The Myth and the American Manifesto
We did not find America: we willed it into being and the fates lacked the nerve to say no.
History
The Treaty or Te Tiriti? It Matters…
In election year it is time to wake up lazy political aspirants. Quiz them. Do they know what they are signing up to if they talk about “Te Tiriti”?
Waitangi Day – A Day of Pride
Waitangi Day will never bring unity. New Zealand Day just might.
The Forgotten Master Who Made C S Lewis
He died in 1905. Lewis called him the closest writer to the Spirit of Christ. The church buried him anyway.
On the Cession of Sovereignty, the Record Is Clear
History should discipline politics, not be reshaped by it. On sovereignty, the record is clear – but politically inconvenient for some.
The Panic of 1857: An Austrian View
A massive amount of money was created, interest rates fell below the natural rate, and money flowed into malinvestments of higher-order goods like land and railroad construction.
Diving into Obscurity: the Films of Jesus Franco
How a trash-cult auteur helped shape modern cinema.
Why Western Tasmania Wants to Burn
Like the rest of south-east Australia, Tasmania is a landscape shaped by humans for millennia.
Remembering the Holocaust When the Witnesses Are Gone
When my wife describes her teacher’s tattoo, I’m reminded that the Holocaust was made possible by the deliberate reduction of a person to a number. Jan 27 marks the day the world found the courage to reject that logic. When the witnesses are gone, education will matter more than ever.
Challenger Blew up in a Different World
The disaster shocked the world and marked the beginning of the end for NASA.
The Speech NZ Still Refuses To Confront
I wish National still had a leader like Dr Brash. Someone not scared to talk the truth.
Has Earth Seen Its Last ‘Ice Age’?
Over the next tens of thousands of years, it’s reasonable to assume that humanity will have pioneered numerous ways to geoengineer the planet’s climate on rapid timescales, so another ice age could very well be preventable.
When the Signals Are Ignored
In 2026, decades-long delays between cancer signals and action are no longer defensible. In an era of unprecedented analytic power, the absence of a dedicated mechanism for rapid, independent signal validation represents a profound public health failure.
This Widely Shared Claim Collapses Under Scrutiny
Did Palestinians shelter Holocaust survivors?