It’s too easy for bad statistics to influence policy. About a decade ago, BERL added up every dollar spent by heavier drinkers, counted some other costs twice, and claimed that alcohol use cost New Zealand $4.8 billion per year. Read more

“Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won’t mistake it for the genuine article.” Poe’s Law warns that without strong warnings, parody will confuse people. We occasionally get into a bit of a pickle with the third column in our Insights newsletter. Read more

Essayist and author Nassim Taleb is more than a little tedious on Twitter. But he gets one big thing very right. Read more

It seemed a simple enough question. It was, really. Read more

Big organisations get up to a lot of stuff that looks pretty silly from the outside – and even from the inside. Corporate retreats with ridiculous team-building exercises. Read more

They say hard cases make for bad law. Hard cases are emotionally wrenching. Read more

For those of us of a certain age, part of the thrill of staying up late as a kid was getting to see and hear things on television that did not air during afternoon cartoons. Before 9pm, one set of rules applied. Read more

Last week feels like it was a year ago. And the past week has made the world feel a little smaller. Read more

I keep coming back to one tweet. Amid a steady stream of rage driven by pain and sorrow, a note of grace. Read more

Wellington is a small place. Everybody complains they’re always running into people they know, that it’s hard for young people to date people who haven’t been dated by their friends already, and that it’s impossible to have an impromptu coffee at Astoria without being recognised by some journalist. Read more

There’s an old joke about the neighbourhood dog that loved to chase cars down the road – what would it ever do if it caught one? The Government has been a bit like that with tobacco harm reduction. Read more