New Zealand Conservative

Well, it had to happen. The workplace, restaurants, pubs. And now cars. South Australia has banned anyone lighting up in their car while carrying children as passengers. It will attract a $75 on-the-spot fine, with increasing fines for repeat offenders. Is this draconian? Well, given that children can't provide informed consent to risk their health...the government can do anything as long as they think of the children. And if the offense doesn't relate to members of your immediate family... then an ASBO should do the trick. I heard Helen Clark discussing banning gang patches (something I'm not in favour of for various reasons) and she mentioned Annette King was off in the UK learning up about Anti-Social Behaviour Orders - ASBOs - as the solution to the problem. Why can't we just have clear cut laws that are enforced and applied, and take into account repeat offenses, without having to resort to these bureaucratic parlour tricks that do little to solve the proble...

After all this talk about us being a Christian country or not, I thought I'd start with printing below the Ten Commandments. You shall have no other Gods but me. You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy. Respect your father and mother. You must not kill. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not give false evidence against your neighbour. You must not be envious of your neighbour's goods. You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbour. Perhaps some haven't seen these for a while (and some may not have seen them at all!) . These are the laws, or the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses in the Bible (Exodus 20)- the rules that his people should follow. They are also the laws that we as a Christian country, and other Christian countries, base our laws on or used to any...

A quick scan of today's rag and what do I see? The Wellington District Licensing Agency has written to schools to tell them that pubs are off limits for the school ball, but students can always try strip joints and lap dancing venues such as Mermaids. And knowing the way the current liberal government works, it will be seen as a real opportunity for our young women to gain valuable work experience (have they added pole dancing to NCEA yet? "Could try harder; Will go far, perhaps all the way"). If it's legal, it must be OK. And speaking of pole dancing, the world section carries the story of a young female pole vaulter, who was photographed by an ardent fan while she did her thing. The photos have been circulated around the internet generating the interest of men and boys everywhere, as they have downloaded the snaps to ogle and leer at her image in the privacy of their own fantasies. The DomPost of course, sees fit to print two full colour photos of the young lad...

This prayer is from the 14th century and is typically said after receiving Communion. Anima Christi (Soul of Christ) Soul of Christ, sanctify me Body of Christ, save me Blood of Christ, inebriate me Water from the side of Christ, wash me Passion of Christ, strengthen me O good Jesus, hear me Within Your wounds hide me Let me never be separated from You From the evil one protect me At the hour of my death call me And bid me come to You That with Your saints I may praise You Forever and ever Amen Anima Christi, sanctifica me. Corpus Christi, salve me. Sanguis Christi, inebria me. Aqua lateris Christi, lava me. Passio Christi, conforta me. O bone Iesu, exaudi me. Intra tua vulnera absconde me. Ne permittas me separari a te. Ab hoste maligno defende me. In hora mortis meae voca me. Et iube me venire ad te, ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

The cousin of the neighbours of some-one who once went to school with some-one who was baptised a Catholic, today appointed several new bishops, deacons, priests and alter boys. In a bold move, they appointed women, a married man, and a cat called Russell. After a moment of deep prayer and reflection they held a secret ceremony and also appointed a new Prime Minister of Canada, and replaced Robert Mugabe with a spare Mufti they had lying around from a previous conversion. Related Link: Canadians promote new fantasy role play game

"Housing is the only thing Dr Bollard can hammer, writes James Weir in todays DomPost. "He would like to hammer dairy cows, and the government [spending], but the housing market is the only thing he can tackle." Tackle? Grab around the neck, kick in the balls and stomp on the face more like, with the prediction of two more rate rises in the next few months. His tackle style is not very sporting, and as it happens, he's tackling the man without the ball. This game needs a referee.

Prime Minister Helen Clark ranks 58, one below Ian Wishart on the "most trusted" list. Perhaps that's why I treat a press release from Helen about an article from Investigate as far less credible. And in a display of the kind of logic that make the liberal lap-dog subcategory of newspaper reporters the least respected profession, reporter Hank Schouten says more parents preferred their kids to go into the sex industry than drive a bus or a cab. This was because bus drivers featured on the "least favoured" career by parents for their children, and sex workers were listed as "least trusted". The fool. NZ's most trusted survey?

