Friday, October 07, 2005
Tasmania's Attorney-General Judy Jackson has given notice to operators of brothels that they will be closed down by police. And she says people who continue to run them will face a $50,000 fine and a five-year jail term. Ms Jackson has abandoned proposed laws that would have legalised brothels because they were not supported in the Legislative Council.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Amsterdam has for the first time admitted that the Dutch experiment to curb abuse by legalizing prostitution has failed miserably. Policemen in Amsterdam's infamous red light district were quoted by Dutch media Friday as saying, "We are in the midst of modern slavery." Due to the legalization of prostitution in the Netherlands in 2000, police are hampered in confronting the horrors that are characteristic of the sex trade.
Most of the commentators on the landmark HIV court case this week seem to be missing the most important point. To recap, Justice Dalley ruled that Lower Hutt man Justin Dalley did not legall have to tell a woman he met over the internet that he was HIV-positive before they had sex. While some American states require people by law to disclose their HIV status before having sex, one has to ask what makes HIV different from other sexually transmitted diseases (many of which are not even notifable)? You could say, the higher likelihood of dying, but the consequences of some of the others are not that good, either. But here's where the point is being missed: if you have casual sex, you are setting yourself up for problems (psychological as well as physical). It doesn't matter whether you know the health status of the other person or not; I can guarantee there are men and women who will continue even knowing the other person has an STI. (There is good research to back up this claim.) Sexual diseases such as chlamydia are at epidemic levels in New Zealand. The only way to bring the level down is to save sex for a committed relationship. You would have thought this is so blindingly obvious that everybody would say it, but all our politically correct "health" professionals are so wedded to an ideology of "safe sex" (which in reality is not all that safe) they can't bring themselves to admit it's the best solution.
"One thing is absolutely certain about this election result," says Gareth Morgan. "Overwhelmingly, New Zealanders want a larger government sector. The only party that offered smaller government was ACT and they were close to annihilation on Saturday 17th. The obvious question is how far can government expand before New Zealanders decide it’s large enough? A similarity between National and Labour was that each promised to expand the government sector faster than the economy will grow over the next three years. All that was at issue was by how much. National’s plans were for government spending to be about 3.5% less than Labour’s four years from now."
Just to complete a week of listing political websites, have a look at Greenie Watch. It's not a new site, but it has a wealth of useful material.
There are signs that the new Saudi king, Abdullah, is allowing more democracy and a better deal for women.
The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to rule soon that milk from cloned animals and meat from their offspring are safe to eat, raising the question of whether Americans are ready to welcome one of modern biology's most controversial achievements to the dinner table. Hundreds of cloned pigs, cows and other animals are already living on farms around the country, as companies and livestock producers experiment and await a decision from the FDA.
The latest edition of Religious Trends, a compilation of Christian statistics published last week, shows that France overtook Kenya last year as the leading destination for British mission agencies.
Stow the pith helmet: In further evidence that Europe is increasingly seen as more spiritually needy than Africa or Asia, in third place is another country with strong Roman Catholic roots, Spain.
It takes a network of 18 close friends and relatives to provide an average person with the emotional and practical support to get through day-to-day life, academics have found. Their study challenges the perception that family structures are breaking down and that people rely far less on support from relatives than in the past.
Shakespeare's plays were not written by the bard but rather a politician descended from King Edward III and John of Gaunt, remarkable new evidence suggests.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Amsterdam has for the first time admitted that the Dutch experiment to curb abuse by legalizing prostitution has failed miserably. Policemen in Amsterdam's infamous red light district were quoted by Dutch media Friday as saying, "We are in the midst of modern slavery." Due to the legalization of prostitution in the Netherlands in 2000, police are hampered in confronting the horrors that are characteristic of the sex trade.
Most of the commentators on the landmark HIV court case this week seem to be missing the most important point. To recap, Justice Dalley ruled that Lower Hutt man Justin Dalley did not legall have to tell a woman he met over the internet that he was HIV-positive before they had sex. While some American states require people by law to disclose their HIV status before having sex, one has to ask what makes HIV different from other sexually transmitted diseases (many of which are not even notifable)? You could say, the higher likelihood of dying, but the consequences of some of the others are not that good, either. But here's where the point is being missed: if you have casual sex, you are setting yourself up for problems (psychological as well as physical). It doesn't matter whether you know the health status of the other person or not; I can guarantee there are men and women who will continue even knowing the other person has an STI. (There is good research to back up this claim.) Sexual diseases such as chlamydia are at epidemic levels in New Zealand. The only way to bring the level down is to save sex for a committed relationship. You would have thought this is so blindingly obvious that everybody would say it, but all our politically correct "health" professionals are so wedded to an ideology of "safe sex" (which in reality is not all that safe) they can't bring themselves to admit it's the best solution.
"One thing is absolutely certain about this election result," says Gareth Morgan. "Overwhelmingly, New Zealanders want a larger government sector. The only party that offered smaller government was ACT and they were close to annihilation on Saturday 17th. The obvious question is how far can government expand before New Zealanders decide it’s large enough? A similarity between National and Labour was that each promised to expand the government sector faster than the economy will grow over the next three years. All that was at issue was by how much. National’s plans were for government spending to be about 3.5% less than Labour’s four years from now."
Just to complete a week of listing political websites, have a look at Greenie Watch. It's not a new site, but it has a wealth of useful material.
There are signs that the new Saudi king, Abdullah, is allowing more democracy and a better deal for women.
The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to rule soon that milk from cloned animals and meat from their offspring are safe to eat, raising the question of whether Americans are ready to welcome one of modern biology's most controversial achievements to the dinner table. Hundreds of cloned pigs, cows and other animals are already living on farms around the country, as companies and livestock producers experiment and await a decision from the FDA.
The latest edition of Religious Trends, a compilation of Christian statistics published last week, shows that France overtook Kenya last year as the leading destination for British mission agencies.
Stow the pith helmet: In further evidence that Europe is increasingly seen as more spiritually needy than Africa or Asia, in third place is another country with strong Roman Catholic roots, Spain.
It takes a network of 18 close friends and relatives to provide an average person with the emotional and practical support to get through day-to-day life, academics have found. Their study challenges the perception that family structures are breaking down and that people rely far less on support from relatives than in the past.
Shakespeare's plays were not written by the bard but rather a politician descended from King Edward III and John of Gaunt, remarkable new evidence suggests.
