The editor of the New Zealand Law Students Association (NZLSA) publication LEX has just advised me that she has published my article “Three Strikes: Proportion and Protection.” In it I argue that the objections to the The Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill (a.k.a the “Three Strikes Bill”) on the basis that it affronts the proportionality [...]
Entries from September 22nd, 2009
Published – Three Strikes: Proportion and Protection
September 22nd, 2009 2 Comments
Tags: Public Policy · Publication · Punishment · Three Strikes Bill
Pulse Check
September 20th, 2009 3 Comments
We have not fallen off the face of the earth, just too much on. Auckland Bloggers drinks was very cool, extremely packed out and seriously a who’s who of blogging – for a list of who may or may not have been present see Ryan Sproull’s write up of the night. We then went straight [...]
Tags: Andy Moore · Dave Crampton · David Farrar · Forum on the Family
Tekton E-Book: John Loftus’ Why I Became an Atheist Refuted Feat. MandM
September 17th, 2009 5 Comments
Tekton Education and Apologetics ministries have released an online book, John Loftus’ Why I Became an Atheist Refuted, as a special edition for their E-Block Online Journal. While most of the book is authored by JP Holding, Chapter 2 is not completely, Chapter 2: “The Christian Illusion of Rational and Moral Superiority” — Two part [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · E-Book · God and Morality · John Loftus · JP Holding · Tekton Apologetics Ministries
Christchurch Event: John Boscawen, David Garrett, Larry Baldock on s59
September 16th, 2009 4 Comments
Recently I attended a public meeting in support of John Boscawen’s Bill to restore the right of parents to use reasonable force for the purposes of correction in the course of parenting removed by the current s59 of the Crimes Act. This Bill will be voted on shortly and for those of us who voted [...]
Tags: David Garrett · John Boscawen · John Key · Larry Baldock · Referenda · s59 · Smacking
Rest in Peace William Alston
September 15th, 2009 3 Comments
Philosopher William Alston died peacefully in his home in Jamestown New York on 13 September 2009 aged 87; he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just a week earlier. Many of my readers will not know but Alston was one of the leading contemporary Christian Philosophers of the last fifty years. I discovered his writings [...]
Tags: William Alston
Auckland Bloggers Drinks Feat. David Farrar – This Thursday!
September 14th, 2009 4 Comments
This week a number of non-Auckland bloggers will be in Auckland for the Forum on the Family. So, Annie Fox and I have conspired to hold an impromptu Bloggers Bar Bash this Thursday and David Farrar has confirmed his appearance. What: A social gathering of bloggers and bloupies (those who read, comment on and hang [...]
Tags: Bloggers Drinks · David Farrar
Sunday Study: Interpreting the Sixth Commandment Part II
September 13th, 2009 11 Comments
In a previous post, Sunday Study: Interpreting the Sixth Commandment Part I, I discussed some translations of the sixth commandment of the Decalogue. I began with the King James Version (KJV), “thou shall not kill.”[1] I looked at problems with this translation most famously raised by Augustine. The New International Version (NIV) and New Revised [...]
Tags: Augustine · Ethics · Old Testament Ethics · Sunday Study · Ten Commandments · Theology
September 11
September 11th, 2009 15 Comments
Today I reflect, as do many, where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about the attacks on the World Trade Tower. Like my parents generation’s remembrance of where they were and what they were doing when Kennedy was assassinated and their parents remembrance of the news of V-Day this was [...]
Goff on Labour’s Mistakes: What about Fixing a Few Phil?
September 11th, 2009 6 Comments
I have got to give it to Phil Goff, the more I hear from him the more I like. I grew up in a Social Credit family. I lived in Uncle Gary’s East Coast Bays electorate, my mum was even his electorate secretary at one point. I remember watching my father and uncle on the [...]
Tags: Chris Flatt · Labour Party · Phil Goff
The 2009 Forum on the Family: A Review
September 20th, 2009 11 Comments
On Friday Madeleine and I attended the Forum on the Family and the following is our long awaited (and long) review of it. The Forum kicked off with an impassioned talk from Bev Adair. Bev gave a harrowing account of her own story of childhood physical and sexual abuse and subsequent encounter with God that [...]
Tags: Bev Adair · Bob McCoskrie · Bruce Pilbrow · David Farrar · Family First · Greg Fleming · John Key · Maxim Institute · Phil Goff