Canary in the Mine

The following extract is from one of the best articles on the question of the new Tolerance that I have read: "Tolerance once meant an attitude of patience and forbearance toward those who failed to live up to social ideals; the new Tolerance means denying the existence of such ideals. Nobody once supposed that tolerance could replace primary virtues such as honesty, fidelity and courage. But exposed to the cultural poisons of recent decades, tolerance has now mutated into something troublingly different. It is now not only one of the primary virtues; it is the primary virtue, the possession of which excuses man, woman and child from the cultivation of any other virtue. This new Tolerance is positively deceptive. It is deceptive in that it elides the difference between tolerance and acceptance, deceptive in that it provides rhetorical cover for the ideological ambitions of those who advance it, deceptive in that it justifies complete intolerance towards any who would frustrate those ambitions, and deceptive in that it hides the intolerably high costs it imposes on society."

Is this what we might see in the National tax cut plan? Tax expert John Shewan has a plan costing just under $2 billion to cut taxes - without needing massive Government spending cuts. The PricewaterhouseCoopers tax partner and New Zealand chairman says savings can still be made by reviewing the bureaucracy. His plan is to cut the 39c personal rate, the 33c personal rate and the 33c company rate all back to 30c. He argues that even after allowing about $2 billion for the Superannuation Fund to partly pre-fund future retirement costs, there is scope for between $1.5 and $2 billion in tax cuts. A 1 per cent rise in economic growth would see $410 million extra tax collected, he says. And it is growth - not redistribution of existing income - that provides better health, education and other services. Finance Minister Michael Cullen says the problem with any across-the-board tax cuts is they deliver the biggest gains to those on the highest incomes. Shewan's tax cut, for example, would deliver just $4 a week to someone on $45,000 but $82 a week to someone on $100,000. Shewan points out that someone on $100,000 pays two or three times the tax of someone on $60,000. So although it looks like people on lower incomes would benefit little from the package, he says it is not as inequitable as it looks as those at the top of the income scale are paying most of the tax.

Parliament will have the opportunity to prove that it believes in marriage when it debates Larry Baldock's private member's bill next Wednesday. Baldock wants the Marriage Act amended to state explicitly that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. The question first arose back in 1997, when three same-sex couples went to the Court of Appeal to have the right to marry, but were turned down. The five judges said man-woman marriage was implicit in the Act, and based on very old common law principles. But the Civil Union debate has shown that this principle may not hold for much longer, and Baldock wants it codified in the law. He's met a negative response from Labour and the Greens, even though David Benson-Pope (the minister who piloted the Civil Union Bill through Parliament) said that marriage should only be between a man and woman. If Labour really believe what they say, they should have no problem supporting the Bill. I wonder, though, whether they are secretly hoping that judges will do what the MPs would like to see happen but dare not say openly.

Both the marriage and divorce rates in the US are dropping while the number of unwed couples living together is rising, according to an annual study of marriage released this week.

Three quarters of all family breakdowns affecting young children now involve unmarried parents, new UK research suggests. The findings indicate that family breakdown is no longer driven by divorce, but by the collapse of unmarried partnerships. An estimated 88,000 children aged under 5 were affected by the separation of their unmarried parents in 2003, compared with about 31,000 children under 5 whose married parents divorced, the research concludes. According to the 2001 census, 59 per cent of households with children are married, 11 per cent are co-habiting and 22 per cent lone parent families.

When Karin Agness, a college senior at the University of Virginia, grew tired of feminist propaganda, she founded the Network of Enlightened Women (N.E.W.) to foster education and leadership and advance conservative principles among university women. “Prior to founding the group, I couldn’t find any other collegiate conservative women’s organizations in existence,” Agness said. “I think it’s important for women to have a network of other like-minded women. I believe that women have to stand up and fight feminism because it is much more effective and persuasive if women are the ones who do it.”

This is the thinking that lost England the Empire. The traditional singing of Land of Hope and Glory may be dropped from a Remembrance Day festival because of its “political connotations”. The patriotic song with its rousing tune by Elgar has long been a staple of concerts and festivals, but councillors in Wolverhampton will today debate whether Rod Stewart’s song Sailing might not be more appropriate and appeal to a younger audience "with memories of more recent wars such as the Falklands." [Rod Stewart replacing Elgar!!! Abandon ship.]