The betrayal is complete: "Spy a former security guard" blazes the front page headline in this mornings DomPost. A student who admits that he spied on anti-mining activists is a former Wellington Security Guard. .. But Mr Paterson-Rouse is a former security guard -- a revelation that has left his former friends and environmental protesters feeling "betrayed, angry, appalled and sickened" Quelle horreur! A former security guard! This is too much. As a student, there was always the chance he'd graduate a communist and thus was redeemable. But a security guard?! This spy is nothing but a fascist bully boy. Oh the pain! Spokeswomen Mountier said they would demand to know what information he supplied and why. Does she really have no idea? I can see it now: "Did you tell them about our plan to chain ourselves to the railway track thus endangering lives and delaying the train for three hours? "Did you raise the alarm when two of our team went missing i...

Well, from the list available, Dr Victor Von Doom from Latveria was my favourite villain, but they have missed a lot of other good villains - from Darkseid and Elektra to Sabretooth and Kang the Conqueror. And who could fail to reflect upon the subterfuge of the kralc neleh? You are Dr. Doom Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity. Dr. Doom 72% Lex Luthor 69% Apocalypse 64% Dark Phoenix 62% The Joker 62% Venom 60% Green Goblin 59% Magneto 58% Juggernaut 55% Kingpin 53% Mr. Freeze 44% Riddler 43% Two-Face 31% Catwoman 30% Mystique 27% Poison Ivy 27% Click here to take the "Which Super Villain am I?" quiz... Hattip: G-Man (Lex Luthor)

Yes, according to the news just now , Labour are already hinting at "tax threshold tweaks" ahead of next years election. Peter Dunne has had a chat with Cullen, who has said he has an agenda for personal tax cuts next year. No surprises there, of course - we all knew there would be a bribe next year. Peter Dunne says he doesn't have any specific numbers in mind but - "..when you have 12 percent of people caught by the top rate, when you are only supposed to have five percent, there is significant room for movement." Of course, it didn't matter before when they were raking in the money hand-over-fist but it's an issue now that election year is fast approaching.

[Satire On] Government Minister Ruth Dyson has come out fighting hard for Solid Energy's right to spy. "As Minister of ACC, Ruth Dyson has signed off on over 2 million dollars worth of spying to track down bludgers" said an email sent anonymously to NZ Conservative from Ruth's office. Speculation mounts as to whether Cindy Kiro, the Children's Commissioner, will be keen to engage spies to fill out the "Every Child is on our database" plan that will track the life of every kiwi child. Is this simply a case of "If people have nothing to hide, then they needn't worry about spies?" They are our government, so we can trust them, surely? [/Satire Off] Related Link: The Enemy Within - Nicky Hager Related Link: Accidental Spying - ACC spend 2 million Related Link: Cindy Kiro wants to track every child

Human Rights organisations are outraged that Police have requested the power to pull motorists to the side of the road and breath test them. Ahmed Versi, editor of G&T News, a newspaper for British Alcoholics, said that extending police powers would be "counter-productive" in the effort to improve relations with motorists and could drive some towards drink-driving if stopped in this manner. But that's not the only way to recruit terrorists: "Guantanamo Bay, which was an international abuse of human rights, acted as a recruiting sergeant for dissidents and alienated Muslims and alienated many other people across the world." On the plus side, 80% of the world's terrorists are now on their way to North Korea, now that Osama Bin Laden was learned tens of thousands of people are being held in NK Gulags without proper legal grounds. Those North Koreans are toast. Related Link: Osama to pay commission on all terrorists recruited by the UK Police Forces

The word "breeders", in relation to human parents, has now turned up in a Sunday Star Times article titled, "The Passion Killers". I find the use of the word incredibly offensive as it relegates the procreation of human beings to the same level as that of animals. This is done by inference, as the phrase "to breed" has only ever, until recently, been used when referring to animals. It also calls to mind those periods in history when human being were bred for racial purity - the Lebensborn breeding farms of the Nazi period . Last night I put up a post on the continuing Swedish experiment on creating gender confusion in small children . Further on in the article I linked to, was a paragraph from the New Totalitarians , explaining how in Sweden during the sixties, the much valued housewife was denigrated and therefore encouraged to go out to work by a media campaign to change the word used for housewife. A simple word change was all it took. “When s...

