The Herald reports:

Let’s start a replacement America’s Cup.

A proper one, with one set of rules for everyone and genuine competition. Not some heavily-rigged pretence at sport which is actually a play for power and money. That’s what Oracle Team USA served up with their protocol for the 35th America’s Cup this week.

This is a jack-up so obvious it should be called the Jack Cup. This went beyond the usual America’s Cup defender giving themselves an advantage. This is the US Army, armed with nukes, drones and heat-seeking missiles versus Spongebob Squarepants waving a sharp teaspoon. This is ensuring retention of the Cup under the banner of taking sailing to the masses and making it more commercial. Translation: more of everything for Oracle.

Even at his worst, Alinghi billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli wasn’t this bad in 2007. Oh, he had plans to race in the challenger series, which gives the defender the knowledge they need to arm their boat to repel all rivals and was also perceived to control Cup officials and could throw challengers out of the regatta.

But his regatta in Valencia saw challengers benefit from the profits – Emirates Team NZ trousered 7 million ($12.2 million). Oracle’s plans include no such largesse for anyone else. They take the lot.

Team NZ should announce that the rules are unacceptable and they will not compete, if they are not changed.

Further the NZ Government should announce they will not give one further dollar to a challenge, if these are the rules. It would be throwing good money away.

If you’re doubting the Antipodes could host an America’s Cup clone, don’t. A major sponsor (the longest continuous sponsorship in sport), Louis Vuitton, are now sundered from the event and are far more philosophically inclined to partner Team NZ than Oracle.

They did in 2009-2010, combining to stage an AC-style event in Auckland while the Cup was going through its interminable court ordeal.

A new event would be cheaper, fairer and more accessible. It could be staged in Australia or New Zealand, or even both, and would eventually grow to be its own event, maybe even overshadowing the Cup which could stand proudly in the Golden Gate Yacht Club trophy cabinet – forgotten and uncontested.

That’s a worthwhile idea. Form a new cup and with permanent fair rules.

Labour have announced:

A Labour government will set up a special Earthquake Court to speed up the claims process for Cantabrians still waiting for resolution after almost four years, and immediately begin working on protecting flood-risk homes.

Umm as I understand it the bench in Christchurch has effectively already done this. They have set aside extra hearing hours for earthquake claims, so this is not really a change.

“An Earthquake Court – a special division of the Canterbury District Court – will deal with insurance claims of up to $1 million.

That would require a law change (which takes a year or so) as the District Courts Act 1947 sets a limit of $200,000 for civil claims. So is Labour going to increase the jurisdiction of the District Court to $1 million for all civil cases, or just earthquake insurance claims?

“To reduce the burden on families all costs, including lawyers’ costs and expert witness fees, will be paid for by the Crown. 

Oh God. That will mean absolutely no one will settle. If the taxpayer (through EQC) is paying for costs on all sides, then you’d be mad to settle. Absolutely everyone will head to court. The lawyers will love this policy – but I tell you what – it will clog the legal system up even more.

The Herald editorial:

Now, the Auckland Council has ventured into this area. As part of a wider bylaw covering cemeteries and crematoriums, it wants to prevent people scattering ashes in any public place – including beaches and parks – unless they have written approval from the council or Wahi Tapu Maori Komiti, a Maori committee overseeing sacred areas. Even people wanting to scatter ashes in a public cemetery would need to fill in approval forms and pay an “applicable” fee to the council.

Predictably enough, the proposal has attracted a storm of protest.

That anger is justified on several grounds. The council documents on the issue provide no detailed background to suggest major problems are arising from the scattering of ashes, either in terms of health or other risk, cultural sensitivities, or the growing extent of the practice. While cremations have become more popular, there are still only about 3000 a year in Auckland, compared with 2200 burials. That is a long way from the situation in Britain, where problems have arisen from the 420,000 cremations annually.

This suggests that, in the main, the council is looking for a solution where no significant problem exists. 

