Morning Roundup

The closing of a big set of browser tabs brings a few gems.

• Rohan Pearce at Computerworld notes a warning from the Law Council of Australia that Oz's encryption law breaks a few international privacy standards, and could then come into conflict with GDPR. 
• Jacob Sullum at Reason goes through some shonky anti-vaping research that claims vaping causes heart attacks, but that ignores that the heart attacks happened before the smokers switched to vaping.
• Shoeshine over at the NBR warns that woke investment strategies do not always pay off. I particularly wonder about NZX here. NZX's report on Corporate Social Responsibility suggests that boards with stronger gender diversity show higher returns - but the academic literature says there is no effect. And there's now a Kiwisaver Fund that makes sure not to invest in firms that have inadequate boardroom gender diversity. It all makes for fun pondering. If an investor picked up that Fund based on NZX's assertions about the excess returns to be had through that investment strategy, and was disappointed, could there be recourse?
• A sad end for Capital Liquor, which seems set to be hounded out of existence by the Police and Medical Officer of Health through the DLC process. They've not done anything wrong - they just want to operate during the hours allowed for under the Local Alcohol Policy. But the District Licencing Commission look to be trying to set a 6pm closing time for downtown bottleshops, licence by licence. 
• In this week's coming NBR column, I make passing reference to underarm bowling. One of the younglings here didn't know what I was talking about. If you don't know what that means, watch the documentary or get ready for the re-education camps. Discussion of the docco here.