Canary in the Mine

The RSA has made some stinging criticisms of New Zealand's defence strategies in a major analysis document, released yesterday. "Our current defence policies gamble upon assertions of a benign future. This is inconsistent both with contemporary experience and with historical lessons.""Our forces can no longer be deployed into harm's way unless protected entirely by others. Yet we also distance ourselves from the very allies we need for that purpose’.

A history exam question that infuriated the National Party should have been set differently, Secondary Principals Association president Paul Ferris says. Parliament's education and science select committee is holding an inquiry into allegations of political bias at the New Zealand Qualifications Authority over the Level 1 NCEA history question. Mr Ferris told the committee yesterday he believed there was no space for questions that challenged students' "emerging political, religious or moral formation". At high school age, many students' views on those matters were received from their families. Questions that could be construed as biased, by singling out a group in an unfavourable light, would automatically alienate some students. In setting the question with reference to a political party, the NZQA had failed to apply proper quality standards, he said.

A Bill by United Future's Larry Baldock to define marriage as between a man and a woman, has been drawn from the parliamentary ballot. "It is necessary, in the light of the Civil Union Act, to clarify once and for all that marriage is only between a man and a woman, and not between persons of the same sex," Mr Baldock said. The Bill would also prevent overseas civil unions or gay marriages overseas being recognised in New Zealand.

It's been a busy week for Larry. Earlier, he tabled a 203,000-signature petition in Parliament calling for changes to the Prostitution Reform Act. He slammed the Government for failing to honour its pledge to police child prostitution which has blown out since the Prostitution Act, with one in five Auckland street workers now underage. "The recently released Prostitution Law Review Committee report stated that in Auckland city alone there are 243 businesses of prostitution and 360 street workers, 20 percent of whom are underage, yet there is only one police officer working in this area, and able to offer just 45% of their time," Mr Baldock said.

Progressive MP Matt Robson's proposed law change, which among other things seeks to raise the minimum alcohol purchasing age back to twenty years of age, has also been drawn out of the ballot.

Raising rates of home ownership is one of Labour's key goals in the next two years. It plans more state houses, rent-to-buy schemes, and home deposit assistance. Home ownership rates are dropping, but particularly in the 20 to 30 age bracket, with almost 60,000 fewer people in this age group owning their own home now than 10 years ago. The main planks of the New Zealand Housing strategy are: To build, buy or lease at least 2000 extra state houses, most of them in Auckland; to review the effectiveness of the accommodation supplement and the possibility of paying Government rental assistance directly to landlords; incentives for landlords or developers who create "social housing"; funding for additional emergency housing, particularly for youth; extending financial assistance for low-income people to do essential maintenance on older homes; and providing incentives for developers and architects to work on affordable home projects and make room for them in new sub-divisions.

The carbon tax to be introduced on April 1, 2007, (as part of NZ's Kyoto agreement) is expected bring in $360 million in its first year. The rate announced by the Government yesterday was the expected $15 a tonne of carbon dioxide. Petrol is expected to rise 4c a litre and electricity 1c a kw/hour as a consequence.

Single mothers are two-to-three times more likely to seek help for mental health problems than are married mothers, a Canadian study has found. Compared to married peers, single mothers were more than twice as likely to suffer from anxiety disorders, almost four times as likely to suffer from substance abuse disorder, and more than twice as likely to suffer from multiple mental health disorders. The researchers concluded that single mothers were not over-using mental health services, but their use reflected their higher rates of illness.

Washington state is set to add "family preservation" classes to the high school curriculum, so that students can learn how to form and maintain loving relationships, resolve conflicts, and deal with stress, grief and disappointment. Some other states, including Florida, New Jersey and New York, have either passed or are considering similar legislation.

Meanwhile, only 38 per cent of a sample of 500 Australian parents felt that raising children came naturally to them, while 70 per cent perceived "a lot of community pressure to get parenting right". The survey, by the Australian Childhood Foundation, found that a quarter of parents feared negative judgement for admitting they had problems.

A new study from France has confirmed that abortion increases a woman's risk of delivering future children prematurely. Dr Caroline Moreau of Hopital de Bicetre and colleagues concluded that women with a history of abortion were 1.5 times more likely to give birth prematurely (under 33 weeks gestation) and 1.7 times more likely to have a baby born extremely pre-term (under 28 weeks).

