What Sort of Free Society Do We Live In?

Probation officer Josie Bullock faces the sack, not for sitting in the front row at a poroporoaki (farewell ceremony) for male offenders but speaking out because she got a warning. The Corrections Department Code of Conduct rules about speaking to the media should not be about gagging people. They are supposed to be there so that public servants support the government of the day in their work, not to allow the bureaucracy to ride roughshod over people's rights - or is it actually Government policy that women should not sit in the front row at poroporaki?

Where are the unions in all this? Surely they should be speaking out for the workers' right to freedom of speech and for the freedom of the press?

BRICs and Explosions

Islamic terrorism is not necessarily Islamic -it is also a struggle against the "West".

In a recent BBC documentary about The BRICs - the up and coming large economies Brazil, Russia, India and China), it was pointed out that already the poor in the West are suffering from competition with these countries. Will terrorism go the other way?

What is the difference in philosophy between Asian who don't like the West changing their way of life and Winston Peters who claims that immigrants to NZ are changing "our way of life"?