After enduring some frightening banality and sloganeering at a pre-election meeting of MPs last night, I was agonising over how the message of what is going on could be got out to a wider audience. My wife reminded me of the following wonderful song by Tom Jones:

The young new mexican puppeteer
He saw the people all lived in fear
He thought that maybe they’d listen to
A puppet telling them what to do

You know he got some string and he got some wood
He did some carving and he was good
And folks came running so they could hear
The young new mexican puppeteer

First he carved out young Abe Lincoln
Abe will teach ’em civil rights
Then a king named Martin Luther
So they’d recall his peaceful fight

Old Mark Twain, his wit and wisdom
Will surely show them life is fun
But he smiled with satisfaction
When the prince of peace was done

Tail-out: It was a small, red paper clip with about 14 hours of use. Auckland teenager Rhys White put it up for sale on New Zealand's TradeMe Internet auction site during "a boring day at work" - and sold it for $173.
Reminds me of a touching joke circulated my kids: "When I was young we couldn't afford a pet. All I had was Silver Beauty, my beloved paper clip."

One of the richest countries in Africa only five years ago, Zimbabwe is now almost totally bankrupt. Zimbabwe's currency has been so debased by inflation that it has become virtually worthless. Total government spending in 2002 was budgeted at $Z5 billion. Today, that money would fill a mere 10 supermarket trolleys with groceries. Inflation hit 164 per cent last month. Economists predict that it will double in five months, and again three months after that. The economy has shrunk 5 percent a year since 2000, when Mugabe went to war against white farmers, the opposition, churches, the judiciary, the press, private enterprise and anyone else he saw as a threat.

Michael Cullen refuses to acknowledge the creeping taxation that has overtaken New Zealand. In 1999, indirect taxes netted the Government $11.7 billion. In the year to June 2006, $15 billion in indirect taxes is forecast to be collected. That doesn't include ACC and other levies, which are forecast to add another $3.2 billion, or the carbon charge which is due to take effect in 2007. National has compiled a list of about 30 increases in indirect taxes, levies and fees since Labour came to power. They range from new levies on such things as export education and export/import cargoes, to rises in driver licence fees and cattle slaughtering levies. Petrol excise - recovered in the pump price - has increased three times to cover roading projects and ACC injury costs. But while National waves round its list and paints Labour as "tax and spend", it has few plans for changes.

No party ever wants to lose an election, but The Herald if it has to lose one, this might be just the one, judging by the economic forecasts.

A popular bumper sticker in the US reads: "Spending our kids inheritance". A major new survey reveals that indeed parents are enjoying themselves in later life rather than saving their money to pass on to their children. The survey of 2,000 people, for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, found that, while 85 per cent of all age groups said they would like to leave a legacy, half believed strongly that older people should enjoy their retirement, while a further 38 per cent tended to agree. Even among pensioners, only a little over a quarter of those with the means to make a bequest said they would budget to do so.

China's foreign minister dismissed yesterday a Pentagon report warning that its modernising military could pose a threat to the region, and said its rise would be peaceful. The report reflects concern in Washington over China's growing military and economic power, and in particular the fear a changing balance of power in Asia could threaten Taiwan, the self-governed island Beijing claims as its own.

The global move to digitisation raises some important issues regarding libraries. Thomas Benton asks: "Where will the library ghosts go -- along with the furtive lovers -- when all the books have been made immaterial and antiseptic through digitization? What does it mean when the University of Texas at Austin removes nearly all of the books from its undergraduate library to make room for coffee bars, computer terminals, and lounge chairs? What are students in those "learning commons" being taught that is qualitatively better than what they learned in traditional libraries? I think the absence of books confirms the disposition to regard them as irrelevant. Many entering students come from nearly book-free homes. Many have not read a single book all the way through; they are instead trained to surf and skim. Teachers increasingly find it difficult to get students to consult printed materials, and yet we are making those materials even harder to obtain."

Dutch paediatricians have unanimously approved a set of guidelines for euthanasing incurably ill newborn children. The Dutch Paediatric Society now accepts that "in exceptional circumstances and under strict conditions... deliberate ending of life" of such newborns "can be an acceptable option". The so-called Groningen protocols have been approved by the public prosecution service, but the government has not yet issued its opinion. The society believes that about 15 newborn children are euthanased each year in the Netherlands, but only 3 are reported. Most of these are believed to be babies born with severe spina bifida and babies who suffer severe hypoxia at birth. How scrupulously this will be observed is a matter of conjecture. It is believed that half of the euthanasia cases in the Netherlands are never reported.