New Zealand is well on the way to becoming a cashless society, according to a survey. Consultancy firm KPMG’s 19th survey of financial institutions out today showed a 10.6 per cent increase in the number of eftpos transactions in 2004 over 2003. This followed a 14.9 per cent increase the previous year. There was also a 25 per cent increase in the number of customers doing banking over the internet.

Some questions I would love to have answered. If George Bush had not invaded Iraq, would we have deported government officials from that country who have entered New Zealand? Why are we so keen to jump on Iraqis, when we are happy to officially host heads of government and other officials from equally repressive regimes? China's human rights record is abysmal - think of its treatment of Tibetans - and yet Chairman Helen happily cosied up to Chinese President Hu Jintao last year. There are other examples. It strikes me that we lack consistency in all this. Panic does not make good policy.

Rodney Hide is totally underwhelmed by the Government's announced spending on defence, and says that journalists have again switched off their critical faculties. In fact, he says it's a con. "The $3b spend-up is: 1. spread over 10 years; 2. mixes capital and operational as in, “The funding will be aimed at boosting depleted troop numbers and rebuilding aged infrastructure"; 3. doesn’t factor in what it would cost to maintain defence spending at the miserable level it is now. In fact, an extra $3 billion over ten years could well be a cut to defence spending if any of that money is for capital."

Indications are that the stronger-than-expected economy has led to fewer enrolments in tertiary education, and fewer people accessing student allowances, Education Minister Trevor Mallard says.

"Dr Death", Philip Nitschke, is considering packing his bags and moving to New Zealand permanently if a proposed Australian law making it illegal to pass out information on assisted suicide is passed. Getting past the headline grab, the important thing to note is that an amendment to Australia's Crimes Bill, expected to be passed this year, would make it illegal to offer information on assisted suicide via phone, fax or email.

The Vatican's top family affairs official has blasted Spain's law allowing gays to wed as a destruction of the marriage institution and urged Christians around the world to oppose such unions. Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, also said adoption of children by same sex couples was "moral violence" against children and jeopardised their personality and stability. Trujillo says the Spanish law "changed and falsified the very definition of marriage". Along with the growth of couples living together outside marriage, it was "destroying, bit by bit, the institution of marriage". He said the family is a "precious common good of the people and a patrimony of humanity."

In contrast to the popular image of mothers struggling to strike a balance between the demands of raising children, working and the tensions of daily life, a national study in the US finds the vast majority of are satisfied with their lives as mothers. Nearly 81 percent of the women surveyed for the Motherhood Study said they were "very satisfied," and another 16 percent said they were "somewhat" satisfied. Results were generally high regardless of income, race, education, age, marital status and employment.

According to market research firm NPD Group, "U.S. sales of video game hardware, software and accessories rose 23 percent in the first quarter of 2005 to more than $2.2 billion." ..."The $10 billion U.S. video game industry is roughly on par with the domestic movie box office in terms of sales."

But technology has become a bane of modern life. People juggle a mountain of electronic equipment to store their most important records and intimate secrets. But the complicated nature of their machines, with their manuals full with unintelligible acronyms, tangles of cords and invisible wireless signals, means a breakdown is almost inevitable. The loss of a computer, cell phone or other gadget can be so jolting that it is fueling the rise of what some psychologists call "computer rage." Some computer repair companies are beginning to hire counsellors to help callers through their crisis.

It's English, but not as you and I speak it. In fact, you may not even understand it. The chief promoter of Globish (Frenchman Jean-Pierre Nerriere) says most of the world speaks it, and he has even patented it. Globish takes the 1500 most common words of English, and disregards the finer points of grammar (with a vengeance).
Nerriere has a website explaining Globish in detail, but ironically you'll need a good grasp of French to wade through it.

The change of the peppered moth from predominantly light to predominantly dark coloured (this is a highly simplified statement) as a consequence of adapting to the English pollution of the Industrial Revolution is quoted in the textbooks as one of the best examples of evolution. But oh dear - it seems that all is not as it should have been out in the field.

Tail-out: Weighing in at 110kg, Miss Jumbo Queen 2005,Tarnrarin Chansawang,18 has been chosen as the contestant in the annual Thai contest who best exhibits the characteristics of an elephant by virtue of her grace, elegance and size.

