No Credible Media

I don’t know what to call this, but I’ll start with the title “No Credible Media”, because it seems to me that the events of this week have really shot any remaining pretense of credibility on the part of the non-conservative media. But the manner in which they’ve done it is jaw-dropping. Let’s review. …but…

But there were evil people, and they were called innocent

A few months ago, an anti-smacker made some comments on this blog. Pondering his comments, something was bothering me about  his view of the Riding crop case. The question that the anti-smackers have always asked is effectively “how do guilty people get called innocent” – that is, “how do child abusers get away with it”. The…

Cost of having a child

You hear a lot of figures thrown around about how expensive it is to raise a child. Here’s a dissenting view. Many modern sources you look to will not give you the impression that having a baby is affordable. For example, Deborah Pike Olsen writes from the website, babycenter.com, “You’ll spend almost $10,000 on your baby’s first…

Section 59 is about reasonable force

Over at Mac Doctor’s, there’s a bit of discussion about Section 59. I focus on part of a reply I made there: This has been caused by the law which made beating children (with love or otherwise) illegal. No, it made reasonable force illegal. REASONABLE force. It seems you can’t argue on this without lying.…

Every New Zealander needs to watch this video

It’s very clear that the smacking law, and the attitude that it has encouraged CYFS to cultivate, are doing serious destruction to some families – destruction far worse than any light smack could ever do. Hat Tip Big News

Ian Wishart’s Live Chat

The Herald did a live chat with Ian Wishart this afternoon. The results are well worth a read. Comment From Claude Why write this book when nobody has been charged? 4:06 Ian Wishart: Good question, because many on Facebook have said this. Point of fact, Chris Kahui was charged with double murder. He was charged.…

Training is one thing, experience is another

This quote has been bandied around over the last day or so: Dr Kelly said more manpower and more training may be the only way to stop babies like Chris and Cru Kahui from dying violently. “It is one of the reasons why I think our inter-agency management of these cases is often so poor,”…

New Smacking Case

There’s a new case the Perfect Parent Lobby are adding to their “abused but let off by the courts” file*. The lead juror in the child cruelty case said she was “embarrassed to be a New Zealander” because the couple on trial were “good decent parents trying to instil a sense of responsibility”. But former…

Shame on you Amnesty

There is only one blogger that I know of in this country who has ever advocated using government power to shut down dissent. But that does not protect the children of the [people*] who organised this referendum, the people who [disagree with me**]. Those children need our protection now, and it is absolutely the business…

Extremists

Interesting how the Tea Party gets described by One News as “extremist”, even with more than a quarter of the population supporting them. Interesting because, I’ve never heard the “Yes Vote” campaign described in those terms in spite of far smaller support (6% of the voting public supported them) and a ridiculously fundamentalist position on…