Here you'll see some photos taken today of a calculator that was bought in 1985. The display shows that the power is on and the calculator is working. The thing is - THE BATTERIES HAVE NEVER BEEN CHANGED! HONEST! Yes, it still has the original Sharp batteries (see second photo). I suppose the calculator was used extensively in the first 3 or 4 years for exams and such and then used at home whenever something wanted adding up. The batteries seem to have some kind of plastic wrap around them and have never leaked or anything. Perhaps batteries these days are made to fail after a certain time so that one has to buy more? [edit] Perhaps I didn't say explicitly, but yes, it is my calculator - this is not just an interesting article I found on the net somewhere...

Gates of Vienna has a new post up by Fjordman on the continuing horrifying goings-on of that Socialist Utopia up north - Sweden. In a kindergarten in Stockholm, the parents were encouraged by the preschool teachers - apparently ideological pioneers - to equip their sons with dresses and female first names. There are now weeks in some places when boys HAVE TO wear a dress. Our own socialists are most likely already taking note. First anti-smacking (just like Sweden), next gender confusion indoctrination for 3 to 6 year olds. Probably not for a number of years, though. Don't want to scare the populace too much, too soon. Just wait for complacency to settle in and then go for it.

Cullen has "fired a broadside at the Green Party, warning that its opposition to Transmission Gully funding threatens to derail its own pet project of improving Auckland's trains". It seems the Greens are beginning to flex their newly found political muscles, and are having a friendly "debate" with Labour over taxation. Both are in agreement on one thing - taxpayers should pay more tax. They just disagree over what particular spending is best for us. Here's an idea - why don't they tax us DOUBLE of what they were planning, and then they can both spend to our benefit. Surely that will make us really happy? Related Link: Cullen threatens Greens who threatened Cullen

If anyone's up for a chat.

Yep, according to what I heard on the radio today (and read HERE ), Helen Clark has re-opened Labour's Mangere electorate office and installed list MP Darien Fenton within. Looks like it's going to take more than the Philip Field case to dampen their enthusiasm for the electorate....

Hey all. I have a question which relates to my job. I work in administration, and part of my job is phoning debtors; like everyone who does the job, it's really not my most favourite time of the month. The thing which especially peeves me is that our terms (much like most businesses) are that people pay us by the 20th of the following month. This is all well and good, but my boss wants me on the phone RIGHT ON the 20th of the month asking debtors when they are going to pay. This strikes me as being very rude and most unbusinesslike. I don't mind phoning people if they are a week to 10 days late or perhaps at the beginning of the next month, but right on the 20th just seems too soon to me. My boss has even given me a written warning because of my reluctance to do it. What is the generally accepted practice? I know our business usually doesn't get phoned until we're in 30 days or 60 days. The boss says he has to know for cash-flow reasons, but still....

I went and bought some shampoo yesterday from the supermarket. There are a lot of shampoos and conditioners and moisturizers and such. These days I get a fright when I look at the list of chemicals on the back of the bottle. What are they? What do they do? And, more to the point, are they safe? So, I had a nosey around the internet. I found a list HERE of common shampoo ingredients and what they are supposed to do. OK, fair enough, but are they safe? Apparently not all of them are. I found this site with a plethora of articles (check out the one about chloroform in your toothpaste). According to this site and others, a lot of these fragrances, shampoos and health products aren't tested because the FDA doesn't require companies to test their own products for safety. To check on your favourite cosmetic or fragrance check out the Skin Deep site - enter the name or the company that produces it and check if it's safe or not. I'm not trying to scaremonger, but it's goo...

