No Right Turn has the low down:
Oh, not in practice, of course. But in form. The Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill, passed unanimously less than an hour ago, gives Brownlee the power to repeal or modify practically any law on our statute book, without even having to refer to Cabinet, let alone Parliament.
No Right Turn on the risk to democracy that Paypal presents:
Paypal has blocked donations to the Arrest Blair campaign, supposedly on the basis that it “encourages illegal activity” (conducting a lawful citizens arrest of a rich and powerful figure apparently being illegal in the eyes of PayPal). It’s a blatantly political move — and its not the first time they’ve done it. Last week, they froze the assets of Wikileaks — a site which encourages and publishes anonymous leaks in the public interest, and is credited with “produc[ing] more scoops in its short life than the Washington Post has in the past 30 years”.
Alex Steffen of Worldchanging puts his finger on one of the more damning aspects of the politics of climate change, the vast chasm of perspective between the generations, Copenhagen and the War for the Future:
To be young and aware is to know you’re being lied to; to know that a bright green future is possible; to know that we can reimagine the world, rebuild our cities, redesign our lives, retool our factories, distribute innovation and creativity and all live in a world that is not only better than the alternative, but much better than the world we have now.
To be young and aware is to suspect that, in the end, the debate about climate action isn’t about substance, but about rich old men trying to squeeze every last dollar, euro, and yen from their investments in outdated industries. It is to agree with the environmentalist Paul Hawken that we have an economy that steals the future, sells it in the present, and calls it GDP. It is to begin to see your elders as cannibals with golf clubs.
New Zealand’s No Right Turn has some thoughts:
Now that Green has been cleared, attention must focus on those responsible: the Speaker of the House, who allowed police to search a Parliamentary office without a warrant, the Home Secretary, whose complaints led to the raid, and the Cabinet Office, which inflated the importance and sensitivity of the information in order to force a police response. These people have all either deliberately attempted to undermine the UK’s democracy, or (in the Speaker’s case) failed to do their duty to defend it. And they should be held accountable.