An end to inhumanity to whales is still a dream
Japan has announced it will leave the International Whaling Commission, withdraw its ’scientific’ whaling fleet from the Southern Ocean and focus on ‘commercially harvesting’ whales from its own territorial waters.
Read More →Have my coins, we all need change
As well as the usual worthy, weekly calls from the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation, the Deaf Foundation, Foster Kids, Greenpeace, and a suite of non-governmental organisations doing important work ameliorating social, environmental, and physical ills, this week I was also called by UNICEF, asking for weekly donations.
Read More →Denial of Prisoners’ Votes Medieval Injustice
The fundamental right to vote shouldn’t be a political football. Imprisonment shouldn’t be a denial of civil rights as well as of liberty. Convicted criminals should be due court imposed sanctions, but not civil death, otherwise universal rights die too.
Read More →Feeling like a stranger in a familiar land
Whether it’s the Greens in Government, or Jacinda’s pragmatic idealism, our politicians are manifest oxymorons. Despite our hope and best wishes for a Labour-Green coalition, this political landscape is not the world we thought we knew. We’re strangers in a familiar land, or maybe we’re familiar, but the world is a strange one. The grief and disappointment despite the nicey nice hopeful and kindness stuff, (and some genuine wins), is real.
Read More →Abortion decisions in the hands of doctors and politicians should be in the hands of women
It’s ironic that with about 270,000 children living in poverty, and one of the highest child abuse and child death by maltreatment rates in the world, that women’s decisions about whether they can cope with a child, are still in the hands of doctors and politicians, not the women themselves.
Read More →First World Problems
Reckless, provocative and dangerous as Trump is, and despite the gravity of our first world concerns, they’re convenient distractions from unpalatable everyday wars and tyrrany of the world’s evil affecting the already most vulnerable and dispossessed. We’re just lucky Trump’s not at war with us.
Read More →MUST READ: The case against the hollowness of Jacinda’s Labour – we need more than words!
Are we so relieved that this government isn’t National-led that we will settle for less than what might have been? Now that with relief we finally have a Labour-led Government, have we lost a sense of inquiry and our ear for irony? Is it no longer acceptable to expect better, more, a real move away from the austerity and hypocrisy of the past nine years. How long should we wait and what compromises are we prepared to accept in the hope of eventual real change?
Read More →MUST READ: Talking about 1080 & dispelling the ignorance of science
Taking a view on 1080 is almost guaranteed to cause disagreement with at least half your friends. Indeed, it seems nothing causes strange cleavages across the political spectrum, like talking about 1080. But the subject is like a spectre – and if we don’t talk about it fundamental disagreements will never get reconciled; and we let untruths continue, misunderstandings prevail, malintentions inform.
Read More →Game theory and NZ Coalition Politics : Agenda Setters, Co-operation, Triumph and Suckers
By applying Game theory, Nested games and the Prisoner’s Dilemma to current NZ politics, we can see that NZ First is playing the sharpest game; it’s triumphant in many policy and funding allocations. Meanwhile the Greens celebrate relatively small wins, with no real incentive to defect, playing the sucker in Labour and New Zealand First’s game.
Read More →Plastic pollution? (Almost) Business as Usual – why the plastic bag ban is barely a victory
with most policy announcements, the devil is in the detail. And though it might seem churlish, if you look closer, this is more a victory for public relations than it is for our environment. As usual, political measures are too little, too late, and not even what they seem.
Read More →MUST READ: On freedom of speech and racism most vile
The most significant injustice isn’t that some barely credible white supremacists travel the world vomiting diatribe, but that racial inequality still informs and shapes life outcomes marginalising ethnic groups here and in every nation on a daily basis.
Read More →Never mind the wagging tail, the system’s a dog
This week a range of environmental group representatives, fishing company agents, scientists, consultants and international experts gathered in Wellington to review the threats facing Maui and Hector’s dolphins. The meeting was organised by DoC and Fisheries NZ and participants had to agree to Terms of Reference which included a clause saying they wouldn’t talk to the media about the proceedings.
Read More →Plastic Pollution by Manufactured Consent
Supermarkets and retail outlets have moved an inch toward addressing the hundreds of millions of plastic bags usually in a one-way journey to the landfill, by phasing out single-use check out carry bags at various outlets.
But the pervasiveness of plastic in our lives and in the environment show both market failure, and government failure, to adequately deal with the forces of production creating pollution problems way bigger than free bags at the till.
Read More →Easy Foreign Investor Target Not Necessarily the Right One
The recent release of Statistics New Zealand figures showing the levels of foreign investment in New Zealand properties confirmed biases for many. I’m not a fan of globalisation, or investor capitalism, per se, but I do have an expectation that facts will inform policy and that liberal citizens and politicians will avoid racist dog whistles misleading attention away from real causes of inequality and injustice.
Read More →MUST READ: Why the Price of Oil is a Class Concern
Modern life has most of us over a barrel. An oil barrel. The price of oil is a fundamental force in shaping our quality of life and how much take home pay is left for other needs and wants. This has all hit home in the last few weeks as the price of fuel at the petrol pump has reached its highest ever.
Read More →The case against light rail
The Government’s announcements that they are to accelerate the procurement process for light rail to the airport and to the NorthWest including Kumeu, had some pundits and young transport enthusiasts breathless with excitement.
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