Wednesday, March 30, 2005
A new website has just been started to provide a forum for the classical conservative viewpoint. It’s called the Locke Foundation.
The Government says it is forging ahead with plans for a scheme to encourage savings for tertiary education. Finance Minister Michael Cullen says a Herald report that the scheme was being dumped totally was wrong - although he confirmed it would not be part of the Budget’s savings initiatives.
A thoughtful article from Fran O'Sullivan on the tensions between the judiciary (particularly in the Supreme Court) and the Government. And Steven Franks asks whether we should have the right to sack judges?
Simon Upton introduces some real meat into the constitutional and republic/monarchy debate, with a lengthy extract from a speech made by expat scholar Bernard Cadogan to the Dunedin Rotary Club. Essentially, Cadogan says New Zealand is a unique democracy (arguably the world's first), but the debate needs to become more sophisticated.
The number of New Zealand parents who say they do not smack their preschool children has doubled in the past 12 years, suggesting the practice is becoming socially unacceptable. (But at least the government has backed off plans to outlaw it.)
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to reinstate an Idaho law that requires girls to secure parental permission before getting an abortion. But Idaho lawmakers are already looking for a way around the court's decision. Julie Lynde of the Cornerstone Institute of Idaho said lawmakers anticipated the Supreme Court's decision and have already drafted legislation to answer the complaints of the 9th Circuit.
National’s Welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins has released figures which show that, in every region except Wellington, there are now more people getting sickness and invalid benefits than there are getting the dole.
A massive court case is going on in the USA that will define the future of copyright law for decades to come. It will also have a big bearing on the future of all digital technology, particularly those technologies that relate to recording (eg, videos, DVDs, CDs, etc). If this case had been brought in the 1980s and lost, today you would not be able to play music or video clips on your computer, there would be no video recorders, no CDs, no DVDs, and maybe not even any Internet. So this case - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster Ltd - is huge. Here's a good summary of the issues.
Promiscuous health. Using data from a 1998 survey, a recent study found that 7.5 percent of Americans suffered a negative health incident resulting from sexual activity and that 1.3 percent of all deaths in America can be attributed to sexual behavior. (Source: World Congress of Families)
Robert L. Spitzer argued in 1973 that homosexuality is not a clinical disorder—key to the American Psychiatric Association arriving at the same conclusion. Thirty years later, Spitzer caused another stir when he argued that some people who want to change their homosexual orientation may do so (Archives of Sexual Behavior, October 2003). An interview with Spitzer on why he changed his mind.
The Government says it is forging ahead with plans for a scheme to encourage savings for tertiary education. Finance Minister Michael Cullen says a Herald report that the scheme was being dumped totally was wrong - although he confirmed it would not be part of the Budget’s savings initiatives.
A thoughtful article from Fran O'Sullivan on the tensions between the judiciary (particularly in the Supreme Court) and the Government. And Steven Franks asks whether we should have the right to sack judges?
Simon Upton introduces some real meat into the constitutional and republic/monarchy debate, with a lengthy extract from a speech made by expat scholar Bernard Cadogan to the Dunedin Rotary Club. Essentially, Cadogan says New Zealand is a unique democracy (arguably the world's first), but the debate needs to become more sophisticated.
The number of New Zealand parents who say they do not smack their preschool children has doubled in the past 12 years, suggesting the practice is becoming socially unacceptable. (But at least the government has backed off plans to outlaw it.)
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to reinstate an Idaho law that requires girls to secure parental permission before getting an abortion. But Idaho lawmakers are already looking for a way around the court's decision. Julie Lynde of the Cornerstone Institute of Idaho said lawmakers anticipated the Supreme Court's decision and have already drafted legislation to answer the complaints of the 9th Circuit.
National’s Welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins has released figures which show that, in every region except Wellington, there are now more people getting sickness and invalid benefits than there are getting the dole.
A massive court case is going on in the USA that will define the future of copyright law for decades to come. It will also have a big bearing on the future of all digital technology, particularly those technologies that relate to recording (eg, videos, DVDs, CDs, etc). If this case had been brought in the 1980s and lost, today you would not be able to play music or video clips on your computer, there would be no video recorders, no CDs, no DVDs, and maybe not even any Internet. So this case - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster Ltd - is huge. Here's a good summary of the issues.
Promiscuous health. Using data from a 1998 survey, a recent study found that 7.5 percent of Americans suffered a negative health incident resulting from sexual activity and that 1.3 percent of all deaths in America can be attributed to sexual behavior. (Source: World Congress of Families)
Robert L. Spitzer argued in 1973 that homosexuality is not a clinical disorder—key to the American Psychiatric Association arriving at the same conclusion. Thirty years later, Spitzer caused another stir when he argued that some people who want to change their homosexual orientation may do so (Archives of Sexual Behavior, October 2003). An interview with Spitzer on why he changed his mind.