Exactly. And if there is a problem in a couple of discrete areas, then all you need is a couple of signs there asking people not to spread ashes there. What you don’t need is a law requiring you to gain permission to spread ashes anywhere in Auckland – let alone pay a fee for it.

A funeral celebrant described the council’s proposals as “crass”. That is apt. On an issue that demanded subtlety, it has employed a sledgehammer. Its proposal warrants the most rapid of burials.

It seems Wellington City already has such a policy. It should also be scrapped. I imagine almost everyone just ignores it anyway.

Rob Hosking writes in NBR:

As suggested here some time ago, a slow re-alignment on New Zealand’s political Left is under way.

Labour has been in slow decline for 20 years: the decline started during the battles over Rogernomics and Helen Clark’s 15-year reign saw further chipping away of Labour’s core vote.

New Zealand’s political Left has what we have called the “Tea Party Tendency” which holds Labour has not been sufficiently socialistic enough: the Tea Partygoers are spread among Labour and the Greens but their views are similar: they hold that Helen Clark was a sell-out “neo-liberal” (whatever that term is defined as this week) and nothing will do but a total overturn of the post-1984 economic reforms.

Yeah, they’re still obsessed by the late 1980s. How you tell if someone is a member of this following is if they use the term neo-liberal in political conversation.

Ms Harre is something of a hero to many of this faction and will pull further votes from Labour – probably more from Labour than from the Greens. The Green Party now has a strong brand and whatever else can be said about the party, it knows what it stands for.

The advantage for National will be twofold: most obviously, the parties are scrapping over the same vote. Few, if any, National voters feel Labour needs to become more left wing.

The other advantage can be framed in terms of the economic concept of opportunity costs: what is spent on one thing cannot be spent on another thing.

In political terms, Labour, Green and Internet/Mana activists will spend more time, energy and money fighting each other than fighting the government.

Which is why it took Labour three days to comment on the Greens’ carbon tax. Hosking notes:

Labour, though, was caught flat-footed again: after sending mixed messages on the Internet Party/Harre/Mana mashup over the past week, Labour appeared to be blindsided by the Greens using a party conference to announced an eye-catching policy in election year.

The best Labour managed was a spluttered comment that it “does not comment on other party’s policies.”

Someone perhaps needs to sit down with the Labour Party and go over the basics of this politics thing again.  I suspect diagrams might be needed, and perhaps a big thick crayon.

Heh.

Just got back from seeing Equivocation, at Circa. It’s on for two more weeks until Sat 21 June.

The play is about telling the truth in difficult times, with a fictitious setting of Shakespeare having been commissioned to write a play based on Guy Fawkes’ Gunpowder Plot. Does Shakespeare tell the truth about the plot, or the version the Government in the form of Sir Robert Cecil wants?

The cast has five men who play multiple roles each, and one woman – Tai Berdinner-Blades who plays Shakespeare’s daughter Judith.

Andrew Foster plays Shakespeare – still grieving his dead son (Judith’s twin) and having to choose between choosing to lie or choosing to live.

Paul McLaughlin play Shakespeare friend and troupe actor Richard. he also plays Jesuit Henry Garnet.

Tom Eason plays young actor Sharpe, and King James I.

Jason Whyte plays an older actor Nate, but also the sinister Sir Robert Cecil.

And finally Gavin Rutherford is at his comic best playing Armin and many other roles.

It’s a long play, almost three hours long (including an interval). The first Act was a bit slow, but the second Act was fast paced and often funny.

The play breaks pretty much the first, second, third and fourth walls. You’re never quite sure if you’re seeing the play, seeing them play a rehearsal, seeing them play a play – or just seeing them talk to the audience. There’s lots of audience interaction – especially for those in the aisles.

The acting was first class, with all six cast playing their roles very well. The costume changes were non-stop, and the overall plot very cleverly done with many allusions to other plays – especially the Scottish one. It was a fun thought provoking night.

John Banks announced:

“Further to the of the decision of the High Court at Auckland last Thursday,  I will  resign the seat of Epsom effective from 5pm this Friday the 13th of  June 2014” Mr Banks said.
 