One political poll does not an election make. The "surprises" in today's Herald-DigiPoll result were not actually all that surprising, when all polls this year are surveyed. The long-term (and averaged) results show the following: 1) There has been a gradual slipping in Labour support - they will almost certainly be giving up any hope of governing alone. 2) Although there was a drop of 3 points for Labour today over the previous Herald poll, that March figure of 47.7% was Labour's highest for any poll this year (and four points below Labour's best at this time in 2002). 3) There was no surprise in the NZ First result. The low March Herald-DigiPoll figure was probably a "rogue" result, and NZF has generally been tracking well above 5% ( as high as 9% in NBR's March poll). 4) In the last month or two, there has been a small but gradual pick-up for National across the board. 5) There has been a small but gradual shift away from the two main parties to increased minor party support. On the year to date, the following is an election night possibility: NZ First as the spoiler/king-maker; a surge in minor parties as the result of a middle-ground battle between Labour and National which leaves neither distinguished, and which ignores a lot of disgruntled conservative voters.
An SST-BRC poll which came out yesterday did little to change things.

The demands of retailers are shaping not just our malls and shopping centres, but also the social environment, according to the NZ Herald. "Instead of liveable communities we’re getting destination shopping - sprawl by another name." The Herald says contradictory council development strategies are working against the desire to build integrated communities and creating artificial and aesthetically awful environments.

When Prime Minister Helen Clark loudly praised Sweden recently as a model for New Zealand, she kept very quiet about an important aspect of Sweden's education system. Under Swedish reforms of 1992, municipalities are obliged to give 85 per cent of the calculated average cost per student in the state schools to any school of parent choice – for all students, not just some targeted groups. Enrolment rules were also opened within the state sector, with money following the pupils into state sector schools in other municipalities. A strong case of selective vision on Ms Clark's part.

Parents want their children to have a better education than they did, and just over half of them are putting money aside towards it. A Versus Research poll shows 54 percent of parents say they are saving for their children’s education, but rate it alongside saving for holidays and travel. Aucklanders were the best savers, with 68 per cent of parents saving for their children’s education. They were also most likely saving to send their children to private or boarding schools.

"What happens when the state has a prior right to my children? What will happen to my children's right to me?" Those were some of the questions Douglas Farrow raised at an April 25 talk at St Paul University, painting a chilling scenario of state intrusion and control of intimate family relations that is already on its way as provinces rewrite their laws to make way for same-sex marriage. Farrow, co-editor with McGill colleague Dan Cere of Divorcing Marriage: Unveiling the Dangers in Canada's New Social Experiment, warns that if all relationships among parents and children are legal constructs, the state can do whatever it pleases.

"The election of Pope Benedict XVI and the global war on terror have brought unprecedented attention to the role of religion in our world," says sociologist Peter Berger. "There has been particular interest (most specifically in the case of Islam) as to whether specific religious traditions are compatible with the institutions and values of liberal democracy. But focusing exclusively on what is believed and practised overlooks a potentially far more important question: how religious precepts are believed and practised." Berger says all contemporary religious communities now face three options: to resist pluralism, to withdraw from it, or to engage with it. None is without difficulties and risks, but only engagement is compatible with liberal democracy. Engagement means that the tradition is carried into the open discourse of the culture, and that those who represent the tradition make unapologetic truth claims.

What is the world's fastest-growing religion? Most news reports suggest it is Islam, but a new book makes a compelling case it is in fact evangelical Christianity, which is sweeping through places like China, Africa, India and Southeast Asia. Author Jim Rutz makes the point that Christianity is overlooked as the fastest-growing faith because most surveys look at the traditional Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church while ignoring Christian believers who have no part of either.

Vladimir Putin gave a bizarre speech this week in which he described the fall of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" and said that an "epidemic of collapse has spilled over to Russia itself." An analysis of how Russia has imploded following the breakdown of nearly every civil society institution.

Two of the world's leading scientific journals have come under fire from researchers for refusing to publish papers which challenge fashionable wisdom over global warming. A British authority on natural catastrophes who disputed whether climatologists really agree that the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity, says his work was rejected by the American publication, Science, on the flimsiest of grounds. A separate team of climate scientists, which was regularly used by Science and the journal Nature to review papers on the progress of global warming, said it was dropped after attempting to publish its own research which raised doubts over the issue. The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame. The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it. Dr Oreskes's study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser. However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics. Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents - and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.

Tail-out: Following its successful creation of PC man, Labour intends to enter the 2005 election campaign with a new slogan -- Homo: Electus.