Category: imported_guest
Listening to the response to National's welfare policy on talkback radio you would think National had proposed really radical reforms in the run up to next month's election. From opponents claiming the abortion rate will soar, to supporters cheering long overdue moves, people seem to believe John Key's announcements are highly significant. Are they?
Leaders grow things; they also make positive possibilities happen. So where are our ones when we need them most?
Which would you rather have in the view from your house? A thing about the size of a domestic garage, or eight towers twice the height of Nelson’s column with blades noisily thrumming the air. The energy they can produce over ten years is similar: eight wind turbines of 2.5-megawatts (working at roughly 25% capacity) roughly equal the output of an average Pennsylvania shale gas well (converted to electricity at 50% efficiency) in its first ten years.
The publication of the Auckland Plan has stimulated some vigorous and timely debate about the impact of excessive restraints of supply on the price of land in our urban areas. (Go to Interest.co.nz here and scan the 290 comments.)
Following the Maori Party's allegations of Police bias towards Maori Sensible Sentencing Trust Spokesman Garth McVicar is asking if the Maori Party is really a covert organisation in disguise!
We may all be environmentalists now. However, just as, over the last several decades, most of us have learned to be feminists, most of us have also learned to reject the dark side of the feminist movement that remains deeply Marxist in its roots and intentions.
They are both dead wrong on economic policy. The terrible economic news from both Europe and the United States has led to much soul-searching on both sides of the Atlantic. How did we get here, and how can we get out of this jam? Both economies will be able to extricate themselves from their deep slumps only by promptly reversing those policies that have brought them to the brink. A successful and sustainable political order requires stable legal and economic policies that reward innovation, spur growth, and maximize the ability of rich and poor alike to enter into voluntary arrangements. Limited government, low rates of taxation, and strong property rights are the guiding principles.
For some years I taught constitutional law at the University of Canterbury. I was also a debater, in those days when debating was a more popular activity than it is now ~ and it would happen, from time to time, when I appeared to speak in a debate, that the chairman, in introducing me, would tell the audience that I was a remarkable man, because (among other things) I lectured in constitutional law, and this in a country that did not possess a constitution! I would smile politely at this merry jest and pass on to the subject of my discourse.
The latest New Zealand Energy Strategy is a strange mixture of pragmatism, ignorance, unachievable aspirations and disregards our biggest energy resource. The policy on oil and gas is sensible and admirable. Anything that encourages exploration and development of these resources can only be applauded. But maintaining a strategy for 90% renewable energy–which, technically, is virtually unachievable–really demonstrates an ignorance of the fundamentals of so-called “climate change".
In a Rasmussen national telephone survey of American adults conducted last month, 69% say it’s likely that some scientists have falsified research data in order to support their own theories and beliefs. Only 6% say it is not at all likely.
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