“I will write to the Speaker tomorrow advising him of my resignation, said Mr Banks.
 

“This timeframe allows a number of constituency, administrative and staffing matters in Epsom and Wellington to be dealt with over the next few days.
 

“I have been privileged to serve the people of Epsom and New Zealand at both a local level and in Wellington. 
 

“I have given my heart and soul over four decades to making a worthwhile contribution to this country.  I have always endeavoured to do the right thing.  Consequently I am deeply saddened at this turn of events.
 

“As the matter is still before the Court I will be making no further comment” said Mr Banks.

If you’ve ever wondered what the fuss about Net Neutrality is about, then you can get both informed and very amused by this piece from John Oliver on it.

Labour have announced:

A Labour Government will ensure all Kiwis can access Adult and Community Education courses by restoring National’s devastating funding cuts, Labour Leader David Cunliffe says.

“Labour will provide funding of $13 million in the first two years and a further $9 million in the following years for this important area of education. We will also provide $1 million a year for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses.

“Labour will work with the Adult and Community Education (ACE) sector to ensure funding is targeted to the areas offering the most value.

“ACE gives Kiwis the chance to make their lives better; be it through literacy and numeracy classes to improve their employment chances, computer training for new career options or ESOL classes to ease their settlement into their new communities.

“A 2008 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that for every government dollar invested in this sector there was at least a $16 return.

A $16 return on investment. Truly? If so, this would be the bets investment known to mankind for any Government to make. But Eric Crampton looks at the so called study:

So folks taking adult ed courses are assumed to have a 50% reduction in their chances of committing a crime.

Yep, that’s the basis of Labour Party policy. Take an ACE course and your chance of committing a crime is halved. Almost magical.

PWC cites a 1999 working paper as evidence; a 2004 AER piece by the same author has the crime reduction associated with high school graduation as being less than half that figure (14-26%). This latter study uses a far more cautious identification strategy: changes in minimum age of dropping out of school as instrument for completion rates. And note that the numbers cited are for HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION, not for taking a night course in Indian cooking. 

So graduating high school reduces propensity to crime by 14% to 26%, but Labour is saying taking a cooking or pottery course will reduce crime by 50!!!

Never mind that crime, and especially violent crime, has fallen much faster since the ACE funding was slashed, then when it was bloated under Labour.

There are some very good ACE courses, such as English language courses and literacy and numeracy courses. They still get funded.

The courses that taxpayers used to subsidise include:

• Floral arranging
• Stained glass windows
• Spanish
• Pottery
• Indian and Moroccan cooking
• Cake decorating

This is the priority for Labour. Not paying the best teachers more. It’s subsidising pottery classes for wealthy people.

Andrew Geddis blogs:

I’m conflicted about how outraged I should be at Banks’ actions. Yes, Banks is guilty of deliberately trying to hide from the world the identity of donors to his campaign that (for whatever reason) he thought might prove embarrasing down the track. This is a bad thing for politicians at any level to do. However, Banks’ opponent at the relevant mayoral election was also busy hiding from the world the identity of those who funded his campaign … he just did it more cleverly by utilising a trust as a conduit. So is the real issue here that Banks just didn’t obey the letter rather than the spirit of the law?

Banks broke the law, and that is not something to be minimised. However as Geddis points out the impact of his actions is no different to what Len Brown did. They both hid donations – just that Brown used a trust to avoid disclosure (which was legal) and Banks did not.

Fourth, it is true that Banks only has to leave Parliament if he gets convicted of the offence he is guilty of (conviction and guilt are not the same thing). But I really, really hope he doesn’t get discharged without conviction – New Zealand has a terrible record of pursuing and punishing electoral offences (the police still haven’t actioned a bunch of complaints from the last election campaign!), and so to (effectively) let off an MP for breaching electoral law would reinforce the message that these sorts of rules really don’t matter. Furthermore, the honourable thing for Banks to do would be to resign now … it’s a bad look for Parliament as an institution to have an MP guilty of an offence that should see him thrown out hanging on in the hope that a court will spare him that indignity. By all means Banks should carry on trying to clear his name with appeals and the like, but he won’t be doing the institution any favours if he insists on his right to remain.