The Catholic Bishop's fight over the Bloody Mary episode of South Park is a fight for civilisation itself. Some see it as an issue of free speech - where the ability to be as offensive and crass as possible is equated to much needed freedom to express unpalatable ideas. This is an example of the type of the confusion that is rampant in society today. Screen "Bloody Mary" to the civilised world of one hundred years ago, and the reaction would be far more aggressive than that of the Catholic Bishops today. The men of hundred years ago would be very aware of the grave insult to women that the "Bloody Mary" episode represents, and would not leave it to Bishops to point out the obvious. That today's cravens cannot see it shows just how much we have degenerated over the years.

Everyone knows the Da Vinci Code is fiction, right? I ask, because I've met people that believe that what the Da Vinci Code "reveals" to be truth. As the Catholic Church demanded the Da Vinci Code film be started with a message reminding people it is fiction, will they also demand the Lucifer film have a disclaimer that this is not the real Lucifer? Just wondering if David Farrar is being tongue in cheek or if he falls into the above camp. For the Catholic Church knows the Da Vinci Code to be fictional while as Lucifer is real. Maybe David is just confused. Seems to be going around. Related Link: David Farrar - Lucifer

It's official. Women are more successful than men. New Zealand now has one of the largest gaps in the world between male and female achievers, with the men coming out as the losers, according to Massey University's pro vice-chancellor in education, James Chapman. The definition of "success"? Getting a university degree in Education. Professor Chapman's remarks followed a Massey University College of Education graduation in which only 15 of the 158 graduates were men. Related Link: Women dominate at the chalkface Strange that success is a university degree in Education. A few months back I read that a university educated woman is 40% likely to never have children. I wouldn't call that a success, unless I was a communist or a greenie. In the absence of detailed research into why this was happening, observers were left to speculate, he said. There were probably many factors involved, but one of the main ones was the gradual "feminisation" of educa...

GayNZ has a politics opinion page on their website. With all the politicking that has been going on lately in NZ, I would have thought that there might have been something posted on a local political event. Maybe something on chickens or unfair imprisonment or maybe even the Budget. But no, last week excommunication was more exciting . I think I'm beginning to detect a pattern. Later on last week, a post on Gordon Coupland and his defection from United Future appeared. This week, we have Sour William? (On Bill English) , that worryingly "conservative Catholic" who believes anything can change if the public supports it and then the most recent, Religion vs. homosexual marriage. As I've already posted on my approval of the automatic excommunication of politicians who vote to legalise abortion, and since it's come to my attention that there currently is no excommunication on those grounds; that Pope Benedict's words on excommunication referred to an ex...

[Tongue in cheek alert] For all the people that argued there should be no exceptions to the law, regarding allowing a half a glass of alcoholic wine at a mass held in prison - you will no doubt be sad to hear that sanity has prevailed and the Corrections Department has backed down and allowed Priests to use wine in communion. There is some good news for you lot though: An ambulance was stopped and given a ticket for speeding in a 50Kph zone. They were caught at 4am on an empty road doing 67kph. Once the ticket was issued, and the policeman had explained the importance for not allowing exceptions, the ambulance went off at a more stately 49kph, and delivered their heart attack victim to hospital. He was pronounced DOA. The ambulance driver said - "the laws the law, and there never should be an exception, even if it is written into the law." Further news tonight, Dr Michael Cullen announced a single flat tax rate of 39 cents in the dollar for personal tax, GST and company ta...

On tonight at Murray's .

This week has been a nightmare. It started with some truly horrible allegations against the police force, coupled with the release of David Bain from prison due to a horrendous miscarriage of justice by our own Court of Appeal. And then on Wednesday, a whole sorry bunch of sanctimonious politicians voted away parental authority, with sickening front page pictures of celebrations and happiness, getting that debate out of the way for a budget with more taxes (petrol tax for Wellington and Auckland) and a pathetic attempt at trying to enforce savings for retirement. The only thing that has kept me sane is limiting my exposure to the radio and barely looking at my daily newspaper that arrives this morning. And going to Mass every morning. All of the priests in my area have gone on a retreat, so New Zealand's only Cardinal said Mass up in Waikanae every day this week. It was wonderful. I'd love to be able to listen to his sermons all of the time. I think the time has past whe...