Inserting human stem cells into monkey brains risks giving animals human-like qualities, says a high-level US panel after a year-long study. It agreed that this experiment was unlikely to change animals in "morally relevant ways", but felt that "the risk of doing so is real and too ethically important to ignore". Some of these experiments are currently under way and the panel was unable to agree which of them should proceed. A report from the panel of 22 experts, including primatologists, stem cell researchers, lawyers and philosophers, was published in the July 15 issue of the journal Science.

Canada became the fourth country to legalise gay marriage nationwide after a landmark bill was signed into law. The Senate voted to adopt the bill to legalise gay marriage despite fierce opposition from the opposition Conservatives and religious leaders.The bill grants same-sex couples legal rights equal to those in traditional unions between a man and a woman, something already legal in eight of Canada's 10 provinces and in two of its three territories.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) met in Ireland last week to pressure the country to support a more liberal abortion policy. But one member of the committee tried to move the meeting in a different direction. Krisztina Morvai of Hungary expressed dissatisfaction with the relentless focus on widening the availability of abortion. She argued that abortion is "terribly damaging" and that men in Ireland should be held to greater accountability for the number of abortions taking place. She said she hopes abortion will be relegated to the past and will be considered "like torture in the field of human rights."

Parents are asking Bay of Plenty primary and intermediate schools to put their children in male-taught classrooms amid fears they are missing out on positive male role models. Education Ministry figures show there are just 355 male primary and intermediate school teachers in the Bay of Plenty compared with 1464 female - meaning males are outnumbered four to one.

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?

Megashift is the title of a recently-published book by American author Jim Rutz. It's hotly debated on TV, and one of Amazon's top sellers. It has also caused controversy in broad swathes of self-contented US Christianity. 'Megashift' is a sharp-minded analysis of current Christianity around the world - What are the main observations?

* The 1700-year nightmare is over: the Constantinian Shift is shifting back. Under Emperor Constantine, the Church became an imperial audience, but is now finally freeing itself from the corset of state control.

* An unprecedented transfer of power is underway, from clerics into the hands of ordinary people. According to Rutz' research in 49 nations, hundreds of people have been raised from the dead in the past 15 years.

* This is giving rise to an entirely new form of Christianity - with far greater repercussions than the Protestant Reformation.

* Over 1 billion non-Christians could become active Christians in the next 10 years.

The Charismatic Evangelical movement, currently numbering 707 million people around the world, is growing by 8 percent per year. The centre of this movement, though, is a mostly unknown and little-understood movement of 100 million Christians who have no building and neither pastor nor programme. "A church without vertical hierarchies," says Rutz, "which will change the future." They have experienced what Rutz calls a 'lifestyle upgrade'. Through an act of God, many millions of people have experienced an 'inner upgrade' leading to an entirely new quality of life. Rutz lists a number of chances and advantages offered by this upgrade, which were previously unthinkable for many people:

* People experience release from the limitations and burdens of a traditional, hierarchical (and unbiblical) religious system, being freed into an 'open Christianity' with 100% participation.

* They are no longer a number in someone else's religious programme.

* They experience personal empowerment and are able to do things they previously could not even have dreamed of, including supernatural (healing, prophesying, performing miracles etc.)

* They learn to overcome their own problems, and help others to overcome theirs.

* They experience fellowship with a small group of close friends who give mutual support, so that each person and the whole group reaches God's aims, which are their calling.

* In doing so, they find that which they have sought for their whole life.

The path away from spectator religion frees people from fixed church role-playing. Previously, many people were passive, conformist churchgoers, experiencing church as a television without a remote control. The personal involvement of every follower of Christ, though, rouses millions of talents and abilities to solve even the most difficult problems. The result is a 'Megashift', a quantum leap in church history.

Protestantism was an important epoch in church history, but it is now time to stop protesting and start acting. The current post-Protestant awakening is larger than the great American revivals since 1727 under Wesley, Whitefield, the Herrnhuter or Jonathan Edwards. "This third Reformation," says Rutz, "has three characteristics:

1. The church is transforming itself from an organisation to an organism. After 1700 years of institutional structure, the Body of Christ is emerging in the form described in the New Testament. People are rediscovering the original forms and functions in an open, participatory system mostly consisting of house churches.