If Banks doesn’t resign, but is convicted, we then have the issue of what happens is his seat is vacated. Here’s the time-frame.

• 31 July – last House sitting day
• 1 August – sentencing of Banks
• 3 August – deadline for Registrar to notify the Speaker of conviction
• 4 August – vacancy declared in Gazette
• 14 August – Parliament dissolved
• 20 August – Writ Day for general election
• 25 August – deadline for Governor-General to issue writ for a by-election

The media have said that if Banks is convicted on 1 August, then Parliament would need to reconvene to decide not to hold the by-election. I’m not sure that would be necessary, even though it would remove doubt.

S129(4) of the Electoral Act says no by-election is needed for a vacancy that occurs after Parliament is dissolved or expires. Now the vacancy would occur before the dissolution, but the writ would not have to be issued until after the writs for the general election has been issued.

I think electoral officials could use discretion to decide that a general election writ for Epsom supercedes a by-election writ for Epsom, and not to hold the by-election eve if Parliament didn’t vote not to have it. The by-election would not be held before the general election and would be of no consequence.

So if Banks does not resign (which seems unlikely), and is convicted on 1 August, it may not be necessary for Parliament to reconvene to vote not to have a by-election. If the Government just delays the writ until after the writ for the general election, I’d say common sense would see prevail. I can’t see a Judge ever ruling that the Electoral Commission must run a by-election after the general election writs have been issue.

The Herald reports:

The German internet mogul said he would definitely considering running for Parliament if he gained citizenship, ideally before the 2017 general election.

Maybe he could stand for Mana in Epsom?

An upbeat Dotcom dismissed speculation about a backroom deal involving the Labour Party pulling out of the Te Tai Tokerau race or fielding a purposely weak candidate in an Epsom tea party-type arrangement.

Such a deal would virtually guarantee a seat in Parliament for Dotcom’s new ally, Mana Party leader Hone Harawira.

“I had no chat with David Cunliffe,” Dotcom said, referring to the Labour Party leader. ” I don’t think Hone needs that. I think he’s going to win the seat easily.”

If that is the case, why are so many on the left almost hysterically demanding Labour concede the seat to Harawira? I suspect they know that Davis is a strong popular candidate, and Hone’s deal won’t have gone down well with many voters.

Outside the theatre, protester Dave Blackmore parked his car, a Lada rebranded “Lardarse” with the number plate “DOTCON”. He said legal reasons prevented him from going into detail about his gripe with Dotcom but he’d had “dealings with him” before and was displeased.

The number of former colleagues, friends and staff who have fallen out with Dotcom is massive. It’s almost as if there is a trend, or underlying issue!

The HoS reports:

A New Zealander has been killed while fighting in Syria – the first Kiwi casualty in the civil war.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) said it is aware of “unconfirmed reports” a New Zealander has died fighting in the Middle East country.

It did not say when the death happened but confirmed the ministry provided consular assistance.

MFAT refused to release any further details, citing several reasons including privacy and a threat to national security.

The Kiwi’s death was also mentioned in a public statement by Syria’s permanent representative in New York, in which he referred to “criminals, mercenaries” from around the world.

“Thousands of innocent Syrians got killed, thousands were wounded, because of so-called cross border terrorists. They call themselves roundly speaking jihadists, they are not.

“For your information some of the terrorists who got killed came from Burkina Faso, some of them came from New Zealand … this is just to let you understand how absurd the issue we are dealing with.”

I’m not sure if the NZer is an immigrant, or was born here, but either way it is disturbing that one or more NZers are fighting in a civil war in Syria. If they are immigrants, then it suggests we need better targeting to exclude extremists.

A spokesman for the New Zealand-based Syrian Solidarity, Ali Akil, argued the fighters were not terrorists, but were helping to depose the murderous Bashar al-Assad regime. “If there is any terrorism, then it is the terrorism of Assad and his associates,” said Akil.

