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 [...]

New Zealand is now contemplating using the same set of incentives to boost immunisation rates that Australia used to boost it’s rates from 50% to 91%. The MacDoctor is not convinced that New Zealanders will respond quite as well as Australians to the incentives. The incentives were:

Cash payments to parents for completing immunisations at 6 [...]

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 [...]

Well, there seems to be no doubt what the (supposedly unbiased) Herald’s official position is on the proposed “three strikes” law. The headline
‘Unjust’ bill means 11,000 per cent rise in prison time
is not exactly studiedly neutral. And making out that Kim Workman comes from “an independent organisation on crime” is simply a bad old-fashioned lie. [...]

Steven Joyce has said today that some tertiary education funding would be linked to student performance and drop-out rates. This is an excellent idea and should provide some incentive for universities and colleges to pay attention to those students who are clearly not doing well, instead of simply writing them off as they usually do. [...]

Not satisfied with rendering cold and flu medicines ineffective by removing pseudoephedrine from general sale, Medsafe continues it’s onslaught on cold and flu meds by trying to remove all the syrups and infusions from supermarket shelves. Apparently they are concerned about the use of them in under sixes (despite the fact that fatalities are very [...]

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 notifying [...]

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 point. Absolutely [...]

That, apparently, was the defense that was put forward by the killer of Navtej Singh, the man shot by thugs in his liquor store and left to bleed to death. Anitelea Chan-Kee, the man behind the gun that ended Navtej Singh’s life claims that the killing was “accidental” because he “did not realise the gun was [...]

Looks like the government is set to reduce the legal blood alcohol limit from 0.08 to 0.05 for driving. I have blogged quite extensively about this already so I am not going to add much more. It is not a matter of great note, but the lawyers who are saying that it is the law-abiding [...]