2. 100% active. Moving away from the one-man church system, in which the pastor literally did everything, a growing number of Jesus' followers are becoming active participants, leaving their spectators' seats and taking their place on the playing field. It should be no surprise the number of goals scored increases. When 100 people pray for the sick, prophesy, and plant churches instead of just one, it is also reasonable to expect the number of miracles to increase.

3. Immense numbers of new believers. Church growth outside the Western World is breathtaking. Tens of thousands of new believers (Rutz speaks of 175,000 per day) means that although all religions are growing naturally, only Christianity is experiencing significant growth through conversion. Where religions meet, Christianity almost always gains new believers, and new networks of house churches are formed.

www.megashift.org

New Zealanders have little appetite for ditching the monarchy and creating a republic, a major new poll shows. The Fairfax-ACNielsen poll showed a large majority of Kiwis would prefer to keep the Queen as head of state than see the country go it alone. Only 27 per cent of those surveyed in the poll taken last week said they thought New Zealand should become a republic, while 63% said it should not.

It is time to rethink our multicultural society. "It is a sign of the paucity of debate in Britain that multiculturalism is used interchangeably with 'immigration'. It is, instead, a specific form of immigration where the foreigners are not encouraged to integrate. The alternative is the "melting pot" method of integrationism used by the United States, whose newcomers must learn English, salute the flag and sign up to a set of values. They must buy into a basic idea that they have to belong. This would be seen as cultural imperialism in Britain, where a mosaic-style of immigration has been preferred. The natural consequence has been segregated ghettos - and pockets of radicalism, left alone to seethe. Americans look on aghast at the Britain's immigration mismanagement. "You seem to shun these folks off to the side, and let them behave as if they never left Islamabad," says Deroy Murdock, fellow at the Atlas Foundation. Even in Islamabad, the Pakistan Times had this to say last week: "The sad fact is that Muslims in the UK have turned their face from the obligation to integrate with British society at large." The penny is dropping, worldwide. Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, warned last year that it was time to end multiculturalism, as the segregation it breeds had simply entrenched inequality. It is time to "assert a core of Britishness".

The NZ Government is to cut $160 million of funding from polytechnic courses labelled "low value" in a major shake-up of tertiary education, Education Minister Trevor Mallard announced today.

"It is significant that despite the heavy school taxes which all must pay, an increasing number of parents are willing to assume the added burden of private tuition to assure their children the kind of educational discipline they want them to have. Many families are prepared to forego expensive gewgaws in order to do this, believing that the scholastic and ethical standards are higher in private than in government schools. They are scarcely in the mood for expensive frills and experiments of dubious value, preferring to have a more direct and final say about what, how, and by whom their children are taught. If they are not intrigued by efforts to instill in their offsprings’ minds enthusiasm for the United Nations, world government, TVA experiments, and “progressive” education, but prefer that they be instructed in the background and meaning of our Constitution, the clear and precise use of our language, and the mastery of mathematics or another language or two, they would like to choose their school. Many American parents feel rightly that they, and not the State, should be responsible for what their children become; that education should be divorced from political control; and that those who prefer private instruction for their children should not be taxed for the upkeep of facilities which they did not choose nor curricula to which they do not want them exposed."

Children are starting primary school unable to sit up straight or hold a pencil because they lack basic skills. A group of primary schools on Auckland's North Shore say growing numbers of five-year-olds are starting school lacking essential motor skills. Some teachers suggest the problem is linked to a mania for safety outdoors which conditions people to avoid risks. At least one is telling parents to concentrate more on teaching pre-schoolers to hit a ball than read a book.

In case you need to know, here's the United Future party list.

If you were of the generation dosed daily with cod liver oil - and no doubt, like me, hated it - it's now time to thank your parents. The behaviour of pre-school children improves dramatically when given a daily dose of fish oils, according to the first study made into dietary supplements for young people under the age of three.

Edward Heath, who took the UK into the European Economic Community as the nation's prime minister in 1973, has died. He was 89.

Be warned: the following site has the complete chapter-by-chapter summary of the latest Harry Potter book (including who kissed who, and who dies). Hint: It was not Edward Heath.