the personal responsibility that accompanies that.

Mabel Bush Returns [guitar pro 6] is a new song I've written. It's kind of a reprise to the previous blues song I wrote, aptly titled 'Mabel Bush Blues'

Nailed it.#BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/xRNcOO7s9i

— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@MuslimIQ) July 13, 2016

Nobody should be anything other than what they make of themselves.

Video game idea/mechanic

Weapons - i.e. swords - start out blunt, so slashing at an opponent and slowly taking down their health incrementally works in a real-world sense as though you are just brutally beating the person down until they cave from being the one with the most damage. As upgrades and better weapons arrive, the opponent begins getting real-world damage like cuts and possible amputation depending on the quality of the weapon. At this point the opponents also rise in skill and are better at defending themselves. Enemies start losing their "damage sponge" quality and become serious opponents who can one-shot you, which also demands that you as a player become better at defending yourself.

The implementation of this needs to be quite a gradual learning curve as each new enemy will be a lesson in either strategic attacking or strategic defence. The goal is to make third-person mêlée combat far more dynamic by adding realism.

This idea is derived from seeing so many fantasy-based games treating swords and their ilk as mere batons that have different levels of damage and the enemies themselves not being affected by the actual real-word concept of that weapon, e.g. a sword stabbing or cutting an actual hole in someone.

An argument against this might be the idea that combat could end up very short at later stages of the game if all it took was one correct swing to connect and cut an enemy in half. Realistically, the sword would probably only slash a gaping hole, but the enemy would still go down because of it.
     An answer to this, is to make the later stage enemies very good at defence, and make the swords themselves degrade as steel connects on steel.