My online image. And what appears in the comments : Unfortunately, due to the nature of the political blogosphere and my areas of interest, I still need the rather aggressive picture. I do hope to soften it in the future, but not yet. Besides, it suits the types of characters I used to play in AD&D a number of years ago. Back when I was doing martial arts, dance and weight training at various gyms around Wellington. Not that I do any of that now.

One wonders if immigration to Iraq would be more attractive for the citizens of some countries. At least the power supply is marginally better. Zimbabwe faces shortages of bread and flour, the government has warned, which may cause even more hardship....A report in the government controlled newspaper - The Herald - says Zimbabwe's sugar industry is also experiencing problems, including industrial action by workers....Last week, households in Zimbabwe were told they would be limited to four hours power supply a day in a move designed to support the country's wheat farmers who need power to irrigate their crops. Related Link: No bread, no sugar, no flour, no power - and Bob's your uncle Well, Mugabe always has cricket to look forward to. Oops, looks like that has gone too. Mugabe's looking like a lame duck President: Zimbabwe-Australia Series bulldozed and left homeless

Going along with Lucyna's theme of the end of democracy, it is interesting to see that with the resignation of Gordon Copeland from United Future and going independent, we have an MP only in parliament because he was a list MP of United Future. Now that he isn't part of United Future, should he really have a seat in parliament? On the other hand, Copeland's position over the anti-smacking bill more accurately reflected the views of his constituency.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia has been branded an apologist for White Supremacist Groups after she claimed the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and The World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) were not necessarily criminal groups. The row started after Mrs Turia, whose Te Tai Hauauru electorate includes Wanganui, rejected the idea that all members were criminals. "There are a lot of groups involved in a lot of bad behaviour," she told Radio New Zealand. "I'm not excusing any of the behaviour. It is totally unacceptable. But just like I'm not prepared to say the police are all rapists, I am also not prepared to say that all these gangs are criminals. I know a lot of White Supremacists that only want to kill Maori, Jews, non-Protestants, Catholics, gays and blacks in a figurative sense. Some of these people are good people, and there's nothing really wrong with them associating closely with their colleagues who form gangs and travel around inciting violence and engaging in...

Apparently, the single biggest impact on reducing Global Warming, at a personal level, is to become vegetarian. So my challenge to all those that believe we must reverse our CO2 levels or die - go vegan. Leave a comment indicating that you have converted to a vegan lifestyle as part of your commitment to your cause. And the related Link - Gore might possibly be a hypocrite - indicates that Al Gore knows fully the impact such a switch would have, being an expert and all, and yet he continues to allegedly eat meat. Another bum steer from the man whose house consumes more electricity in a month than the average American family manages in a year.

It's tough when you have the death penalty thrown at you for killing an unborn child. Maybe Amnesty can go to bat for this guy - they believe it's a fundamental right , don't they? I'd add that they don't believe in the death penalty either - but that is now debatable. Related Link: Jury Recommends Death Penalty for Serial Abortionist

The anti-smacking bill has just been passed with an overwhelming majority in parliament, despite being opposed by the majority of New Zealanders. God save New Zealand. I don't think anyone can at this point.

Sign the petition. Related Link: Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute

Apologies to Bob Marley. Sung to ' I Shot The Sheriff ' 'Manager Brown always hated me For what, I don't know. Now he trying to drag me in guilty For the drinking of a large Pepsi, For the price of a large Pepsi And I sayyyy I took the Pepsi But I didn't take the Sub, you see Oh no, oh nooo' Disclaimer, trademarks or brands may have been changed for dramatic effect. Please gentle reader, feel free to add more lyrics.

I hope everyone's all set. Fire on. Red wine topped up. Yep. Chat on.

