Canary in the Mine

"In better days our state did not dream of claiming a monopoly on the right to enforce the law," says Stephen Franks. "The right of Citizen's Arrest is written into the Crimes Act, to the embarrassment of the police who keep urging people never to use it. Enforcing the law is a right and was, only a short time ago, a responsibility of every able-bodied person. It is time we challenged that smug judicial pronouncement "I can't allow you to take the law into your own hands".

There was a slight drop in the number of abortions carried out last year - 18,210 - compared with 2003. But that is still 18,210 babies murdered, the second-highest figure on record. To quote Statistics NZ: "On the basis of the 2004 age-specific abortion rates, 1,000 New Zealand women could expect to have 637 induced abortions during their reproductive life." Right To Life spokesman Ken Orr thinks the fall may be due to the big downturn in Asian students coming to New Zealand.

There is some very strange logic in United Future Peter Dunne's thinking. He is blaming Labour for attacking "traditional kiwi values", and says National is stuck in a 90s "time warp". NZ First are populists and the Greens extremist. So vote for United Future. Now hold on: how will voting for UF stop Labour attacking traditional kiwi values? For the past three years UF has been intimately involved with Labour, and if that has not stopped the Labour attack, why should another three years of partnership do the same? UF will never be more than a small centrist party, with its only hope of political power being as a tack-on to a major party. If it changes sides and slings in its lot with National, how will UF change National any more than it has changed Labour? I can understand UF's dislike of NZ First and the Greens (funny, Dunne didn't mention Act); but the likelihood is that at least one of these parties will be a party to the next government. So UF would have to work with them if it wants to be a part of the power bloc. But why should either NZ First or the Greens (either of whom will have more seats than UF) take the blindest notice of UF? The reality is that small parties like UF will only ever have an influence around the peripheries.

The Church of Christ in the United States is preparing to vote next month on a measure declaring that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and making it mandatory for clergy to accept his divinity -- and it may be lost!! Opponents say it is too judgemental!

A New Jersey appeals court has ruled that the State's constitution does not require the recognition of gay marriage, rejecting the efforts of seven same-sex couples who sued the state to allow them to marry.

It used to be that the longest unprotected border in the world was that between the United States and Canada. Today it's the one between fact and fiction. [The Da Vinci Code] points up something critical. We're happier to swallow a half-baked Renaissance religious conspiracy theory than to examine the historical fiction we're living (and dying for) today.

"In a far off time, in the confederacy of Oz, teaching and learning coexisted in an artistically symbiotic relationship. Then the experts came along. No, not experts in educational theory, but experts in the art of Isms – scientific rationalism, reductionism, Fordism, Taylorism, sophism, postmodernism and above all, obscurantism. They took their Isms and applied them to the art of education, and lo and behold, outcomes-based education was born. The Ismistic parents cooed and gloated over their cleverly conceived offspring. In fact, the Ismites within one state of the confederacy hailed this birth as a watershed in education, a paradigm shift, and the dawning of a brave new era. “Let us devise a Curriculum Framework” they shouted with glee. The teachers, however, hung their heads in despondency, knowing that a dark beast of mammoth proportions and with great deceptive power had been created." ~ From "The Death of Knowledge", Richard G. Berlach, College of Education, University of Notre Dame Australia