I’m betting that the left (when they find the article) will have something derisive to say about Muriel Newman’s point that children are not protected from overt educationallly-driven political indoctrination in New Zealand. She cites Al Gore’s strangely acclaimed powerpoint presentation An Inconvenient Truth as an example. Personally, I think Gore’s movie is nowhere near [...]

The only thing that saves the stupid headline below from joining my Spam Journalism collection is the fact that the article it heads is not trivial: Govt’s tough line on violence isn’t working – police Police say the Government’s policies to reduce violent crime have had little effect, as such offending is still on the [...]

Just so we understand each other, I consider the entire Charles-Chauvel/Noisy-Kids-in-airplane episode to be slightly less newsworthy than “cat stuck in tree”. My interest in the affair can be accurately gauged by comparing the entire mass of the earth to the full stop at the end of this sentence. The only relevant result is that [...]

Though many people are highly critical of the columns of Garth George, I often find that, past the general curmudgeonly nature of his columns, he often makes a great deal of sense. Unfortunately, he tends to couch his points in a fashion designed to bring out the worst in the blogosphere. It is not simply [...]

In September 2008 I wrote this: Unfortunately, what this [the repeal of section 59] does to parents is place them in a position of having no clear idea what is an acceptable smack. Worse still, it allows children to threaten their parents, thereby seriously reducing their authority, even if the child has no intention of [...]

The Herald reports today that 39 “minor acts of physical discipline” were brought to the attention of police, resulting in one prosecution and  37 warnings. The article goes on to say: Deputy Police Commissioner Rob Pope said the figures showed police continued to apply discretion in handling “anti-smacking” cases. Sadly, Mr. Pope completely misses the [...]

Not much time for blogging tonight but I could resist a quick comment on the low-hanging fruit offered by ScrubOne in this comment. The Yahoo “news” item reads: I feed my son marijuana While most parents are focussed on warning their children about the dangers of drugs, mum-of-three Mieko Hester-Perez is happily dishing up marijuana [...]

In what has to be the most bizarre over-reaction I have heard in a long time, the Herald reports that a 12-year-old girl was arrested for scrawling on her desk. That is: properly arrested in handcuffs and dragged off to the police station and given eight hours of community service as her sentence. Wow. I [...]

Obama announces. President Barack Obama sent Congress his new budget overnight, a plan that forecasts the government spending a record US$1.66 trillion ($2.37 trillion) more than it takes in through taxes. 1.66 TRILLION deficit in a single year… If you laid every dollar bill end to end you could walk on them through the centre [...]

Now here’s an interesting headline… Ex-UN weapons inspector faces child sex charges PHILADELPHIA – A longtime UN weapons inspector who blamed a 2001 sex-sting arrest on his criticism of the Iraq war has again been charged in an online child-sex case, and this time he was caught on camera. Scott Ritter, 48, of Delmar, New York, [...]