The Pope is really making waves in the news. The automatic excommunication for politicians that vote for abortion laws have really got the media excited. Currently, there's automatic excommunication for any Catholic woman who kills her baby by abortion and any medical personnel who perform the abortion. Now there's excommunication for politicians who vote for abortion laws. The background to the hullaballoo was the recent vote by Mexico's parliament to legalise abortion. An Italian reporter on the plane asked the Pope whether he agreed that Catholic MPs in Mexico City who voted for legalisation should be considered excommunicated. The Pope replied: "Yes. The excommunication was not something arbitrary. It is part of the [canon law] code. It is based simply on the principle that the killing of an innocent human child is incompatible with going in Communion with the body of Christ. Thus, they [the bishops] did not do anything new or surprising, or arbitrary." The...

A couple of days ago, my ten year old child's teacher asked his class to write on the recent murder of the two year old by gang members. I was horrified, and went into the school to talk to the teacher about how completely inappropriate it was for ten year olds to even be having to think about such a subject, let alone write about it. The teacher confessed that she hadn't even thought about it from that perspective. Today I came across an article by Peggy Noonan, on We're scaring our children to death . Even though it was written for an American audience, it's also very relevant for New Zealand. Children are both brave and fearful. They'll walk up to a stranger and say something true that a grown-up would fear to say. But they are also subject to terrors, some of them irrational, and to anxieties. They need a stable platform on which to stand. From it they will be likely to step forward into steady adulthood. Without it, they will struggle; they will be less dar...

Today my ten year old boy told me that at school he was told to write a story, imagining he was a witness at the shooting of the two year old boy by gang members on Saturday. When the teacher was asked "Why?" by one of the children, she got annoyed and replied that we don't want this to happen again! Apart from my kids not watching tv, let alone the news, how does getting ten year olds to imagine what it would be like to be a witness to the murder of another child somehow prevent it ever happening again? I don't want my ten year old imagining murder - anyone's murder, let alone having to write about it in school! Looks like another visit to the principal tomorrow morning.

A while back, I came across a commenter on TBR who wholeheartedly believed that it was possible to be both a Christian and a socialist. If that were not bad enough, this person also believed that Jesus Christ was a socialist. The writings of Joseph Ratzinger condemning Liberation Theology (Catholic socialism in action) were not enough to sway her, as even though she considers herself Catholic, she and apparently many other Catholic socialists were very unhappy when he became Pope. So, I thought, maybe something from the Catholic Encyclopaedia on Socialism would help. [...] it is probably safe to conclude that those who profess to reconcile the two doctrines are mistaken: either their grasp of the doctrines of Christianity or of Socialism will be found to be imperfect, or else their mental habits will appear to be so lacking in discipline that they are content with the profession of a belief in incompatible principles. Surely, I meant communism not socialism? Nope, socialism is co...

Looks like those that want a gay adoption bill are a little freaked out by the opposition to the anti-smacking bill. So, in order to prevent the same public opposition (which they assume to be whipped up by the media), they want to start getting the message out now, so that the public is on-side. Clearly, we must not make the same mistake whenever the awaited adoption reform bill finally materialises. We must get out there beforehand, present the case for the benefits for same sex parenting from pediatrics and developmental psychology , provide advance rebuttals of the Christian Right's antigay propaganda, and establish a Campaign for Same-Sex Parenting or Family Equality to advance our side of the case well in advance. It's got me wondering what the "benefits" of having same-sex parents would be. All the research I've seen shows that children are better off raised in a family with biological parents of opposite sexes that are married to each other. Related Lin...

As I was somewhat distracted on Friday , I didn't get around to typing out Trotter's From the Left opinion piece from the Dominion Post. It's now appeared online, saving me the trouble. When you deal with the devil, the devil always wins. I think it's notable that people like Trotter are so impressed with Key. So, here's Chris Trotter in full isn't he just wonderful on John Key and his deal with Labour. Key morphs into prime minister Okay, I admit it, I was wrong about John Key. What he did on Wednesday afternoon was quite extraordinary. Not only did he help his principal political opponent out of a very deep hole, but he also told the denizens of the far Christian Right that they should stay in theirs. The pro-smacking lobby was positively salivating at the thought of 18 more months of promoting their creepy version of Christianity to the New Zealand public. And I'm sure their leaders were also secretly delighted at being given such a wonderful opport...