Banning passports would not stop New Zealanders from travelling to Syria to take up arms, he said.

“If they want to get there, they will get there. I would hope that the New Zealand public does care about what’s happening over there.

“We don’t encourage people to go and fight. They don’t need fighters; they do need weapons and food.”

The Assad regime is loathsome and should go. But some of the opposition groups are little better.

Oliver Hartwich writes in the NBR:

This year’s global publishing sensation has been Capital in the 21st Century, a tome on the alleged rise of inequality in developed countries. 

Written by French economist Thomas Piketty, it argues that over long periods of time, capitalist societies had become more polarised. He claims the cause of this growing gap between the rich and the poor is the rate of return on capital exceeding the rate of economic growth. To correct this development, Piketty then proposes targeted state intervention of a redistributionist nature.

After an initially glowing international reception of the book, led by economists such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, a Financial Times investigation into Piketty’s data sources revealed some serious flaws in his argument. 

Chris Giles, the FT’s economics editor, concluded Piketty’s spreadsheets were riddled with “transcription errors from the original sources and incorrect formulas. It also appears that some of the data are cherry-picked or constructed without an original source.” 

Having corrected for these errors, Giles concluded, Piketty’s central thesis of rising wealth inequality collapses.

It’s like the Spirit Level – they try and pick the data to fit the thesis.

The FT was not the first publication to point out the data issues in Piketty’s work. Last September, economist and historian Nicolas Baverez already pointed out in Le Point magazine there were serious doubts about the data used in the original French edition of Capital. 

You don’t like my data, I’ll just invent it!

Regardless of these methodological questions, there are a few things that are odd about Piketty’s approach. His analysis of a widening gap between rich and poor in developed, capitalist countries (if it holds) may be interesting but it ignores a much more important development. 

While there may be growing inequality within countries, on a global scale we are observing the very opposite between countries.

To understand this development, it is instructive to consider a few figures. In 1980, China’s per capita GDP was 1.5% of US per capita GDP. By 2012, this had risen to 10.5%. 

The increase in South Korea was even stronger over the same period: from 13.2% in 1980 to 39.1% in 2012. Meanwhile, Malaysia made the journey from 14.3% to 20.1%; Peru from 9.5% to 13.1% and Botswana from 8.4% to 14.0%. 

How did North Korea go? They have almost no income inequality.

By embracing globalisation, these formerly less developed countries have thus played catch-up with the developed West. The more economically liberal they have become, the faster and stronger was their convergence. 

Sadly, the same cannot be said for other countries, mostly in Africa, that did not make the transition toward liberal, open economies and have remained poor as a result. However, the convergence – especially of Asian countries – is a remarkable success story.

It is instructive to consider Piketty’s claims in this context. Even if he were right about economic polarisation happening within developed nations, he would have to concede that globally inequality is diminishing between those countries adopting the capitalist model. 

The evidence is beyond dispute.

As countries move toward a free market system, their productivity improves, their incomes shoot up and incidentally they also improve on most other measures such as education, health and life expectancy. 

On this global scale, the spread of free market capitalism is a gigantic development programme. It produces results that decades of government aid could not deliver. And it is closing the gap between the world’s rich and poor.

Indeed.

As developing countries become more free market, developed countries’ response cannot be to become more regulated and redistributionist. Yet this is what Piketty recommends. 

If implemented, such policies would only render developed nations less competitive against their newly developed challengers. This in turn would exacerbate the problem he seeks to address.

Whoever cares about (global) inequality should support capitalism, not fight it. 

Well said.

Don Brash writes on Facebook:

So the court has found John Banks guilty. Three observations. First, I have known John Banks for 30 years and have not found him to be anything other than an honest man. Second, it is a huge tragedy for a man who has overcome great personal difficulties; served with distinction as a Member of Parliament, as a Minister, and as the mayor of Auckland; and helped to raise three Russian orphans.

But third, when I contrast what John Banks was found by the court to have done with what Helen Clark’s Labour Party did in 2005 – without the slightest attempt by the Police to call her to account – the offence of which he has been found guilty is utterly trivial.

