Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Political scientists at Massey University say undecided voters will have a big role to play in who forms the next Government. "We've got evidence that in recent elections people have been making up their minds which way to vote remarkably late - in the final week or even in the polling booth on the day," said the head of the University's school of politics, Dr James Watson. Another Massey academic, political marketing specialist Claire Robinson, said yesterday that in the 2002 election, 62 per cent of voters claimed to have made up their minds in the last four weeks of the campaign. Although most of those decided in favour of the party they had previously supported, a sizeable 27 per cent of total voters could not be predicted.
There are some interesting contrasts in a new report on teenage drinking. On the one hand, teenagers as young as 13 are indulging in binge-drinking sessions, according to a study by Canterbury and Otago universities. While their survey of Year 12 non-drinkers found some of the teenagers binge-drank when they were aged between 13 and 15, many became teetotallers after being disgusted by friends' drunken behaviour, such as vomiting on themselves or being "baby-sat" because they were too intoxicated to look after themselves. The study also found that teenagers who didn't drink used ploys such as pretending to be drunk, disguising soda as alcohol or clutching the same drink all night to hide being a teetotaller. [Incidentally, the Stuff headline on this story was a shocking representation of the actual story.]
The number of people diagnosed with Aids in the first six months of this year more than doubled from the same period last year in New Zealand. An Institute of Environmental Science and Research monthly report says diagnoses of the disease numbered 33, compared to 14 for the first half of last year. The Aids Foundation said the figure did not equate to a doubling of HIV infections (HIV develops into Aids), but it was concerned people might be getting complacent about the risks.
Mark Steyn points out the problems with the ideology of multiculturalism: "The London bombers were, to the naked eye, assimilated - they ate fish 'n' chips, played cricket, sported appalling leisurewear. They'd adopted so many trees we couldn't see they lacked the big overarching forest - the essence of identity, of allegiance. As I've said before, you can't assimilate with a nullity - which is what multiculturalism is. So, if Islamist extremism is the genie you're trying to put back in the bottle, it doesn't help to have smashed the bottle. As the death of the Eurofanatic Ted Heath reminds us, in modern Britain even a "conservative" prime minister thinks nothing of obliterating ancient counties and imposing on the populace fantasy jurisdictions - "Avon", "Clwyd" and (my personal favourite in its evocative neo-Stalinism) "Central Region" - and an alien regulatory regime imported from the failed polities of Europe. The 7/7 murderers are described as "Yorkshiremen", but, of course, there is no Yorkshire: Ted abolished that, too. Sir Edward's successor, Mr Blair, said on the day of the bombing that terrorists would not be allowed to "change our country or our way of life". Of course not. That's his job. Could you reliably say what aspects of "our way of life" Britain's ruling class, whether pseudo-Labour like Mr Blair or pseudo-Conservative like Sir Ted, wish to preserve?
There are plans to permit human harvesting in Maryland (USA). “We write to express our grave concern about legislation currently pending in Maryland (Senate Bill 751). This bill is designed to authorize and fund human embryonic stem cell research, including the harvesting and use of body parts taken from human clones in the embryonic and fetal stages of development. This legislation, if enacted, threatens to make Maryland a haven for unethical medical practices, including the macabre practice of human fetal farming. … The only limit on the use of cloned human embryos for fetal farming will be that no cloned fetus may be born alive. Thus the bill contemplates the creation of new members of the human species by cloning, and their cultivation from the zygote stage through the late fetal stages for the purpose of harvesting what the legislation refers to as “cadaveric” fetal tissue. Please pause to consider whose cadaver the tissue is to be derived from. It is the cadaver of a distinct member of the species Homo sapiens, who would be brought into being by cloning and, presumably, implanted and permitted to develop to the desired stage of physical maturation for the purpose of being killed for the harvesting of his or her tissues.”
The implications have just dawned on me of a statement by our Governor-General, Dame Silvia Cartwright, that Section 59 of the Crimes Act (the section which outrages opponents of smacking) is "a quirk in the law", when slapping an adult or beating an animal is a crime. In that case, Dame Silvia and her friends had better also start campaigning against horse racing, in which (horrors!) helpless animals are whipped for the pleasure of thousands of onlookers who cheer the culprits on. For pleasure, mind you - the poor animals are not even being punished for a misdemeanour. We must also immediately rid ourselves of that hegemonic and oppressive presence in Parliament, the party Whips. How can politicians permit such hypocrisy?
