Here’s a piece of research that will make the Food and Drink Nazis happy. A recent British study using a cohort of a million women found that even a small amount of alcohol can increase your chances of getting cancer. Apparently the wierdos at the World Health Organisation have classified alcohol as a class 1 [...]

A study in the New Zealand Journal of Medicine questions the validity of the MoH statistics which suggest that smoking has decreased from 22.8% to 18.1%. The actual article can be found here (PDF). They reason (correctly) that  since current cigarette sales increased 7.5% from 3957 to 4253 million cigarettes, all remaining smokers would have to [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. 
You can always rely on the Herald to give us a bit of spam when we’re hungry:
Key will not guarantee tax cuts after this year
Prime Minister John Key is unwilling to give a categorical assurance that tax cuts promised for 2010 [...]

Brian Fallow commented on the Castalia report on broadband yesterday. They pour cold water on National’s plans for fibre to the home on the grounds that there is no market failure and that government intervention is not required. I can’t say I’m very convinced by their report. They make four main points, all four, of which, I think [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. 
And today’s example is kindly brought to you by the Dominion Post:
Army shifts $2m contract to China
A small-town clothing manufacturer [Swazi] has been dealt a blow on the eve of the Government’s jobs summit after being told a $2 million [...]

It what must be the most unique argument against the death penalty I have heard so far, Governor Martin O’Malley addressed Maryland Senate last week with the argument that the death penalty is more expensive than other punishments. He points out that it costs three times more to try a person for a capital crime than a [...]

A recent study by Otago university has indicated that there has been an increase in the number of people over the age of 65 being readmitted to hospital or dying within one month of surgery. The study was done comparing the years 2001-2 and 2003-4. The usual expected comments come from the usual people. Grey [...]

As I suspected, the media is slowly digging out bits of the sentinel event report and releasing a series of bad news reports about hospitals. News about medical errors always generates good ratings. Today’s article is about drug errors of which there were 21 serious events last year. In fairness, the article at least tried [...]

It is rare for the Greens and Act to see eye to eye on anything, but it seems they agree on the stupidity of borrowing to pay into the Cullen fund. No normal person would borrow money in order to place it in a savings fund that is losing money. Even borrowing money to place [...]

There’s a plague scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail that starts with a cart full of dead bodies and the driver shouting “bring out your dead”. A bloke dumps an old man on to the cart who promptly wakes up and cries out “but I’m not dead!”.”I can’t take him,” The driver points [...]