I visited the principal of my children's school this morning to discuss the issue of my youngest child's class being asked by their teacher yesterday as to what happened to them at home if they were naughty. The principal didn't seem disturbed by this but he's going to find out why the teacher asked. He didn't indicate whether or not he thought it was appropriate or not, and it seems there is nothing that can be done to stop teachers asking this question of children. The upshot is, any person can report any child to CYF if they feel a child is at risk of emotional or physical harm. There is nothing the principal can do if a teacher decides that smacking constitutes physical harm and decides to report it. As this is a Catholic school, I gave him a copy of the Bishop's statement (initially blogged by Mr Tips ), containing the following key sentences: However, we also recognise that alongside the need to protect children’s safety and wellbeing, there is also a ...

My six year old child tonight, over dinner, told me that his teacher asked all the children in the class what their parents do when they are naughty. Many children said they were smacked. The anti-smacking law hasn't even been passed, yet. (Or have I missed it?) I'm going to be talking to the principal of the school tomorrow about this.

Stephen Franks on Bradford wins complete S.59 victory Sue Bradford on Close Up, worth watching for seeing her reaction to being asked if she would resign if there were any prosecutions for light smacking under her new bill. (When you click on the link, go to the "related video" box, and choose "Smacking compromise" to play the video.) How do I feel about all this? Not happy.

Along the way on my journey to conservatism, there have been a number of historical events and stories of people within those events that have really stuck and helped penetrate the fog of liberalism that I had been sucked in by over the years from my childhood to adulthood. One such event, the stories of which I had been told from when I was a young child, were my Dad's experiences in the Soviet Union during WW2. However, it wasn't until I had grown older and read more and understood more that my Grandmother dying during the journey out of the Soviet Union gained a real significance to my own motherhood, and thereby took on a whole new meaning. My Dad's entire family was rounded up at the beginning of WW2 from their home in Poland by the invading Soviet army, and herded into cattle cars for the trip into Siberia from Poland in the middle of winter. Apparently many children died during this trip, as the cattle cars (designed to move cattle) were not heated. Food was l...

Can anyone back this up? If you saw Agenda tonight, please comment. Just watching Agenda, with Key, Barnett, Clark & Bradford on. Key has just trumped Bradford & Clark. He stated unequivocally that, if parents are criminalized by the amendment for light smacking, then, if elected PM, he will change the legislation to prevent that. What it means is that National's support for the amendment is conditional on the amendment functioning in the way that the likes of Bradford & Clark are saying it is supposed to work, and, if that turns out to not be the case, then it will be amended so that it does function that way. Related Link: Peter S on David Farrar's blog

Yes, according to the Herald , John Key and Helen Clark met this morning and reached a compromise of sorts on the smacking bill with an amendment that reads - To avoid doubt it is affirmed that police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against a parent of a child, or person in the place of a parent of a child, in relation to an offence involving the use of force against a child where the offence is considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution. Now, to me, that isn't much of a compromise. Smacking your child will still be against the law but police will have the powers to decide whether to prosecute or not (which they already do). They will probably also have to refer the matter to CYFS, who are a law unto themselves. So, don't be fooled. This isn't any kind of victory for parents or for families in this country. Smacking your child will still be illegal. UPDATE by Lucyna : See Not PC for a more detailed p...

An expert in child correction is in the country (someone who actually knows what he is talking about) and is supposed to be meeting with the major political parties on Tuesday (today?) and Wednesday, according to info on the Family First website . Snippet below from FF website - "There is No Sound Scientific Evidence to Support Anti-Smacking Bans" ROBERT E. LARZELERE PhD Associate Professor of Psychology Dept. Human Development & Family Science - Oklahoma State University Dr Larzelere has been one of the world's foremost experts on child correction for the past 30 years - including: • One of three social scientific expert witnesses on the side of successfully defending a similar section to NZ’s s59 of Canada’s Criminal Code. (The social scientific expert witnesses on the other side included Joan Durrant. Durrant has been painted as the authority on smacking bans in NZ yet was ignored in her own country!) • Member of Task Force on Corporal Punishment - American Ps...