In 2005, the Labour Party spent Parliamentary funding to the extent of more than three-quarters of a million dollars on explicit electioneering, despite having been warned against doing so by both the Auditor General and the Chief Electoral Officer just weeks before the election. Yes, they eventually repaid that money, but only under strong protest. And of course by that the time the election was won.

And what they could not undo, and were never held to account for, was grossly overspending the legal limit on spending in that election. The Police, in a disgracefully biased decision, decided not to prosecute, despite the Labour Party’s own auditors finding that the Party had unambiguously breached the legal spending limit if spending on their infamous “pledge card” was election spending. And did anybody who saw that “pledge card” think it was NOT part of Labour’s election campaign?

Whatever John Banks did in trying to raise money to finance his mayoral campaign in 2010 did not affect the outcome of that election. By contrast, Labour’s illegal behaviour almost certainly did affect the result of the 2005 election.

Excellent points by Don Brash. Banks was wrong to break the law, but Labour’s law breaches in 2005 were much more significant and did have an impact on the election result.

Some fairly obscure ones this week. Quiz is here.

This tells us a number of things.

• HB Today asks the Labour candidate to supply a poor person to use in their story on poverty in the HB.
• HB Today don’t know anyone in poverty, but want to find someone as they wish to write a story on poverty in the HB
• Stuart Nash doesn’t know anyone in poverty. He’s had to go to Facebook to try and find someone in poverty

The Electoral Commission has released its funding decisions for broadcasting allocations. Sadly political parties are banned in law by being able to purchase broadcast advertisements. The get allocated an amount by the Commission, who have $3.2 million for this purpose.

The criteria the Commission use are:

• Party and electorate votes at the last election
• Votes at any by-elections since
• No of current MPs
• Any alliances (Mana-Internet)
• Polls
• Membership
• Fair opportunities

I’ve done a little table showing the amount allocated to the main parties, and comparing it to their party vote last time, and the average in the public polls since the election (up until when the Commission met).

These are not the only two criteria, but it is interesting to look at the results. Based on vote at the last elections National and Conservatives get a $1 per vote. Labour, Greens and NZ First $1.36 to $1.62 and the smaller parties $3 to $5. This is pretty standard that the smaller parties get proportionally a bit more.

In terms of dollars per average % in the polls, National gets $23,000 per %, Labour $28,000, Greens $33,000, Conservatives $38,000 and NZ First 38,000.

Stuff reports:

The Greens have ratified a policy on abortion, which would get rid of a process a certified consultant says is “perfectly workable”.

Abortion is a crime under the Crimes Act, and is legal only if two consultants agree that the pregnancy would seriously harm the woman’s physical or mental health, or that there is a substantial risk the child would be born seriously disabled.

The Greens want abortion removed from the crime statutes, saying it would reduce stigma and judgment surrounding the procedure. This would mean a woman seeking one would not need external approval.

“The Green Party trusts women to make decisions that are best for them and their whanau/family,” women’s spokeswoman Jan Logie said.

The current practice and current law are out of sync. We effectively have abortion on demand in practice, but the law states that a woman has to prove damage to her mental health to have an abortion. I don’t know of any cases where this is not deemed proved, so it is just an unnecessary bureaucratic step,

Statistics from 2012, the latest available, showed 14,745 abortions were carried out in New Zealand, the lowest number since 1995. The median age of women having an abortion was 25 years and in 62 per cent of cases it was the woman’s first abortion. 

It’s good the numbers are falling. My view is abortion should be legal, safe and rare.

The issue is a conscience vote for most MPs. But if I was an MP, I’d support the Greens policy.

Mad Magazine are the latest to pile into Obama on his trade of an American POW for five Taliban held at Gitmo. Bergdahl appears to be a deserter, and while this doesn’t mean you don’t try and recover him, it does suggest the five to one trade was far too high. Even Democrats are now attacking Obama on this.

James Taranto at the WSJ writes:

“If I’ve lost Neuman, I’ve lost Middle America.” That’s how we imagine President Obama reacting to being scathed by MAD magazine. The Usual Gang of Idiots tweeted a parody poster yesterday for “Barack Obama’s Unfortunate New Movie,” titled “Trading Private Bergdahl.” The tag line: “They got five Taliban leaders. We got one deserting weasel. The mission is a disaster.” Obama is depicted as the lead actor, with the Taliban quintet in supporting roles. The picture is rated “NC” for “No Congressional Approval.”

How in the world did an administration known for political competence, if for no other kind, manage to pull off such a public-relations disaster? The answer is that the left has a very large blind spot when it comes to military culture.

There’s been speculation that the White House intended the Bergdahl release as a distraction from the Veterans Administration scandal. Certainly it has served as such a diversion, not to mention a reminder to be careful what you wish for.

Adding to Obama’s woes is that there is a law saying the President must notify Congress 30 days before the release of any prisoner from Gitmo. Obama ignored the law, as he indicated he might do when signing the law.  This is not uncommon – but the heads of the relevant congressional committees were not even given a heads up in advance – and they are very peeved.

Obama is in his final term. This will however reduce his ability to get much done in the last two and a half years of his term. It also gives the Republicans another weapon for the mid-terms.

Matthew Beveridge looks at the non-partisan group Rock Enrol.

He notes several things:

• All three directors have a background with the Greens or environmental groups
• The band they are working with is Homebrew, who infamously called the Prime Minister a c**t who should suck their dicks at the Vodafone Music Awards. Just a few days ago the band is still tweeting obscenities at or about John Key
• Their advertising has been restricted to left-wing blogs also

I think it is a very fair conclusion that the only young people they want to enrol are those who also hate John Key. Actions speak louder than words, and the involvement of Homebrew makes it an event no one non-partisan would want to be involved with. Could you imagine in a thousand years the Young Nationals (for example) being involved with a concert where the main band is one that detests and hates National and John Key?

Now there’s nothing wrong with a partisan left-wing group encouraging young people to enrol and change the Government. The issue is transparency – which Matthew has supplied.

It would be great to have a truly non-partisan campaign that encourages more young people to enrol and vote. This is not it.

The NY Times reports:

On a spring evening in 1989, with the student occupation of Tiananmen Square entering its second month and the Chinese leadership unnerved and divided, top army commanders were summoned to headquarters to pledge their support for the use of military force to quash the protests.

One refused.

In a stunning rebuke to his superiors, Maj. Gen. Xu Qinxian, leader of the mighty 38th Group Army, said the protests were a political problem, and should be settled through negotiations, not force, according to new accounts of his actions from researchers who interviewed him.

“I’d rather be beheaded than be a criminal in the eyes of history,” he told Yang Jisheng, a historian.

Although General Xu was soon arrested, his defiance sent shudders through the party establishment, fueling speculation of a military revolt and heightening the leadership’s belief that the student-led protests were nothing less than an existential threat to the Communist Party.

If only there had been a few more brave men like him who refused to say yes to killing peaceful protesters.

Stuff reports:

Renowned atheist Richard Dawkins has been accused of having a science delusion after launching a scathing attack on children’s fairy tales.

The British scientist, known for his assaults on religion in books such as The God Delusion, has told a science festival audience that parents should ditch fairy tales in order to “foster a spirit of scepticism” in their children.

“I think it’s rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism,” The Times reports him saying.

“Even fairy tales, the ones we all love, about witches and wizards or princes turning into frogs. There’s a very interesting reason why a prince could not turn into a frog. It’s statistically too improbable.”

Oh my God, what a tool.

Let’s just kill off all imagination in kids also.

Dawkins told the festival in Cheltenham, England, that a scientific approach to the world was far superior to a “second-rate” supernatural one.

He cited the Winnie-the-Pooh stories as implausible, with their idea of a bear, tiger, pig and kangaroo sharing an ecosystem.

Next he’ll tell us that Fiver in Watership Down couldn’t really have visions of the future.